This kinda blew my mind

 

This extraordinary report on the BBC has me goggling.

Whale graveyard dating back five million years discovered

An enormous whale graveyard around 1,200km (745 miles) long has been discovered in the south-eastern Indian Ocean.

The site, which is 7km (four miles) deep, has been found in the Diamantina fracture zone, a range on the sea floor of ridges and trenches.

But it is the age of the remains - some from 5.3 million years ago - that has prompted huge excitement in the scientific community.

The underwater necropolis, which was discovered by a team of researchers from China, Italy and New Zealand, is teeming with organisms and species that "may be new to science", according to journal Nature.

One of the study's authors Xiaotong Peng of the Chinese Academy of Sciences said: "Discovering a necropolis of this scale was completely unexpected.

"The size of distribution, the depth and the age range were far beyond anything we had imagined."

During 32 dives to the site, explorers collected samples from 485 whale-fossil sites and active whale falls, and found a treasure trove of remains, including one extinct whale's skeleton.

The beaked Pterocetus benguelae, which is 5.3 million years old, was discovered to be one of the fossilised skulls in the graves.

A five-metre long Antarctic minke whale's carcass was the largest discovery made.

A new species which the team has called Pterocetus diamantinae, after the site, was also uncovered.

Jellyfish, worms and crustaceans are among the community of creatures living off the huge spread of carcasses.

"Peng and colleagues' encounter with a vast fossil graveyard is a truly unique discovery," Stephen J Godfrey of the Calvert Marine Museum wrote in Nature.

There's more at the link.

There's also this video report on the discovery.

How on earth did so many whale carcasses end up in such a relatively small area?  Is it possible that some species of whale may deliberately go to that part of the sea to die, just as elephants were reputed to go to the "elephants' graveyard", a hidden valley where they lay down to die?  The elephant myth has long since been refuted, but I'm willing to bet some will raise it again in connection with the whales.

This is absolutely fascinating.  I daresay there are decades of research ahead in that area.

Peter

Is the tank dead on today's battlefield? Two perspectives

 

During my military service, I was never involved with tanks (or any other armored vehicle), apart from hitching a ride on one now and again.  I also had a couple of Soviet-built tanks shooting at my position once upon a time, which was most unpleasant.  Fortunately they went away without doing too much damage.

Be that as it may, the advent of drone warfare has made many question whether the tank has a future or not.  That question has been asked before, of course, particularly when the first anti-tank missiles made their appearance in the 1950's.  Those early missiles might have been buggy, clumsy and not very accurate, but if they hit what they were aimed at, the results tended to be unpleasant for those inside.  (I can remember the first-generation French ENTAC missile, which was used by South Africa along with later-generation MILAN missiles.  The former was a bit of a dog.  The latter was very successful, and very useful.)

Two articles over the past week, both by British authors and focused around British and NATO equipment, have examined the issue anew.  First:  "On Nato’s border with Russia, I witnessed the death of tank warfare".

Last week Latvia's military chief warned that Moscow has gained an edge over Nato in drone warfare and could exploit Europe's slow rearmament drive and invade the Baltics by 2028.

Nato commanders now face a looming crisis: learning how to fight on a 21st-century battlefield dominated by AI-assisted drones that can rapidly spot and target tanks and military vehicles from the skies.

. . .

Traditionally, the frontlines were ruled by tanks. Acting as armoured juggernauts, they were able to punch through enemy defences with firepower.

And while military planners still believe tanks have a place in war, some have questioned whether they are able to hold ground as they did in the past.

. . .

Across Ukraine, drones account for more than 90 per cent of battlefield casualties, the vast majority being tanks and armoured vehicles.

The enormous task of overcoming this modern threat faces commanders from across Nato, as allied nations scramble to re-equip their militaries and stockpile weapons systems capable of defending against the inevitable drone onslaught that will dominate the wars of the future.

. . .

To combat the threat posed by Russia, Nato has set up the eastern flank deterrence line (EFDI), to defend its border from Finland to Romania.

It is like a modern-day Maginot Line, an ill-fated series of fortifications built by France in the 1930s but which failed to stop Nazi Germany from invading in the Second World War.

