Just for fun.  

The Village people did their YMCA song and dance at Trump's victory rally.

The cowboy was missing his six shooters.

Construction guy was sans his nail gun.

Police guy was unarmed.

Chief has misplaced his tomahawk.

Army guy was missing arms.

The last one (never knew what he was ) is unarmed.

Good security!

lol

P

Quote:THE PHENOMENON OF THE UNMARKED SHIPPING CONTAINERS

January 17, 2025 / Joseph P. Farrell

A number of you spotted this story during the Christmas-New Year's holdays, and sent it to me, and I have to admit, I'm quite intrigued by the story, so thank you to all of you who did so.

The story itself is simple enough, but fraught with all sorts of "high octane implications", a few of which I want to explore today. The "simple story" itself concerns the fact that many shipping containers that pile up at American ports (and therefore, presumably, at ports in other nations), simply have no container or manifest numbers, or if they do, they are quickly erased. Here's the story:

Quote:The Mystery of Unmarked Shipping Containers at America’s Ports

Notice, however, that according to the article, these containers and the attempts to investigate them fall into a pattern:

Quote:Ports run like clockwork. Every container has a code. Every shipment has paperwork. Every move is logged. The entire system is designed to keep track of goods moving through.


But for months, workers have been spotting containers that somehow slip through the cracks. These containers don’t follow standard patterns. They weigh more than they should. Their paperwork marks them as empty, yet their movement suggests otherwise.

What’s more, equipment around these containers often fails without explanation—scales, temperature sensors, GPS systems, and even phones mysteriously stop working. And then there’s the security. Teams that no one recognizes show up, handle the containers, and vanish. No uniforms. No markings. Just quick, efficient work like they’ve done this a hundred times before.

All of this began, according to the article, with a port worker at Long Beach noticing an odd container with an odd number:

Quote:Two months ago, a veteran customs inspector at Long Beach saw something so odd, he couldn’t let it go. A container with the number KZU 7793554 had a format different from any he’d seen in 15 years. Standard containers have four letters and seven numbers. This one had eight numbers.

The paperwork said it was empty, but the scale told a different story—27,000 pounds instead of the 5,000 pounds typical of empty containers. When he tried to flag it in the system, his entire computer crashed. By the time systems rebooted, the container was gone—moved in minutes by a crew and equipment no one recognized.

The next day, it was as if the container never existed. Its spot on the shipping manifest had been replaced. Security footage of those 20 minutes? Blank.

The inspector started watching, and he saw more of these containers. Same odd number formats. Always heavier than they should be. Always “empty.” Always moved by unfamiliar crews.

One night, he got close enough to hear something coming from inside. It wasn’t machinery. It wasn’t cargo shifting. It was… something else.

With that, we come to a first high octane speculation, because in this instance the "shifting contents" of the mysterious container suggests some thing, or some things, that is or are alive: wild animals, perhaps even some unknown species, or perhaps a laboratory "creation", or perhaps even smuggled human or animal cargoes.  Indeed, toward the end of the article, an incident is alleged that included a strange living creature:

Quote:Most refrigerated containers don’t go below -20°C. This one read -80°C—impossible. Its equipment wasn’t standard, and it drew massive amounts of power for unknown purposes.


A reinforced viewing panel caught his attention, and despite his better judgment, he looked inside. Behind the frosted glass, a massive shape moved, deliberate and fluid. It seemed to shift as though it couldn’t decide if it wanted to be solid or liquid.

When its eyes turned toward him, they didn’t just reflect his light—they absorbed it. Then the sound came: a deep, bone-rattling thrum that felt alive. The worker backed away, only to find himself confronted by men in Hazmat gear. They questioned him for hours, forced him to sign non-disclosure agreements, and transferred him to a different job the next day.

Yet another incident involved yet another strange creature:

Quote:Sometimes, damaged containers need inspection. One night, a night shift worker approached a cracked container. What he found inside still haunts him.

Through the crack, he saw movement. At first, he thought it was shadows. Then, he realized: it was massive, at least seven feet tall. Its skin looked alive, neither fur nor scales, shifting like liquid adapting to the darkness. Its eyes? Too large and too aware, reflecting light like an animal’s but with an intelligence he could feel.

Then came the smell. Like ozone and wet dirt but with an unnatural sting. His flashlight flickered off. His phone died. And the sound—it was a low vibration, almost like a growl, at a pitch that rattled his teeth.

