The ants are haplodiploid relatives of wasps, females are diploid, males are haploid. In Messor ibericus species the queens can produce two types of male offspring, one of their own species, other from a related species Messor structor, with which they have been estimated to have a common ancestor about 5 million years ago. The queens mate with both types of males, because ibericus males are needed to make new queens, whereas structor males are needed to make hybrid workers. The structor male genome survives because the queen can somehow clone haploid offspring from sperm (though the mitochondria of the ova come from ibericus.) It should be noted that the ibericus-born genetically structor males are morphologically different from wild structor males, which the authors of the study hypothesized to result from differences in mitonuclear environment, from differences in brood rearing conditions, or from genetic differentiation of the ‘cloned’ lineage of structor males. This case is interesting, because it stretches the concept of biological species to have genomes of two species, separate but intertwined by sexual reproduction to maintain the colonies of the species lineages.
Little black ants in Finland, crawling in and around their hole in the ground. Not connected to the ants discussed above.
As for life on Mars, NASA scientists published a paper on speckles on Mars rock, which on Earth would have formed by metabolism of accumulated microbes. I do not know enough of mineralogy to follow the paper, but the NASA press release was much more accessible. The speckled rock was found in area that had contained long ago liquid water. While alternative processes have not been totally excluded, the most likely ones were. This biosignature is the strongest evidence that Mars has some time in the past hosted life. This implies either life evolving easily in multiple locations or if life evolves rarely, panspermia, i.e., life spreading in space, and it has been speculated that life on Earth and Mars being related. Also, considering the prevalence of lithospheric life on Earth, I would not consider it impossible that there still exists (microbial) life deep underground in Mars.
A recent credit card outage in France was blamed on botched payments system update. The reason for ATM failure in Scotland was not clear from the same post.
Considering the banks are claiming it was just a botched update, my paranoia instinct would tend to cyber attack (private or foreign public sector) or frenzied preparations for Central Bank Digital Currencies supposedly becoming to EU this October.
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It is speculated that French government will collapse in this budget crisis. Belt tightening proposals include removal of two holidays: Easter Monday and May 8th (celebrating victory of WWII) to ‘increase the productivity’ by making people work more for the good of the country (who decides how the extra profits are used?). Aside from reducing the well-being of working people, I think this to be an arrogant display of cultural insensitivity, especially the claim that Easter Monday does not have any religious significance.
There is also chatter that France is going to need IMF bailout next week.
I just saw a video on YouTube by a gentleman who seems to be into Bitcoin. Aside from the Bitcoin part, there were interesting little news.
Bank of England has published a bail-in guide. The term of note is ‘resolution weekend’. That’s when the peoples’ bank accounts will be converted into bank stocks at some fraction of value.
I had already become aware that millionaires and billionaires are fleeing the UK by their thousands, an exodus greater than that afflicting PCR, despite PRC having vastly larger population. I was surprised at the claim that the departing assets are equal to 4% of UK GDP. Dividing the 91.8B$ cumulative wealth of the departees by 3640B$ estimated GB GDP gives only about 2.5% in mu calculator. It will be interesting to see if the UK government will go full DDR and slam the exit doors shut at this hemorrhage. They already have the hate crime reporting lines and speech crimes police (in case someone could post something UK government does not approve) so why not go for the full experience, complete with empty shops?
Meanwhile, EU has made a deal of the decade (this century is too young to claim that something even weirder would not be coming through the pipes) agreeing to: 15% export and 0% import tariffs with US, 750 billion euros worth of US fossil fuels while banning all the Russian fossil fuel imports (which had continued despite the war, including quite a lot of natural gas transiting in pipelines through Ukraine), and 600 billion euros of private direct investment to US.
Exactly what this private investment is and how EU Commission can agree to seems unclear. According to the document description page on EU side, the agreement is not legally binding. I suspect that the tariff and energy deals were a bribe to US to let EU still continue their war – I further suspect large amounts of US military gear to be included in that 0% import tariff. Also, I suspect that EU will rather soon have a resolution weekend for bank accounts as they are already talking about mobilizing funds laying in peoples’ bank accounts to fund plans that are excessive for the public purse. Pension funds are joining the arms bonanza. Bonus points if these ‘privately funded’ imports/investments will count towards the 5% of GDP funding target for non-US NATO members.