However, Nato chiefs are confident the EFDI will be able to hold, using AI-enabled targeting and autonomous systems to destroy assaulting troops and vehicles in a kill zone stretching hundreds of miles.

"We have changed our exercises to directly rehearse how we will fight," said Gen Christopher Donahue, the commander of US Army Europe & Africa.

. . .

Currently, the Army has around 6,000 drones in its arsenal. However, it is understood these could be depleted within a week in a war with Russia. Soldiers say the pace of drone delivery needs to increase, describing the kit as "absolute game-changers".

"We need to get them rolled out like now. I can't emphasise it enough," said Cpl John Mackenzie, 27, who was training in Finland.

There's more at the link.

Hamish de Bretton-Gordon, a former tank officer, has a different view.  His article is titled "The tank isn’t dead. It’s just changing."

In the drone-infested battlefields of Ukraine, and across Nato exercises increasingly dominated by unmanned systems, it is easy to conclude that the tank's days are numbered. The burnt-out wrecks of Russian armour scattered across the Donbass seem to provide compelling evidence.

Yet history urges caution. Since the first great tank battle at Cambrai in 1917, commentators, academics and journalists have repeatedly declared the death of the tank. Every time, they have been proven wrong.

. . .

Reducing our ability to conduct armoured manoeuvre warfare would undermine one of the fundamental pillars of land combat, a principle that has endured since the First World War and arguably much longer. An even greater error would be to procure digitally enabled platforms such as Challenger 3 and Ajax without fully funding the active protection systems and hard-kill defensive suites required for them to survive on a battlefield saturated with drones and autonomous weapons.

. . .

The [Strategic Defence Review] correctly recognises that warfare is changing. It estimates that 80 per cent of future battlefield lethality will come from drones and autonomous systems, with only 20 per cent delivered by traditional platforms such as Challenger 3, Ajax and attack helicopters.

The implication is clear: there will be far more unmanned systems and far fewer manned vehicles. The British Army's future force of 148 Challenger 3 tanks is in stark contrast to the nearly 700 main battle tanks in service when I joined the Army 37 years ago. Back then, drones did not exist.

The future battlefield will include robotic combat vehicles. Challenger 3 must therefore operate as the command node of a wider digital combat system, controlling a family of drones and autonomous platforms that enhance both its lethality and survivability.

. . .

Tanks have always been vulnerable when operating without infantry support. The lesson has not changed. Tanks must be protected by infantry. Today, they must also be protected by drones and defended against them.

Again, more at the link.

I suspect the real problem is going to be economics.  If a $24 million [Wikipedia's figure] Abrams M1A2 SEPv3 tank can be taken out by a few drones costing less than $5,000 each (possibly much less than that), what's the point of spending that $24 million on one tank instead of four or five thousand drones?  There is a point, of course, from a military perspective, but what's a politician going to think (and say)?  How can he justify the larger expense to his constituents when they're clamoring to save money on defense and spend it on entitlement programs?  That's the cold, hard reality of politics in almost every NATO country right now, and the USA is no exception.

The same arithmetic affects almost every branch of military expenditure right now.  For example, a friend served in an artillery battery with the US Marine Corps.  His M777 howitzer costs $3.7 million apiece (according to one source).  Medium- to long-range drones, accurate enough to hit their targets first time, every time, and even to fly into buildings to run down their exact target, cost about $10,000 apiece from Western manufacturers right now.  Thus, the cost of one M777 cannon, without ammunition, would instead buy up to 400 drones of equivalent terminal performance to an artillery shell, with their warheads built in.  Is it any wonder that the USMC (and many other armed forces around the world) are either considering, or already actively engaged in, reducing their artillery forces while increasing their drone forces?

I'm sure many of my readers have sufficient expertise and experience to weigh in.  What say you, friends?

Peter

He used his own dying and death to help others

 

Now and then one comes across a story that really touches the heart of what it means to be human, and to live - and sometimes die - as positively as possible.  Dr. Richard Scolyer appears to have been such a man.

Richard Scolyer, who has died aged 59, was a surgical pathologist who, with his colleague Georgina Long, revolutionised the treatment of advanced melanoma (skin cancer); in 2023 he became his own "guinea pig" after developing glioblastoma, one of the most aggressive brain cancers.