Within minutes, men in unmarked uniforms arrived. They labeled it a chemical leak, cleared the area, and moved the container using specialized equipment. The next day? No record of damage. No sign anything had happened at all.

The article continues with more repetitions of the pattern of a mysterious container, failing equipment, and mysterious "dock crews" showing up:

Quote:A crane operator with 20 years of experience shared his own unsettling encounter. He could lift almost any container blindfolded—it was part of the job to “sense” how containers move. But three months ago, he came across one that didn’t feel right.

The container, KZU 77951 Z2, was marked empty. But when he lifted it, his instruments failed. The weight sensor went dead. His radio stopped working. Even the container itself swayed unnaturally, like something inside was moving deliberately.

And the strangest part? The panels on the side of the container. They weren’t standard cooling panels but something far more advanced. When he got close, he heard a humming sound that made his teeth hurt. His attempts to document the oddities failed—his phone shut off, and the photos he’d previously taken turned to blank screens.

Thus the pattern is always the same:

Quote:The evidence is overwhelming. Mysterious containers marked as empty but far too heavy. Equipment malfunctions that seem intentional. Security teams who appear, handle the situation, and leave without a trace.

Needless to say, I find the story fascinating, because it itself implies that something - an exotic life form or life forms of some sort - is being moved by such a system. But moved from where, to where, and by whom, and for what purpose? We don't know. But the story is an indicator that some sort of global system is in place for moving - and monitoring - clandestine shipments, which could be used for anything: smuggling human cargo for whatever nefarious purpose, from sex rings, to slavery, organ harvesting, you name it; to smuggling other kinds of cargo, from technologies to artifacts. The possibilities are virtually limitless, and may even include the covert smuggling of nuclear weapons or dirty bombs.

Oddly enough, the article contains a few clues in the container numbers it alleges to be involved, and that detail is suspicious enough. Whence did the numbers come to its author? By what route? why were these very specific details included in an article otherwise of a more general nature?

It is  as if someone is trying to say: "Look here."

So... I looked...

Or rather, glanced, because I obviously did not and do not have time to investigate the claims more fully, nor do I have the financial resources to do so. But my glance did turn up something rather interesting, if not completely unexpected. The container numbers mentioned in the article began with the letters "KZU". I did q quick internet search, and discovered that these letters were the letters assigned to a Turkish air cargo company based in Istanbul called "Kuzu Cargo Airlines":

https://airlinehistory.co.uk/airline/kuz...-airlines/

As that website notes:

Quote: ULS Airlines Cargo was established and started operations in Jun2004 as Baron Air Cargo. Renamed to Kuzu Cargo Airlines in Oct2004 and was rebranded to current name on 03/Jul/2009 after it has been taken over by ULS Group, a New York based shipping and logistics company

with Kuzu Cargo Arilines being an

international cargo airline headquartered in Istanbul with its main base is Istanbul Atatürk Airport.

My attempts to follow these clues on the internet led to more or less of a complete dead end. Searching for "Baron Air Cargo" led to "Baron Aviation" a small air cargo company based in Missouri, and not New York, as claimed by the website. And ULS is simply the rebranded Kuzu Cargo Airlines with its own website: https://airlinehistory.co.uk/airline/kuz...-airlines/

In any case, we are looking are cargo air services, and not at oceanic shipping, unless the article is trying to suggest some weird connection between the two, and with Turkey.

The basic core of my high octane speculations, however, remains: there is something going on at the world's ports: some thing or some things are being smuggled, and smuggling operations of that scale require an infrastructure and monitoring, and the probable connivance of port (and airport) authorities and the complicity of cargo and shipping companies.

In short, we're perhaps at the very beginnings of a mystery and a story here that would seem to bear some watching...

Running through some YouTube videos, I found a couple that may be of interest to cryptid-hunters regarding American werewolves / Dogmen. Since they are cryptids, the distinction may only be academic, but I've always thought of werewolves as shape-shifters, and Dogmen as pure critter cryptids. It never really dawned on me that the two may be the same critter, They were - and still are - firmly separated in my mind.

In this day and age of creepypasta, and the recent resurgence of Appalachian folklore being promoted on the internet, a strange phenomena is on display - every bit as strange as the cryptids themselves, I think. It's this: bits and pieces of folklore from far-flung realms, and across a range of times from the distant past to  this morning, are being conflated and repackaged for consumption on the internet., creating what one author has dubbed "fakelore".

