Honeybee historians - track changes in the UK floral landscape over the last 65 years, showing key changes in nectar resources. New paper in @CommsBio by the Science Team @walesbotanic @Zwickynova @abigailjayne26

We analysed 441 honey samples from throughout the UK using DNA metabarcoding to find out which plants honeybees use to make honey. We compared this to a survey of honey samples carried out in 1952.

In 1952 the most important plant for honeybees was white clover (Trifolium repens). This used to be abundant in grazed pastures but increases in silage production and use of inorganic fertilisers and herbicides means that there is less flowering white clover available in 2017.

With less white clover available, honeybees most important plant in 2017 was bramble (Rubus fruticosus). Commonly found on the edges of hedgerows and woodlands and other wild spaces.

The honeybees have also made use of a new crop, oil seed rape. Oil seed rape was first grown in the 1960s and now bright yellow fields of oil seed rape are common in spring. It is now an important honeybee plant and a source of honey (which I think tastes of cabbages).

[Thread] Mobile Launch Platforms are some of my favourite pieces of ground support equipment, so here's a closer look at the Saturn V MLPs with some images from the archive.

The first MLP began construction in July of 1963. The first image here is from late 1963 shows the construction areas just north of the VAB site for MLPs 1 & 2. The second image is a closer look at one of the MLPs in early 1964.

These two images from early 1964 show part of the mount mechanisms that would support the MLPs as they were constructed. Just the size of these alone starts to put things in to perspective!

As the first tower began to grow taller in May of 1964, the first Crawler Transporter (Image 3 and foreground of image 2) began to take shape.

A view of the launch platform itself as it was still being built in July of 1964. The launch platform covered an area close to half an acre.

Dōgen Zenji (💎 19 January 1200 – 22 September 1253), was a Japanese Buddhist priest, writer, poet, philosopher, and founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan.

"But do not ask me where I am going, As I travel in this limitless world, Where every step I take is my home."
~ Dogen

"If you want to see things just as they are, then you yourself must practice just as you are."
~ Dogen

"Life and death are nothing but the mind. Years, months, days, and hours...Dreams, illusions, and mirages are nothing but the mind. The bubbles of water and the flames...The flowers of the spring and the moon of the autumn...Confusions and dangers are nothing but the mind." Dogen

"If you cannot find the truth right where you are, where else do you expect to find it?"
~ Dogen

I have been on this earth since 1951 and have to say that 2020 was the worst year I ever experienced. Not personally; being retired and a misanthrope with a loving wife made the lockdown fairly easy. I got covid but it was a mild case. So compared to others, I had it easy.

But I cannot think of a worse year than 2020 for most other people. I remember the polio epidemic of the 1950s, but I also remember competent public health officials who kept it under control.

I remember the Kennedy assassination and the awful year of 1968 when we lost Bobby and Dr. King, and the cities burned. (I lived not far from Newark and grew up in Detroit.) But those events left no serious, lasting scars on society. Neither did Watergate in 1974.

Probably the most personally painful events of my adulthood were the gas lines of the 1970s. But at least they didn't kill anyone, just caused a lot of inconvenience. The years since the 1970s were mostly okay as far as the nation and society were concerned except for 9/11,

which tuned out to be more of triumph over adversity than a tragedy. I could not have imagined that less than 20 years later we would kill as many as died on that day every day and the president would do absolutely nothing about it. Even more shockingly,

Beautiful eyes, snuffed out by an Indonesian military bullet. Nothing was done really to bring the shooter to justice.
An eyewitness I interviewed in 1995 described the shooter as having a goatee and wearing a blue scarf, an army provost.
Roger East, murdered but not forgotten.

Roger East was an Australian journalist, murdered 45 years ago today. Trying to report the truth of the Indonesian invasion of East Timor. He took cover in a flat the day of the invasion but was grabbed when he went outside, with his camera and notepad, ready to report. ...

Taken to the small park opposite the Hotel Timor, he was tied to a tree. He wasn’t immediately killed, suggesting some hesitation over killing an Australia journalist. After an hour or so a decision to murder him was made. Were orders forthcoming from General Benny Murdani? ...