As co-directors of the Melanoma Institute Australia, dedicated to researching the lethal skin cancer that afflicts Australia more than any other nation, the two scientists pioneered a treatment which involves administering immunotherapy drugs before surgery so that the immune system is triggered by the whole cancer rather than the few remaining cells after tumour removal. Their work lifted the survival rate for advanced melanoma from less than 5 per cent in 2010 to more than 50 per cent today, saving thousands of lives.

But by 2024, when the pair were named joint Australian of the Year, Scolyer was facing his own cancer battle. It began during a visit to Poland in May 2023 when he found himself convulsing on the floor of his hotel room. An MRI scan carried out in Kraków showed a mass in his temporal lobe, and he knew immediately that it was bad news. A subsequent biopsy performed in Sydney diagnosed an aggressive grade 4 IDH-wildtype glioblastoma and Scolyer was given six to eight months to live.

"I didn't want to die. I loved my life," he wrote in a memoir, Brainstorm. Only three weeks earlier Scolyer, a keen sportsman, had represented Australia at the World Triathlon Multisport Championships. Now he had been given a death sentence: "It didn't sit right with me… to just accept certain death without trying something. It's an incurable cancer. Well bugger that!"

Under a team led by Georgina Long, Scolyer became "Patient Zero" for a radical form of treatment based on the approach developed for melanoma, which involved delaying surgery for two weeks while immunotherapy drugs were administered, allowing the immune system to train on millions of cancer cells. Scolyer decided to go public with his treatment, gaining thousands of followers on social media.

The regimen carried many dangers. Even a short delay in surgery could allow the tumour to grow, and there was a high chance the drugs' side-effects could kill him. "There was understandable resistance from some in the medical community," he recalled.

But early results were promising. When the tumour that had been removed was analysed, Long's team found that there had been an explosion of cancer-fighting immune cells. Then in May 2024, an MRI scan revealed that the tumour had not returned, though it did not mean the cancer was cured: "It's just nice to know that it hasn't come back yet, so I've still got some more time to enjoy my life," Scolyer said.

But in March this year, days before Scolyer was due to part in a charity cycling event in Tasmania, a brain scan showed that the cancer had progressed. "Not the best day ever," he told his followers on Facebook.

His death, three years after diagnosis, far exceeded the life expectancy for his tumour, and a clinical trial based on his treatment is now underway at Duke University in the US.

There's more at the link.

Effectively, Dr. Scolyear allowed his own body, and the process of his own dying and death, to be used for treatment and further research.  As if to acknowledge his self-sacrifice, he survived his cancer for far longer than the norm for gioblastoma sufferers, thereby allowing a great deal of research to be conducted that will benefit others in future.  Sadly, it couldn't benefit him, apart from giving him longer to set an example to the rest of us.

A tribute to him has been posted on the home page of Melanoma Institute Australia.  There are many replies to it from those who remember him with love and kindness.  I'll let this one speak for all of them.

If it were not for his brilliant work, I too would not be here today, having had lifesaving Immunotherapy for my late stage Melanoma diagnosis.

Words alone cannot express my gratitude and thanks, together with the sadness that you too were not able to have been afforded the opportunity of a second chance of life.

May you rest in peace Professor.

Indeed.  May choirs of angels sing him to his rest.

Peter

Memes that made me laugh 315

 

Gathered from around the Internet over the past week.  Click any image for a larger view.

Sunday morning music

 

Most readers will be aware of Mike Oldfield, the progressive rock genius who first took the music world by storm in 1972 with "Tubular Bells".  He's released many albums since then, and even in retirement remains a best-selling performer.

For this morning, I thought you'd enjoy an interview with him and a preview performance of his 2008 "Music Of The Spheres".  It achieved the distinction of being #1 on the Classical Music charts in the UK in the first week of its appearance, as well as reaching #9 on the overall UK Albums chart - a superb performance across multiple genres.  It remains one of my favorites among all his releases.

I'll post the interview first, and follow it with a music-only video of the full album.  Enjoy!

Peter