Egypt Has Unearthed 160 Ancient Coffins Since September. Some Were Sealed With a 'Curse'

 Thousands of years ago, ancient Egyptians were laid to rest in Saqqara, an ancient city of the dead. Priests placed them inside wooden boxes adorned with hieroglyphics, and also the sarcophagi were sealed and buried in tombs scattered above and below the sand.

Archaeologists have discovered 160 human coffins at the positioning over the last three months, which they commit to disperse to museums around Egypt. They even opened some to look at the mummies inside.

According to experts, a number of the Saqqara tombs have colorful curses inscribed on the walls to warn away intruders.

Salima Ikram, an Egyptologist at the American University in Cairo, analyzed some animal mummies discovered at Saqqara last year.

She told Business Insider in an email that the inscribed warnings in human tombs mostly serve to discourage trespassers bent desecrating the mummies' resting places.

A coffin found in Saqqara in September. (Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities)

"They generally state that if the tomb is entered by an impure person (probably in body and/or intention), then may the council of the gods punish the trespasser, and wring his or her neck like that of a goose," she wrote.

'Fear of seeing ghosts'

The specific Saqqara curse Ikram quoted was found within the tomb of the vizier Ankhmahor, a pharaoh's official who lived over 4,000 years ago, during Egypt's 6th dynasty. He was buried in a very mastaba: an above-ground tomb shaped sort of a rectangular box. Similar mastabas were built everywhere in Egypt, including near the Giza pyramids.

The curse meant to safeguard Ankhmahor, roughly translated, warns that anything a trespasser "might do against this, my tomb, the identical shall be done to your property." It also warns of the vizier's knowledge of secret spells and magic, and threatens to fill "impure" intruders with a "fear of seeing ghosts."

Curses like that were meant to discourage grave robbers, Ikram said.

In the new Netflix documentary "Secrets of the Saqqara Tomb," she explains that tombs were seen as houses for the dead in their afterlife.

"You wanted to own a wonderful afterlife, so you had a wonderful tomb," she says within the film, adding that a personality's tomb would be "decorated with all types of scenes of the life they need to enjoy for eternity."

So trespassers caught trying to steal valuables buried with the dead were punished during a manner commensurate to their crime, Ikram said.

Punishment for violating a noble's tomb, meanwhile, could carry with it beatings, and potentially the removal of a robber's nose, Ikram added. they'd even be required to return the transferred property.

However, the writings on Ankhmahor's tomb welcome those of pure and peaceful intention, saying that he will protect them within the court of Osiris, Lord of the Egyptian Underworld. Ancient Egyptians believed that Osiris judges dead souls before they pass into the afterlife.

Similar curses appear in an exceedingly few other tombs across Egypt, Ikram said, "with the bulk being recorded from the Old Kingdom" - between 2575 and 2150 BCE.

Not the mummy's curse from movies

The writings found in tombs like Ankhmahor's bear little resemblance to the mummy's curses depicted in horror movies, which frequently show unwitting archaeologists get killed by the undead after opening burial chambers.

Still, some members of the general public weren't keen to determine archaeologists open coffins that had been sealed for quite two millennia.

But Ikram said there's little risk of being contaminated with, say, ancient microbes or fungi by handling the mummies.

"If people wear gloves and masks, it should be fine," she said.

The idea that mummy tombs could contain dangerous pathogens took off partially after archaeologist Egyptologist unearthed King Tutankhamen's tomb in 1922.

A member of Carter's expedition, its financial backer George Herbert died an odd, extra time six weeks after they opened King Tut's sepulture.

So some researchers wondered if the tomb had contained a sort of toxic mold that might have infected and killed him. This rekindled talk about a "mummy's curse," an idea writer Louisa May Alcott had explored 50 years earlier. But further research showed Herbert died of septicemia from an infected sting on his cheek.

Plus, the walls of King Tut's tomb were curse-free.

Carter never put any stock within the myth of a mummy's curse, dismissing it as "tommyrot." He lived to the age of 64, dying over 20 years after his fateful discovery.

No more dialysis, Scientists Have Developed A Bionic Kidney!

Many of them must expect years to urge a kidney transplant and live normally, with seemingly no other solution on the horizon. However, there’s finally a light-weight within the dark tunnel – scientists from the University of California at the port of entry, USA, have developed the world’s first bionic kidney which might replace damaged kidneys easily and effectively.

