Sunday, April 1 The Child in Time (2018) 80% PBS Beverly Hills Dog Show Presented By Purina, 6 p.m., USA Jesus Christ Superstar Live in Concert, 8 p.m., NBC Monday, April 2 The Good Karma Hospital, Acorn TV King In The Wilderness (2018) 100% 8 p.m., HBO The Crossing: Season 1 (2017) 69% 10 p.m., ABC Tuesday, April 3 Shadowhunters: Season 3 (2018) 8 p.m., Freeform Legion: Season 2 (2018) 100% 10 p.m., FX The Last O.G.: Season 1 (2018) 82% 10:30 p.m., TBS Wednesday, April 4 National Treasure: Kiri (2018) Hulu Murder Chose Me: Season 2, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery Iron Chef Gauntlet, 9 p.m., Food Network Thursday, April 5 Jersey Shore Family Vacation: Season 1 (2018) , 8 p.m., MTV Friday, April 6 6 Balloons (2018) 86% Netflix Amateur (2018) Netflix Ram Dass, Going Home (2018) Netflix Fastest Car: Season 1 (2018) Netflix Troy: Fall of a City: Season 1 (2018) 67% Netflix Seth Rogen’s Hilarity for Charity, Netflix The Boss Baby: Back in Business, Netflix All or Nothing: The Michigan Wolverines, Amazon Vice: Season 6 (2018) 11 p.m., HBO Saturday, April 7 Trading Spaces: Season 9 (2018) 9 p.m., TLC Sunday, April 8 Howards End: Miniseries (2017) 89% Starz Killing Eve: Season 1 (2018) 100% 8 p.m., BBC America Aerial Cities, 8 p.m., Smithsonian Long Island Medium, 8 p.m., TLC Aerial Africa, 9 p.m., Smithsonian Rock & Roll Road Trip with Sammy Hagar, 9 p.m., AXS TV Real Money, 9:30 p.m., AXS TV Monday, April 9 Interview With a Murderer, Acorn TV Tuesday, April 10 Greg Davies: You Magnificent Beast, Netflix New Girl: Season 7 (2017) 100% 9:30 p.m., Fox Elton John: I’m Still Standing – A Grammy Salute (CBS), 9 p.m., CBS Wednesday, April 11 The Expanse: Season 3 (2018) 100% 9 p.m., Syfy America Inside Out With Katie Couric, 10 p.m., Nat Geo GI Jews: Jewish Americans in World War II, 10 p.m., PBS Conan Without Borders: Italy, 10 p.m., TBS Thursday, April 12 All-Star Flip, 9:30 p.m., HGTV Friday, April 13 Rellik: Season 1 (2017) 50% Cinemax Chef's Table: Pastry (2018) Netflix Lost in Space: Season 1 (2018) 77% Netflix Bosch: Season 4 (2018) Amazon Wyatt Cenac’s Problem Areas, 11:30 p.m., HBO Saturday, April 14 Littlest Pet Shop: A World of Our Own, noon, Discovery Family Sunday, April 15 53rd Annual Academy of Country Music Awards, 8 p.m., CBS The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth: Season 3 (2018) 8 p.m., Showtime Fear the Walking Dead: Season 4 (2018) 10 p.m., AMC Snoop Dogg Presents The Joker’s Wild: Season 2, 10 p.m., TBS Drop the Mic: Season 2 (2018) 10:30 p.m., TBS Monday, April 16 No Offence, Acorn TV Supergirl: Season 3 (2017) 86% 8 p.m., The CW (reclaiming its time slot from Legends of Tomorrow) Tuesday, April 17 The Honeymoon Stand Up Special: Collection, Netflix Civilizations, 8 p.m., PBS Wednesday, April 18 Hollywood Darlings: Season 2 (2018) 8 p.m., Pop The Originals: Season 5 (2018) 9 p.m., The CW Bill Nye: Science Guy (2017) 100% 10 p.m., PBS Thursday, April 19 Jay Leno's Garage: Season 4 (2018) 10 p.m., CNBC Friday, April 20 Game Over, Man! (2018) 9% Netflix Mercury 13 (2018) Netflix Aggretsuko, Netflix Live From Lincoln Center