Planet Earth
African sorcerers prey on albinos
June 13 will mark International Albinism Awareness Day. This memorable date was established at the UN only a few years ago after it became known about the atrocities that albinos in Africa are subjected to.
Who are albinos?
These are people with unusually fair skin and hair, and sometimes with reddish eyes. Their appearance is due to a lack of pigments called melanin (do not confuse with melatonin, which regulates sleep-wake cycles and is sold in pharmacies). Depends on the number and ratio of melanins, blond man, brunette or red, pale or dark, what color he has an iris. There is special melanin even in the brain. True, why is he really incomprehensible .
Melanin deficiency occurs in albinos due to mutations in the genes that regulate the production and distribution of these substances in the body. Since breakdowns occur in different places of DNA, there are several types of albinism, more than a dozen of them are described in the scientific literature, but the classification has not been fully established. Some albinos have completely white skin and hair, while others are simply paler than usual and with yellow hair. Someone’s eyes are affected only, but there are also forms that can be recognized only when examined with special equipment.
Is it dangerous?
Usually albinism does not shorten life expectancy, but albinos more often burn out in the sun and suffer from skin cancer ( presumably , melanin protects against ultraviolet rays and acts as an antioxidant), their eyes are more sensitive to light than other people. Because of this, albinos have to close their skin, use special creams, wear dark glasses. Often they have poor eyesight, sometimes they have strabismus, the eyes move involuntarily – the look seems to run.
With proper care, these are surmountable difficulties, but even penniless glasses are not available everywhere and not to everyone. For example , in Tanzania, only 10% of albino children go to high school (in 2017, the national average was 58%). When there is nothing to close your skin and eyes, even playing with friends on the street is not so simple, but if you do go out, you will find a wise guy who will tease you.
There are more dangerous forms of albinism, for example,Germanic-Pudlak syndrome. In people with this syndrome, blood coagulates worse, which makes bruises easy, and bleeding difficult to stop. In addition, in some young people lungs healed. After it becomes difficult for them to breathe, life remains for no more than ten years. And sometimes with the Germanic-Pudlak syndrome, the intestines become inflamed and the kidneys fail.
Is albinism being treated?
No, so far, doctors are only able to help with related problems like visual impairment. Someone will say that albinism – at least some forms – is not a disease at all in order to treat it. Be that as it may, a genetic test during pregnancy reveals this feature. But many do not even suspect that they may have such a baby – albinos appear in people with ordinary pigmentation.
Albinism is a fairly common phenomenon. On average, one out of 17–20 thousand people is albino. But in some places they are much more common. For example, among the Panamanian Indians, kuna albino is one hundred and fifty. Kuna consider this a blessing. True, when the Spaniards colonized those territories, the kuna began to kill white-skinned children due to associations with the invaders.
By the way, what atrocities were mentioned at the beginning of the article?
In Africa, between lakes Victoria and Tanganyika, it is believed that albinos and parts of their body bring good luck. Children are especially valued because of their innocence. Albinos are attacked by warlocks and maimed, and sometimes killed to make talismans. The report of the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, published in 2009, said that in the largest city of Tanzania Dar es Salaam, four limbs, genitals, ears, tongue and nose of an albino in the amount cost $ 75 thousand. Also in those parts it is believed that having sex with an albino girl can save you from HIV / AIDS.
The attacks began in the mid-2000s. Political analyst Benson Bana explained to The Guardian that fishing regulation was tightened on Lake Victoria. Catches were reduced, and if someone came across large prey, then this was explained by superstition. It was then that the sorcerers took notice, and soon amulets from albinos became popular with local miners. However, killings for “medical” purposes (not necessarily albinos) have been carried out in Africa since time immemorial.
More than a hundred victims of sorcerers and their mercenaries are known, but probably more albinos died. Relatives are often involved in crimes, so they are not made public. The authorities of East African countries and non-profit organizations have achieved some success, but the problem has not been fully resolved.
Who else has albinism?
On the Internet it is easy to find photos of a wide variety of albinos: kangaroos, pandas, moose, even crocodiles. But in some creatures, melanin is not the only substance that gives color, so without it, not everyone becomes albino. By the way, there is melanin even in bacteria, because they also need protection from sunlight.
There are even plants as albinos , but in their case it is due to the absence of the green pigment chlorophyll. Chlorophyll is needed for the production of nutrients, so these plants usually die young.
However, the leafless chin (Epipogium aphyllum) also survives without chlorophyll: this is an entire albino species, it receives food by fungal hyphae that entangle its roots. The chin, or ghostly orchid, is found in Russia, but is extremely rare (so it’s better not to pluck it!). Maybe you are lucky and you will see this beautiful flower.
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Planet Earth
Scientists – It is much colder today than in the last 8,000 years
Undisputed temperature reconstructions from around the world show that for much of the Holocene (last 10,000 years), the planet was much warmer than it is today.
Kenneth recently wrote how many new studies of glacier and sea ice sizes show that Iceland is 2-4 ° C colder today than it has been in the past 8,000 years. Only the late 19th century was a little colder.