 The bionic kidney could be a perfect replica of our kidneys. It consists of diverse microchips and is moved by the center. just like the normal kidneys, it's able to filter waste and toxins from the bloodstream.

The project was unveiled by Willian Vanderbilt Fissels and Shuvo Roy from the University of California, offering renewed hope for scores of kidney dialysis patients. Now, a number of you'll be wondering “But, what if the body rejects it?”, but, the scientists assure us that the probabilities of rejection are zero! Incredible, right?

This is because the bionic kidney is formed from renal cells. the primary prototype is the size of a cup and might balance the amount of sodium and potassium within the body while regulating pressure level.

 The project is wonderful news for any dialysis patient. within the beginning (November 2015), the scientists received $6 million from the Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering, and it’s safe to mention that the money was well spent.

 The scientists have high hopes for the bionic kidney, and therefore the lead researcher, Dr. Victor Gura, says that the device is going to be availably purchasable in just 2 years.

Hydroxychloroquine Hype Is Dangerous, Experts Warn

 Many different drugs found to kill the SARS-CoV-2 virus within the lab are now being tested to determine if they're effective in humans. One, however, has attracted way more attention than all the remainder, leading some people to act in dangerous ways.

Hydroxychloroquine and therefore the closely related chloroquine are drugs known to be effective against malaria and lupus, but they also carry serious risks. Its potential against a variety of other diseases is under investigation, including as a promising candidate for Covid-19. After one small, flawed study created a buzz and reached President Trump, things began to get wrong.

Trump praised a mixture of hydroxychloroquine and also the antibiotic azithromycin in tweets and at press conferences. Initially, this led to some people buying all the hydroxychloroquine they may obtain to require themselves, resulting in a shortage for those with lupus.

Not only that but NPR reports that Dr. Robin Armstrong in Texas has started giving patients hydroxychloroquine in an unregistered trial. Worse still, there's considerable doubt about whether the patients involved gave consent. Dr. Armstrong admitted to not telling families he was giving the drug to their relatives when patients couldn't consent. Having played down the drug's risks in an interview with the Houston Chronicle, it seems unlikely those given the drug were alerted to the complete list of side-effects. NIH-registered trials require extensive paperwork precisely so everyone can see what patients are being told. By using his political contacts to form an “observational study”, Armstrong appears to possess avoided these.

Meanwhile, several trials of hydroxychloroquine/chloroquine are abandoned due to the intense side effects, including potentially fatal irregular heart rates. Other trials didn't find any benefits from the drug. Many physicians remain cautious about the drug.

"There is also a task for it for a few people,” Dr. Megan L. Ranney of the university told The the big apple Times, “but to inform Americans ‘you don’t have anything to lose,’ that’s not true. People certainly have something to lose by taking it indiscriminately.”

Meanwhile, anti-vaxxers are spreading the claim hydroxychloroquine is such a miracle cure that we do not need vaccines in the slightest degree. Ridiculous because the idea is, it's going to sound credible to those immersed within the hydroxychloroquine hype. it's indeed possible hydroxychloroquine, perhaps together with other drugs, will prove helpful for a few people, which is why several proper trials continue. However, its supporters, including Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro and Trump lawyer Rudy Giuliani, have gone beyond claiming it works to describing it as a silver-bullet, capable of saving everyone infected with the virus. We already know this can be not true.

Hydroxychloroquine is reportedly being widely employed in Italy and Spain, and it's not stopped the toll there, leading experts to conclude that if it works in the slightest degree the advantages are modest. In March, Dr Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, and therefore the president's leading advisor on Covid-19 described the reported benefits of hyroxychloroquine as "anecdotal" and there aren't any signs his position has changed.

Gates Foundation Says We'll Need to Work Together to Vaccinate 7 Billion People

 The wealthy Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation called Wednesday for global cooperation to ready COVID-19 vaccines for 7 billion people, while offering an extra US$150 million toward developing therapeutics and coverings for the virus. While it's likely to require as many as 18 months to develop and fully test a secure coronavirus vaccine, global authorities and businesses must start now on plans to manufacture it, said foundation chief executive Mark Suzman.

"It's normal to own, at maximum, many a lot of doses manufactured," he said.

"When you're addressing a completely unique pathogen like COVID-19, as and after we get to identifying a successful vaccine, we are visiting need billions of doses."

"There are 7 billion people on the earth," he said. "We are visiting have to vaccinate nearly all. there's no manufacturing capacity to try to do that."