Examples may be found in these videos. Some speculate that these critters may be "skin walkers". They are not, nor can they be. This is the eastern US forest. It's not the Arizona or New Mexico deserts where the Navajo roam, and "skin walkers" are a firmly Navajo thing. There are no "skin walkers" in the Appalachians, for example, no matter how many YouTubers try to convince you otherwise. The closest thing here would be things like the "owl witches" of some local native american tribes - "Medicine Men" or "witches" that transform into owls. Creepy maybe, but definitely not your average Navajo skin walker.

Others claim they may be "wendigos". No cigar there, either. The Wendigo is a mostly Canadian - Cree I think - legend, although some of those legends may be found as far south as the Great Lakes... but NOT this far south. Furthermore, the wendigo is a spirit-being, and can't be seen with the eye. They made themselves known by "posessing" Native Americans, who then proceeded to kill and eat other folks. In other words, the wendigo is an explanation for just plain old cannibal behavior.

As an added bonus, we now have reports of "the rake" or "pale crawlers" in the Appalachians. No such critters here. Never have been, and there ain't now. That, as with most of the above, is a pure fantasy product of the internet, and a desire to make a buck by getting clicks. What folks are doing, really, is combining and ultimately diluting legitimate folklore, turning it into "fakelore" by doing so. They are destroying our legitimate folklore.

There ARE strange things here. I myself have seen things in these hills that I can't quite explain, some fairly recently, at this very location, in this last snow storm. But the creepypasta versions of cryptids cannot hold a candle for the "real" things that may be encountered here, if you thrash around in the forests long enough. Even my Dear Old Dad, who feared nothing and believed in nothing that he couldn't shoot or pop a knife into... or just grab hold of and give a good shaking, has seen things he couldn't quite explain. His take on it was to shrug and say that SOMEONE could explain it, just not him. In other words, just because he didn't know what it was didn't mean that no one knew what it was, or just because HE couldn't explain it, that didn't mean it had no explanation. Pap was smart like that. He had a measured IQ of 194 as I recall, but he was the first to admit that didn't mean there wasn't anything he didn't know. Being smart isn't the same thing as being educated, or knowing everything there is to know... the ability to learn something is not the same thing as already knowing it.

So, without further ado, I present to you the videos of the American Werewolf / Dogman, most centered around the Ohio Valley, in Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and Kentucky - and keep in mind the woods surrounding my humble home here are directly connected in an unbroken line to all of the woods in those places as well... so what may be found there may also be found HERE. I live a few hundred yards from the top of the ridge that divides the Ohio Valley from the Tennessee Valley, and there are unbroken woods for a couple of hundred miles in all directions from where I sit. I could almost walk under continuous tree canopy from here to Michigan Swamp Buck's place, if it weren't for some farmland and prairie in western Ohio and eastern Indiana.

First up is a relatively short, 13 minute video of "werewolves caught on camera". This particular video is not limited to the Ohio Valley. It includes the Beast of Cannock Chase and "Old Stinker" in Yorkshire, both UK legends, as well as a Brazilian werewolf:



Next up is an hour and 20 minute documentary on "The American Werewolf", concentrating on the Ohio Valley:



And, last in this post, another hour and 20 minute documentary, "Werewolves Unearthed", dealing mostly with Kentucky:



Enjoy... and make sure your doors and windows are locked at night, and your curtains drawn. I do.

.

For The One In Wales (Ode To A Lady)


My sister –
you walked on this stone by yourself;
felt the pain of a whole world
and dared to make it a better place.
I compare you to a rose
late in the fall of the year
whose petals, though losing the will to live,
still reach for the gift the suns’ arms offer.
The memory of your untiring compassion
will not long be forgotten,
nor will we soon comprehend
the grief we feel for you.
I never knew you, but, like you,
I cried at the tragedies that were inflicted
upon this irreplaceable home to us all.
You did make a difference,
one that will not soon be forgotten;
if not in our minds and our memories,
then deep in our hearts.
In my heart, I will keep a small corner
a shrine to your ideals;
perpetuating a hope for us all
of a better earth and home
with a single red rose in mourning.


(Dedicated to the memory of Diana, Princess of Wales.)


****************************
I wrote this on August 31st, 1997, when she was killed in an automobile accident.  Even though I am an American, I liked and respected her.  We were born a scant few months apart.

This is what they are claiming however we all know China's word on anything may not be the truth..

The philosopher’s stone, in the context of spiritual alchemy, is a metaphor for achieving higher consciousness, wisdom, and the perfection of the soul. Alchemical philosophers described it as a “Tincture” with healing and life-giving properties, attainable only through the correct series of practical operations known as the Magnum Opus or Great Work. This spiritual interpretation reframes the quest for the philosopher’s stone as a metaphor for personal and spiritual transformation.