Joker in the game: EU CBDCs, denied by European Central Bank to be programmable with expiration dates (not to mention blocking or sin fees for non-approved uses, which would similarly depend on programmability.) (There are also privacy questions.) I wonder what the actual utility of EU CBDCs for the small people would be, and how CBDCs (programmable or non) would affect application of a Resolution Weekend?
Florida is constructing an ‘Alligator Alcatraz‘, a deportation facility in the m Everglades. An abandoned airport project will be (government) quickly converted into a 5000 bed facility with an idea that the surrounding swamp area with its alligators and pythons would be part of the security. Federal government will use FEMA’s Shelter and Services Program money for the center. Presumed Federal costs will be 450 million dollars annually. Assuming processing speed of two weeks per deportee and full occupancy, that housing alone will cost 3750$ per person though I doubt government will be that efficient. But Alligator Alcatraz is a catchy name, good marketing!
The immigration industry seems to still provide good income for some – left loves to import immigrants with government paying the housing, whereas right loves to deport immigrants with government paying the housing.
Nigerian Oil Production Woes
Alleged 7.2 billion US dollar fraud in Nigeria has led to the arrest of two officials in Nigeria’s state owned oil corporation and three other officials are being investigated. Annual allocations of money meant for revamping and rehabilitation of old oil refineries had not been efficient, as Kaduna, Warri and Port Harcourt refineries “haven’t been producing fuel in recent years” as Oilprice.com reports. Nigeria is struggling to meet (as in has not met) its OPEC quota of oil production due to crime and “struggles to launch new projects”(ibid.)
Sweden has illiteracy problem
Regardless of the possible reasons for the Swedish education crisis described in this Zerohedge article (originally from Epoch Times but they require registration), about 800000 of 10 million inhabitants of Sweden are categorized as illiterate. While he definitions of literacy may have changed over the centuries, this is according to the author “the highest number since at least the mid-19th century, possibly since the early 18th century.”
During 18th century Finland was part of the Sweden, and literacy was then enforced by strong state church that demanded that everybody had to pass confirmation (which was prerequisite for get married – premarital relationships were strongly disapproved those days) and to pass confirmation had to know how to read (the material promoted by the state church , other literacy was a bonus.) Perhaps, if literacy would again be a basis for full civil rights (e.g., one would need to be able to read a contract for their signature to be legally binding), the literacy rates would begin to climb again. Without motivation to learn, there will be a segment of population that will not make an effort.
Also, what was alluded in the article but I think should be emphasized is that many of the modern students do not even speak Swedish, and before they learn the language they won’t be able to read or write it, either. Also the Finnish literacy levels which used to be among the highest in the world are declining, at least according to PISA statistics.
A picture from Finland, February 2025, not directly related to Alligator Alcatraz, Nigerian oil production or Swedish literacy.
California and Federal government are increasingly hostile in open. California has years of experience in ignoring Federal laws, some notable example issues being cannabis, immigration, and gender identity.
During Biden(?) administration, Californian values seemed to become the US standard regardless of other states’ opinions, and California became more assertive also in foreign and trade policy, most notable event being the summit with president Xi and Biden in San Francisco (preceded by a climate lobbying visit of governor Newsom to Beijing.) Various California politicians were also courting China, although also opposite happened. Does anyone still remember 2022 when the then Speaker of the House, California representative Pelosi flew to Taiwan and caused jitters over potential armed conflict between USA and PRC? (Whether this was part of a policy by a bigger faction within the administration and if so, which one of them is murky to me.)
Now, the issues between quite untethered California and the Federal government have finally come to boil. The trigger to me seems to be the transgender athletes competing against girls, where the Federal government sees California Title IX application to this issue as violation and the regular people just unfair. California continued this practice, despite warnings from Washington DC, and the current administration threatened to withhold Federal funds for California sports. Thereafter, Newsom threatened to withhold the Federal share of California state taxes, a move somewhat reminiscent to the Nullification Crisis prior to the Civil War in 1800s.
Meanwhile, a group of Antifa or similar group(s) coordinated an attack on ICE that had done a raid in Los Angeles.
