Saturday, December 31, 2016
Friday, December 30, 2016
Earth’s Atmospheric Oxygen Levels Continue Long Slide [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Researchers analyzed samples from ice core drilling stations in Antarctica and Greenland to evaluate the planet’s atmospheric oxygen levels throughout history.
Atmospheric oxygen levels have declined over the past 1 million years, although not nearly enough to trigger any major problems for life on Earth, a new study finds.
The research behind this new finding could help shed light on what controls atmospheric oxygen levels over long spans of time, the researchers said.
Atmospheric oxygen levels are fundamentally linked to the evolution of life on Earth, as well as changes in geochemical cycles related to climate variations. As such, scientists have long sought to reconstruct how atmospheric oxygen levels fluctuated in the past, and what might control these shifts. [Photo Timeline: How the Earth Formed]
However, models of past atmospheric oxygen levels often markedly disagree, differing by as much as about 20 percent of Earth’s atmosphere, which is oxygen’s present-day concentration, the researchers said. 1 It is not even known if atmospheric oxygen levels varied or remained steady over the past 1 million years.
“There was no consensus on whether the oxygen cycle before humankind began burning fossil fuels was in or out of balance and, if so, whether it was increasing or decreasing,” said study lead author Daniel Stolper, a geochemistat Princeton University in New Jersey.
In the new study, researchers calculated past atmospheric oxygen levels by looking at air trapped inside ancient polar ice samples. Specifically, they looked at samples from Greenland and Antarctica.
The new estimates suggest that atmospheric oxygen levels have fallen by 0.7 percent over the past 800,000 years. The scientists concluded that oxygen sinks — processes that removed oxygen from the air — were about 1.7 percent larger than oxygen sources during this time.
Although a drop in atmospheric oxygen levels might sound alarming, the decrease the researchers found “is trivial in regard to ecosystems,” Stolper told Live Science. “To put it in perspective, the pressure in the atmosphere declines with elevation. A 0.7 percent decline in the atmospheric pressure of oxygen occurs at about 100 meters (330 feet) above sea level — that is, about the 30th floor of a tall building.”
There are two hypotheses that may help explain this oxygen decline over the past million years, Stolper said.
“The first is that global erosion rates may have increased over the past few to tens of millions of years due to, among other things, the growth of glaciers — glaciers grind rock, thereby increasing erosion rates,” Stolper said.
Rising erosion rates would have exposed more pyrite and organic carbon to the atmosphere. Pyrite is better known as fool’s gold, and organic carbon consists of the remains of organisms, mostly land plants and aquatic photosynthetic microorganisms such as algae. Previous research found that both pyrite and organic carbon can react with oxygen and remove it from the atmosphere. [Infographic: Earth’s Atmosphere Top to Bottom]
“Alternatively, when the ocean cools, as it has done over the past 15 million years, before fossil fuel burning, the solubility of oxygen in the ocean increases. That is, the oceans can store more oxygen at colder temperatures for a given concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere,” Stolper said. Oxygen-dependent microbes in the ocean and in sediments can then become more active and consume this oxygen, leaving less of the element in the atmosphere, he added.
Future research can identify what geological processes are consistent with these findings “and thus help to identify the major processes that control atmospheric oxygen levels,” Stolper said.
These findings also reveal what might be a strange contradiction, because it could be assumed that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels should rise as oxygen levels fall — “for example, right now we are consuming oxygen and breathing out carbon dioxide,” said study senior author John Higgins, a geochemistat Princeton.
However, previous research has found that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have not, on average, changed over the past 800,000 years, Higgins noted. “At first glance, these two sets of observations, both from gases trapped in ice cores, are paradoxical,” he said.
One way out of this conundrum is a well-known but relatively untested concept that suggests “that on timescales longer than a few hundred thousand years, atmospheric carbon dioxide and Earth’s temperature are regulated via a ‘silicate weathering thermostat,'” Higgins said.
Basically, increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels will boost the rates at which volcanic rocks wear down and their components wash into the seas, which can then go on to trap atmospheric carbon dioxide in ocean minerals. This means that “one can have a change in atmospheric oxygen with no observable change in average carbon dioxide,” Higgins said. “Importantly, this silicate weathering thermostat is one reason why Earth is thought to have remained habitable for billions of years despite changes in solar luminosity.”
The scientists detailed their findings online today (Sept. 22) in the journal Science.
Original article on Live Science.
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http://www.space.com/34163-earth-atmospheric-oxygen-levels-declining.html Earth's Atmospheric Oxygen Levels Continue Long Slide
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Earth’s Atmospheric Oxygen Levels Continue Long SlideDisney Stops Selling Controversial Moana Halloween Costume [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Disney is no longer selling a controversial Halloween costume of a character from its upcoming movie Moana after critics said the costume’s brown skin was racist.
The company said Thursday that it is pulling the costume of Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson in the film) from its website and stores after it sparked outrage earlier this week. The outfit consists of a brown bodysuit with tattoos.
“The team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some,” Disney said in a statement to CNN Money.
Entertainment – TIME
Disney is no longer selling a controversial Halloween costume of a character from its upcoming movie Moana after critics said the costume’s brown skin was racist.
The company said Thursday that it is pulling the costume of Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson in the film) from its website and stores after it sparked outrage earlier this week. The outfit consists of a brown bodysuit with tattoos.
“The team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some,” Disney said in a statement to CNN Money.
Entertainment – TIME
Disney is no longer selling a controversial Halloween costume of a character from its upcoming movie Moana after critics said the costume’s brown skin was racist.
The company said Thursday that it is pulling the costume of Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson in the film) from its website and stores after it sparked outrage earlier this week. The outfit consists of a brown bodysuit with tattoos.
“The team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some,” Disney said in a statement to CNN Money.
Entertainment – TIME
Disney is no longer selling a controversial Halloween costume of a character from its upcoming movie Moana after critics said the costume’s brown skin was racist.
The company said Thursday that it is pulling the costume of Maui (voiced by Dwayne Johnson in the film) from its website and stores after it sparked outrage earlier this week. The outfit consists of a brown bodysuit with tattoos.
“The team behind Moana has taken great care to respect the cultures of the Pacific Islands that inspired the film, and we regret that the Maui costume has offended some,” Disney said in a statement to CNN Money.
Entertainment – TIME
Thursday, December 29, 2016
Wednesday, December 28, 2016
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Bang [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
This map of the cosmic microwave background, the light released just 380,000 years after the Big Bang, was created using observations by NASA’s WMAP spacecraft.