ByMakenzie MarslandPublishedSeptember 25, 2017

“Magnum Opus” or “great work”; this is what ancient esoteric alchemists called the philosopher’s stone – the much sought after material that would cure the sick, give you eternal life and turn any metal into gold. Couldn’t possibly exist, right? As an actual substance that makes you immortal and transforms plain metal into gold it is doubtful, though we do know that many alchemists put their blood, sweat, and tears into trying to make it (there even exists online Isaac Newton’s recipe for the substance); However as a very deep and meaningful spiritual practice that has been used by Hermetic alchemists for hundreds of years, that is no question.
The reason that alchemists called the philosopher’s stone the magnum opus was because they considered it to be their life’s goal; the end all be all for them to achieve, if they achieve it at all. It being the perfect material, it could easily be compared to the perfect being. It is not something you expect to achieve, but you work towards it every day regardless. That is the spiritual way to look at the philosopher’s stone. You at your current self are a base metal, and then you go through the alchemical process, and come out gold.


This alchemical process has gone through many changes throughout the ages, but I want to look at how it started, which is with four stages based on colors. The first stage is nigredo, or blackening. In practical alchemy this involves the decomposition of the materials to their base forms and becoming cleansed; this can be compared to shedding your psychological ego, and coming to terms with your inner demons. That can be things you have done in the past, or things that have been done to you.
Next comes albedo, or whiteness. After the difficult work of spiritual death in nigredo, you go through a cleansing, and become as a new person would. You feel freed from your past self and are happy to move forward and take on new things. New things may awaken in you that were hidden by your ego before.




Then you will experience citrinitas, or yellowing. After opening yourself to opportunities, you will go through a spiritual awakening. You will become wiser and stronger emotionally to handle the challenges that life throws at you. This process will likely take longer than the others, as it can take some people years to truly become wise; and for some they may get stuck in this step or any other step for that matter.
Finally there is rubedo, or redness. The physical philosopher’s stone was associated with the color red, and this step is symbolic of the completion of the magnum opus. After all the steps you went through – shedding your old self, becoming cleansed of those impurities, and having a spiritual awakening, you will reach wholeness with yourself. This is the great work in spiritual terms. It is a daily process, and there may be times when you have to take a step back and begin again, but you have a whole lifetime to reach a state of wholeness.
This self-work permeates through many alchemic and Hermetic teachings, and influenced the work of many great men such as Isaac Newton and Carl Jung, and that is why it still permeates parts of western sub-cultures and even pop-culture even today. However, I feel that many have lost this important spiritual process that was so core to alchemy, and it doesn’t require any materials or magick, just self-work and dedication.

https://cvltnation.com/spiritual-alchemy...ers-stone/

With the Rogue Nation archived site down, I wondered if I could scrounge up one of the threads that some might find
interesting. With this pragmatic and pessimistic humanity swiftly moving away from the times when our world moved
slower and a different type of night prowled outside one's window, I think it's somehow comforting to know there are
still places where the winds of wordage still bring a chill to a listener's reasoning.

We're all familiar with the many accounts of the that elusive beastie that lurks in Loch Ness, but over in a certain
region of western Ireland there are tales of similar aquatic animals that managed to evade most of the media's
demands for reader consumption. The area of Connacht holds counties where lakes (loughs) that vary in size and
depth, are lonely pools are home to trout, salmon and the odd otter that know little of regular traffic.



Wild and rugged landscapes with acres of bogland, mountains and hills hold sway and accept the Atlantic weather
without complaint. The Great Famine of the late 1840’s brought catastrophic death and suffering in Ireland and
Connacht ranked as the region hardest hit with some estimates that twenty-five-percent of its population died.

The famine’s effects fell disproportionately on native Irish speakers such as those living in Connemara. and by 1840,
only around twenty-three people still lived in the settlement north of the Shanakeever valley in 1840. Yet the tales
of other inhabitants of Connacht fortunately endured. Let's take a look.
................................

On a cold rainy morning of 1944, a farmer called Patrick Canning was worried about a pregnant donkey that grazed
along the reedy banks of Shanakeever lake and deciding the inclement weather might be too much for an outdoor
delivery, he trudged through the deluge towards one of the streams that fed the small body of water. Peering across
the reeds and tall grass, Canning saw his donkey stand up as if appreciating his attendance and yet, the scene at
that moment left Patrick believing he was too late to take part in the pregnancy.


