Suicide among the US Military

Source: Associated Press

Here is a small post concerning an issue I've been following since a couple months now.

Not all war wounds are visible. During the last decade or so, the US military has seen an steady increase of suicide rates among active troops. In 2012 it reached a new highest of 349 confirmed suicides and, as a worrisome fact, the number of soldiers killed in combat that same year was 310. More soldiers killed themselves than those killed on duty. These numbers could probably be a lot higher because of other unconfirmed cases, many deaths by overdose, poisoning, etc, are considered "accidents" and therefore not counted.

The concern about this situation has translated into a higher number of psychologists and psychiatrists stationed in military hospitals and clinics. Measures like this only scratch the surface of the problem though, the roots are buried way deeper.

Grieving Soldier Source: Global Research

Victims of mindless wars that they have nothing to do with, veterans are too often faced with PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). Many prefer to end their lives rather than living with the painful memories created while an invader in countries they didn't know existed.

Some new polls revealed that 49% of Americans would approve the sending of ground troops to fight ISIL, I say we must consider what it means to go in an all out war. Let the Middle East fight this war, support them against our common enemy but do not send troops! The worst way to kill the bees is by smacking the beehive.



Note: The numbers are from the Department of Defense's annual reports.

Three Mysterious findings 2010-2015 Vol. 1

I'm sure all of us have heard this at some point: "there is not much left to discover anymore". A clearly mistaken assumption and, since this year is pretty much done, I thought about making a list with some interesting and mysterious findings that took place during 2010-2015. Off we go!

A fresco showing a procession of boats to an island
with a major complex built upon a central volcanic dome

Orichalcum found in a shipwreck. 
(Sicilian Coast)

Right at the beginning of this year (2015) word spread that, in Sicily, a group of divers had found nearly 40 ingots of orichalcum, a "legendary" metal fabled to be the source of power that catapulted the ancient civilization of Atlantis. 

Gela, island of Sicily. Source: Rodolfo Placenti

The accounts of orichalcum are included in Plato's Critias dialogue and it was said to be present in the Temple of Solomon. The word itself derives from Greek oreikhalkos (mountain of copper). In more accurate descriptions, experts believe orichalcum is a bronze alloy with a golden hue. Modern analysis of the found ingots revealed a matching composition of 75-80% copper, 15-20% zinc, and other small traces. Furthermore, some speculate that the ingots were on their way to the city of Gela, which throughout history have been a center of craftsmanship, to be refined even more.

"We knew orichalcum from ancient text and few ornamental objects, [but] nothing similar has ever been found" said Sebastiano Tusa of Sicily's Sea Office.


Sword with cryptic inscription
(Lincolnshire, UK)

A double-edge sword, 13th century, found in Lincolnshire.
Source: British Museum

The British Library is asking for help in deciphering an inscription carved on a medieval sword. This sword was found in 1825, but it wasn't until now that they have it for public display.

The weapon is considered of German manufacture, but somehow ended up in England. But without any doubt the most intriguing feature is the undecipherable inscription that one of its edges carries.

Inscription's Detail

 +NDXOXCHWDRGHDXORVI+

Could you imagine if it was just some medieval stupid joke?

Triceratops Horn with soft tissue

(Montana, US)

Triceratops horn dated 33,500 years.

Last but not least (in fact I think is the "most"). What is believed to be the largest triceratops horn extracted from the excavation site of Hell Creek was found by researcher Mark Armitage in 2012. During post-examination traces of soft tissue were discovered on the sample. "It indicates that dinosaurs roamed the earth only thousands of years in the past rather than going extinct millions of years ago."

Official voices tell us that the fossil dates around 33,500 years old, but some even assure that it is 4,000 years at most.

I would also want to point out that Armitage seems to have deep religious convictions and that his information isn't free of bias. But still intriguing though.

Did our ancestors ride on dinosaurs?

Cloning, 21st Century: An earthly odyssey

Now here is something that won’t allow room for indifference. Half a year ago I read an article regarding the growing cloning technology. It exposed how cloning was trying to get a foot in the food industry and how, up to some extent, was already present on it. But the article went a lot deeper by hinting that certain Asian country (China) was experimenting with human cloning. The cited article was the target of substantial mocking for those statements. Comments such as: “…now I have the plot for my new Sci-Fi novel”, marked the post as alarmist, out of reality and lacking real evidence. The fact is that this same month, Xu Xiaochun, CEO of BoyaLife, a “replication factory”, as they call it, declared that they now have the technology to go the extra step, cloning humans.

