The American spacecraft Cygnus yesterday for the first time fully and successfully performed an operation to correct the orbit of the International Space Station. This was reported by NASA. “On Saturday, June 25, Cygnus, the Northrop Grumman spacecraft, performed the first limited orbit correction of the ISS,” the US space agency said in a statement.
The orbit correction maneuver took five minutes and one second, which changed the station’s location by about 800 m at perigee (the point of the lunar orbit closest to the Earth) and by 160 m at the apogee (the point of the lunar orbit farthest from the Earth). The last time NASA tried to use the Cygnus thrusters to correct the ISS orbit was on June 20, but then nothing worked. Cygnus will separate from the station on June 28, launch several cubesats into orbit, and burn up in dense layers of the atmosphere over the Pacific Ocean in about two weeks.
The spacecraft was launched on February 19 by an Antares launch vehicle from the spaceport on Wallops Island (Virginia) in the Atlantic Ocean. In the first stage of the carrier, Russian RD-181 engines developed by NPO Energomash were installed. Cygnus docked with the ISS on February 21, delivering more than 3.7 tons of various cargoes to the station: food, spare parts and equipment for scientific research, including studying skin aging in weightlessness and the effect of drugs on tumors, as well as a new system for growing plants in orbit
Earlier, Dmitry Rogozin said that the United States still had four RD-181 engines for the Antares rocket, and the Americans would still turn to Russia for new engines. The problem is quite acute, since Roscosmos is not eager to continue work on the ISS project after 2024, although NASA expects to use the ISS until 2030. Accordingly, if Russia withdraws from the project, the Americans will have to adjust the ISS orbit on their own. And you need to do this quite often.
The inspections, which started after the removal of more than 35 Bulgarian drivers from the trucks on Easter, revealed a bunch of irregularities
101 irregularities were found by the labor inspections of Bulgaria and Belgium during an inspection of the companies that sent to Belgium over 35 Bulgarian drivers, taken off their trucks on Easter. This was announced by the European Labor Authority.
The drivers were detained for a day during an operation by the federal police and the prosecutor’s office in Belgium. The investigation is for the use of a social dumping scheme, Nova TV clarifies.
Inspectors have investigated circumstances related to indications of social dumping, as is the case with the investigation. It is alleged that the rights of seven drivers and two mechanics were affected.
Irregularities include non-observance of working hours, weekly rest and accommodation rules. There are 153 verified drivers.
It has also been established that a person from a third country drives a truck for a Bulgarian carrier without an employment contract and with a false driver’s license. The case will also be inspected by the employer registered with us.
The inspections were coordinated by the European Labor Authority.
35 Bulgarian truck drivers were taken off the cabins of their trucks after a massive action by the Belgian federal police on Sunday on Orthodox Easter, the specialized portal Diario de transporte announced. According to an OFFNews inspection, everyone worked on documents for a company registered in Targovishte.
In the early hours of the day, dozens of unmarked police cars and cars surrounded trucks with Bulgarian registration in the Tesenderlo area (Northeast Belgium). All 35 drivers had to leave their trucks immediately, leaving all their personal belongings in them. The Bulgarians were then taken to the police station, where they were interrogated throughout the day, and only in the evening were they taken to a hotel nearby. They were told they could return to their trucks on Monday, but only to pick up their personal belongings from the cabs.
According to Diario de transporte, all the trucks were confiscated by the police and will be material evidence in pre-trial proceedings for violating social and tax laws in Belgium. The Sunday interrogations of the drivers were in connection with the same proceedings. It turned out that all Bulgarians work in a Belgian company and carry out their activities on the territory of Belgium, although they were employed by a fictitious Bulgarian branch with payment of Bulgarian salaries. The branch was made up of so-called mailboxes and did not carry out any activity in Bulgaria, except for the registration of trucks on Bulgarian territory and the conclusion of Bulgarian employment contracts with drivers.
The Belgian carrier, which has opted for such a scheme, is threatened with high financial sanctions, and the owner of the company could even go to prison. In the course of the pre-trial proceedings, evidence was sought of tax evasion in Belgium and the payment of social security contributions.
A gold prospector in the Klondike came across a rare find – an extremely well-preserved newborn mammoth, MediaPortal reported on June 25.