Lough Shanakeever.

A dark shape -possibly the half-hidden foal itself, seemed to be slowly circling its mother as if wishing to nurse and
the farmer concerned that the pair were too close to the water's edge, was suddenly surprised when the black form
stopped its lurking and promptly disappeared smoothly into the stream.

Confounded by the situation, Canning led the still-pregnant donkey away from the Shanakeever lake and a few days
later, the foal was born. A few years later, Patrick Canning provided a brief description to a researcher and explained
his sighting took place at a distance of three hundred yards.

"It was long. And it was rather a bit high, you know.  It was black. My sight was not...because there
was mist and rain and everything. The neck seemed to be...I'd say it was a bit long...."
He would go onto to claim the animal had legs and ears upon its head. It circled the donkey "gently"
Canning was certain it was not an otter and understood what he'd seen was what was referred to locally
as a horse-eel.
................................

Some time in the 1970's, a report came forward from another Patrick, this was Patrick Walsh who was in a row-boat
upon Lough Shanakeever when the head and neck and a creature surfaced nearby. In fear that the strange shape may
capsize his boat, Mr. Walsh immediately rowed to shore. Patrick recalled that two men who had gone down to the
shore in order to inspect an unusual object near land when it came to life and swam off. Mr Walsh agreed with the
description provided by the men that it as eel-like and 16 feet long.

However, the account of the 'counterfeit foal' wasn't the last word from Patrick Canning. During his interview with
the researcher, the farmer noted an incident he'd heard some few years earlier on the shores of Lough Ballynahinch.
A lake of almost three miles long, is fed by two other large bodies of water (Derryclare Lough and Lough Inagh).
Lough Ballynahinchis is inland of Shanakeever lake and several miles to the east.

Some children had been playing along the gorse-edged beach when they noticed a dark animal capering beside the
water. Taking that the creature must be -in their words 'a grand little foal', the ran back their to their parents' cottage
in order to relate their observation. On returning to the location, the children and their elders witnessed the assumed
equine dive into Lough Ballynahinch and slip beneath its waters. The parents took the sighting to be of a horse-eel.
................................

In 1998, Tom Joyce -a long time resident of the Shanakeever valley, was interviewed regarding a sighting of his own
in Lough Shanakeever. It was 1963 and Mr. Joyce had been guiding sheep to the farmyard when a commotion broke
out upon the otherwise calm surface of the Lough Shanakeever. Moving away from the shore before curving slightly
parallel to where Mr Joyce watched, he witnessed a large grayish hump 'sparkling' in the sunlight. The object entered
a patch of reeds where its larger submerged bulk crushed over the plants as it crept along before finally sinking below.
Tom Joyce estimated the creature to be of a length of seven or eight feet and around two feet in height.

During his 1998 interview, Mr Joyce related an interesting story involving a previous neighbour on the lough.
Something had been taking the man's sheep and a dog or fox was suspected. A sheep's carcass was set down by
the lake shore as bait for the nocturnal marauder while the man sat up the hill wrapped in a blanket and armed with
a rifle.

Eventually something was heard approaching the spot where the carcass had been set though nothing could be made
under the moonlight.  Hardly able to contain himself after the long cold wait the sheep-herder let off a blast of the rifle
with expectation that a dog or a fox would be sent scampering up the hill.  However what happened next was most
unexpected. In response to the shot there was a great splash as something lunged into the water. Nothing could be
seen swimming away so whatever was inspecting the carcass had dived beneath the surface.
The spray it created was far to great for an otter.

Almost two decades would pass before Tom Joyce would again see a horse-eel. In 1980 he was attending an outdoor
summer barbeque at a cottage on Lough Auna when a number of guests noticed a strange swimming animal. Lough
Auna is nearer the west coast of Ireland and is surrounded by boggy marshland, this type of 'run-off' releases Auna's
waters into a western meandering stream that leads to Lough Shanakeever.

During the party held at the cottage near Lough Auna a group of attendees, including Tom Joyce, were called to the
attention of a strange shape coursing across the lake at a 'walking pace'.  The object was estimated at five feet in
length and about a foot in height. What puzzled Joyce and his fellow-party-goers, were the unusual projections said
to present along the back of the creature.


Lough Auna.

Some suggested it was an otter carrying young upon its back or a large fish. One of the witnesses -Air Commodore
Kort of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, noted that such an animal would have left a wake as it swam. Whereas, as
he would recall, "the uncanny thing about it was the gliding movement without any disturbance of the water on the
surface." The anomaly was watched until disappearing into a patch of reeds.