This post was posted on WUWT and the author provided additional graphics there from other parts of the world showing that the early Holocene was warmer around the world.
First, South America, which shows 100 years ago that it was much warmer from the 1930s to the 1950s than it is today:
Next, we have a 7000-year reconstruction of the Canadian Arctic temperature:
Note that, as many of us already know, the Arctic was much warmer in the early Holocene than it is today.
Finally, let’s take a look at the Swiss Alps, which are 9,000 years old:
Here we see that today it is very cold in the Alps compared to the early Holocene. Old tree trunks found under the glaciers confirm this.
A WUWT reader added that he has “a lot more of this type of graphs, which show very clearly that the whole wolrld has been much warmer for much of the last 10,000 years than it is now.”
And there are really a lot of them!
Medieval warm period, confirmed by hundreds of works
Sebastian Lüning’s remarkable and outstanding Medieval Warm Period reference map, shows hundreds of climatic reconstructions from this period. There we find a lot of research that shows that there is nothing unusual about today’s climate compared to what it was 1000 years ago.
Here are 80 charts from 58 peer-reviewed articles showing the same.
Planet Earth
Polar vortex: “wild” winter is coming in the US, Northern Europe and East Asia after the 16th of January
In the upper atmosphere above the North Pole, experts saw a rapidly swirling vortex of cold air that could bring severe frosts to the United States, Northern Europe and East Asia. Serious cold snap and snowy weather are expected after January the 16th.
Snowfalls and a cold snap hit South Korea since the start of 2021, hitting historic snow maximums and temperatures. In the country, for the first time since 1964, television and newer communications are sending people cold snap warnings:
winter in South Korea. very cold my friend. enjoy the snow while drinking hot bitter coffee. pic.twitter.com/WcycIEpf2y
— Dhard (@Dhardyant1) January 6, 2021
The situation is similar in Japan, where a new snow storm hit historic highs:
On January 7, the thermometer In Beijing dropped to -20 degrees Celsius, breaking the 1966 record. In other regions of China, the temperature is also not sugar, and you can only move around in special uniforms:
The cold even reached Taiwan, where the temperature in some areas dropped below freezing point, snow poured down and people realized that rice terraces can be used as a ski jump:
Even more snow went to Spain, where on January 6, 2021, a temperature of -34.1 ° C was recorded – the lowest on record. After that, a snow storm hit the country, which has not been seen for 80 years:
The same thing happens in Canada and in the northern states of the United States:
I’m not too sure. But this is the current situation out there. Has not stopped blowing in over 24 hours!! pic.twitter.com/J69zeiHW01
— Amy Montague (@AmyMontague4) January 8, 2021
It seems that after a stratospheric warming, the subpolar vortex began to split:
I wrote in the December 21, 2020 blog our #PolarVortex (PV) model is predicting a major sudden stratospheric warming in early January and then again third week of January. Based on latest model forecasts there really does seem to be two distinct polar warming events in January. pic.twitter.com/vcMCPztoAh
— Judah Cohen (@judah47) January 8, 2021
The vortex itself is a standard phenomenon. However, this time experts were surprised at his movement. It is possible that in the near future it will be divided into two parts.
Scientists associate the strange behavior with the changed climate in the Arctic, which has become warmer. From September to December, the amount of ice cover decreased significantly.
The polar vortex is a low-pressure region located in the stratosphere and filled with cold air. When the jet stream of air that holds the vortex weakens, the low pressure area moves south.
As the ice shrinks, more moisture will move inland. It will turn to snow, so snowfalls are expected. Snow, in turn, reflects heat, leading to a cold snap.
Planet Earth
Hospital in Naples was evacuated after a new, huge sinkhole appeared
Eyewitnesses said they heard a loud crash at dawn when a huge hole in the ground formed outside the Ponticelli Ospedale del Mare hospital in eastern Naples.
Early in the morning of January 8, 2021, a sinkhole occurred in the parking lot of a clinic in Naples. The depth of the formed cavity is about 20 meters, the total area of the hole is about 2,000 square meters.
No casualties were found at the scene; firefighters say the sinkhole “affected an area of about 500 square meters” and engulfed several cars parked near the hospital.
As the press writes and as a little can be seen from the videos, rescuers and firefighters were running around the pit together with the governor of the area. But who should be there in the forefront are Italian geologists, since Naples stands in the very center of the volcanic system known as the Phlegrean Fields.
If the surface collapsed, moreover – the surface reinforced with concrete and reinforced from below with some kind of communications, then we are talking about serious soil deformations caused by the activity of magma.
Italy has been in doubt since the summer of 2020, because swarms were observed there in very atypical places in May, and according to the forecasts of old Italian seismologists, who had witnessed many strong earthquakes, it should have boomed in the August region.
Fortunately, nothing bad happened to Italy and there was no big earthquake. But, since there are swarms, it means that something is being prepared, the magma is gathering strength.
Following this particular sinkhole event – an obvious sign that a major earthquake in Italy is already very close.
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