Paul Sutter is an astrophysicist at The Ohio State University and the chief scientist at COSI Science Center. Sutter is also host of Ask a Spaceman, RealSpace, and COSI Science Now.
Unfortunately, the Big Bang theory can be a pretty contentious topic. You mention it in casual conversation (well, maybe you don’t, but I drop it into as many inappropriate places as possible), and some folks get all up in arms and defensive.
When this happens, I take a long breath and recite my Big Bang Mantra: The Big Bang is not a theory of the creation of the universe, but a model of the history of the universe. Look, I’ll even show you a baby picture!
And at this point I pull out my wallet. Instead of smiling kids or cozy family group shots, I’ve got the cosmic microwave background (CMB). It’s about the right age: it’s a photograph of the universe when it was only 380,000 years old, which is equivalent to a picture taken of a baby at the end of its first day. [Cosmic Microwave Background: Big Bang Relic Explained (Infographic)]
That image is solid evidence, a smoking microwave gun, in favor of the Big Bang theory. Scientists are some of the most critical people you’ll ever meet, forever reluctant to accept a new idea. It took decades of developing theories and accumulating evidence before the Big Bang was even warmly thought of, but the detection of the cosmic microwave background forced even the most truculent astronomers to grudgingly accept it.
Free the light
The early universe was a hot and sweaty place, a seething mosh pit of electrons, protons and high-energy photons. The CMB was released when the universe cooled off juuuust enough that stable atoms could form, turning the entire universe transparent and letting that high-energy light go free. Over the eons that radiation has traveled the cosmos, stretching along with the expansion of the universe, shifting down from white-hot intensity to a feeble few Kelvin above absolute zero.
That leftover light is in the form of microwaves, and is incredibly, fantastically … boring. To one part in 10,000, it’s exactly the same, from one end of the sky to the other.
But if you examine those minute differences, strange features appear. Some parts of the CMB sky are 0.0001 Kelvin hotter or cooler than others. There are big patches twice the width of the full moon, and many small bumps and wiggles overlying them. What’s going on?
Seeing what the universe is saying
Those larger patches in the CMB are the early universe rocking out. In that hot dense plasma of the infant cosmos, gravitational pressures pulled gases in, and radiation pressure pushed those gases back out. This constant seesaw reverberated throughout the volume of the universe, echoing from one end to the other.
What we see in the CMB is a frozen moment in time, the drums in mid-beat, the cymbals in mid-crash, the guitar in mid-note. Once the radiation disconnected from the protons and electrons, the music couldn’t go on, but an image of it remained. Caught in the act, some parts of the universe were slightly denser and hotter than others, and these patterns imprinted themselves on the radiation left behind.
So when we examine those 1-in-10,000 differences, we’re really mapping out the state of the universe as it was just 380,000 years into the cosmic concert.
The beautiful technical term for this process is “baryon acoustic oscillations.” Baryon = stuff. You and me are made of baryons. Acoustic: something to do with sound. Oscillations: something to do with waves. It’s really a fancy way of saying “sound waves,” but hey, what’s the point of getting a Ph.D. if you can’t say fancy things every once in a while?
[Watch this video to learn more about sound waves in the early universe.]
A lesson in flatness
Those bumps and wiggles in the CMB — those echoes of the crashing chaotic cosmic symphony — are a treasure trove of information. By studying the CMB, we are looking directly at the early universe, and we can use those glorious photons to deduce all sorts of juicy cosmological information.
For example, the global shape of the universe. The big patches in the CMB give us a very handy ruler for measuring shapes. It turns out it’s really, really easy (well, OK, only sort-of easy) to figure out how big the patches ought to be. Sure, the universe back then was a crazy-hot plasma, but we’re pretty good at figuring out how crazy-hot plasmas operate, especially when the universe was still young and hadn’t developed complex structures yet.
We can compare how big those patches ought to be to how they look. If the universe was curved on a global scale (like, say, the surface of a sphere), light from the CMB would bend on its way to Earth, either converging or diverging — making the patches look bigger or smaller than they should.
The result: the scale of the largest patches is precisely what we would expect for a perfectly flat universe. Parallel light rays in our cosmos stay parallel. No hints of exotic geometry to report.
[Watch more about cosmic flatness in this video.]
The cosmic time capsule
That’s not all. The CMB teaches us about the composition of the early universe. Neutrinos zooming around? Dark matter lurking mysteriously? Exotic relics of even earlier epochs wreaking havoc? All those things affect the statistics of the bumps and wiggles in the CMB: how large the largest patches are, how many large versus small patches, the maximum or minimum temperatures, etc. We can toss in any ingredient we want and see how it affects the detailed structure in that ancient light pattern.
The result from decades of analysis of the CMB: We live in a flat universe, dominated by dark energy, with a healthy dose of dark matter, and a few floating bits of normal everyday matter to lighten things up.
We’re still not exactly sure what dark matter and dark energy are, but no matter what, the overall picture of the Big Bang remains unchanged: At one time, the universe was small, hot, and dense, and it left us a postcard.
Learn more by listening to the episode “What is the Cosmic Microwave Background? (Part 2)” on the Ask A Spaceman podcast, available on iTunes and on the Web at http://www.askaspaceman.com. Thanks to Arlington T., Jeffrey B., Edward J., Jason A., Ernie J., Rea N., Chris L., and Randy B. for the questions that led to this piece! Ask your own question on Twitter using #AskASpaceman or by following Paul@PaulMattSutter and facebook.com/PaulMattSutter.
Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34139-big-bang-theory-cosmic-microwave-background.html How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big Bang
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Big BangRussian Crew Reduction to Have Limited Effect on Space Station Operations [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
NASA astronaut Jeff Williams (left) and Roscosmos cosmonauts Alexey Ovchinin and Oleg Skripochka after their return to Earth Sept. 7. Roscosmos is considering reducing its crew complement on the ISS from three to two next year.
WASHINGTON — An anticipated decision by Russia’s space agency to temporarily reduce the size of its crew on the International Space Station should not have a major effect on NASA’s operations there, an agency official said.
Russian media reported Sept. 14 that Roscosmos plans to reduce the Russian crew complement on the ISS from three to two, starting in March 2017. A final decision and formal announcement was expected this week, prior to the Sept. 23 launch of a new crew on a Soyuz spacecraft. However, Roscosmos announced Sept. 17 that the launch was being delayed because of technical issues, perhaps until early October.