The remains of the mammal have remained in the frozen soil of the Canadian Yukon Territory for more than 30,000 years.
The mummified body from the Ice Age is about 1 meter and 40 centimeters long.
The little woolly mammoth is thought to have died about 30 days after birth
Scientists have extracted the oldest known DNA from the molars of a mammoth that lived in northeastern Siberia 1.2 million years ago, Reuters reported in February 2021.
The teeth from which the DNA was extracted and sequenced are from three mammoths. They are preserved in the permafrost. some of the remains were found in the 1970s, but only modern technology has made it possible to extract DNA.
The oldest of the three teeth was found near the Krestovka River. It is 1.2 million years old. The second of the Adicha Valley is about one million, 1.2 million years old. The third was near the Chukocha River. He is the youngest – about 700,000 years old.
“This is the oldest DNA found,” said evolutionary geneticist Love Dalen of the Center for Paleogenetics in Sweden.
So far, the oldest DNA was from a horse that lived in the Canadian Yukon about 700,000 years ago.
For comparison, our species Homo sapiens appeared about 300,000 years ago.
The extracted DNA has been degraded into very small pieces, and experts have sequenced millions of ultra-short sections to connect the genomes.
Most knowledge of prehistoric creatures comes from fossil research. However, there are limits to them, especially for genetic connections and traits. Ancient DNA can fill such gaps.
Experts have compared this most ancient DNA to a sample of a mammoth that lived much earlier. The mammoth from Krestovka is from a hitherto unknown lineage, separated more than 2 million years ago from the one that led to the appearance of the woolly mammoth. These mammoths appear to have been the first to migrate from Siberia to North America on a then-existing landmass about 1.5 million years ago. Woolly mammoths migrated about 400,000 to 500,000 years ago.
Thousands took to the streets, dissatisfied with the court’s decision
From street protests to social media protests. The United States is in shock after the repeal of a woman’s nearly 50-year constitutional right to terminate her pregnancy. Tennessee is expected to declare abortions illegal in the coming days, followed by others.
Companies such as Amazon, Meta and Walt Disney have announced they will provide financial assistance to their employees who would have to go to another state for the procedure. Meanwhile, a poll shows that most Americans support the right to abortion.
Thousands took to the streets, dissatisfied with the court’s decision.
On Twitter, hundreds compared the situation to Margaret Atwood’s anti-utopian novel The Maid’s Tale, which tells the story of America without women’s rights.
“It turns out that ‘1984’ and ‘The Maid’s Story’ are not anti-utopian literature. They are prophecies.”
Horror author Stephen King also commented: “This is the best Supreme Court the nineteenth century has produced.”
The reversal of the Row v. Wade ruling, which guaranteed the right to refuse pregnancy, leaves it up to each state to decide what legislation to impose. In South Dakota, for example, an abortion ban is being activated, even for rape and incest.
“What I would say is that this was great news in defense of life, every life is precious,” said Christy Noem, governor of South Dakota.
Democratic state governors have begun passing additional legislation to guarantee the right to abortion.
The Kalashnikov Concern is helping to temporarily employ employees of the Lada Izhevsk automobile plant, which was forced to go into idle time, as reported by the Atypical AvtoVAZ group on the VKontakte social network.
On June 23, the first part of the plant’s employees, about 80 people, went to Kalashnikov to see the enterprise from the inside, meet colleagues and apply for temporary employment. Excursions and subsequent consultations were organized on the territory of the Concern for those who wished to find a job.
“Today, unfortunately, we didn’t manage to see much more, but the impressions are already extremely pleasant: a good, high-quality level of organization of the day is a great indicator. When I came here, I expected, probably, only a big salary. Expectations, fortunately, were confirmed. I liked that all the leaders are very active, sociable and positive.”- Pavel Churakov, employee of Lada Izhevsk
Employees are ready to start their work. The interaction of factories will continue. This will help Lada Izhevsk maintain its human resources potential and a decent level of income for employees during the downtime, and Kalashnikov will successfully cope with the increased volume of production under the state defense order.