Did the General reflect on the words of the Australian ambassador Richard Woolcott from their dinner two nights earlier where they discussed the imminent invasion? Murdani may have developed the confidence there would be no repercussions for killing an Australian journalist. ...

DFAT had already given the Indonesians a list of the Australians remaining in East Timor. This list of people needing safety, ultimately became a ‘death list’. So the Indonesians were looking for Roger East when they invaded, needing to remove this last remaining witness. ...

Radio silence for 1 hour, binge-watching cartoons for over an hour and other #Christmas memories from my childhood – a thread to the past in Iceland and Christmas there in the countriside #isolation in the 1970’s where Radio and TV played a key role.

I grew up on a farm just outside the village of Vopnafjörður northeast-Iceland. The village with ca 600 people is surrounded by a few farms like ours but the next living soul is more than 40 km away! It is one of the most isolated places in Iceland (8 hours from Reykjavik).

Back in the 1970´s the roads out of Vopnafjörður were frequently closed for weeks, even months. So apart from flying in or out (not cheap!) via the airport, our only connection to the outside world was the radio and the TV. But until the mid 1980´s Iceland had one radio station!

This sole station is still known as RUV @RUVohf an abbreviation which stands for the State Radio! And there was only one TV station – you guessed it, the State TV, established 1966 (available in colour from 1977).

The radio and TV were operated by the State to provide news and useful information and to promote culture (particularly Icelandic) to the public. The idea of “fun” was pretty low on the priority list. Being State owned meant also the State Employee Rep. Union had a strong say.

My thread yesterday about Hitler, his knowing that he would have to be a Christian hypocrite for political advantage, would also need influential Christian leaders to succeed. For Hitler, this was Gerhard Kittel, the German theologian. He proposed extermination of the Jews.

I briefly mentioned Jerry Falwell. Far right conservative activists Ed McAteer and Paul Weyrich we’re regarded as radicals. There group was to change the existing power structure, but they wanted to change what conservative meant. Weyrich was the man with the vision. He was

known as the “evil genius” of the 1980 manifesto “The New Right: We’re Ready to Lead.” They would establish themselves first as the opposition, then the alternative, finally the government. They would weaken existing institutions and eventually destroy them. First they would

maintain a constant barrage of the left, a constant attack on the legitimacy of the left, “we will not give them a moments rest, we will use guerrilla tactics to undermine all legitimacy of the left. Weyrich stated that he wanted a country and voting changed “I don’t want

everybody to vote.” Continuing “As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down.” The core of the concerns was the perception that American capitalism was under threat from internal and external enemies. The civil rights

A thread on some links between art and literature...
All available in an editable booklet >> https://t.co/QQQ5j31ekw #TeamEnglish

Sethos I Before Horus, by Unknown Artist (c.1280 BCE)

Sethos I was the father of Ramesses II (also known as Ozymandias). In the wallpainting, Sethos is receiving pharaonic regalia to emphasise his power and military success.

Link: Ozymandias, by Percy Bysshe Shelley

Mona Lisa, by Leonardo da Vinci (1503)

The smile of Mona Lisa, also known as a Lisa Gherardini, is playful and ambiguous – almost like she is hiding a secret.

Link: My Last Duchess, by Robert Browning

Landscape with the Fall of Icarus, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (1558)

An illustration of the dangers of pride and ambition. From soaring so high, Icarus is barely noticeable after his fall and life simply carries on around him.

Link: Jekyll and Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

Experiment with a Bird in an Air Pump, by Joseph Wright of Derby (1768)

A wild-eyed scientist, onlookers who seem both intrigued and horrified, and a strong contrast between darkness and light.