The reduction in crew is intended to save money until the launch of a Multipurpose Laboratory Module, a long-delayed Russian element of the ISS now scheduled for launch in late 2017. A two-person Russian crew would allow Roscosmos to cut one of four Progress cargo resupply missions to the ISS planned for 2017.
Roscosmos has not formally confirmed those plans, but has made the other ISS partners aware of its proposal. “We’ve received a letter from them saying that’s their plan,” Bill Gerstenmaier, NASA associate administrator for human exploration and operations, said in an interview during the AIAA Space 2016 conference Sept. 15 in Long Beach, California.
Gerstenmaier said that an agency analysis concluded the effects on ISS operations of Russia reducing its crew to be minimal. “I don’t think it will be a big impact to us overall,” he said. “But we’re working through all the details.”
He noted that two cosmonauts are enough to perform maintenance on the Russian segment of the station, and it won’t affect most research on the station. “We can work it out fine,” he said. “The research plan is still pretty strong.”
One exception, he said, is in studies of human health, as scientists in effect lose one research subject to understand the effects of weightlessness on the human body. “We’ll figure out a way to get some more Russian data,” he said.
Originally published on SpaceNews.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Russian Crew Reduction to Have Limited Effect on Space Station OperationsTuesday, December 27, 2016
Wallops Flight Facility: NASA Spaceport in Virginia [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia.
The NASA Goddard Space Flight Center’s Wallops Flight Facility is a rocket launch site on the eastern shore of Virginia. The site includes the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, which can send off interplanetary and International Space Station missions.
Wallops has hosted more than 16,000 rocket launches, according to a NASA fact sheet dating from about 2014. These rockets initially sent aloft satellites, technology development payloads, science experiments and aircraft models, among other things.
In recent years, the facility has expanded to include flights that go even farther. One of the first notable flights of this era was LADEE (The Lunar Atmosphere and Dust Environment Explorer), which launched from the facility in 2013.
The entire Wallops launch complex is seen from the top of pad 0B (LADEE pad).
Credit: Ken Kremer/kenkremer.com
Brief history
The center was created in 1945 for suborbital rocket research. At the time, scientists were studying the upper atmosphere to prepare for eventual space missions. With the first Soviet satellite not launching until 1957, and the first American satellite not until 1958, these suborbital rocket flights, balloons and aircraft were the only means by which scientists could understand parameters such as wind speed, temperature and solar effects in the atmosphere.
The facilities at Wallops were initially managed by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics under the Langley Research Center. NASA was established in 1958 and took over Langley and other NACA facilities. The Wallops facility operated under NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C., until it became part of the nearby NASA Goddard Space Flight Center in 1981.
By the mid-1990s, according to Popular Mechanics, there were few launches at Wallops and it appeared at risk of being shut down. In 1997, however, the Virginia Commercial Space Flight Authority (also known as “Virginia Space”) was granted a license to operate a commercial spaceport at Wallops, alongside NASA. Virginia Space had a reimbursable Space Act Agreement with NASA to use the land at Wallops, and also obtained a Federal Aviation Administration license to launch into orbit.
Since then, according to Virginia Space, it has been working on expanding the Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport, also known as MARS. Today, MARS has two launch facilities (one for mid-class rockets, and one for small-class rockets), as well as associated infrastructure.
NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia has set a new Guinness World Record for the most rocket engines fired on a single flight. On Sept. 16, 2015, the facility’s sounding rocket team launched a mission that included the firing of 44 rocket engines.
Credit: NASA/Chris Perry
LADEE and Cygnus launches
LADEE was the first U.S. moon mission ever sent from a location other than Florida. But its departure from Wallops required many upgrades, according to a NASA press release at the time. Building U-40 was converted into a launch control center, in part because it used to be used for the same purpose many years before. The V55 spacecraft fueling facility also was transformed into a clean room ready to send LADEE out for the launch.
“This building presented several challenges given that it was set back in the woods — making ‘critter control’ difficult at best,” NASA wrote. “The RMMO [Range and Mission Management Office] project manager worked closely with NASA’s Code 500 engineering personnel, who took the lead on updating this facility. In the end, the LADEE spacecraft was provided a safe and clean temporary home while it underwent final processing for its journey to the moon.”
International Space Station flights began departing from Wallops in 2013, when Cygnus spacecraft (managed by a company now known as Orbital ATK) began supply runs to the orbiting complex. In 2014, an Orbital ATK Antares rocket exploded on Pad-0A during a launch, taking with it a Cygnus spacecraft bound for the ISS. This forced a year’s worth of repairs to the pad, which cost about $15 million.
“Those repairs included the replacement of four lightning towers around the launchpad, the removal of debris from the explosion, as well as environmental cleanup of water and topsoil contaminated by rocket fuel,” according to a Space.com story from 2015, after the repairs were completed. “The explosion itself carved a crater 50 feet wide (15 meters) and 30 feet (9 m) deep just to the side of Pad-0A.”
Notable programs
Here are some of the other notable programs at Wallops, according to NASA (this does not include items such as range monitoring or ground networking):
NASA Sounding Rocket Program: An Earth and space science research program that is used for space programs, the Department of Defense, other government agencies and the scientific community at large. Fields of research include solar physics, planetary atmospheres and high-energy physics. More than 2,500 missions have been launched under this program.
Scientific balloons: While Wallops mainly launches its balloons at other facilities, the NASA Balloon Program Office is located at the facility. Roughly 25 scientific balloons are sent out every year from areas such as Palestine, Texas, Sumner, N.M. and other countries.
Research aircraft: Wallops’ aircraft office is responsible for several NASA aircraft and airborne science missions. These aircraft include P-3 Orion, C-130 Hercules, C-23 Sherpa, UH-1 Huey and B-200 King Air.
Small launch vehicle research: This is an office that is trying to make it easier for small payloads to launch into space, by providing support all the way from preparing the payload to helping it in orbit.
Additional resources
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http://www.space.com/34132-wallops-flight-facility.html Wallops Flight Facility: NASA Spaceport in Virginia
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Wallops Flight Facility: NASA Spaceport in VirginiaNASA to Announce ‘Surprising’ Europa Discovery Monday [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Jupiter’s moon Europa, as seen by NASA’s Galileo spacecraft.
NASA will announce new findings about Jupiter’s ocean-harboring moon Europa during a news conference at 2 p.m. EDT (1800 GMT) on Monday (Sept. 26).
