DORTMUND: Four fans ran on the field in a bid to get selfies with Cristiano Ronaldo in chaotic scenes at a European Championship match between Portugal and Turkiye on Saturday.
Only one appeared to succeed.
Ronaldo was fine having his photograph taken with a young boy who evaded stewards to get on the field in the 69th minute at Westfalenstadion before whipping out his cell phone.
That fan then ran off before being stopped and escorted away — but not before he waved to the crowd.
Then, about 15 minutes later, an older fan tried the same but Ronaldo threw his hands up in the air and turned his back on the spectator, who seemed to grab hold of Ronaldo’s arm.
More chaos ensued when a third field invader emerged in stoppage time and ran past Ronaldo, who was defending a corner.
After the final whistle, there were more security breaches as a fan wearing a Portugal jersey attempted to get close to Ronaldo while holding a phone. He was soon tackled to the ground while another supporter was stopped from confronting Ronaldo as Portugal’s players walked off the field.
Four fans get on field for selfies with Cristiano Ronaldo during chaotic scenes at Euro 2024 match
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Four fans get on field for selfies with Cristiano Ronaldo during chaotic scenes at Euro 2024 match
- That fan then ran off before being stopped and escorted away
- More chaos ensued when a third field invader emerged in stoppage time and ran past Ronaldo
Crew of NASA’s earthbound simulated Mars habitat emerge after a year
- The crew in the first of three planned CHAPEA missions focused on establishing possible conditions for future Mars operations through simulated spacewalks
The crew of a NASA mission to Mars emerged from their craft after a yearlong voyage that never left Earth.
The four volunteer crew members spent more than 12 months inside NASA’s first simulated Mars environment at Johnson Space Center in Houston, coming out of the artificial alien enviroment Saturday around 5 p.m.
Kelly Haston, Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell and Nathan Jones entered the 3D-printed habitat on June 25, 2023, as the maiden crew of the space agency’s Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog project.
Haston, the mission commander, began with a simple, “Hello.”
“It’s actually just so wonderful to be able to say ‘hello’ to you all,” she said.
Jones, a physician and the mission medical officer, said their 378 days in confinement “went by quickly.”
The quartet lived and worked inside the space of 17,000 square feet (1,579 square meters) to simulate a mission to the red planet, the fourth from the sun and a frequent focus of discussion among scientists and sci-fi fans alike concerning a possible voyage taking humans beyond our moon.
The first CHAPEA crew focused on establishing possible conditions for future Mars operations through simulated spacewalks, dubbed “Marswalks,” as well as growing and harvesting vegetables to supplement their provisions and maintaining the habitat and their equipment.
They also worked through challenges a real Mars crew would be expected to experience including limited resources, isolation and delays in communication of up to 22 minutes with their home planet on the other side of the habitat’s walls, NASA said.
Two additional CHAPEA missions are planned and crews will continue conducting simulated spacewalks and gathering data on factors related to physical and behavioral health and performance, NASA said.
Steve Koerner, deputy director of Johnson Space Center, said most of the first crew’s experimentation focused on nutrition and how that affected their performance. The work was “crucial science as we prepare to send people on to the red planet,” he said.
“They’ve been separated from their families, placed on a carefully prescribed meal plan and undergone a lot of observation,” Koerner said.
“Mars is our goal,” he said, calling the project an important step in America’s intent to be a leader in the global space exploration effort.
Emerging after a knock on the habitat’s door by Kjell Lindgren, an astronaut and the deputy director of flight operations, the four volunteers spoke of the gratitude they had for each other and those who waited patiently outside, as well as lessons learned about a prospective manned mission to Mars and life on Earth.
Brockwell, the crew’s flight engineer, said the mission showed him the importance of living sustainably for the benefit of everyone on Earth.
“I’m very grateful to have had this incredible opportunity to live for a year within the spirit of planetary adventure toward an exciting future, and I’m grateful for the chance to live the idea that we must utilize resources no faster than they can be replenished and produce waste no faster than they can be processed back into resources,” Brockwell said.
“We cannot live, dream, create or explore on any significant timeframe if we don’t live these principles, but if we do, we can achieve and sustain amazing and inspiring things like exploring other worlds,” he said.
Science officer Anca Selariu said she had been asked many times why there is a fixation on Mars.