Presents: Stars in Concert: Season 1 (2018) PBS Sunday, April 22 Westworld: Season 2 (2018) 9 p.m., HBO Into the Badlands: Season 3 (2018) 10 p.m., AMC Monday, April 23 The Late Late Show Carpool Karaoke Primetime Special 2018, 10 p.m., CBS Tuesday, April 24 Kevin James: Never Don’t Give Up, Netflix The 100: Season 5 (2018) 9 p.m., The CW Genius: Picasso (2018) 9 p.m., Nat Geo Wednesday, April 25 The Handmaid's Tale: Season 2 (2018) Hulu NOVA Wonders: Season 1 (2018) 9 p.m., PBS Code Black: Season 3 (2018) 10 p.m., CBS Archer: Danger Island (2018) 10 p.m., FXX Brockmire: Season 2 (2018) 10 p.m., IFC Thursday, April 26 Enissa Amani: Ehrenwort, Netflix Quantico: Season 3 (2018) 10 p.m., ABC Friday, April 27 The Rachel Divide (2018) Netflix The Week Of (2018) Netflix Candy Jar, Netflix Bobby Kennedy For President, Netflix Sunday, April 29 The Good Witch: Season 4, Hallmark Monday, April 30 Dancing With the Stars: All Athletes Edition, 8 p.m., ABC Elementary: Season 6 (2017) 10 p.m., CBS AMC Visionaries: James Cameron’s Story of Science Fiction, 10 p.m., AMC MAY Tuesday, May 1 John Mulaney: Kid Gorgeous at Radio City, Netflix Wednesday, May 2 Colony: Season 3 (2018) USA Friday, May 4 The Rain: Season 1 (2018) Netflix End Game, Netflix Saturday, May 5 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony, 8 p.m., HBO Sunday, May 6 I'm Dying Up Here: Season 2 (2018) 10 p.m., Showtime Sweetbitter: Season 1 (2018) Starz Vida: Season 1 (2018) Starz Monday, May 7 SuperMansion: Season 3 (2018) Starz Keeping Faith: Season 1, Acorn TV Tuesday, May 8 Chrisley Knows Best: Season 6 (2018) 10 p.m., USA The Cromarites, 10:30 p.m., USA Friday, May 11 Bill Nye Saves The World, Netflix The Kissing Booth, Netflix Saturday, May 12 Patrick Melrose: Miniseries (2018) 9 p.m., Showtime Sunday, May 13 Little Women: Miniseries (2017) PBS Friday, May 18 Cargo (2018) Netflix American Masters: Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, 9 p.m., PBS Sunday, May 20 2018 Billboard Music Awards, 8 p.m., NBC Monday, May 21 Sando, Acorn TV 2018 Miss USA, 8 p.m., Fox Tuesday, May 22 The Great American Read, 8 p.m., PBS Saturday, May 26 The Tale (2018) 100% 10 p.m., HBO Sunday, May 27 The Fourth Estate (2015) 8 p.m., Showtime Monday, May 28 The Bachelorette: Season 14 (2018) 8 p.m., ABC SIX: Season 2 (2018) 10 p.m., History Tuesday, May 29 100 Code, WGN America America's Got Talent : Season 13 (2018) 8 p.m., NBC Beat Shazam: Season 2 (2018) 8 p.m., Fox Love Connection: Season 2 (2018) 9 p.m., Fox World of Dance: Seaon 2 (2018) 10 p.m., NBC Queen Sugar: Season 3, 10 p.m., OWN Wednesday, May 30 Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt: Season 4 (2018) Netflix American Ninja Warrior: Season 7 (2015) 8 p.m., NBC Masterchef: Season 9, 8 p.m., Fox Running Wild With Bear Grylls: Season 4 (2018) 10 p.m., NBC JUNE Friday, June 1 C.B. Strike: The Cuckoo's Calling (2017) 78% 10 p.m., Cinemax Sunday, June 3 Wrong Man: Miniseries (2018) 9 p.m., Starz Monday, June 4 So You Think You Can Dance : Season 15 (2018) 8 p.m., Fox Dietland: Season 1 (2018) 9 p.m., AMC Tuesday, June 5 HUMANS: Season 3 (2018) 