 "Dolly clone" by Squidonius
 

For those who don’t yet know exactly how cloning works: is pretty much creating an embryo with the same DNA from a specific donor. You may say is like installing the same program to a different computer, the only difference is that the computer grows and develops exactly the same as the original. What may look such a complicated task, at its core, is a very intuitive process.

Lots of people haven’t realized that cloning is a growing technology that is, and will be, part of our daily lives sooner or later. Human cloning could potentially “grow” receptive organs for everyone, breaking a new barrier for medical science. Thinking in lucrative terms, it would be hugely profitable for a company to be able to offer cloned copies of deceased pets. Think about the money that moves around such emotional value added in an exact replica of a beloved pet. Already, BoyaLife’s biggest plant, located in the city of Tianjin, is expected to be cloning one million cows annually by 2020. Of course the main concern with this matter is the moral implications of the endeavor (playing God). Knowing this, Xiaochun stated that "self-restraint" was the policy to follow.

BoyaLife plant in Tianjin, China. Source: BoyaLife

The ruling opinion is that Boyalife won’t start making clones right away, and that’s where they may be wrong. Chinese culture has a different placement for moral restrictions, not that they have no moral, but just a different view on it (this is a country that issued restrictions to families with more than one child). In 2005, the UN General Assembly adopted a position against the cloning of human beings and the Chinese representative voted against the Declaration, saying that different countries varied in their understanding of the text’s inherent moral, ethical and religious aspects. Even when the allegedly law passed, it is not free of exploitable loopholes.

Here is where I get my feet wet without any proof to back me up, I think Boyalife has already made a human cloning experiment. This is a company that has admitted all of this because of outside pressure, and I’m sure they are way more into it that they will ever tell.

If they did, or will actually clone a human being, it won’t be the first. In 2002, a project called “Clonaid” did what many consider the first official human clone, a female named Eve. This whole project is linked to the Raëlian movement (which I will most likely write about in the future). They claimed human cloning will “open a path to immortality.”

There’s no real evidence of the whole BoyaLife’s program to clone humans. All we have is an obscure company, in an already obscure country, saying that they have the ability to clone humans but won’t use it. Well, what could possibly go wrong?

Publishing industries: "Frustration Inc." (Blog Introduction)

 Oh how unbalanced the publishing industry is. This topic has been discussed thousands upon thousands of times, but who cares, as long as I have something to start the blog with (don't tell me what to do system!).

I had this conversation with a friend over a year ago by now. This guy was seriously (perhaps too seriously) trying to get a first step as a writer in the comic book industry. As an active reader of mainly graphic novels I got dragged by the idea to a lesser degree than himself. I was expecting it to be a difficult endeavor and even told him to not expect anything out of this. But for what I found after a couple days of researching, even I was too optimistic. We all know Stan Lee (most of us at least), he is a superstar in the medium, not an illustrator, so I thought breaking into the industry as just a writer was not a huge deal. The firsthand conclusion regarding that daydream was: "you are a writer trying to break into the comic industry? Ha! Good luck with that." That conclusion has not changed since then.

The main and logical problem with all of this was that we were (and are) nobodies. I know that is the case for pretty much everything, if you have no experience you might as well try to fight the air. The most frustrating thing is that in some cases they get well known writers to do a pitch for a certain character or story and, with all due respect, it turns out to be horrible (I’m looking at you Spider-Man butchers… no names). Even the publishers acknowledge this fact, but they don’t give an “F”. All of this applies to artists as well. The big players do not accept unsolicited work (the most repeated words in the submissions section of every publisher, followed by: we do not assemble creative teams). You need to find your own partner and, by not having a real portfolio backing you up, you’ll most likely end up gambling if he/she will really care about the project or not. The decision of not reading all the scripts they get is reasonable, due to the amount of work it would demand, but, come on, you guys should put emphasis in writing better stories as much as in drawing better panels.

We are left with one forced option: start building a portfolio ourselves in the regular book writing industry, but even that turned out to be challenging. As weeks went by we came with the idea of creating a blog to build our portfolio’s base. I didn’t go all in at first, but as you can see (or in this case read) that has changed. I might talk more about this topic in the future, for now, let’s see how this goes.