Two large asteroids found spinning as fast as a fairground ride

 

Image courtesy of NASA/Goddard/University of Arizona

Joel Kontinen 

Space is wonderful and surprising odd, but this does not mean that it was not planned by God because everything has been planned by Him.

Large asteroids have been found spinning so fast they should break apart, suggesting they might be stronger than we thought.

Dmitrii Vavilov at the University of Washington in Seattle and his colleagues analysed some of the first data collected by the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in Chile, which began a 10-year survey of the sky in June 2026. From a sample of more than 9000 asteroids, they measured the rotation of 260, based on a change in their brightness caused by the spinning asteroids’ irregular shapes.

Of these, 66 were deemed to be super-fast rotators, spinning quickly enough to complete a rotation in less than 2.2 hours, a limit at which asteroids should no longer be able to hold themselves together under their own gravity.

Source:

Jonathan O’Callaghan 2026 Two large asteroids found spinning as fast as a fairground ride | New Scientist 9 October 

The land’s ability to store carbon has bounced back after two bad years

 

Image courtesy of Junhwan Hyun / Alamy Stock Photo.

Joel Kontinen

Carbon absorption by forests and grasslands bounced back in 2025 thanks to favourable growing conditions, but El Niño could lead to another sharp slump next year

For the past two years, scientists studying the health of forests, grasslands and swamps have been worried. Since 2023, the amount of carbon dioxide Earth’s landscapes have been able to absorb has dropped dramatically in the face of extreme weather, resulting in a record jump in atmospheric CO2 concentrations in two successive years.

But 2025 has bucked that worrying trend, with preliminary research revealing a strong rebound in the land carbon sink and a corresponding decline in the growth rate of atmospheric CO2.

However, the next season with high carbon dioxide could break havoc on the globe.  But the ones who believe in global warming say that carbon dioxide will arise in the future.

Source:

 Madeleine Cuff  2026 The land's ability to store carbon has bounced back after two bad years | New Scientist 13 October

A "Peace Prize" for the Vilification of Israel

 

Image courtesy of AP Photo/Paul Schemm

Joel Kontinen

There are bad decisions and disgraceful ones. And then there’s the awarding of the 2026 Nobel Peace Prize to Navi Pillay.

Donald trump has castigated Norway for its design, and so has Israel.

The choice is hardly out of character for an award whose history has repeatedly shown that its name guarantees nothing about its recipients’ merit.

Indeed, this isn’t an aberration of the Norwegian committee. It has also provided Jasser Arafat with the peace price. 

But it’s an especially egregious example of a familiar pattern: an international establishment congratulating itself for advancing peace while rewarding people whose records make a mockery of the concept.

Pillay, who chaired the United Nations Commission of Inquiry that accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, has become a symbol of the double standards permeating the global system.

The woman now being feted in the name of peace presided over a more aptly dubbed “inquisition” whose whole purpose was to brand the Jewish state with a bloody—blood libelous.

The term “genocide” has a specific legal definition, including the requirement to establish intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a protected national, ethnic, racial, or religious group.

It’s laughable to suggest that Israel’s behavior even remotely fits that description, as it took great pains to avoid civilian casualties and flooded Gaza with humanitarian aid.

Source: 

Ruthie Blum 2026 A ‘Peace Prize’ for the Vilification of Israel | United with Israel October 11

 

 

Record El Niño threatens Great Barrier Reef with ecological shift

 

Image courtesy of fadhlanbr/Shutterstock

Joel Kontinen

Australian Researchers are worried about the impact the strongest-known El Niño will have on the Great Barrier Reef, and whether anything can be done to avert the World Heritage Area’s demise.

With the potentially catastrophic, record-smashing El Niño still peaking in the Pacific Ocean, scientists are warning of a fundamental ecological shift that would see swathes of the Great Barrier Reef become dominated by seaweed instead of coral.