This unusual experience is reminiscent of the first reported sighting at Lough Auna. Some time in the 1960's, a local
farmer claimed to have seen a grey animal with a pointed back swimming in the lake. He described it as being about
fifteen feet long, and having a head like a horse and a body like an eel.
He was so frightened by the encounter that he never went near the lake again.

However, Commodore Kort stated that the encounter at the barbeque with these lake aberrations wasn't his first.
In 1969, whilst he and his wife were visiting the area and driving along an unpaved road beside Lough Auna, they
spotted something strange in the water. They stopped their car and watched as a large creature emerged from the
lake and crossed the road in front of them. They estimated its length to be about 18 feet, and noticed that it had
scales, flippers, and a long tail. They also said that it had a horse-like head with large eyes and nostrils, and that
it made a loud snorting sound as it passed by.



Since then, there have been several more sightings of the creature by various witnesses, including bog workers,
fishermen, tourists, and locals near to the small body of water. Some have even claimed to have seen more than
one creature at a time, suggesting that there may be a family or a colony of them living in Lough Auna.
................................

A main theory for these multiple sightings of these evasive creatures in such a remote region around Connemara
is that they utilise the connecting streams man-made drain ditches and reed-ridden marshes to move between
the loughs. But since the majority of observations took place when these animals are said to surface in a lake, is
there any reports of these horse-eels being seen in transit to their chosen bodies of water?

Just a little south-east of Shanakeever Valley is the Derrylea Lough, a mile-long body of water that lies beside the
N59 highway and is laden with fat brown trout. Back in the 1880s, a drought occurred in the Connemara area and
where gushing streams once swelled the boggy conduits between the loughs, now trickling creeks were the only
links.


Derrylea Lough and Lough Crolan.

It was reported that between Derrylea Lough and the nearby smaller Lough Crolan, an alleged horse-eel found itself
obstructed by a large drainage pipe in a culvert and became lodged in the aperture. None of the locals cared to
approach the beast on account of its frightful appearance. It was left to eventually "melt away" inside its cylindrical
chamber and later, the pipe was measured at eighteen inches in diameter and required repairs.
If any remains were discovered was never investigated.
................................

While trying to locate the culvert where the horse-eel supposedly decomposed, a Clifden librarian called Paul Keogh
came upon a story featuring a terrestrial horse-eel. Peter McDonagh is farmer living on Derrylea Lough right outside
of Clifden. A coastal town in County Galway, Clifden is often referred to as 'the Capital of Connemara' and known
for the location where Alcock and Brown crash landed in June 1919 on the first non-stop transatlantic flight.

When asked by the librarian if he was familiar with the accounts of the horse-eels, Mr McDonagh was a little confused
until he realised Paul Keogh was talking about the 'Water Horse'. It was then the farmer recited an experience had by
his father.

On a summer morning sometime during the early 1900s, Peter's father Matty McDonagh was delivering a load of coal
to Clifden. As he was driving his horse-drawn wagon along a three foot tall stone wall separating Lough Derrylea from
the road, a water-horse suddenly leapt up onto the wall. Frightened, Matty immediately sped away but when he looked
back the water-horse had gone back into the lake.

Since the culvert's horse-eel was likened to a "giant eel" it poses a mental challenge in trying to imagine how a large eel
could possibly "jump" up onto a wall. When asked what a water-horse looked like, the response was simple and all too
predictable: like a horse.

(To Be Continued)

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“The usefulness of the cup is in its emptiness” is a popular quote by Bruce Lee. I have always thought of this as a reference to a Buddhist saying, however, it appears to come from the Taoist philosophy, the Ole Chinese "Yin-Yang".



I also have related it to the classic optimist/pessimist ideology questioning, "Is a glass half empty or half full?" because the usefulness of the cup is in its emptiness.



It is, of course, much deeper than that.

Quote:”Spokes are connected to make a wheel;
yet it is the hole within the hub that moves the wagon.
Clay is molded to shape into pot;
yet it is the emptiness within that makes it an utensil.
Doors and windows are cut to make a room;
yet it is the inner space within that makes it livable.
Therefore, advantage comes from what is;
usefulness comes from what is not.”
Tao Te Ching Chapter 11

Quote:A cup is useful for its emptiness.
Without the emptiness, there is no space to hold the drink, making the cup useless as a cup.
So while physical existence of the cup is what we see, it is its emptiness that makes the cup useful.