Link: Jekyll and Hyde, by Robert Louis Stevenson

In 2004, I left a highly authoritarian group which at that time, C. Peter Wagner considered a leadership paradigm for the New Apostolic Reformation. I left after I found out about the group's secretive past and questioned its true motives, which was to take over the world. 1/

They renamed themselves Every Nation around the time I left. They were previously known as Morning Star International. They were directly descended from a notorious Religious Right campus "cult" of the 70s and 80s, Maranatha Campus Ministries. 2/

Maranatha Campus Ministries was among what Sara Diamond once called the "shock troops of the Religious Right." And underneath the rebranding and leadership shuffles in the wake of MCM's breakup in 1990, the new group arising from its ashes also aspired to take over the world. 3/

I left bc 1. I was terrified that they could take over the US and world. 2. they believed that they would become like God by being "under authority" and rule and reign AS GOD. 3. they lied about their past. I wasn't in the group long but leaving was excruciatingly difficult. 4/

Part of my healing process involved participating in an online cult recovery forum and doing lots and lots and LOTS of research into the group's past, present and teachings. Including the teachings they gave to indoctrinated people once they were properly "under authority." 5/

Before the 76th anniversary of the liberation of #Auschwitz we bring together the most important facts about the last stage of the operation of this German Nazi camp. See the rest of this [THREAD] below. 1/11 #Auschwitz76

At the beginning of 1945, there were around 67,000 prisoners in the Auschwitz camp system. On 12 January 1945, the Soviets started their offensive. In mid-January head of the SS in the region, Ernst Schmauser gave the order to evacuate Auschwitz. 2/11

The final evacuation began on 17 January 1945. Around 58,000 prisoners were evacuated from the Auschwitz camp system. Columns of prisoners were leaving the camps and subcamps between 17 and 21 January. 3/11

On January 20 the SS blew up the buildings of gas chambers II (📷) and III. On January 25/26 SS units entered the camp to destroy the last one - gas chamber and crematorium V. 4/11

Some 9,000 prisoners were left by the SS in the camps. The last SS guards left the camp most probably on January 21, but there were still some SS and Wehrmacht units coming in and out. 5/11

The 1918 -1919 pandemic originated most likely in Kansas, USA. Early March 1918 an outbreak of an unknown illness was recorded in fort Riley, Funston, Kansas. Remember the place and the time.

By late spring/ early summer the illness has spread but was generally mild and almost unnoticed by the public. The US had mobilized troops to join WWI in Europe and a lot of illness spread to a lot of places. For the USA the mortality curve looks something like this

It was the second peak in October that was much more deadly than the first one. An interesting theory is, this was caused by a drug from #Bayer. In 1918 it was heavily advertised and the US Surgeon General recommended a regime of aspirin on 9/15, repeated by the American medical

assocoation on 10/5, for a dosis that we now know is toxic. #Salicylate poisoning is well documented to lead to pulmonary edema and decreased O2 in the blood. The lungs become vulnerable to bacterial pneumonia. #Asperin sales more than doubled in 1918.

Let's jump to the study perfomed in 2008, where our well known Dr #Fauci (CDC,USA and formed head of Covid19 taskforce) was one of the co-authors.They examined autopsy reports, pathological and bacteriological data and concluded the vast

Couldn't sleep throughout the night, and wouldn't want to waste away time on random imaginations, so in my adventure of learning something new every day, I burst into Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazer's fight of 1975 in Manila..

a hell of a great match! But I learned something in the fight and I try to apply it to life's reality.

Muhammad Ali started the fight in his way, throwing punches and jabs at Joe with anger, hoping to knock him out in time due to the mutual hatred they had for each other,

but it never worked. Joe on the other end was just catching the cruise, taking his time to save energy, the round was gone another started, the punches were going and coming in a supplying and demanding manner, it was heating up,

Ali's strategy was cautioned by the referee, after being called to by Joe Frazer's coach, Eddie Futch, how he rests on his opponent's shoulder to catch some breath and then attack.

Still heating up till the second to last round, faces were bruised, blood splashed,

legs were tired, faces were swollen...

Then the lesson👇

Who died last year...before #Event201 #Covid911

Kary Banks Mullis (Dec 28, 1944 – Aug 7, 2019) was an American biochemist. In recognition of his invention of the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) technique, he shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in

#PCRTest: A process that's used to make a whole lot of someting out of something.

Kary Mullis. Inventor of the PCR test and Nobel Prize winner: PCR cannot be totally and should never be used as a tool in "The diagnosis of infectious

False-Positives

#covid911 #PRCtest #Pcrgate #lockstep

False-Positives

#covid911 #PRCtest #Pcrgate #lockstep

Portuguese Court Rules #PCRtest As Unreliable & Unlawful To Quarantine People.