10 p.m., AMC Younger: Season 5, 10 p.m., TV Land Wednesday, June 6 Condor: Season 1 (2018) 10 p.m., Audience Thursday, June 7 American Woman: Season 1 (2017) 10 p.m., Paramount Network Marvel's Cloak & Dagger: Season 1 (2018) 8 p.m., Freeform Friday, June 8 Alex Strangelove (2018) Netflix Sunday, June 10 72nd Annual Tony Awards, 8 p.m., CBS Tuesday, June 12 The Bold Type: Season 2 (2018) Freeform Wednesday, June 13 Gordon Ramsay’s 24 Hours to Hell and Back, 9 p.m., Fox Friday, June 15 Sunday’s Illness (aka La Enfermedad Del Domingo), Netflix Sunday, June 17 Deep State: Season 1 (2018) Epix The Affair: Season 4 (2018) 9 p.m., Showtime Shades of Blue: Season 3, 10 p.m., NBC Monday, June 18 2018 MTV Movie & TV Awards, 9 p.m., MTV Tuesday, June 19 Drunk History: Season 5 (2017) 10 p.m., Comedy Central Wednesday, June 20 Yellowstone: Season 1 (2018) 9 p.m., Paramount Network Thursday, June 21 Queen of the South: Season 3 (2018) 9 p.m., USA Shooter: Season 3 (2018) 10 p.m., USA Friday, June 22 Marvel's Luke Cage: Season 2 (2018) Netflix Sunday, June 24 Preacher, 10 p.m., AMC JULY Sunday, July 1 Power: Season 5 (2018) 9 p.m., Starz Friday, July 6 The Legacy of a Whitetail Deer Hunter (2018) 17% Netflix Tuesday, July 31 Casual: Season 4 (2018) Hulu Friday, Aug. 31 Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan: Season 1 (2018) Amazon TBD Castle Rock: Season 1 (2018) Hulu The Innocents: Season 1 (2018) Netflix The Kindergarten Teacher (2018) 92% Netflix Rachel Dratch’s Late Night Snack, truTV The Bleeding Edge (2018) Netflix Warriors of Liberty City, Starz

Hulu is giving its subscribers a deep discount on HBO just in time for the return of “Westworld” later this month: The video subscription service began selling its HBO add-on for just $4.99 per month this week. Hulu subscribers who don’t have HBO as part of their plan yet can lock in the discount for six months, after which it reverts to the regular price of $14.99 per month. The company didn’t officially announce the limited-time offer, but began making it available via its website Tuesday. The offer will be available for a limited time, according to a Hulu spokesperson. Hulu began offering HBO as an add-on to its subscription service last July, and is selling the channel alongside other such add-ons from Showtime and Cinemax. Subscribers can access HBO’s programming via the Hulu app on some devices, and also use their Hulu credentials to sign into the HBO Now app. The add-on is available to both subscribers of Hulu’s on-demand plans as well as its live TV streaming service. This means that subscribers to Hulu’s limited commercials plan, which costs $7.99 per month, can effectively get HBO and Hulu together for less than the price of a regular HBO subscription. Earlier this week, Hulu announced a new bundled subscription plan with Spotify, giving existing Spotify subscribers access to Hulu and Spotify for a combined $12.99 per month. Spotify subscribers who made use of that bundle are unfortunately not eligible for the discounted HBO offer — so you won’t be able to get discounts for both Hulu and HBO at the same time.