More importantly, both the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass and governor Newsom publicly refused to help to quell the rioters, even opposing the Federal efforts. The rioters were attacking Federal law enforcement with stones and were painting graffiti putting things in fire. In fact, a roster of California political people have come in defense of David Huerta who got arrested for participating in the riot, but their support to anti-Federal action.
I am writing this in Helsinki-Vantaa Airport, waiting for a flight that would take me back to California Bay Area via Frankfurt am Main and Los Angeles Airports. By the time I have landed, well before the time I can post this (I need to add links to sources), we will see if the California or Federal authorities have caved in. If the California stops protecting the violent mobs, removes transgender athletes from girls competitions and possibly even ponies up some tax tithes to Federal government, the incipient civil war will be averted. If the Federal government fails to enforce its rules also in California, I fear that this was the opening shot of the active phase of the disintegration of the United States. Worst case scenario, neither gives in, we may have active civil insurgency in multiple blue states by the end of the summer. The most likely outcome will be a frozen conflict, that is: both sides will pretend nothing significant happened but neither will acknowledge that the other side might have won.
I also predict there will be lots of pundits dissecting irrelevant minutiae from the utterances of either side, and thanks to the strong left bias of the main stream media, the reporting will mostly support California and its allies, meaning tailwinds for civil war or mostly peaceful disintegration of USA and headwinds for peace and prosperity. The biggest losers will be the regular people trapped in the middle, looting and violence disrupting supply chains, especially for groceries and fuel, and then collapsing the teetering economy in general.
Update: Much has happened since Sunday. California did not capitulate and the National Guard activated in Los Angeles is up to 4000 and 700 marines are in readiness. When I arrived on Sunday evening to Bay Area, I took the BART from airport to hometown. The train did not take or drop passengers at Embarcadero station due to political activism nearby, but let out a handful of burly police officers and while the train waited a couple of minutes next to the platform, I could observe the officers running and so did a couple of the people already there. There was still a crowd waiting for the next train or something, though the trains had started skipping that station for the duration. Sorry, no video footage of that.
More ominously, a Walmart heiress is funding (in a small part) a nationwide call for unrest June 14th, another weak indicator supporting my hypothesis that the riots that started last weekend are part of elites’ civil war, raging over who gets to loot the treasury.
In social media there are reports of incidents in Denver, Charlotte (NC), Boston (MA), Chicago, New York City and Atlanta, things are escalating fast. This indicates that this is not a question of secession (California from USA) but of civil war by proxy between the progressive left and the conservatives over the control of Federal government. The presidency and the Congress are currently held by Republicans, but vast swathes of the administrative state are governed by the Deep State currently (mostly) promoting leftist ideologies (reasons for that are too long to expostulate in a single post and in any case speculative to the tinfoil hattery territory.) Individual states and their administrative apparati are a hodgepodge of ideologies, but the Left Coast in general and California in particular is the current vanguard and bastion of progressive establishment, so troubles beginning here makes sense.
Finally, whether true or not, the possibility of a fleet of robotaxis fleeing LA riots in order not to get burned by Mexican flag waiving ‘mostly peaceful’ protesters shows what kind of timeline we are living in. In any case, Waymo services have been suspended in downtown LA are for the time being.
Looks like I need to pick some canned meat while it is still available.
I don’t usually work on Sundays (the day of rest and so on), but the recent news about heightening tensions between two nuclear powers have been alarming. No, not the war in Europe, or the slow boiling in Middle East. I am talking about India and Pakistan. Here is what I get from the non-mainstream news/commentary streams I follow.
Negligible Chance of Mushroom Clouds
Apparently, there was a terrorist attack in Kashmir where 26 Indian tourists were killed. This region has been contested by Pakistan and India for decades and occasionally, a war has flared up. India blames the attack on Pakistan, which claims innocence. Regardless of truth, the relationship between the countries tensed up, as in India giving 48 hours for all Pakistanis to get out of the country, whereas Pakistan closed Indian borders and Pakistani airspace from Indian airlines, while revoking visas from Indians and telling the Indian government to reduce their embassy size to 30 people, no military attaches allowed. India informed that they will no longer recognize the Indus River Treaty, which allocates the rights over this common river between the two countries. This is very important, because Indus river waters about 80% of Pakistani farmland, and if India were to block the water, it would create a famine that would collapse Pakistan. Pakistan has informed that if India messes with Indus river, it will be an act of war. Presumably, India has already been accused of flooding some Pakistani villages along Indus tributary. The same podcast claimed that there has been clashes along the border, not just small arms fire but actual artillery shelling. This is before the formal declaration of war. The Indus river question is an existential threat to Pakistan, which is estimated to have at least 170 nuclear warheads and has a first strike policy. India is estimated to have over 160 nuclear warheads and if things escalate, we could see mushroom clouds, though this is still a very small possibility.