#covid911 #PRCtest #Pcrgate #lockstep

So fascinating, how certain folks suddenly care about "historical accuracy" in fiction when the Black people show up.

I've read novels set in historical periods that featured no women, children, or elderly; none of the reviews noted this. Watched shows set in big American cities -- MY city -- that turned it into young cishet Whitelandia. Not remotely accurate! Never a peep from Team Accuracy.

I've written novels featuring amorphous continent-wrecking gods, talking statues, ninja priests killing people under the watchful eye of a gas giant -- but it's so very telling that the biggest pushback I get is over my characters' race... or mine.

What these folks aaaaaktually want is inaccuracy, of a very specific type. The same inaccuracy they've been fed their whole lives: that white people are the be-all and end-all of every time period, ever. Other kinds of people might be spoken of, but never seen.

They read this in books, see it in films and TV shows, and then try to impose it on real life. We don't do official sundown towns anymore but there are still plenty of de facto ones, where local cops stalk Black residents and local economies prey on them, 'til they leave.

THE RISE OF KHALISTANI SLOGANS
In 1980's and early 90's, The demand of Khalistan in Punjab was at peak. B/w 1979 - 1989, 5000 civilians were killed in Punjab by Pro Khalistani Terrorists. In 1990 - 1991, more than 5,058 civilians and hundreds of police personnel were killed.

This was the worst period of voilence in Punjab, Militants and Pakistanis were claiming that Punjab had liberated zones. These zones existed in the regions of Punjab called "MAJHA", which was the worst effected district of Punjab.

On 30 September 1990, around 200 Pro Khalistani Militants attacked BALWINDER SINGH SANDHU'S house and the security provided by State Government ran out of fear. Undaunted, the Sandhu brothers and their wives fought the terrorists with their pistols and sten guns

provided by the Government. The resistance shown by the Sandhu brothers and their family members forced the terrorists to retreat.
Family has displayed courage and bravery of a high order in facing the attack of the terrorists and foiling their repeated murderous attempts.

Mr. BALWINDER SINGH SANDHU & Mr. RANJIT SINGH SANDHU along with their wives Mrs. JAGDISH KAUR & Mrs. BALRAJ KAUR was attacked around 20 times in between 1988 - 1991.

The mysterious story of tomatoes 🍅 & cigarettes 🚬
An interesting scientific story discussed by Kenneth M. Smith (1892-1981) who is considered to be one of the pioneers of the scientific field of ‘Virology’. Long thread, Enjoy the Sunday reading 😀1/n

In his 1943 book, Smith wrote about a story of two American tobacco farmers, one of whom was much troubled by outbreaks of tobacco mosaic disease in his crops, while the other managed to keep his plants fairly clear of the trouble. 2/n

Furthermore, the first farmer noticed that the infection tended to occur in a straight line (tobacco mosaic is very infectious disease & it is not insect-transmitted). So, Smith assumed that the disease seemed to follow the movements of the farmworkers who tended the plants. 3/n

It seemed likely, therefore, that they were the transmitting agents. Closer inquiry into the personal habits of the farmworkers revealed the fact that several of them indulged in the practice of chewing tobacco, & herein, lies the clue to the mosaic infection. 4/n

The virus of tobacco mosaic is one of the most stable & resistant viruses known, & some brands of chewing tobacco are not subjected in the curing process to sufficiently high temperatures or other treatments which would destroy the virus. 5/n

A few thoughts about tugs:

As I've been reading Beans, Bullets, and Black Oil, a 1952 book about logistics in the Pacific in WWII, I've been struck how often the topic of tugs has come up: ships that were saved because of their presence, or perhaps lost due to their absence.

Some examples that jumped right out: that the carrier USS Yorktown might have been saved at Midway, had the Navy yet appreciated the value of fleet tugs.

That the carrier USS Hornet and destroyer USS Porter might have been saved at the Battle of the Santa Cruz islands if tugs had been available:

And that tugs were able to help save three heavily damaged cruisers after the Battle of Tassafaronga:

By my count it looks like the USN started WWII with 20 or so ocean-going tugs (ATs) available. And then over the course of the war, as lessons were learned, the USN built 200+ more (ATAs and ATFs), many of which served for decades more.