“Astronomers will present results from a unique Europa observing campaign that resulted in surprising evidence of activity that may be related to the presence of a subsurface ocean on Europa,” NASA officials wrote in a media advisory Tuesday (Sept. 20).
The new information comes courtesy of NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope, agency officials said. You can follow the news conference live here at Space.com, courtesy of NASA.
The participants in Monday’s briefing are:
- Paul Hertz, director of the Astrophysics Division at NASA Headquarters in Washington.
- William Sparks, astronomer with the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore.
- Britney Schmidt, assistant professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.
- Jennifer Wiseman, senior Hubble project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.
Astrobiologists regard Europa as one of the solar system’s best bets to host alien life. The 1,900-mile-wide (3,100 kilometers) moon harbors a huge ocean of liquid water beneath its icy shell; furthermore, astronomers think this ocean is in contact with Europa’s rocky mantle, making possible all sorts of interesting chemical reactions.
Tuesday’s media advisory offered no further details about what the researchers will announce on Monday, but the involvement of Hubble raises the possibility that Europa’s elusive plumes may finally have been spotted again.
In December 2012, Hubble detected what appeared to be plumes of water vapor extending about 120 miles (200 km) into space from Europa’s south pole. This news, which was made public in late 2013, caused a great deal of excitement in the astrobiology community, because it suggested that a robotic probe may be able to sample Europa’s ocean without landing on the moon’s surface.
The detection team has been eyeing Europa with Hubble extensively since that initial observation, but to date they have not been able to confirm the existence of the plume.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]NASA to Announce ‘Surprising’ Europa Discovery MondayRihanna Will Livestream Her Very Own Paris Fashion Week Show [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Rihanna‘s is taking her wildly popular Fenty Puma clothing line to the next level by showing the new season’s offering in France.
Ri Ri will debut her spring/summer 2017 collection for Fenty Puma during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday, September 28, with two presentations scheduled for 7:30 and 8:30 pm CEST.
For those who haven’t scored an exclusive invite or aren’t planning on jetting to France for the presentation, the show will also be livestreamed on Tidal a la Kanye West’s recent Yeezy 4 presentation; the livestream will also include exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes content.
Entertainment – TIME
Rihanna‘s is taking her wildly popular Fenty Puma clothing line to the next level by showing the new season’s offering in France.
Ri Ri will debut her spring/summer 2017 collection for Fenty Puma during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday, September 28, with two presentations scheduled for 7:30 and 8:30 pm CEST.
For those who haven’t scored an exclusive invite or aren’t planning on jetting to France for the presentation, the show will also be livestreamed on Tidal a la Kanye West’s recent Yeezy 4 presentation; the livestream will also include exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes content.
Entertainment – TIME
Rihanna‘s is taking her wildly popular Fenty Puma clothing line to the next level by showing the new season’s offering in France.
Ri Ri will debut her spring/summer 2017 collection for Fenty Puma during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday, September 28, with two presentations scheduled for 7:30 and 8:30 pm CEST.
For those who haven’t scored an exclusive invite or aren’t planning on jetting to France for the presentation, the show will also be livestreamed on Tidal a la Kanye West’s recent Yeezy 4 presentation; the livestream will also include exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes content.
Entertainment – TIME
Rihanna‘s is taking her wildly popular Fenty Puma clothing line to the next level by showing the new season’s offering in France.
Ri Ri will debut her spring/summer 2017 collection for Fenty Puma during Paris Fashion Week on Wednesday, September 28, with two presentations scheduled for 7:30 and 8:30 pm CEST.
For those who haven’t scored an exclusive invite or aren’t planning on jetting to France for the presentation, the show will also be livestreamed on Tidal a la Kanye West’s recent Yeezy 4 presentation; the livestream will also include exclusive interviews and behind-the-scenes content.
Entertainment – TIME
Monday, December 26, 2016
First Signs Of Animal Life On Earth May Be From Microbes [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
A Dickinsonia Costa fossil from the Ediacaran period.
Evidence suggests that microbes existed on Earth as far back as 3.7 billion years ago, a billion years after the planet formed. Animal remains, however, don’t appear in the fossil record until 600 million years ago during the Ediacaran period, though there are indirect signs that animal life may have gotten started much earlier.
Scientists are attempting to put a date on the earliest lifeforms in the kingdom of Animalia, but without an actual cast of a body they’ve had to rely on the credibility of “trace” fossils to show signs of an animal’s presence in the form of footprints, scratches, feeding marks or burrows. Some scientists claim to have found trace fossils made by animals more than a billion years ago, raising controversy over whether animal life could have existed this early. There are also trace fossils from the Ediacaran Period and soft bodied animals were known to exist during this period, so understanding the tracks they made is important for studying the early animals.
Giulio Mariotti, an oceanographer from Louisiana State University, and colleagues, examined supposed animal trace fossils from the Ediacaran Period, and found that it is possible that some of them could be microbial in origin. The results, which were recently published in a paper entitled “Microbial Origin of Early Animal Trace Fossils” in the Journal of Sedimentary Research, raise questions about the reliability of trace fossils as evidence for early animal life. [Alien Life, Landscapes and the Art of Space (Gallery)]
The research was funded by the Exobiology & Evolutionary Biology element of the NASA Astrobiology Program.
Ancient microbial mats
Many of the Ediacaran animal trace fossils are found within “wrinkle” structures, small ridges and pits interpreted as evidence of ancient microbial mats. Microbial mats are comprised of layers of microorganisms, and fossilized mats are among the earliest clear signs of microbial life. Microbial mats were widespread in the Precambrian, the period before animal life became extremely common and diverse. But the mats were no longer able to flourish in certain marine areas when grazing animals became more abundant because the animals destroyed the structures.
Mariotti and colleagues devised an experiment to try to create trails of grooves and pits similar to the trace fossils. They did this by moving microbial aggregates across sand at the bottom of a tank of water by creating waves in the water. Microbial aggregates are small cluster of microbes which are larger than sand but less dense. This low density enables them to be moved across the sand at the bottom of the tank by very low energy waves.
Trace fossils, such as this one caused by a trilobite, are trails or footprints left behind by an animal. The trilobite moved from right to left and then partially buried itself, leaving an impression. Not all trace fossils are as easily identifiable, particularly ones of early life.
Credit: Stefano Novello
The use of low energy waves is important as waves with higher energy would also erase the trail left in the sand. A wide variety of trails were produced by the aggregates depending on the wave conditions and the size of the aggregate. Some of these trails were strikingly similar to those that are currently deemed to be Ediacaran trace fossils, meaning that it is possible that some trace fossils are actually not fossils at all and are instead caused by the movement of microbial aggregates.