During El Niño events, warmer ocean waters pool in the eastern and central Pacific. However, the phenomenon also dramatically disrupts the usual monsoon troughs, low-pressure zones that bring cooling clouds and rain to the Great Barrier Reef region.

This is why the worst Great Barrier Reef coral-bleaching events have coincided with past El Niños, such as the devastating reef mortality that occurred in 2024.

But corrals have their own way to avert disasters. Coral reefs around the world are at risk of collapse due to rising temperatures and ocean acidification, but the natural adaptability of some species may help buy time.

Coral reefs may be able to adapt better to warmer and more acidic oceans than previously thought, raising hopes that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions and restore reefs could offer a chance to preserve these biodiverse ecosystems.

"These results offer us a potential path forward, but it depends entirely on what we decide to do about climate change and local stressors," says Chris Jury of the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

God created corals as part of the animal kingdom, and they help fish and octopuses survive amidst dangers.

Sources: 

James Woodford 2026 Record El Niño threatens Great Barrier Reef with ecological shift | New Scientist 8 October

James Dinneen 2024 Here's how coral reefs might survive hotter, more acidic oceans | New Scientist 30 September 

Stunning early mammal fossil sheds light on the evolution of suckling

 

Image courtesy of April I. Neander,

Joel Kontinen

“Wood, plant fibres, hides, bone and other organic materials must have been central to daily life, but they normally disappear,” says Mariana Nabais, also at the Catalan Institute. “So when a site like Abric Romaní preserves wooden imprints and charred wooden objects, it is almost like suddenly seeing the missing half of the toolkit.”

Naoki Morimoto at Kyoto University in Japan describes the wooden objects as “remarkable”.

“The mammalian ways of swallowing and suckling are unique,” says Zhe-Xi Luo at the University of Chicago. “It is one of several biological adaptations of mammals that stand out from all other vertebrates.”

Luo and his colleagues have discovered a new genus of mammaliform, a creature that lived before the last common ancestor of the living mammalian groups – monotremes, marsupials and placentals – that would have been able to chew and suck.

It is also the earliest known example of a mammal that evolved for a semi-aquatic lifestyle. The animal has been dubbed Megacauda sungei, referencing its broad tail and palaeontologist Sun Ge.

The fossil, which evolutionist say is dated to between 163 million and 168 million years ago, was found by local farmers in the Daohugou area of Inner Mongolia, China.

“It is a chimera,” says Luo. “The back half of Megacauda is more similar to the platypus, of all mammals. But the skull and teeth are analogous to river otters.”

With an estimated weight of 1 kilogram, the creature is the largest known mammaliform from the Middle-Late Jurassic, when the planet was dominated by dinosaurs.

Source:

James Woodford 2026 Stunning early mammal fossil sheds light on the evolution of suckling | New Scientist 7 October 

Fly Dubai Hijacker Was Targeting Ben Gurion

 

Fly Dubai Hijacker Was Targeting Ben Gurion airport in Israel.

Fossil mammal with reptile-like teeth changes picture of our evolution

 

Image courtesy of Paul Bowden. This shows an animal known as Dongoconodon platycauda,

Joel Kontinen

A newly discovered, semi-aquatic mammal – which would have lived alongside the dinosaurs – had the streamlined appearance of a water rodent, feet almost identical to a platypus and teeth that grew like a reptile’s. It is an ancient mammal that replace  its teeth throughout its life.

The researchers who studied the near-complete, 120-million-year-old fossil, named Dongoconodon platycauda, say its disparate anatomy offers a window into early mammal evolution. That is what the evolutionists say.

Evolution and millions of years are not the way some animals evolve.  The believe in millions of years is not a scientific one.

D. platycauda was found in 2018 in Liaoning, China. Shundong Bi at Yunnan University, China, and his colleagues studied the fossil after the collector who found it took it to the Mongolia Museum of Natural History. When it was alive, the mammal would have weighed up to 190 grams and measured about 40 centimetres long

 Source:

James Woodford 2026 Fossil mammal with reptile-like teeth changes picture of our evolution | New Scientist 2 October