Dutch scientists said Thursday crops of four vegetables and cereals grown on soil similar to that on Mars have been found safe to eat, amid plans for the first manned mission to the planet.
Abundant harvests of radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes all grown on the soil were found to contain "no dangerous levels" of heavy metals, said the team from Wageningen University in the Netherlands.
"These remarkable results are very promising," said senior ecologist Wieger Wamelink.
"We can actually eat the radishes, peas, rye and tomatoes, and I am very curious what they will taste like."
Future Mars settlers will have to take food supplies with them and then plant crops in order to survive.
So using soil developed by NASA to resemble that of the red planet, the university has been experimenting since 2013 and has managed to raise 10 crops.
But uncertainty remains about whether they would absorb the high levels of heavy metals such cadmium, copper and lead, present in Mars soil.
Further tests are now needed on the remaining six crops, including potatoes, in research which is being backed by a crowd-funding campaign.
Dutch stylist Helly Scholten is interested in living sustainably, so when the chance came to move herself and her family into an experimental sustainable house designed by Rotterdam University students and researchers, she jumped at it. Essentially an oversized greenhouse, the house was built to explore sustainable methods of living and will serve as the family's full-time home for three years.
“We don’t call it a basic income in Utrecht because people have an idea about it – that it is just free money and people will sit at home and watch TV,” said Heleen de Boer, a Green councillor in that city, which is half an hour south of Amsterdam.
Nevertheless, the municipalities are, in the words of de Boer, taking a “small step” towards a basic income for all by allowing small groups of benefit claimants to be paid £660 a month – and keep any earnings they make from work on top of that. Their monthly pay will not be means-tested. They will instead have the security of that cash every month, and the option to decide whether they want to add to that by finding work. The outcomes will be analysed by eminent economist Loek Groot, a professor at the University of Utrecht.
A start date for the scheme has yet to be settled – and only benefit claimants involved in the pilots will receive the cash – but there is no doubting the radical intent. The motivation behind the experiment in Utrecht, according to Nienke Horst, a senior policy adviser to the municipality’s Liberal Democrat leadership, is for claimants to avoid the “poverty trap” – the fact that if they earn, they will lose benefits, and potentially be worse off.
The idea also hopes to target “revolving door clients” – those who are forced into jobs by the system but repeatedly walk out of them. If given a basic income, the thinking goes, these people might find the time and space to look for long-term employment that suits them.
At a press conference held on Friday Dec. 11, 2015 in the Allard Pierson Museum in Amsterdam, archaeologist Nico Roymans from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam announced a discovery that is truly unique for Dutch archaeology: the location where the Roman general and statesman Julius Caesar massacred two Germanic tribes in the year 55 BC. The location of this battle, which Caesar wrote about in detail in Book IV of his De Bello Gallico, was unknown to date. It is the earliest known battle on Dutch soil. The conclusions are based on a combination of historical, archaeological, and geochemical data.
Russian spies likely tried to hack into the Dutch Safety Board's computer systems to access a sensitive final report into the shooting down of flight MH17 over Ukraine, experts said Friday.
The cyberattacks were revealed by security experts Trend Micro which blamed a shadowy group dubbed Operation Pawn Storm, "an active economic and political cyber-espionage operation" that has targeted the White House and NATO in the past.
A spokeswoman for the Dutch board, which led the investigation into how Malaysia Airlines flight came down in July 2014 over war-torn Ukraine, confirmed the board had detected the attacks.
But there was "no evidence" that anyone "was successful in the attempt," spokeswoman Sara Vernooij told AFP.
She declined however to reveal "how and by whom" the attacks were carried out.
Trend Micro Friday blamed Operation Pawn Storm for a "cyber-espionage operation before and after" the publication on October 13 of the board's detailed report.
A new placodont sauropterygian from the Middle Triassic of the Netherlands
Authors:
Klein et al
Abstract:
A new genus and species of a non-cyamodontoid placodont is described on the basis of an incomplete and disarticulated skeleton from Winterswijk, the Netherlands, dated as early Anisian (Lower Muschelkalk). The new taxon is unique in a ventrolateral expansion of the neural arches of the posterior presacral and sacral vertebrae, in which the transverse process is incorporated. It has a round, plate-like pubis and ischium, and the only preserved long bone indicates elongated limbs. The holotype, which is relatively large (>1.35 m) for a basal sauropterygian, has still un-fused halves of neural arches and no distinct neural spine developed yet. The new taxon is assigned to non-cyamodontoid placodonts based on its round girdle elements, the morphology of dorsal-, sacral-, and caudal ribs, the straight medial and mediolateral elements of gastral ribs, and the presence of un-sutured armour plates. In spite of the large size of the holotype, there is evidence that the animal was not yet fully grown, based on the paired neural arches, and general poor ossification of the bones. The un-fused halves of neural arches are interpreted as skeletal paedomorphosis, which is typical for vertebrates with a secondary marine life style. The sacral region seems to be highly flexible.