However, not only did the trails produced by the wave tank experiment replicate the supposed animal traces, the experiment also produced a wrinkle structure in the sand. The aggregates caused the wrinkle structure when they were smaller than the amplitude of the wave, where as the trails were formed when the aggregates were larger than the wave amplitude.
This research does not necessarily mean that all early trace fossils were caused by microbial aggregates, however it does put forward a plausible alternative explanation for those that occur alongside wrinkle structures. Therefore, possible trace fossils from the Ediacaran period or earlier should be looked upon with skepticism until it is possible to rule out microbial aggregates as a cause of the grooves and pits in the rock. [Life on Mars: Exploration & Evidence]
The images on the left show Ediacaran trace fossils, and the images on the right show the trails produced in the wave tank with the microbial aggregates. The white scale bar is 1 centimeter.
Credit: SEPM/Journal of Sedimentary Research. Used with permission
Trails caused by aggregates and those caused by animals can be distinguished in some cases if certain distinctive features exist. For example an animal trail can be “self avoiding,” meaning that the animal didn’t cross back over its own trail as it had already searched for food in that location. Unfortunately, most of the more distinctive signs of animal activity are rare until the very end of the Ediacaran period.
It is much easier to distinguish younger trace fossils from aggregate trails. “There is much more evidence that recent tracks were formed by animals,” explains Mariotti. Trace fossils created in the time since the Ediacaran are more complex because they are three-dimensional, meaning that they go into the sediments such as a tunnel, and cannot be reproduced with the moving aggregates. “It is easier to challenge old trails because they have less ancillary information associated with them,” said Mariotti.
The formation and evolution of Earth’s earliest life is crucial in order to inform us of what types of life might exist on other planets. To do this, we need concrete evidence of what the earliest animals on Earth were like. Mariotti and his team plan to perform further experiments to examine the geometry of aggregate trails and how well animal trails are preserved in sediments that have an abundance of microbes compared to sediments with no microbes. They hope that these experiments will help distinguish real animal fossils from the aggregate trails, and therefore further our understanding of the earliest animal life on Earth.
This story was provided by Astrobiology Magazine, a web-based publication sponsored by the NASA astrobiology program. Follow Space.com @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+.
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http://www.space.com/34127-first-animal-life-signs-microbes.html First Signs Of Animal Life On Earth May Be From Microbes
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]First Signs Of Animal Life On Earth May Be From MicrobesCosmic ‘Echoes’ Reveal Stars Devoured by Black Holes [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
As a star is devoured by a supermassive black hole, it emits a bright stream of material called a tidal disruption flare.
A doomed star falling into a black hole may produce a flare of light that “echoes” through nearby dust clouds, according to two new studies.
Monster black holes can be millions of times more massive than the sun. If a star happens to wander too close, the black hole’s extreme gravitational forces can tear the star into shreds, in an event called “stellar tidal disruption.”
This kind of stellar destruction may also spit out a bright flare of energy in the form of ultraviolet and X-ray light. The two new studies examine how surrounding dust absorbs and re-emits the light from those flares, like a cosmic echo, according to a statement from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL). [Millions of Black Holes Seen by WISE Telescope (Photos)]
“This is the first time we have clearly seen the infrared-light echoes from multiple tidal disruption events,” Sjoert van Velzen, a postdoctoral fellow at Johns Hopkins University and lead author of one study, said in the statement.
The new studies use data from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). The NASA study led by van Velzen used these “echoes” to identify three black holes in the act of devouring stars. The second study, led by Ning Jiang, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Science and Technology of China, identified a potential fourth light echo.
Flares emitted from stellar tidal disruptions are extremely energetic and “destroy any dust” that is within the immediate neighborhood, according to NASA. However, a patchy, spherical web of dust that resides a few trillion miles (half a light-year) from the black hole can survive the flare and absorb light released from the star being gobbled up.
“The black hole has destroyed everything between itself and this dust shell,” van Velzen said in the statement. “It’s as though the black hole has cleaned its room by throwing flames.”
The absorbed light heats the more distant dust, which in turn gives off infrared radiation that the WISE instrument can measure. These emissions can be detected for up to a year after the flare is at its brightest, the statement said. Scientists are able to characterize and locate the dust by measuring the delay between the original light flare and the subsequent echoes, according to the NASA study, which will be published in the Astrophysical Journal.
“Our study confirms that the dust is there, and that we can use it to determine how much energy was generated in the destruction of the star,” Varoujan Gorjian, an astronomer at JPL and co-author of the paper led by van Velzen, said in the statement.
Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34123-black-holes-devour-stars-echoes-reveal.html Cosmic 'Echoes' Reveal Stars Devoured by Black Holes
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Cosmic ‘Echoes’ Reveal Stars Devoured by Black HolesSunday, December 25, 2016
Angelina Jolie Files For Divorce From Brad Pitt, Report Says [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
After nearly 12 years together and exchanging wedding vows in 2014, Brangelina is calling it quits, according to reports.
CNN, citing an anonymous source familiar with the filing, reports that Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt after two years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Jolie is also reportedly asking for physical custody of their six children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox — while asking that Pitt have visitation and joint legal custody, according to TMZ.
The couple met in 2004 while filming the action movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Entertainment – TIME
After nearly 12 years together and exchanging wedding vows in 2014, Brangelina is calling it quits, according to reports.
CNN, citing an anonymous source familiar with the filing, reports that Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt after two years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Jolie is also reportedly asking for physical custody of their six children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox — while asking that Pitt have visitation and joint legal custody, according to TMZ.
The couple met in 2004 while filming the action movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Entertainment – TIME
After nearly 12 years together and exchanging wedding vows in 2014, Brangelina is calling it quits, according to reports.
CNN, citing an anonymous source familiar with the filing, reports that Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt after two years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Jolie is also reportedly asking for physical custody of their six children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox — while asking that Pitt have visitation and joint legal custody, according to TMZ.
The couple met in 2004 while filming the action movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Entertainment – TIME
After nearly 12 years together and exchanging wedding vows in 2014, Brangelina is calling it quits, according to reports.
CNN, citing an anonymous source familiar with the filing, reports that Angelina Jolie has filed for divorce from Brad Pitt after two years of marriage, citing “irreconcilable differences.”
Jolie is also reportedly asking for physical custody of their six children — Maddox, Pax, Zahara, Shiloh, Vivienne and Knox — while asking that Pitt have visitation and joint legal custody, according to TMZ.
