Lol at above news. This piece is used for a certain group of people to stroke a certain something of their's. When they start removing actual structures, stop building/ expanding islands, and abandon them, then maybe we can entertain this idea as something more than perhaps, at most, a show of good will or bending to political pressure. Beyond moving a couple of SAMs around or back into their storages, not much can be concluded. Certainly not what the article is hinting at. Seems like they are desperate for cheap thrills even moving mobile SAMs around constitutes a "surrender" of sorts.
Miscellaneous News
- Thread starter bd popeye
- Start date
timepass
Brigadier
Pakistan, Russia set to sign $10b offshore pipeline deal next week...
ISLAMABAD: In a major breakthrough, Pakistan and Russia are poised to sign a $10-billion offshore gas pipeline deal, a project planned by the latter to capture the energy market of Pakistan.
ISLAMABAD: In a major breakthrough, Pakistan and Russia are poised to sign a $10-billion offshore gas pipeline deal, a project planned by the latter to capture the energy market of Pakistan.
solarz
Brigadier
Rudy must have confused Kim Jong Un with Shinzo Abe...
These guys are such shameless liars it's hilarious a democracy could have such high caliber leader with this lawyer
Quickie
Colonel
These people should learn one or two things from the South Korean administration. Or else, if they can't think of anything helpful to say or do, just SHUT UP.
SinoSoldier
Colonel
So, the following is allegedly a Gaokao essay question from this year:
I have a feeling that some folks on this forum would've aced it without much strenuous effort.
I have a feeling that some folks on this forum would've aced it without much strenuous effort.
Jura The idiot
General
google translation:
"National Roll II:
(Applicable areas: Inner Mongolia, Heilongjiang, Liaoning, Jilin, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Gansu, Ningxia, Qinghai, Xinjiang, Tibet, Hainan)
During the fight against fighter aircraft during World War II, most people believed that protection should be strengthened in areas where the fuselage was bombed. But one expert believes that precautions should be taken"
solarz
Brigadier
So, the following is allegedly a Gaokao essay question from this year:
I have a feeling that some folks on this forum would've aced it without much strenuous effort.
The question seems to be cut off mid sentence?
solarz
Brigadier
NASA reveals new discoveries suggesting there was once life on Mars
Organic molecules found preserved in 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock
The Associated Press · Posted: Jun 07, 2018 3:35 PM ET | Last Updated: June 7
NASA announced on Thursday further evidence of organic matter on Mars, as well as the seasonal changes in methane gas on the planet. (ISRO /ISSDC/Emily Lakdawalla)
New Mars discoveries are advancing the case for possible life on the red planet, past or even present.
Scientists reported Thursday that NASA's Curiosity rover has found potential building blocks of life in an ancient Martian lake bed. Hints have been found before, but this is the best evidence yet.
The organic molecules preserved in 3.5 billion-year-old bedrock in Gale Crater — believed to once contain a shallow lake around the size of Lake Ontario — suggest conditions back then may have been conducive to life. That leaves open the possibility that microorganisms once populated our planetary neighbour and still might.
"The chances of being able to find signs of ancient life with future missions, if life ever was present, just went up," said Curiosity's project scientist, Ashwin Vasavada of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California.
Curiosity also has confirmed sharp seasonal increases of methane in the Martian atmosphere. Researchers said they can't rule out a biological source. Most of Earth's atmospheric methane comes from animal and plant life, and the environment itself.
A self-portrait of NASA's Curiosity Mars rover. Scientists released new findings on Thursday providing more evidence that suggest Mars was once a habitable planet. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS)
The two studies appear in the journal Science. In a companion article, an outside expert describes the findings as "breakthroughs in astrobiology."
"The question of whether life might have originated or existed on Mars is a lot more opportune now that we know that organic molecules were present on its surface at the time," wrote Utrecht University astrobiologist Inge Loes ten Kate of the Netherlands.
Kirsten Siebach, a Rice University geologist who also was not involved in the studies, is equally excited. She said the discoveries break down some of the strongest arguments put forward by life-on-Mars skeptics, herself included.
"The big takeaway is that we can find evidence. We can find organic matter preserved in mudstones that are more than three billion years old," Siebach said. "And we see releases of gas today that could be related to life in the subsurface or at the very least are probably related to warm water or environments where Earth life would be happy living."
The methane observations provide "one of the most compelling" cases for present-day life, she said.
Years-long investigation
Scientists agree more powerful spacecraft — and, ideally, rocks returned to Earth from Mars — are needed to prove whether tiny organisms like bacteria ever existed on the red planet.
We have no proof that the methane is formed biologically, but we cannot rule it out- Christopher Webster, Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Curiosity's methane measurements occurred over four-and-a-half Earth years, covering parts of three Martian years. Seasonal peaks were detected in late summer in the northern hemisphere and late winter in the southern hemisphere.
JPL's Christopher Webster, lead author on the study, said it's the first time Martian methane has shown a repeated pattern. The magnitude of these seasonal peaks — by a factor of three — was far more than scientists expected. "We were just blown away," he said. "It's tripling … that's a huge, huge difference."
NASA's Curiosity Mars Rover drilled this hole to collect sample material from a rock target called 'Buckskin' on July 30, 2015, during the 1060th Martian day, or sol, of the rover's work on Mars. The diameter is slightly smaller than a U.S. dime. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS )
Webster theorizes the methane created either now or long ago is seeping from deep underground reservoirs up through cracks and fissures in the crust. Once at the surface, the methane sticks to dirt and rocks, with more released into the atmosphere when it's hotter.
"We have no proof that the methane is formed biologically, but we cannot rule it out, even with this new data set," Webster said.
'Due diligence'
Scientists have been seeking organic molecules on Mars ever since the 1976 Viking landers. The twin Vikings came up pretty much empty.
Arriving at Mars in 2012 with a drill and its own onboard labs, Curiosity confirmed the presence of organics in rocks in 2013, but the molecules weren't exactly what scientists expected. So they looked elsewhere. The key samples in the latest findings came from a spot 6.4 kilometres away.
As with methane, there could well be non-biological explanations for the presence of carbon-containing molecules on Mars, such as geologic processes or impacts by asteroids, comet, meteors and interplanetary dust.
Jennifer Eigenbrode, an astrobiologist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, who led the organics study, said she's intrigued by the possibility that life might have existed and adapted on Mars.
"I'm equally as fascinated by the idea that life never got started on Mars in the first place. That's a harder question to address scientifically, but I think that we need to give the search for life on Mars due diligence. We need to go to places that we think are the most likely places to find it."
Wow! This is HUGE! I believe this is the first time we've found anything that indicates the possibility of extraterrestial life.