It was nearly an upset at the weekend box office, but Warner Bros. and New Line's Rampage was able to hold off a strong second weekend from Paramount's hit horror/thriller A Quiet Place to take the weekend's #1 spot. But that doesn't discount the fact A Quiet Place is less than $400k shy of topping $100 million domestically after just ten days in release. Additionally, Blumhouse's Truth or Dare delivered a solid, third place debut. With an estimated $34.5 million, Warner Bros. and New Line's Rampage delivered a first place finish from 4,101 theaters. Looking at some of the comps we used heading into the weekend, this is a bit ahead of the $31.7 million opening for Tom Cruise's The Mummy last year, which went on to gross just over $80 million and an improvement over Dwayne Johnson's Hercules, which opened with $29.8 million in 2014 and grossed just over $72 million domestically. Looking ahead, Rampage really only has one more weekend to have much of an impact at the box office with Avengers: Infinity War debuting in two weeks. Rampage already had to shift its release date when Disney moved Infinity War to April 27 and this relatively soft debut for the $120 million production doesn't bode well for its future domestically and perhaps even internationally where the film brought in an estimated $114.1 million from 61 markets this weekend. Leading the way was an estimated $55 million opening in China followed by the UK ($5.7m), Korea ($5.7m), Mexico ($4.8m) and Malaysia ($3.5m). The film will open in France on May 2 followed by releases in Germany (May 10) and Japan (May 18). Rampage's opening weekend demos show the film playing to an audience that was 55% male vs. 45% female with 63% of the audience coming in over the age of 25. Audiences gave the film an "A-" CinemaScore. With an estimated $32.6 million in its sophomore frame, Paramount's A Quiet Place finished the weekend with a domestic cume just shy of $100 million after just ten days in release. Assuming actuals push the film's Sunday cume over the century mark, A Quiet Place will have reached $100 million nine days faster than Split and six days faster than The Conjuring, which went on to gross $138.2 million and $137.4 million respectively. Even if it isn't until Monday that the film tops $100 million, the pace at which it is performing is spectacular nonetheless. Most importantly, the film's performance is something Paramount Pictures really needed as it already looks as if it will be the studio's highest grossing release since Star Trek Beyond, which brought in $158.8 million after releasing in July of 2016. Should it top that mark, the next highest gross would be Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation's $195 million performance in July 2015. That's impressive to say the very least. Internationally, A Quiet Place added an estimated $22.3 million from 55 markets for an overseas cume reaching $51.7 million and a global tally that now stands at $151.3 million. Based on current exchange rates, the film is pacing 76% ahead of Don't Breathe, 57% ahead of Get Out, 50% ahead of Lights Out, 7% ahead of The Conjuring and 10% behind Split. In third is Universal and Blumhouse's Truth or Dare, delivering an estimated $19 million from 3,029 locations. Perhaps the most impressive aspect of this opening is that it did it alongside A Quiet Place as both films enjoyed solid weekend performances. The film's debut is just a bit shy of the $19.8 million opening for Ouija, which went on to gross just over $50 million. Opening weekend audiences gave the film a "B-" CinemaScore and saw a demo breakdown that was 60% female vs. 40% male with 40% of the audience coming in over the age of 25. Internationally, Truth or Dare debuted in seven markets and brought in an estimated $2.6 million including $1.3 million in the UK and Ireland, tracking ahead of The Visit and on par with other Blumhouse originals such as The Purge and Happy Death Day. The film opens next week in 18 additional markets and continues its international rollout over the next few months. Warner Bros. release of Steven Spielberg's Ready Player One finished in fourth with an estimated $11.2 million. The film's domestic cume now stands just shy of $115 million after 18 days in release and is currently pacing relatively similarly to The Last Airbender and Divergent, which finished with$131.7 million and $150.9 million respectively. Internationally, the film added an estimated $33.8 million this weekend in 65 overseas markets taking the international cume to $360.2 million for a worldwide gross just shy of $475 million with the film opening in Japan this coming weekend. Rounding out the top five is Universal's R-rated comedy