The couple met in 2004 while filming the action movie, Mr. and Mrs. Smith.
Entertainment – TIME
Saturday, December 24, 2016
How Astrophysicist Neil Tyson Got His Kid to Test the Tooth Fairy [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Neil deGrasse Tyson with his daughter Miranda Tyson, who is now much older than the skeptical kindergartener Tyson described her as, at the 2016 Primetime Creative Emmy Awards in Los Angeles, California.
It’s A-OK to captivate your child with the story of the tooth fairy, right?
Nope, not if it entails telling a big, fat whopper, astrophysicist Neil DeGrasse Tyson told “The Late Late Show with James Corden” early Thursday morning (Sept. 15).
“We’re not going to lie to them,” Tyson said to Corden. “The universe is amazing enough that you don’t have to invent stuff just to keep kids entertained.” [Easy Answers to the Top 5 Science Questions Kids Ask]
But is that the right way to handle the tooth fairy story? Live Science asked three experts to share their views. Though these experts said they all admired the tack Tyson took, they also noted that there’s no one way to address the famous fairy.
Fairy skeptic
During the show, Corden asked Tyson whether his scientific training ever found its way into his home life. Turns out it has: When the scientist’s daughter, Miranda, lost her first tooth, in kindergarten, Tyson and his wife told the girl that they had heard that if you put a tooth under a pillow, the tooth fairy visits. Then, they surreptitiously swapped the tooth for money after Miranda went to sleep.
The next morning, Miranda excitedly showed them the prize. That’s when they put on their skeptics’ hats.
“We said, ‘How do you know it was the tooth fairy?'” Tyson said. “She said, ‘Oh no, I don’t know. I just know that there’s money here.'”
Miranda needed more proof, so she set up fairy booby traps, but they didn’t work, Tyson said. Then Miranda told her friends, who suspected, as many little kids do, that the fairy was actually their parents. The children agreed that whoever lost a tooth at school next would neglect to tell her parents, but would still hide that tooth under her pillow to see whether the fairy would come.
When that day came, the kids waited with suspense. But the tooth stayed a tooth.
Tyson said his daughter’s experiment made him proud, and he added that he wasn’t concerned that his daughter was missing out on the tooth fairy experience.
Children use their imaginations all of the time — for instance, when they play make-believe with toys, Tyson said. “They can use their imagination for things where imagination belongs, but not [on] some hoax perpetrated by adults on children,” Tyson said.
Critical thinking
There’s no evidence that telling children that the tooth fairy exists is harmful, and many children have pleasant memories of the tale, said Gail Heyman, a professor of psychology at the University of California, San Diego. However, Tyson’s approach is creative because it encourages critical thinking, Heyman said.
“I really like Tyson’s approach, and part of the reason I like it is because I am a researcher and I highly value critical thinking,” Heyman said. “Based on what we know about developmental psychology, taking this kind of approach will help children learn to think for themselves.” [11 Facts Every Parent Should Know About Their Baby’s Brain]
She noted, however, that not all parents value critical thinking at this age. “It certainly can make parenting more challenging, because children who think critically are especially likely to question what their parents tell them,” Heyman said.
Heyman said that when she had children, she told them “we were going to play tooth fairy and made it clear that it was a pretend game,” she said. “I didn’t want them to miss out on the fun, but I also didn’t want to lie to them.”
Likewise, Paul Harris, a professor of education at Harvard University, applauded Tyson for encouraging critical thought, but also found it “provocative.”
“I wonder if he also encourages children to test out the efficacy of prayer in the same way — and how the audience would react if he did so,” Harris said.
But most parents don’t teach their kids to question the tooth fairy, the experts said. Instead, “in certain families, people go a good distance, meaning they really put in a good effort, to protect a child’s misconception,” said Melissa Koenig, an associate professor at the Institute of Child Development at the University of Minnesota.
However, there are actually myriad factors that influence a child’s belief in mythical beings. In a 2004 study in the journal Developmental Science, researchers made up a new fantastical entity: “the candy witch.”
Older preschoolers who were “visited” by the candy witch, meaning their parents stealthily swapped some of their Halloween candy for a toy, were more likely to believe in her than those who were not visited, the researchers found. Also, children who were more inclined toward fantasy, and who believed in other fantastical beings, such as Santa Claus or the Easter Bunny, were more likely to believe in the witch.
“If you’ve been perpetuating the Santa Claus myth since birth at Christmastime, that correlation [in the study] suggests that you’re making the tooth fairy myth, which comes a little later, a little more believable,” said Koenig, who was not involved in the study.
Original article on Live Science.
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http://www.space.com/34119-neil-degrasse-tyson-talks-tooth-fairy.html How Astrophysicist Neil Tyson Got His Kid to Test the Tooth Fairy
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]How Astrophysicist Neil Tyson Got His Kid to Test the Tooth FairyFriday, December 23, 2016
Elon Musk Says SpaceX’s New Spaceship Could Go ‘Well Beyond Mars’ [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Artist’s illustration showing SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft landing on Mars.
“Mars Colonial Transporter” seems like a pretty cool name for a spaceship, but it wasn’t quite ambitious enough for SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk.
“Turns out MCT can go well beyond Mars, so will need a new name,” the billionaire entrepreneur said Friday (Sept. 16) via his Twitter account, @elonmusk, referring to the spaceflight system that SpaceX is building to colonize the Red Planet.
Some of Musk’s 5.24 million Twitter followers took up the challenge and offered their own suggestions, including “Indestructible II,” “Millenium,” “Booster McBoosterface” and “Heart of Gold.” [SpaceX’s Red DragonMars Mission in Images]
This last offering was also the name of a ship in Douglas Adams’ iconic sci-fi novel “A Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy,” which is apparently close to Musk’s heart.
“That is my favorite fictional spaceship. Powered by improbability!” Musk tweeted Friday.
But, in a series of tweets on Saturday (Sept. 17), Musk announced that he had settled on “Interplanetary Transport System,” or ITS. In one of those tweets, Musk reminded his followers that SpaceX will be unveiling details of the colonial transporter next week at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Guadalajara, Mexico.
That same tweet also provided what Musk described as a preview of the IAC talk: a link to a clip from 2014’s “The Lego Movie” that showed the film’s 1980s astronaut character building, and flying, his Lego spaceship with great enthusiasm. (The tiny yellow fellow yells “Spaceship!” quite a bit.)