Suzman announced the muse, started and controlled by mega-billionaire Microsoft founder Bill Gates and his wife Melinda Gates, is adding US$150 million to the $100 million it announced in February to assist in international efforts to battle the coronavirus pandemic.

Much of the money is to support the event of COVID-19 diagnostic tests, therapeutic treatments, and vaccines, and to create them globally available, he said.

Some are additionally for helping the poorest countries in South Asia and the geographical area, which lack supplies, equipment, and infrastructure to counter the new epidemic.

But the muse has concentrated on preparing for the creation of a vaccine that might effectively halt the spread of coronavirus.

Some 100 potential vaccines are being developed and tested by scientists around the world, Suzman said.

Many might appear hopeful in initial, small tests, he said, but most will fail in larger trials.

"A successful vaccine must be available for 7 billion people. you wish to check if there are unexpected side effects, or side effects within cohorts or groups, whether it's pregnant women or the elderly or the very young," said Suzman.

"The overwhelming majority of vaccine candidates fail in those larger trials, the so-called phase-three trials."

Fastest vaccine ever

But while those trials happen, he said, there must be a world group of experts, countries, and corporations honing in on those with the foremost promise and preparing previous time to manufacture them.

He said both China and also us should be a part of the joint effort, yet because of the World Health Organization. On Tuesday, US President Donald Trump said he was setting apart US funds for the WHO.

"Clearly for us, the globe Health Organization could be a very strong, reliable partner," Suzman said, noting the Gates Foundation is WHO's second-largest source of funding after the US.

Earlier Wednesday, European Commissioner chief Ursula von der Leyen called a donors conference for May 4 to fund the creation and global deployment of a vaccine, calling it "our collective best shot at beating the virus."

Suzman said the Gates Foundation is "reasonably optimistic" that one or more successful vaccines may be proven within 12 to 18 months.

"This is the fastest vaccine ever developed in human history," he said.

Yet getting the assembly going, he estimated, will cost several billion dollars.

Each vaccine finally approved would require its own manufacturing process, and if people don't begin to arrange within months, lots of your time are lost, he warned.

"There is no return to 'normal' until there's a vaccine," Suzman said. "But there are not any dramatic ways to short-cut it."

The Direct Fusion Drive That Could Get Us to Saturn in Just 2 Years

  Experts say the proper reasonable system could carry spacecraft to Saturn in only two years. The direct fusion drive (DFD), an idea being developed by Princeton physical science Laboratory, would make extremely fast work of the nearly billion miles between Earth and Saturn.

Researchers there say the Princeton field reversed configuration-2 (PFRC-2) drive might be the key to feasible travel within our scheme.

The research team chose Saturn’s moon Titan as a perfect, well, moonshot. The #1 moon in our system encompasses plenty of scientific interest thanks to its surface liquids, and therefore the indisputable fact that they’re hydrocarbons means Titan could even become a refueling waystation in some far-future space transportation system.

Universe Today reports:

“[T]he engine itself exploits many of the benefits of aneutronic fusion, most notably a very high power-to-weight ratio,” an announcement reads. “The fuel for a DFD drive can vary slightly in mass and contains deuterium and a helium-3 isotope. Essentially, the DFD takes the superb specific impulse of electrical propulsion systems and combines it with the superb thrust of chemical rockets, for a mix that melds the most effective of both flight systems.”

In a way, this is often lots like how hybrid consumer vehicles are designed. There are times when electricity provides the simplest, most effective push, and there are times when fossil fuels are still the foremost logical choice.

The PPPL direct fusion drive is being studied in two modes: one where it thrusts the whole time, and another where, sort of a Prius, it thrusts to induce up to hurry at the start only. The trip to Titan changes from about 2 years to about 2.5 reckonings on the mode.

the reactor itself is comparatively small because even a bigger spacecraft for our current imagination is much smaller than family homes or businesses on the bottom.

“DFD employs a singular plasma heating to supply fusion engines within the range of 1 to 10 MW, ideal for human solar-system exploration, robotic solar-system missions, and interstellar missions,” PPPL researchers wrote in 2019.

The plasma inside is heated to performance temperatures by radio waves, and like other rocket engines broadly, the look is open on one end so as to come up with thrust as energy pushes out extremely rapidly.