Blockers, which dropped a somewhat surprising 50% in its second weekend for an estimated $10.3 million, pushing the film's domestic cume just shy of $37 million. Internationally, the film added six more markets this weekend where it brought in an estimated $3.9 million from 21 overall territories for an international cume totaling $16 million. Elsewhere in the top ten, Fox Searchlight's nationwide expansion of Wes Anderson's Isle of Dogs delivered an estimated $5 million from 1,939 theaters (+1,385) for a domestic cume totaling $18.4 million. The film also expanded internationally where it is now playing in six markets, debuting in France with an estimated $821k and Australia with $713k. Overall the international cume now stands at $8.7 million with releases in China and Spain set for next weekend. Outside the top ten, Bleecker Street's release of Beirut brought in an estimated $1.65 million from 755 locations this weekend for a domestic cume totaling just over $2 million after debuting on Wednesday. In limited release, Sony Classics's The Rider brought in an estimated $45,268 from three theaters ($15,089 PTA). Lastly, this weekend saw Walt Disney Studios cross $2 billion at the global box office with the release of Avengers: Infinity War right around the corner as the studio will continue to expand on its global box office dominance. Next weekend sees the release of Amy Schumer's I Feel Pretty from STX in over 3,200 theaters; Fox Searchlight's release of Super Troopers 2 in ~2,000 locations; and Lionsgate will release Traffik into ~1,000 theaters.

Jonathan Frakes confirms that Spock will make an appearance in season 2 of CBS All Access’ Star Trek: Discovery. Frakes comments come from a recent appearance at the El Paso Comic Con, where he discussed his involvement in the series, first mentioning that he will return to direct two episodes in the upcoming season. Moreover, he shared some details that will be of interest to longtime fans of the franchise, saying episode 2 of the new season will not only feature Anson Mount as Captain Pike, but that it will also offer up a role for young Spock, via a flashback. The details come after the announcement of Mount’s casting and confirmation that Pike will appear on the series, as well as the news that comedian and actor Tig Notaro will have a guest role in season 2 as an engineer aboard another Starfleet vessel. The casting news, along with Anthony Rapp’s social media post about being reunited with the series’ cast indicate all systems are go as far as production on the new season is concerned, and with Frakes offering up episode-specific information at a con, then it would seem the second season of Discovery is further along in its development than previously thought. Frakes’ comments were reported on Twitter by convention attendee and Trek podcaster Justin Oser, who also stated that a young Michael Burnham would appear in the flashbacks alongside young Spock. Check out Oser’s tweets below: Justin Oser @trekfan4747 19h Frakes says he will be directing episodes 2 and 10 of season 2 of #StarTrekDiscovery - episode 2 will have Anson Mount as Pike and a young Spock that we’ll see in flashbacks #StarTrek #ElPasoComicCon Justin Oser @trekfan4747 Frakes also said there will be a young Burnham in the flashbacks for episode 2 of season 2 of #StarTrekDiscovery #ElPasoComicCon 6:13 PM - Apr 14, 2018 The second episode of the new season now promises to be a must-watch hour for Trek fans. So far, the series has kept interactions between Michael and her adoptive family mainly between her and Sarek, leaving her more famous sibling to remain offscreen. Though it’s certainly not as big a deal as, say, an adult Spock interacting with an adult Michael, the idea that the two may be seen together in flashback is intriguing — and possibly contentious, depending on your opinion regarding this particular addition to the Trek lore — but it may also be seen as the series testing the waters in terms of additional appearances by major Star Trek characters. The promise of Captain Pike and an appearance by the U.S.S. Enterprise late in season 1 certainly seems to suggest Discovery’s intentions in that regard. But it remains to be seen just how far the series can or is willing to go in terms of bringing some of the most famous names in the franchise aboard this newly christened vessel. But if the series aims to do so, Spock is by far the most logical choice. Whether or not we’ll ever see him in that blue bStarfleet shirt or not remains to be seen, but if this apparent upcoming flashback works well within the context of what the series is hoping to accomplish in season 2, such a thing might not be outside the realm of possibility.