A house is useful for its emptiness.
Without the space, no one can live in there, and the house is useless as a house.
While the walls and pillars are what we see, emptiness is the purpose of the house’s physical existence.

Emptiness is the non-being, the intangible. In contrast, being is the physical presence of a thing, the tangible. Being is ‘something’ or ‘have’. Nonbeing is ‘nothing’ or ‘have not’.
They are the yang and yin of existence.
They are the whats and whys of the things you see.
Although the cup – or the something — is what you own, it is the emptiness – the nothing – that you use.  You own the being — the cup — for the non-being — the space.

Quote:

You may be wondering why I've put a blog about an article that, in turn, is about a radiation-eating fungus and mold under the heading of "Cosmic War," but patience, we'll get back to that.  I knew, however, when I saw this article that was shared by T.S. (with out gratitude), that I'd be blogging about it.  In fact, I even created a special temporary folder just for the email from T.S. that contained the article, because I wanted to be sure to remember to blog about it.  It concerns a radiation-eating fungus being studied by Ukrainian bio-physicists in the burned out reactors from the Chernobyl disaster. Needless to say, there are quite a few implications to this story, and those implications will be spelled out in today's high octane speculation. But first, the story itself:

Eating gamma radiation for breakfast

The story begins with the discovery that mold was not only actually growing in high high radiation environment of the Chernobyl reactors, but that it was thriving in that environment:

Quote:In the late 1980s Ukrainian scientists studying the dark, dangerous interior of Chernobyl’s destroyed Reactor 4 found that a black, mould-like fungus was growing across the walls and in pools of radioactive water. The fungus was not just surviving the immense radiation levels in the reactor building, but seemed to be thriving – even growing towards the very highest levels of gamma radiation.


Over the next 15 years thousands of strains of hundreds of different species of microfungi were isolated from in and around the Chernobyl disaster site[1]. In tests many of them grew towards strong sources of ionising radiation and some even appeared able to digest so-called ‘hot particles’ – immensely radioactive graphite from the reactor core itself.

Now hold on to your hats, because this is where it gets extremely intriguing. Scientists investigating the phenomenon figured out that what was enabling this bizarre behavior was a change in metabolism brought about by melanin, the pigment found in various types of skin, including in black people:

Quote:After the initial observational studies by Ukrainian scientists, Professor Ekaterina Dadachova and colleagues at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York decided to investigate these remarkable fungal species in more detail in a series of laboratory experiments. They found that cells of fungi such as Wangiella dermatitidis (now Exophiala dermatitidis) and Cryptococcus neoformans grew significantly faster and accumulated more biomass during exposure to high levels of radiation than when exposed to background levels of radiation[2]. The fungi’s transcriptome and metabolism were significantly altered under the high-radiation conditions[3].

The key to it all seemed to be melanin – the ubiquitous group of pigments found in many types of eukaryote that protect against UV radiation. Dadachova and her colleagues found that when the radiotrophic fungal strains were engineered to have no or little melanin (known as albino mutants) they did not grow better in the presence of ionising radiation.

Now here's the kicker:

Quote:In the species found in the Chernobyl reactors, the heavy pigment forms multiple concentric layers that build into a dark spherical shell. Eroding the other cell material away with strong chemicals leaves dark melanin ‘ghosts’ in the shape of the parent cell[4].

Dadachova and colleagues found that strong ionising radiation changes the electrochemical structure of fungal melanin, increasing its ability to act as a reducing agent[3] and transfer electrons. They began to theorise that melanin was acting not just as a radioprotective shield, but as an energy transducer that could sense and perhaps even harness the energy from the ionising radiation in the same way photosynthetic pigments help harness the energy of sunlight.

“What’s important to say is that when you give a fungus its favourite nutritious media, it has no need to turn on these mechanisms,” says Dadachova. “It will just eat what you give it and it will not start using the ionising radiation – we tested that many times. But if the fungus finds itself in nutrient-deficient conditions – for example, right inside the Chernobyl reactor where there is no rotting vegetation to process – that’s when they switch on that mechanism.”

...Heavily melanised fungi have been found growing on the outside surfaces of the Mir and ISS space stations, which are battered by huge levels of solar radiation.