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For now, this design, as Universe Today jokes about all of the fusion, is about 30 years away. That’s because the subsequent good window to jaunt Saturn’s satellites is in 2046, giving scientists at PPPL a concrete timeframe further as a particular goal to figure toward.

And their DFD design has another major advantage: it also can power the ship’s internal systems.

That means propulsion and steering likewise as life support and research aboard the ship will all run on the identical energy-efficient drive.

It will still be decades before anyone travels to the moons of Saturn. But after they do, the achievement are going to be . . . Titanic.

Woman's Breast Implant Saved Her Life by Deflecting a Bullet, Case Study Shows

  

In a remarkable study, researchers report what they are saying is that the first documented case in the medical literature of a silicone implant altering a bullet's trajectory and possibly saving a woman's life.

This horrific but ultimately non-fatal incident transpires in Ontario, Canada, and therefore the events of the evening are the topic of an ongoing investigation, with the shooter remaining unidentified, and therefore the firearm utilized in the episode never having been recovered.

What is certain, though, is that a 30-year-old woman with breast implants sustained severe chest trauma after being struck by a bullet publically at nighttime, with the projectile hitting her suddenly and abruptly.

"The patient-reported walking down [the] street and feeling heat and pain in her left chest, looking down and seeing blood," a probe team led by sawbones Giancarlo McEvenue explains in a very case note.

Right breast implant with damage from bullet trajectory. (McEvenue et al., Plastic Surgery Case Studies, 2020)

After being transferred to a trauma center, the lady was in a very stable condition, with no additional injuries aside from one entry wound within the upper part of her left breast.

Examination of the wound revealed thermal injury surrounding the hole on the left breast, suggesting close proximity to the discharging firearm, and a hard, bullet-like mass might be felt under the woman's skin on the opposite side of her body, lodged behind her right breast.

X-rays confirmed this mass was the bullet still inside the patient's body, within the right lateral thoracic wall, while also showing a fractured rib – clues to the bullet's trajectory through the body, the researchers say, entering the left breast and spending through to the proper thoracic wall, where it absolutely was eventually stopped.

CT scans revealed pulmonary contusion (damage to lung tissue) but no intrathoracic injury, although signs of debris and air indicated both breast implants had been struck by the bullet.

Bullet in right lateral thoracic wall on chest X-ray. (McEvenue et al., Plastic Surgery Case Studies, 2020)

The surgeons removed both damaged implants, and extracted the projectile, which was given to police, and identified as a copper-jacketed 0.40 caliber bullet.

After the successful operation, the woman's medical team used CT imaging in conjunction with the clinical evidence to reconstruct how the bullet tried and true the patient's body and her breast implants.

According to the researchers, the bullet was on track to pass directly through the chest wall and may need striking the woman's heart, had it not been for a deflection within the projectile's trajectory because of the presence of the left implant.

"Based on the trajectory of bullet entry clinically and evaluation radiologically, the sole source of bullet deflection of the bullet is that the left implant," the authors write.

"This implant overlies the center and intrathoracic cavity and so likely saved the women's life."

The researchers suggest deflection occurred within the implant likely at the purpose when the bullet pressed against and ultimately ruptured the implant's membrane.

While the hypothetical role of breast implants slowing down bullet velocity has been investigated before, the researchers say their patient's case is that the first showing multiple lines of evidence that suggest deflection can even occur.

"Our study adds to the current knowledge by using high-resolution CT technology to analyze bullet trajectory in an actual patient case," the authors write.

"This trajectory change could only are because of the bullet hitting the implant in our patient's case because the bullet didn't hit bone on the left side (as evidenced by lack of left-sided fracture and a bullet that retained enough energy to cause right-sided fractures)."

Although reported cases like this could be rare, the team found a minimum of two other cases in the medical literature where ruptured breast implants are thought to possess played a job in saving patients' lives after they were struck by bullets.

"The unfortunate story includes a happy ending in this the patient only suffered minor injuries and made a whole recovery," McEvenue says.

The findings are reported in Plastic Surgery Case Studies.

Massive Swarm of Eels Is The Most Fish Ever Recorded at The Bottom of The Ocean

 Before we start mining for precious metals within the darkness of the deep sea, we would try switching on the sunshine first and observing our surroundings.

In this seemingly isolated abyss, at deeper than 3,000 metres (9,800 ft) below water level, scientists were able to coax an enormous swarm of 115 cutthroat eels (Ilyophis arx) out of the shadows and into the sunshine, and with only a comparatively small package of bait.