“Why go to Mars? Because it’s possible,” she said. “Because space can unite and bring out the best in us. Because it’s one defining step that ‘Earthlings’ will take to light the way into the next centuries.”
’Ready to come out?’ Scientists reemerge after year ‘on Mars’
- A year-long mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm
WASHINGTON: The NASA astronaut knocks loudly three times on a what appears to be a nondescript door, and calls cheerfully: “You ready to come out?“
The reply is inaudible, but beneath his mask he appears to be grinning as he yanks the door open — and four scientists who have spent a year away from all other human contact, simulating a mission to Mars, spill out to cheers and applause.
Anca Selariu, Ross Brockwell, Nathan Jones and team leader Kelly Haston have spent the past 378 days sealed inside the “Martian” habitat in Houston, Texas, part of NASA’s research into what it will take to put humans on the Red Planet.
They have been growing vegetables, conducting “Marswalks,” and operating under what NASA terms “additional stressors” — such as communication delays with “Earth,” including their families; isolation and confinement.
It’s the kind of experience that would make anyone who lived through pandemic lockdowns shudder — but all four were beaming as they reemerged Saturday, their hair slightly more unruly and their emotion apparent.
“Hello. It’s actually so wonderful just to be able to say hello to you,” Haston, a biologist, said with a laugh.
“I really hope I don’t cry standing up here in front of all of you,” Jones, an emergency room doctor, said as he took to the microphone — and nearly doing just that several moments later as he spotted his wife in the crowd.
The habitat, dubbed Mars Dune Alpha, is a 3D printed 1,700 square-foot (160 square-meter) facility, complete with bedrooms, a gym, common areas, and a vertical farm to grow food.
An outdoor area, separated by an airlock, is filled with red sand and is where the team donned suits to conduct their “Marswalks,” though it is still covered rather than being open air.
“They have spent more than a year in this habitat conducting crucial science, most of it nutrition-based and how that impacts their performace ... as we prepare to send people on to the Red Planet,” Steve Koerner, deputy director at NASA’s Johnson Space Center, told the crowd.
“I’m very appreciative.”
This mission is the first of a series of three planned by NASA, grouped under the title CHAPEA — Crew Health and Performance Exploration Analog.
A year-long mission simulating life on Mars took place in 2015-2016 in a habitat in Hawaii, and although NASA participated in it, it was not at the helm.
Under its Artemis program, America plans to send humans back to the Moon in order to learn how to live there long-term to help prepare a trip to Mars, sometime toward the end of the 2030s.
Cyclist fined after kissing his wife at Tour de France
- Celebrations went too far for the International Cycling Union race commissaries, responsible for imposing general rules during races
- Julien Bernard stopped to hug and kiss his wife Margot, who had their child Charles in her arms at the time
COLOMBEY-LES-DEUX-EGLISES, France: The friends and family of Julien Bernard gathered on a hillside to greet him as the Tour de France passed by his home during Friday’s stage in Burgundy giving him a welcome that authorities found a little too warm.
Celebrations went too far for the International Cycling Union race commissaries, responsible for imposing general rules during races.
While normally these rules concern answering the call of nature in public or deviating dangerously from one’s line, Friday’s offense was of a more festive nature.
With a huge crowd outside Nuits Saint Georges chanting the local boy’s name, he stopped to hug and kiss his wife Margot, who had their child Charles in her arms at the time.
“I’d been waiting for this moment since the route was announced last October,” he told local newspaper ‘Le Bien Public’.
“This kind of moment comes once in a lifetime and never mind if they fined me (200 Swiss francs).
The fine was explained as for behavior damaging to the image of the sport.
“My wife organized for everyone to come and see me at that point of the race and I wanted to show my gratitude and thank her for that,” explained the 32-year-old.
The authorities were more bothered by the behavior of his friends who whipped up the deep crowds threatening the security barrier and pushing forward with the locals cheering “Lalalala Julien Bernard.”
For the record, he came 61st on the day 3min 11sec down on winner Renco Evenepoel.
Still inhabited termite mounds in South Africa found to be more than 30,000 years old
- Study says the mounds existed while arge swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice
- Calls for more research on termite mounds given the lessons they offer on climate change,
CAPE TOWN, South Africa: Scientists in South Africa have been stunned to discover that termite mounds that are still inhabited in an arid region of the country are more than 30,000 years old, meaning they are the oldest known active termite hills.