The US will not pull its troops out of Syria until its goals are accomplished there, Ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley said. This comes after Washington carried out airstrikes in Syria in response to an alleged chemical attack. US currently has over 2,000 troops in Syria and a number of contractors. While it is America’s goals to see the troops come home, “we are not going to leave until we know we have accomplished those things,” she told Fox News Sunday. Haley added that the US wants to ensure that chemical weapons are not used in a way that is of risk to US interests, Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) is defeated, and Iran’s actions are monitored.“Be very clear, if we leave, when we leave, it will be because we know that everything is moving forward,” Haley added. Asked about US-Russia relations, she said they are “very strained,” but the US still hopes to mend ties. At the same time, the US envoy to the UN ruled out any bilateral contacts with the Syrian government, saying that Washington would not “have any one-on-one talks” with Damascus. On Saturday Haley said that the US’ guns are “locked and loaded,” and that Washington will not hesitate to strike if a chemical attack in Syria takes place again. US officials previously said their goal in Syria is just defeating ISIS. President Donald Trump said earlier that the US would withdraw from Syria “soon” and Washington would “let the other people take care of it now,” but no deadline has been announced. Haley’s comments come just one day after the US, UK, and France carried out a massive missile strike on Syrian targets. Missiles fired from warships and jets hit a scientific facility in the vicinity of Damascus, which the coalition claimed was involved in the production of chemical and biological weapons, as well as a former missile base west of Homs and Al-Dumayr air base east of the Syrian capital. Syrian air defense units were scrambled to repel the air invasion, intercepting 71 out of 103 of the missiles, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Pentagon said Syria’s actions did not have any effect. Washington and its allies said the srikes were carried out in retaliation to last week’s alleged chemical attack in Douma, a town near Damascus, but failed to present compelling evidence. Announcing the air invasion, the White House said it has a large body of “reliable intelligence,” as well as “social media users, non-governmental organizations, and other open-source outlets,” implicating the Syrian government in the chemical incident. Notably, the bombing occurred just hours before the UN’s Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) experts were set to carry out an on-site inspection in Douma on Saturday to establish whether chemical weapons had been used there.

The Syria attack reveals the hypocrisy of the West – which fuels the Saudi-led bombing campaign in Yemen despite documented abuses – but relies on unverified claims to punish Syria, journalist and broadcaster Neil Clark told RT. As Riyadh's campaign in Yemen enters its fourth year, it has been repeatedly accused by rights groups of civilian casualties during the bombardment. However, in Syria's case, reports of a chemical weapon attack in Douma that are yet to be independently corroborated became the trigger for a coordinated military action, Clark pointed out. "On the one hand, they are rolling out the red carpet for Saudi leaders and they are supporting, either directly or indirectly, the Saudi bombing of Yemen, which is causing a great humanitarian catastrophe – and how many children has that conflict killed? "On the other hand, they pose as moral paragons, as moral crusaders when they claim children have died in Syria's chemical weapons attack without evidence," he said. Clark argued that by continuing its weapons sales to Riyadh, the West "has been feeding and supporting that conflict." Between March 2015 (the start of the Saudi-led campaign) and February 2018, almost 6,000 civilians were killed and 9,500 wounded, according to the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights. In its report in March, Amnesty International said it has documented at least 36 coalition airstrikes that appeared to be carried out in violation of international humanitarian law, many of which may constitute a war crime. At least 513 civilians perished in their raids, including 157 children, it said. "So, on one hand we have got documented evidence of children dying in huge numbers in Yemen through cholera and through bombing. That's true, that's evidence, actually. And the same powers responsible for that are bombing Syria in response to unverified claims of attacks on children in Syria," Clark said. "The double standards are totally, totally off-the-scale." Just last month, UK Prime Minister Theresa May, US President Donald Trump, and French President Emmanuel Macron welcomed Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the Gulf country's defense minister and de-facto ruler who is on a charm offensive in Europe and the US. As a result, the UK, which has provided a steady supply of arms to the ultraconservative kingdom, signed a huge arms deal with Riyadh that will see it purchasing 48 Typhoon jets from British firm BAE Systems. In his own meeting with bin Salman in Washington, President Trump boasted about $12.5 billion in finalized sales of American weapons to Saudi Arabia. In May 2017, he chose Saudi Arabia for his first foreign trip as president and signed a record $350-billion arms deal. France, which according to data from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) was Saudi Arabia's third biggest weapons supplier between 2013 and 2017, might soon also conclude a new series of deals with the kingdom. Last week, a French defense minister official told Reuters that France had agreed on a new arms export strategy with Saudi Arabia. According to reports in French media, Paris can soon start selling navy patrol boats and Caesar artillery canons to Saudi Arabia, manufactured by CMN and Nexter respectively.