A Podcast that YouTube recommended to me says that the magnetic field of the Sun is weakening. Apparently, this may be somehow connected with the likelihood of big earthquakes. Sun’s magnetic field weakens and strengthens by 11-12 year sunspot cycles but the peak magnetic field has been weakening over the latest solar cycles (data starts in 1970s, so we don’t know how things were earlier). This presentation fits the hypothesis that solar weather including sunspot activity triggers earth quakes that has been making rounds around interwebs for some time, except that in this presentation it is the weakening solar magnetic field that creates sunspots and correlates with the frequency of big earthquakes.
The earthquake – sunspot connection has been explained by the effects of space weather on telluric currents, i.e., the electric currents going through Earth, telluric currents being stronger along fault lines. Living within a walking distance from Hayward fault, I have been interested in earthquakes, waiting for the Big One.
Scientists in University of Cambridge have published their analysis of the data collected by James Webb telescope, presenting the results showing likely dimethyl sulfide (DMS) and/or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) signal in the atmosphere of an exoplanet K2-18b. This is thought to be a hycean world, which is supposed to have large liquid water ocean with hydrogen atmosphere but not all scientists agree even that. There were preliminary results suggesting DMS in the atmosphere published earlier, but this later analysis by the group presented more evidence claiming to have strengthened the earlier findings to 3 sigma levels.
DMS on Earth is produced by microbes like phytoplankton, and the researchers consider it in the atmosphere of K2-18b as a potential sign of large amounts of life in the ocean of K2-18b. However, the possibility of some exotic chemistry occurring in extraterrestrial conditions (different gravity, temperature, availability of component chemicals, space chemistry, etc) has not been excluded and may explain the signal, in which case it would be abiogenic. Besides, collecting spectroscopy signals from faraway planets (in this case about 120 light years away) is difficult, and more data is needed to verify the DMS/DMDS signal instead of some other chemical with similar spectrum at 5 sigma certainty.
In any case, an interesting possibility and worth noting, just in case.
A local ABC7 news report from last year informed that the published 2023 Oakland PD clearance rates for violent crime (from assaults to murders) was 3% whereas for property crime the clearance rate (that is, police made an arrest) was 0.1%. For nearby big cities San Francisco and San Jose the respective numbers were 28% and 35% for violent crime and 5% and 7% for property crime. When the ABC7 reporter asked the Oakland PD about the numbers, they were blamed on human error, but they did not have correct numbers available at that time.
While the statistics of San Jose and San Francisco seem pathetic to anyone living in these cities, the Oakland numbers are so close to zero, that if true, instead of a reporting error, the people there would live essentially without law enforcement, if not for the parking enforcement and municipal code inspectors.
According to statistics, Oakland issued close to 269000 parking tickets in 2023. Moreover, a 102 year old man was ordered to clean graffiti from his fence or pay fines. He complained that he could have done it when he was younger but now that he is in wheelchair, the task falls to his 70 year old son. The utility box nearby, also covered with graffiti, I suppose, is apparently OK. However, from the original news: “The city inspector contacted KTVU and said that he would do an immediate inspection and, presumably, cancel the citation.”
Sometimes, the conspiracies of the West like chemtrails or other forms of weather modification and QAnon become boring and it is fun to look at the conspiracies in the East.
One of the more intriguing conspiracy theories (to me) is the claim that China has way fewer people than the official 1.4 billion.
I first encountered this claim some years ago, but did not pay much attention to it. The message sounded too crazy and was promoted by Falun Gong, which has a real reason for a grudge against the CCP government. I am also pretty convinced that part of the anti-China messaging is or was funded by US government as a psy-op against a competing power.
However, while the figures as low as 300 to 400 million Chinese left (in the Peoples Republic of) seem extreme, I can believe fewer than 1.4 billion, probably no more than 1.2 billion, possibly below 1 billion.