Musk has said repeatedly that he founded SpaceX in 2002 primarily to colonize Mars and thereby make humanity a multiplanet species.
The company plans to launch an uncrewed mission to the Red Planet in 2018 using SpaceX’s Dragon capsule and Falcon Heavy rocket, then follow that up with additional missions every 26 months for the foreseeable future, Musk has said. (Earth and Mars align to make launches feasible just once every 26 months.)
If all goes according to plan, the Interplanetary Transport System will launch people toward the Red Planet for the first time in 2024. And, based on the new name, SpaceX may also be planning to send astronauts even farther afield in the future. We’ll all just have to wait and see what Musk says during his IAC talk, which is scheduled to take place Sept. 27.
Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.
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http://www.space.com/34115-spacex-mars-colony-spaceship-elon-musk.html Elon Musk Says SpaceX's New Spaceship Could Go 'Well Beyond Mars'
[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Elon Musk Says SpaceX’s New Spaceship Could Go ‘Well Beyond Mars’Thursday, December 22, 2016
Wednesday, December 21, 2016
Julia Louis-Dreyfus Honors Her Father in Tearful Emmys Speech [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Julia Louis-Dreyfus teared up as she honored her father during her Emmys speech on Sunday night. “I’d like to dedicate this to my father, William Louis-Dreyfus, who passed away on Friday,” she said at the end of her otherwise light-hearted speech. “I’m so glad he liked Veep because his opinion was the one that really mattered.”
The moving tribute by the Veep star brought audience members to tears as well. The cameras flashed to Jerry Seinfeld, her longtime co-star on Seinfeld, who was also visibly moved.
Louis-Dreyfus has won the best actress in a comedy accolade five years in a row and eight times total.
Entertainment – TIME
Julia Louis-Dreyfus teared up as she honored her father during her Emmys speech on Sunday night. “I’d like to dedicate this to my father, William Louis-Dreyfus, who passed away on Friday,” she said at the end of her otherwise light-hearted speech. “I’m so glad he liked Veep because his opinion was the one that really mattered.”
The moving tribute by the Veep star brought audience members to tears as well. The cameras flashed to Jerry Seinfeld, her longtime co-star on Seinfeld, who was also visibly moved.
Louis-Dreyfus has won the best actress in a comedy accolade five years in a row and eight times total.
Entertainment – TIME
Julia Louis-Dreyfus teared up as she honored her father during her Emmys speech on Sunday night. “I’d like to dedicate this to my father, William Louis-Dreyfus, who passed away on Friday,” she said at the end of her otherwise light-hearted speech. “I’m so glad he liked Veep because his opinion was the one that really mattered.”
The moving tribute by the Veep star brought audience members to tears as well. The cameras flashed to Jerry Seinfeld, her longtime co-star on Seinfeld, who was also visibly moved.
Louis-Dreyfus has won the best actress in a comedy accolade five years in a row and eight times total.
Entertainment – TIME
Julia Louis-Dreyfus teared up as she honored her father during her Emmys speech on Sunday night. “I’d like to dedicate this to my father, William Louis-Dreyfus, who passed away on Friday,” she said at the end of her otherwise light-hearted speech. “I’m so glad he liked Veep because his opinion was the one that really mattered.”
The moving tribute by the Veep star brought audience members to tears as well. The cameras flashed to Jerry Seinfeld, her longtime co-star on Seinfeld, who was also visibly moved.
Louis-Dreyfus has won the best actress in a comedy accolade five years in a row and eight times total.
Entertainment – TIME
Kate McKinnon Thanks Ellen DeGeneres and Hillary Clinton in Emmy Speech [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Political impressions are Saturday Night Live’s bread and butter, especially during election years—and Kate McKinnon has converted her Hillary Clinton impression to Emmys gold.
In her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, McKinnon thanked SNL producer Lorne Michaels and other members of the cast and crew before giving shout outs to two of the women she famously impersonates: “Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres,” she said, “thank you Hillary Clinton.” After much laughter and applause from the audience, she repeated, “Thank you Hillary Clinton.”
McKinnon also thanked her family and mentioned her late father, who she said “made me start watching SNL when I was 12, so thank you, and I miss you, Pop.”
Entertainment – TIME
Political impressions are Saturday Night Live’s bread and butter, especially during election years—and Kate McKinnon has converted her Hillary Clinton impression to Emmys gold.
In her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, McKinnon thanked SNL producer Lorne Michaels and other members of the cast and crew before giving shout outs to two of the women she famously impersonates: “Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres,” she said, “thank you Hillary Clinton.” After much laughter and applause from the audience, she repeated, “Thank you Hillary Clinton.”
McKinnon also thanked her family and mentioned her late father, who she said “made me start watching SNL when I was 12, so thank you, and I miss you, Pop.”
Entertainment – TIME
Political impressions are Saturday Night Live’s bread and butter, especially during election years—and Kate McKinnon has converted her Hillary Clinton impression to Emmys gold.
In her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, McKinnon thanked SNL producer Lorne Michaels and other members of the cast and crew before giving shout outs to two of the women she famously impersonates: “Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres,” she said, “thank you Hillary Clinton.” After much laughter and applause from the audience, she repeated, “Thank you Hillary Clinton.”
McKinnon also thanked her family and mentioned her late father, who she said “made me start watching SNL when I was 12, so thank you, and I miss you, Pop.”
Entertainment – TIME
Political impressions are Saturday Night Live’s bread and butter, especially during election years—and Kate McKinnon has converted her Hillary Clinton impression to Emmys gold.
In her acceptance speech for Best Supporting Actress in a Comedy Series, McKinnon thanked SNL producer Lorne Michaels and other members of the cast and crew before giving shout outs to two of the women she famously impersonates: “Thank you, Ellen DeGeneres,” she said, “thank you Hillary Clinton.” After much laughter and applause from the audience, she repeated, “Thank you Hillary Clinton.”
McKinnon also thanked her family and mentioned her late father, who she said “made me start watching SNL when I was 12, so thank you, and I miss you, Pop.”
Entertainment – TIME
Emmys 2016: See Celebrities on the Red Carpet [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Entertainment – TIME Entertainment – TIME Entertainment – TIME Entertainment – TIMEWatch Matt Damon Taunt Jimmy Kimmel for Not Winning an Emmy [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
Matt Damon reignited his long-established “feud” with Jimmy Kimmel at the Emmys on Sunday night, ribbing the host for failing to take home an award for Best Variety Talk Series.