Some of the mounds near the Buffels River in Namaqualand were estimated by radiocarbon dating to be 34,000 years old, according to the researchers from Stellenbosch University.
“We knew they were old, but not that old,” said Michele Francis, senior lecturer in the university’s department of soil science who led the study. Her paper was published in May.
Francis said the mounds existed while saber-toothed cats and woolly mammoths roamed other parts of the Earth and large swathes of Europe and Asia were covered in ice. They predate some of the earliest cave paintings in Europe.
Some fossilized termite mounds have been discovered dating back millions of years. The oldest inhabited mounds before this study were found in Brazil and are around 4,000 years old. They are visible from space.
Francis said the Namaqualand mounds are a termite version of an “apartment complex” and the evidence shows they have been consistently inhabited by termite colonies.
Termite mounds are a famous feature of the Namaqualand landscape, but no one suspected their age until samples of them were taken to experts in Hungary for radiocarbon dating.
“People don’t know that these are special, ancient landscapes that are preserved there,” Francis said.
Some of the biggest mounds — known locally as “heuweltjies,” which means little hills in the Afrikaans language — measure around 100 feet (30 meters) across. The termite nests are as deep as 10 feet underground.
Researchers needed to carefully excavate parts of the mounds to take samples, and the termites went into “emergency mode” and started filling in the holes, Francis said.
The team fully reconstructed the mounds to keep the termites safe from predators like aardvarks.
Francis said the project was more than just a fascinating look at ancient structures. It also offered a peek into a prehistoric climate that showed Namaqualand was a much wetter place when the mounds were formed.
The southern harvester termites are experts at capturing and storing carbon by collecting twigs and other dead wood and putting it back deep into the soil. That has benefits in offsetting climate change by reducing the amount of carbon emitted into the atmosphere.
It’s also good for the soil. Masses of wildflowers bloom on top of the termite mounds in a region that receives little rain.
Francis called for more research on termite mounds given the lessons they offer on climate change, sustaining ecosystems and maybe even for improving agricultural practices.
“We will do well to study what the termites have done in the mounds. They were thought to be very boring,” she said.
Yes, some animals can have babies without a mate. Here’s how
- Females of species have the ability to reproduce asexually, without sperm from a male, in a process called parthenogenesis
- It can occur is when a female’s egg fuses with another cell, often a cell leftover from a process that allows the female to create the egg
A boa constrictor in the UK gave birth to 14 babies — without a mate.
Is it a miracle? The result of a secret rendezvous? Probably not. Females of species have the ability to reproduce asexually, without sperm from a male. The process is called parthenogenesis, from the Greek words for “virgin” and “birth.”
Some plants and insects can do it, as well as some amphibians, reptiles, birds and fish. A stingray named Charlotte that was thought to have become pregnant by this method died this week at an aquarium in North Carolina, though she never delivered and it is unclear if she was ever pregnant.
Some wasps, crustaceans and lizards reproduce only through parthenogenesis. But in other species it’s rare and usually observed in captivity.
It tends to occur in situations where females are separated from males, said Demian Chapman, who directs the Sharks & Rays Conservation Research Program at the Mote Marine Laboratory & Aquarium in Sarasota, Florida.
The boa in the UK, a 6-foot, 13-year-old Brazilian Rainbow Boa named Ronaldo, gave birth last week after having no contact with any other snakes for at least nine years, according to the City of Portsmouth College, which kept the snake.
One way parthenogenesis can occur is when a female’s egg fuses with another cell, often a cell leftover from a process that allows the female to create the egg. That cell, known as a polar body, gives the egg the genetic information it would normally get from sperm. The cell starts dividing and that leads to the creation of an embryo.
It’s unclear how prevalent parthenogenesis is in the wild, Chapman said. But it has happened outside captivity among smalltooth sawfish, an endangered species in Florida’s coastal waters.
“We think the females reproduce like that on some occasions because they haven’t found a male because there are so few of them,” Chapman said.
Offspring from parthenogenesis have less genetic variation, Chapman said, which can lead to developmental problems.
“A litter produced by sexual reproduction is usually much larger than one produced via parthenogenesis if it’s an animal that gives birth to litters,” Chapman said. “And you will often see individuals in that litter produced by parthenogenesis that don’t develop correctly in some way.”