The footage represents the best number of deep-sea fish ever recorded at only once within the abyssal ocean, and it had been shot right near a world mining hotspot.

"Our observations truly surprised us," says biological oceanographer Astrid Leitner, who worked on the research at the University of Hawai'i at Mānoa. 

"We had never seen reports of such high numbers of fishes within the sparsely-populated, food-limited deep-sea."

The Clarion-Clipperton Zone (CCZ) may be a massive expanse of seafloor that runs from Hawaii nearly to Mexico, and it contains a number of the rarest and most highly demanded metals and elements on our planet. 

Over the years, it's drawn increasing interest from the mining industry, which sees this new region as some way to chop down on human labour and therefore the destruction of precious land.

Sixteen contracts have already been issued for deep-sea mining in additional than 1 million square kilometers of this zone, and yet only a small portion of deep abyssal habitats are sampled, explored, or perhaps mapped by scientists.

It's decisions like this that have some scientists and environmentalists warning of a deep-sea "gold rush" that would cause unforeseen damage to ecosystems we all know little about.

The abyssal plains that blanket the underside of our oceans represent 70 per cent of our planet's seafloor and are considered the most important ecosystem on Earth. 

But while these depths are generally thought to contain sparse life, with particularly few fish, that generalisation won't apply to all or any the underwater mountain ranges – called seamounts – that border these valleys, emerging from the encompassing abyssal plain. 

Recent expeditions among submerged seamounts within the Galapagos and off the coast of Tasmania have revealed an unexpected abundance of life forms, many of which we've never seen before, and a few waver these submerged summits that are still deep enough to be considered 'abyssal'. 

To figure out what's down there before we start unearthing sediment and spreading plumes of fabric kilometres away, an expedition of ocean scientists taken off for 3 underwater seamounts within the CCZ and their surrounding plains.

All three of the summits analysed are in locations currently protected against mining activities, but they were chosen because they resemble nearby areas where industry operations have gotten able to tether their vehicles.

Deploying a remotely operated vehicle to every one of those mountains, researchers dropped a kilo of mackerel (around 2 lbs) before of a camera, filming two minutes on, eight minutes off, to provide the fish with a possibility from the sunshine.

The bait itself was purported to mimic a natural food fall, within which a whale or shark carcass drifts to the seafloor and brings together life at the underside.

On all three summits, scientists recorded large swarms of eels coming to feed, although none appeared on the deeper plains below, which sat roughly 1000 metres deeper.

Catching a number of the animals in traps, the team confirmed these were scavenging cutthroat eels, a little-known species with fewer than 10 specimens in captivity worldwide.

Combing through the present literature, the authors couldn't find the other study below 1,000 metres that turned up that number of fish per kilo of bait. Even larger food falls drew a smaller crowd.

Prior to this discovery, for example, a 29-kilogram shark carcass at a depth of 4,400 meters (14,435 ft) only drew in 68 deep-sea zoarcid fish.

It's hard to extrapolate from these brief encounters, but if the sheer number of eels observed during this study says anything about local abundance, then the density of life at these depths might be an order of magnitude more than even our highest predictions so far.

The problem is, fish at these depths are incredibly sensitive to the presence of ROVs, not simply because of their light and noise, but also due to the changes in pressure and electricity that ripple out from them within the water.

The current study tries to limit those influences by turning off the camera and light-weight every so often, but at the identical time, this also means researchers probably undercounted what number fish actually came to feed. 

"Thus," the authors write, "the number of eels observed during this study at abyssal depths is really unprecedented for both abyssal and bathyal depths." 

Whether these eels are just visiting the underwater summit or are permanent residents remains unclear, but this sort of eel has only ever been sampled on similar underwater ridges, suggesting they may be seamount feeding specialists.

It's doubtful that each one abyssal seamount will host similarly large populations of fish. Even within the current study, the northernmost summit had fewer feeders.

But if there are other summits out there with equally abundant kinds of life, scientists are worried what is going to happen to them within the future if suddenly their homes are swarmed with loud vehicles and also the water becomes thick with sediment.

"If this phenomenon isn't just isolated to those two seamounts within the CCZ, the implications on deep-sea ecology may be widespread," says Leitner, who now works at the bay Aquarium Research Institute.

"Our findings highlight what proportion there's still left to get within the deep sea, and the way much we all might lose if we don't manage to mine appropriately."