The Netherlands’ defence ministry has announced plans to order a first batch of eight operational Lockheed Martin F-35s, with the type to be delivered from 2019.
In an update published on 15 December, the defence ministry says it still plans to obtain a total of 37 F-35s, including five which will be employed as training assets. Initial operational capability with the Royal Netherlands Air Force is anticipated in 2021, with its planned full fleet to be available by 2024. The aircraft will be stationed at air bases in Leeuwarden and Volkel.
A Dutch-based student on Tuesday unveiled a prototype of an "ambulance drone", a flying defibrillator able to reach heart attack victims within precious life-saving minutes.
Developed by Belgian engineering graduate Alec Momont, it can fly at speeds of up to 100 kilometres per hour (60 miles per hour).
"Around 800,000 people suffer a cardiac arrest in the European Union every year and only 8.0 percent survive," Momont, 23, said at the TU Delft University.
"The main reason for this is the relatively long response time of emergency services of around 10 minutes, while brain death and fatalities occur with four to six minutes," he said in a statement.
"The ambulance drone can get a defibrillator to a patient within a 12 square kilometre (4.6 square miles) zone within a minute, reducing the chance of survival from 8 percent to 80 percent."
Painted in emergency services yellow and driven by six propellers, the drone can carry a four kilogramme load -- in this case a defibrillator.
It tracks emergency mobile calls and uses the GPS to navigate.
Once at the scene, an operator, like a paramedic, can watch, talk and instruct those helping the victim by using an on-board camera connected to a control room via a livestream webcam.
The prototype has already attracted the interest of emergency services including that of Amsterdam, the Dutch daily Algemeen Dagblad said.
The Dutch Heart Foundation also applauded the idea, the newspaper added.
Momont however wants his drone to become a "flying medical toolbox" able to carry an oxygen mask to a person trapped in a fire or an insulin injection to a diabetes sufferer.
However, the drone is still in its infancy as far as developing its steering mechanism and legal issues regarding its use are concerned, Momont said.
Skeletal material from larger Eusauropterygia (Reptilia: Eosauropterygia) with nothosaurian and cymatosaurian affinities from the Lower Muschelkalk of Winterswijk, The Netherlands
Authors:
Voeten et al
Abstract:
Eusauropterygian elements from the Lower Muschelkalk (Vossenveld Formation) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands, comprising three mandibles and a selection of postcranial material, are described. The new mandibles correspond to crania larger than eusauropterygian cranial material previously known from this locality. The postcranial material represents a selection of isolated and associated material of comparably large size. Two of the mandibles conform to the morphology commonly recognized in Nothosaurus from the Lower Muschelkalk, but the third mandible accommodates five fangs per ramus in the symphyseal domain and exhibits a symphyseal ratio of 1.04, a condition not yet described for Eusauropterygia from the Vossenveld Formation. Body length for the animals represented by the finds was estimated through dimensional comparison with MB.R.27, a nearly complete skeleton from the lower Middle Muschelkalk locality of Rüdersdorf (Germany) assigned to Nothosaurus marchicus. Body length estimates for the individuals represented by the largest mandible and by a selection of associated postcranial material exceed 1,500 mm; approximately 50 % larger than the eusauropterygian taxa from Winterswijk described so far. Furthermore, certain morphological characters identified in one mandible and in the postcranial elements suggest a cymatosaurian affinity over a nothosaurian affinity. The present study indicates eusauropterygian diversity during the Lower Muschelkalk was greater than traditionally believed. This challenges the concept of a slow paced, gradual biotic response to the origination and expansion of the Muschelkalk Sea, which commenced only 5 million years after the Permian–Triassic mass extinction event.
Remarkable dorsal ribs with distinct uncinate processes from the early Anisian of the Germanic Basin (Winterswijk, The Netherlands)
Authors:
Klein et al
Abstract:
Isolated dorsal ribs of tetrapods from the Lower Muschelkalk (early Anisian, Middle Triassic) of Winterswijk, The Netherlands, with a distinct posteriorly located broad uncinate process are described. Dorsal ribs with posteriorly directed uncinate processes are known from various marine reptile groups such as the placodont Paraplacodus, the Saurosphargidae, the enigmatic genus Eusaurosphargis, and the eusauropterygian Bobosaurus. Their rib morphology is compared in detail with the ribs from Winterswijk presented herein. Some of the dorsal ribs from Winterswijk described resemble the morphology of dorsal ribs of Eusaurosphargis, which is known from the Besano Formation (Grenzbitumenhorizont, Anisian-Ladinian boundary, Middle Triassic) of Northern Italy. The morphology of one of the ribs is unique among the compared taxa. The slenderness of the rib, the gracile and constricted rib head, the shape and extension of the uncinate process, and its restriction to the proximal part of the rib excludes saurosphargid or Eusaurosphargis affinities but does also not fit to the morphology of dorsal ribs characteristic for Paraplacodus or any other taxon known so far. Different anatomical positions can also be excluded. Hence, this rib indicates the presence of an additional yet unknown taxon in Winterswijk.