3) Mass immigration has generated a global population of hundreds of millions.Many of these individuals are undocumented, which I presume are still in citizenship lists of their home countries while being part of the head count in their current locations. I remember an apocryphal story in Europe about people getting paid social security by two countries, presumably being counted as part of the population in both. I do not know if this inaccuracy includes dual citizens or just undocumented migrants. In case of China, I think their hukou system is pretty water tight within China’s borders, but I also think that millions, maybe tens of millions of Chinese have slipped over the borders, all over the world. These Chinese exist, but reduce the population at home.
4) Chinese population policies have been a demographic disaster. One Child Policy meant that many of the Gen-X were not allowed to be born, reducing the population growth rate. Now there are too few Millenials and even fewer Gen Z and the young people are too stressed to reproduce. Yet, China’s population was supposed to have grown during the 1970s – 2010s, though at least the recent year’s have officially had negative population growth.
Therefore, even if we don’t go with the active depopulation hypotheses,
I don’t think the current global population exceeds 7.5 billion, and would not be hugely surprised if it were as low as 7 billion people.
How much of this was hype and how much was counterhype, I don’t know (though I suspect my search engines show me very biased results.) On my recent trip to Finland I saw the changes in the countryside, big wind turbines can cause. It takes lots of land and removal of trees or elimination of agricultural fields to build a wind park.
All these projects, while openly posted on-line, are presented so that opposing voices are portrayed as conspiracy theorists and antienvironmentalists. But is it a conspiracy theory if they themselves tell everyone their plans, or worse, their actions?
At least the most fanatical theses from the now destroyed Georgia Guidestones are not openly touted. There are people, other than just me, who would consider the reduction of world human population to 500 million from (official) 8 billion or by over 93% rather genocidal.
But the Green New Leap is not just for UK, Germany, Netherlands or Ireland. Finland, too, is planning ambitious net zero targets, and I mean really ambitious, as in lauded by WEF.
Most of Finland is above 60° latitude, about the same level as Alaska or south end of Greenland, mostly more north than Yakutsk in Siberia. Energy is of utmost importance there. Roughly speaking, a person can survive a few minutes without air, a few hours without heating, a few days without water and a few weeks without food.
Meanwhile in China, 2024 began to build 94.5 GW worth of coal power plants and resumed 3.3 GW of suspended projects according to two think tanks. Only 2.5 GW of old capacity was closed 2024. (Side note: with China’s economy tanking and exports faltering, what do they need this new energy capacity for?)
But what about the reindeer burps?
Indeed, according to our reliable news media, a study was published that Lapland will not be able to meet its greenhouse targets by 2035 because of the large emissions from its agriculture, namely the reindeer. Which as ruminants are burping too much methane, which is a greenhouse gas. Unfortunately, I could not find a link to the original study to check the claims, and to see if the researchers were in earnest or if this was some sort of reductio ad absurdum-document to demonstrate the futility of the Net Zero targets.
However, assuming the reporting is true, reindeer are part of the Arctic ecosystem, and even if the semidomesticated populations in Lapland were counted as human livestock, those globalist net zero plans that would involve reducing the number of large ruminants, such as grazing cows and sheep, come dangerously close to messing the ecosystems by removing large herbivore guild from the food network. While I can see the point in reducing the use of feedlots and grain / soybean based fodder in ranching, eliminating free-range foraging herbivores is IMHO insane.
Ironically, the climate war against cattle (products) is not fully compatible with the idea of rewilding the land, which presumably involves switching domesticated large herbivores with wild large herbivores to the net zero effect on burps per acre in case of free grazing animals. Large scale rewilding is currently hypothetical rather than practical, as the numbers of large wild herbivores are insufficient for the switch. Humans and their cattle, pets and pests account for about 96% of terrestrial mammal biomass. The remaining about 4% is everything else from Etruscan shrew to elephant. Cows alone are ~40% of Earth’s land mammal biomass, meaning there are no replacement herbivores. And without ungulates, the grassland ecosystems will collapse.
When we consider this and other volcanoes, and the coal plants of China and the rest of the world (not to mention everything else that produces greenhouse gases, such as termites), how much effect would it have on the atmospheric chemistry and global climate change if all the reindeer in Lapland stopped burping?
PlanktonPunkt 