The MG5 2022 debuted at the Chongqing Motor Show (China). The car turned out to be interesting – mainly due to the combination of design, technical parameters and price. The base version of the MG5 2022 costs only $ 10,150, the top – $ 15,000.
MG5 2022 looks more expensive than its price. The car has a sporty design – it is somewhat similar to the Mercedes-Benz CLS. The MG5 2022 received 17-inch wheels, a virtual instrument cluster, a fairly large display on the front panel, a roundabout system, a number of driving assistants and a system for remote monitoring and control of a number of functions from a smartphone.
The car is equipped with the MEGA Tech petrol engine with volume of 1,5 l and a pipe. It has two power options – 120 and 173 hp. The internal combustion engine can be connected to a conventional five-speed manual transmission, variator or 7-speed robot with two clutches. Consumption MG5 2022 in the basic version with a manual transmission – 5.6 liters.
Billionaire and businessman Leonardo Del Vecchio has died at the age of 87, Reuters reports.
He is the owner of the French-Italian corporation EssilorLuxottica, established in 2018. The company owns the brands Ray-Ban, Oakley, Michael Kors, Varilux, Crizal, Transitions and LensCrafters. EssilorLuxottica is currently a world leader in the design, manufacture and sale of ophthalmic lenses and frames.
Leonardo Del Beccio has a difficult childhood. He was born on May 22, 1935, grew up in Milan, but was sent to a hospital at the age of 7, as my widowed mother was unable to support five children.
He became an apprentice in a local factory and became accustomed to making instruments and matrices. Hoping to make better use of his skills, when he turned 25, he moved to the province of Belino, which is famous for its eyewear production. In 1961 he founded Luhotis.
The company is so pleased that in 1971 it presented its first collection of glasses during the International Exhibition of Optics at Milan MIDO.
Leonardo Del Beccio has a total of 6 children from three parents. From his first brother he has a son and two daughters – Claydio, Mapica and Chaola. The child of the second brother is Leonardo Mapia. There are two more sons from the third family – Lyka and Kliment. In 2010, he married again for the second time his wife Hicaleta Dzampillo, who is the mother of Leonardo Mapia.
The Italian milieu is already preparing his successors for the rule of the empire. The youngest son, Leonardo Mapia Del Beccio, is a member of the company’s company, and in addition, there is a wide media popularity behind the Bokhema world. Born on May 6, 1995, he is in the hands of Luhotis Grour G.R.A. From April 2019, he is responsible for the retail trade in Italy, as he leads the sales of the Balmoiraghi & Vigano and Jungle Nut in the whole country. He is also the president of the Balmoiraghi & Vigano Foundation. He joined Luhottis in November 2017, initially in a lower position. He graduated from Bokoni University with a degree in Business Economics and Management.
The honorary doctorate awarded by Swiss university to former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini will not be revoked, although it is a “serious mistake”, said a commission dealing with the case.
The University of Lausanne (UNIL) honored the fascist leader in 1937 for “conceiving and implementing a social organization in his homeland … that will leave a deep mark on history.”
The university has been repeatedly asked to withdraw the controversial award of the holder, who was an ally of Adolf Hitler during World War II.
An expert group tasked with investigating the case concluded that the decision to award a doctorate “was a serious mistake on the part of the academic and political authorities” at the time.
“This title represents the legitimacy of a criminal regime and its ideology,” the report said on Friday.
The expert group did not recommend revoking the title, saying it would give the false impression that the initial decision to award a doctorate could be “corrected today”.
The university said withdrawing the award could lead critics to say it wants to erase the past.
“Instead of denying or deleting this episode, which is part of its history, university officials want it to serve as a permanent warning,” the statement said.
Mussolini, who lived in Switzerland from 1902 to 1904, was executed by guerrillas in April 1945.
Gas shortages force EU governments to rethink leak closures
At a crisis meeting, the Austrian government decided to reopen a shut-down coal-fired power plant due to power shortages caused by reduced gas supplies from Russia.
The Melah power plant, the country’s last coal-fired power plant, was shut down in the spring of 2020 as the government phased out polluting energy in a bid to switch to 100% renewable energy. Now, however, it will be reopened.
For the sixth day in a row, Italy will be left with a reduced supply of natural gas from Russia.