What all of this means is that there are possible applications not only for space use, but food and energy production, and even medicine, and all of these applications have, as I will attempt to show, a "down" side:

Quote:A better understanding of the properties of fungal melanin could lead to interesting applications in a number of areas. Some groups are looking to make synthetic melanins for use as protectorants against UV or other forms of radiation. Others think fungi could find a use in the bioremediation of radioactive waste. Dadachova is particularly interested in how melanin could be used to help protect patients undergoing radiation therapies. She is also working on a collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency and scientists from the Brookhaven National Laboratory on melanin-based spacesuits that could protect astronauts from the effects of radiation in space. (The work has so far involved making tiny melanin helmets to protect the brains of mice.)

Then there is the possibility that radiotrophic fungi could help us develop new sources of renewable energy and biomaterials. “There are many places on our planet that experience very [little rain] and where plants are difficult to grow. Could you replace them with plants or fungi that use melanin instead of chlorophyll? Those guys don’t mind being in very dry conditions. And they will probably make the same useful sugars and other things that we take from green plants currently,” says Dadachova. More speculative ideas imagine that these fungi could help protect or even feed space colonists – for example, forming a self-replicating radioprotective building material for a Martian base. (emphases added)

The implications of such a fungal-melanin technology are evident in the article's own speculations about potential space applications, applications that would appear to be confirmed by the presence on the Mir space station of such fungus on the outside of the station, in the high radiation environment of space.  Soviet and Japanese scientists for many years were working in the arcane field of plant utilization of radiation that would otherwise prove lethal to most organisms, and made several intriguing but little-known discoveries about how such plants are able to transmute such radiation via low-energy biological processes into harmless material, an alchemical enterprise if ever there was one.

But it's the implication itself, together with Dadachova's own statement that she wants to investigate the uses of such a bio-technology to protect cancer-radiation patients.

Let the implications of that one sink in for a moment.

Imagine the perfecting of such a technology to the point that a simple injection would not only shield an individual from high radiation, but perhaps even be able to reverse - in conjunction with cellular-repairing nano-technoologies -  the effects of otherwise lethal doses of radiation. It would mean that radiation sickness itself would no longer be a death sentence.

But it would also mean that the dangers associated with the use of nuclear weapons - even the "dirtiest ones" - were no longer so significant. Even in the case of radioactive elements with long half-lives such as strontium or cobalt, all that would be necessary would be to "unleash the fungus" and gobble it up.

The bad news is, this radiation-gobbling fungus at Chernobyl has been known since the 1980s, and this article is itself proof of the fact that this fungus has been under close study and observation since then. What this means is, in turn, that we are looking at only the public version of this research, the stuff that it's "ok for us common folk to know."

And that implies that somewhere in the hidden laboratories of the world, they may have brought all the high octane speculations concerning this phenomenon into some state of reality already.  Indeed, there have been persistent rumors to this effect every now and then, and for some years.

The real question thus becomes, was the existence and capabilities of this fungus only noticed after the Chernobyl incident? Or was it discovered even earlier than that?

My money is on earlier...

See you on the flip side..

Quote:The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Joint Genome Institute (JGI) is a DOE Office of Science User Facility at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) and part of the Biosciences Area.

Our vision: To lead genomic innovation for a sustainable bioeconomy.

Our mission: As a U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science user facility, we provide advanced genomic capabilities, large-scale data, and professional expertise to support the global research community in studies of complex biological and environmental systems. We optimize our service to the community through responsibly managing our people and resources.

Joint Genome Institute

Hi Folks,

I received an email during the night, from an old pal over at ATS, who informed me that Nightstar was not expected to see out the night.
Now unfortunately confirmed - Nightstar has passed, following a period of ill health.
Nightstar (Lorraine) was one of the founder members (and longtime hostess) of "The Shed" series of threads on ATS.

My understanding is that she has not been in the best of health for some time now, but I don't have any further details at this time. I have asked my friend to keep us posted, and will update the thread if I hear anything further.
As ATS itself is down just now, I am unable to seek clarification or further details from there.

For those who don't know... "The Shed" is/was a magical place where many friends were made and many tales and adventures were shared. It was an odd mix of collaborative fantasy story-telling, and real-life friendship & chat.
Lorraine was a shining light there, always lending an ear to anyone who needed someone to talk to.
Her kind heart and caring nature will live with me, and many other Shed-dwellers who were touched by her kind soul, for a very long time to come.

I would ask that you, as fellow Rogues and kindred spirits, spare a kind wish, a prayer, or positive thought for my friend Nightstar at this time.

'Raine - you are in my thoughts now and forever. I shall be raising a glass in your honour tonight.
Safe journey if it is indeed your time to pass. I'll see you on the other side (as we often joked about!)

Gx