The Jason Bourne actor strolled onstage after John Oliver accepted the award, casually munching on an apple and asking Kimmel if he’d won.
“This is so humiliating,” Damon said, when Kimmel said he’d lost. “I’m sorry. I mean, you lost, and now you’ve gotta stand out here for the rest of the night when you probably just want to go home and curl up and cry.”
The actors have long feigned a feud since an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! 11 years ago, when Kimmel said at the end of a dull show, “I want to apologize to Matt Damon. We ran out of time.” He started repeating the joke regularly at the end of episodes, and Damon eventually came on the show for a “fight”—establishing a crowd-pleasing gag that won’t be going away anytime soon.
Entertainment – TIME
Matt Damon reignited his long-established “feud” with Jimmy Kimmel at the Emmys on Sunday night, ribbing the host for failing to take home an award for Best Variety Talk Series.
The Jason Bourne actor strolled onstage after John Oliver accepted the award, casually munching on an apple and asking Kimmel if he’d won.
“This is so humiliating,” Damon said, when Kimmel said he’d lost. “I’m sorry. I mean, you lost, and now you’ve gotta stand out here for the rest of the night when you probably just want to go home and curl up and cry.”
The actors have long feigned a feud since an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! 11 years ago, when Kimmel said at the end of a dull show, “I want to apologize to Matt Damon. We ran out of time.” He started repeating the joke regularly at the end of episodes, and Damon eventually came on the show for a “fight”—establishing a crowd-pleasing gag that won’t be going away anytime soon.
Entertainment – TIME
Matt Damon reignited his long-established “feud” with Jimmy Kimmel at the Emmys on Sunday night, ribbing the host for failing to take home an award for Best Variety Talk Series.
The Jason Bourne actor strolled onstage after John Oliver accepted the award, casually munching on an apple and asking Kimmel if he’d won.
“This is so humiliating,” Damon said, when Kimmel said he’d lost. “I’m sorry. I mean, you lost, and now you’ve gotta stand out here for the rest of the night when you probably just want to go home and curl up and cry.”
The actors have long feigned a feud since an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! 11 years ago, when Kimmel said at the end of a dull show, “I want to apologize to Matt Damon. We ran out of time.” He started repeating the joke regularly at the end of episodes, and Damon eventually came on the show for a “fight”—establishing a crowd-pleasing gag that won’t be going away anytime soon.
Entertainment – TIME
Matt Damon reignited his long-established “feud” with Jimmy Kimmel at the Emmys on Sunday night, ribbing the host for failing to take home an award for Best Variety Talk Series.
The Jason Bourne actor strolled onstage after John Oliver accepted the award, casually munching on an apple and asking Kimmel if he’d won.
“This is so humiliating,” Damon said, when Kimmel said he’d lost. “I’m sorry. I mean, you lost, and now you’ve gotta stand out here for the rest of the night when you probably just want to go home and curl up and cry.”
The actors have long feigned a feud since an episode of Jimmy Kimmel Live! 11 years ago, when Kimmel said at the end of a dull show, “I want to apologize to Matt Damon. We ran out of time.” He started repeating the joke regularly at the end of episodes, and Damon eventually came on the show for a “fight”—establishing a crowd-pleasing gag that won’t be going away anytime soon.
Entertainment – TIME
Tori Kelly Performed a Moving Rendition of Hallelujah at the Emmys [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]
The “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards ceremony honored a variety of big names from across the entertainment industry, from musicians David Bowie, Prince and Glenn Grey of the Eagles, to actors Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman and Anton Yelchin, as well as 60 Minutes journalist Morley Safer and boxing legend Muhammad Ali — a reminder that 2016 has been a year of notable loss.
Singer-songwriter Tori Kelly performed a soulful rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during the sequence. The faces of the many artists who passed away this year were shown on screen as Kelly played, reports Billboard.
But, as with years past, there was dissatisfaction with the Television Academy’s decision to leave out several names from the televised tribute. One exclusion that produced notable online backlash was Christina Grimmie, who launched her career on NBC’s The Voice, and was killed by a gunman in Orlando in June, reports PEOPLE.
Entertainment – TIME
The “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards ceremony honored a variety of big names from across the entertainment industry, from musicians David Bowie, Prince and Glenn Grey of the Eagles, to actors Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman and Anton Yelchin, as well as 60 Minutes journalist Morley Safer and boxing legend Muhammad Ali — a reminder that 2016 has been a year of notable loss.
Singer-songwriter Tori Kelly performed a soulful rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during the sequence. The faces of the many artists who passed away this year were shown on screen as Kelly played, reports Billboard.
But, as with years past, there was dissatisfaction with the Television Academy’s decision to leave out several names from the televised tribute. One exclusion that produced notable online backlash was Christina Grimmie, who launched her career on NBC’s The Voice, and was killed by a gunman in Orlando in June, reports PEOPLE.
Entertainment – TIME
The “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards ceremony honored a variety of big names from across the entertainment industry, from musicians David Bowie, Prince and Glenn Grey of the Eagles, to actors Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman and Anton Yelchin, as well as 60 Minutes journalist Morley Safer and boxing legend Muhammad Ali — a reminder that 2016 has been a year of notable loss.
Singer-songwriter Tori Kelly performed a soulful rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during the sequence. The faces of the many artists who passed away this year were shown on screen as Kelly played, reports Billboard.
But, as with years past, there was dissatisfaction with the Television Academy’s decision to leave out several names from the televised tribute. One exclusion that produced notable online backlash was Christina Grimmie, who launched her career on NBC’s The Voice, and was killed by a gunman in Orlando in June, reports PEOPLE.
Entertainment – TIME
The “In Memoriam” segment of Sunday night’s Emmy Awards ceremony honored a variety of big names from across the entertainment industry, from musicians David Bowie, Prince and Glenn Grey of the Eagles, to actors Gene Wilder, Alan Rickman and Anton Yelchin, as well as 60 Minutes journalist Morley Safer and boxing legend Muhammad Ali — a reminder that 2016 has been a year of notable loss.
Singer-songwriter Tori Kelly performed a soulful rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah” during the sequence. The faces of the many artists who passed away this year were shown on screen as Kelly played, reports Billboard.
But, as with years past, there was dissatisfaction with the Television Academy’s decision to leave out several names from the televised tribute. One exclusion that produced notable online backlash was Christina Grimmie, who launched her career on NBC’s The Voice, and was killed by a gunman in Orlando in June, reports PEOPLE.
Entertainment – TIME