So far, Hungary is one of the few countries in the European Union that continues to receive full Russian gas.
Gazprom explains the reduction in the quantities supplied for both countries with technical problems. However, the authorities in the affected countries are adamant that this is political pressure from Moscow related to the war in Ukraine and the imposed Western sanctions.
Two hundred and seven years ago, on June 18, 1815, Napoleon’s last battle took place – the Battle of Waterloo, in which the French troops were defeated by a coalition of allies under the command of Wellington and Blucher. The course of hostilities is thoroughly analyzed in numerous sources, it makes no sense to repeat it in detail. But the analysis of the results of the battle is still a difficult question.
Disputes over the number of casualties in a particular battle are always going on, and the Battle of Waterloo is no exception. But most scientists agree that Napoleon lost about 24-26 thousand killed and wounded, and Wellington and Blucher – about 23-24 thousand. In addition, about 15 thousand Frenchmen were missing (most likely, most simply fled to France) and about five thousand coalition soldiers.
But no matter how detailed historians analyze the course of the battle, no matter how reliable sources contemporary to the event are, there is almost always a question, the answer to which must be sought for centuries. In the case of the Battle of Waterloo, this is the absence of military graves around the battlefield.
The tradition of carrying the bodies of the fallen back to their homeland had not yet been established: as a rule, only those who distinguished themselves in battle or those who had wealthy relatives were awarded such an honor. In any case: who would take care of transporting the bodies of the soldiers of the losing army? That is, the French who died and died from wounds were to be buried not far from the battlefields.
Director of the Scottish Center for the Study of War and Conflict Archeology at the University of Glasgow (UK) Tony Pollard (Tony Pollard) studied private letters, memoirs, and sketches of people who visited the vicinity of the Belgian village of Waterloo shortly after the battle. The results are presented in a paper published in the Journal of Conflict Archeology.
It is well known that Waterloo attracted its first visitors almost as soon as the smoke from the cannons cleared. They were both marauders and ordinary onlookers. Both those and others hoped to grab something on the battlefield as a keepsake – by that time in Europe there was even a resale of such “souvenirs”.
The Scottish merchant James Ker lived then in Brussels and was among the first at the battlefield. He left memoirs in which he described both the people who died in his arms and the places of burial. These memoirs speak of three mass graves, which together can contain up to 13,000 bodies.
Pollard, relying on the testimony of local residents (from private letters from the first visitors to Waterloo), compiled a map on which he noted not three, but many more places where the dead were buried. Apparently, in the first days and months (Walter Scott, for example, visited Waterloo two months later), it was the locals who served as guides for visitors. They showed not only the places of the most intense fighting, but also the graves.
But here’s the problem: archaeological research conducted by Waterloo Uncovered, including geophysical surveys and excavations, has not yet revealed any burial sites.
In 2015, during the construction of a new museum and car park near Waterloo, a human skeleton was discovered. Then in 2019, while excavating the main Allied field hospital, archaeologists from Waterloo Uncovered found amputated human leg bones. The museum at Waterloo also houses a skeleton of uncertain provenance. And that is all. Where are the rest of the bones?
“The bodies of the dead were apparently disposed of in numerous places across the battlefield,” writes Pollard. Who and how disposed of the remains of the fallen?
“At least three newspaper articles dating back to the 1820s mention the importation of human bones from European battlefields to make fertilizer. These battlefields could serve as a convenient source of bones, which were then ground into bone meal, an effective form of fertilizer. One of the main markets for this raw material was the British Isles,” the paper says.
Pollard suggests that some of the early visitors may have been agents of the bone supplier. Their main purpose would be mass graves, since the more bones they contain, the easier it is to pay off the effort of excavation. In addition, Waterloo is one of the closest major battles of the Napoleonic era to Britain, and transport costs in this case would be minimal. It is possible that local residents indicated the places of mass graves to agents.
This is a bold hypothesis, but it requires confirmation. Tony Pollard and Waterloo Uncovered are planning a comprehensive archaeological survey of the Waterloo battlefields. If human remains have been removed on the proposed scale, then at least in some cases there must be archaeological evidence of the pits from which they were recovered, however truncated and ill-defined they may be.