Haley: US Not Withdrawing Troops From Syria "Until Goals Accomplished", More Russian Sanctions Coming Recall that just on March 29, Trump said that based on allied victories against Islamic State militants, "We’ll be coming out of Syria, like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon, we’re coming out. We’re going to get back to our country, where we belong, where we want to be." Well, maybe not, because one oddly well-timed "chemical attack" by the Assad regime just days after Trump's statement, the US not only launched its second massive airstrike against Syria, lobbing 105 Tomahawk cruise missiles at three empty military facilities, but no longer has any intentions of "coming out." Speaking on Fox News on Sunday morning, the US Ambassador to the United Nations, Nikki Haley, said that the United States "would not pull its troops out of Syria until its goals were accomplished." The US currently has over 2,000 troops in Syria, as well as a number of contractors. It is our goal “to see American troops come home, but we are not going to leave until we know we have accomplished those things,” Haley said and listed three aims for the United States: ensuring that chemical weapons are not used in any way that pose a risk to U.S. interests, that Islamic State is defeated and that there is a good vantage point to watch what Iran is doing. “Be very clear, if we leave, when we leave, it will be because we know that everything is moving forward,” Haley added. Asked about US-Russia relations, she said they are “very strained,” but the US still hopes to mend ties. On Saturday, Haley said that the US’ guns are “locked and loaded,” and that Washington will not hesitate to strike if a chemical attack in Syria takes place again. Over the weekend, Trump himself contradicted his own March 29 statement, when he made it clear he wants to withdraw the roughly 2,000 U.S. troops in Syria involved in the anti-Islamic State campaign. But he appeared to refute that message when he said on Saturday that Western allies were prepared to “sustain” the military response if Syrian President Bashar al-Assad does not stop using prohibited chemical weapons. Meanwhile, assuring that relations with Russia deteriorate even more - coincidentally, just as the Mueller probe of Russian collusion peaks - Haley also said that on Monday US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin will announce more Russian sanctions on Monday, which are supposedly set to address chemical equipment used by Assad. Moscow has yet to retaliate to the US sanctions against several Russian billionaire oligarchs who are generally close to Vlarimir Putin, including aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, whose aluminum production giant Rusal, has suddenly found itself without access to western sources of funding, and the resulting solvency concerns have sent aluminum prices soaring.

Caught in a lie, US & allies bomb Syria the night before international inspectors arrive The US, Britain and France trampled international law to launch missiles against Syria, claiming to have “evidence” of the government’s use of chemical weapons. That evidence is based on terrorist lies. After a week of outrageous tweets and proclamations by POTUS Trump, which included continued accusations that Syria’s president ordered a chemical weapons attack on civilians in Douma, east of Damascus, with Trump using grotesque and juvenile terminology, such as “animal Assad,” the very evening before chemical weapons inspectors of the OPCW were to visit Douma, America and allies launched illegal bombings against Syria. The illegal bombings included 103 missiles, 71 of which Russia states were intercepted. For the past week, we were told that the US had ‘evidence’ and the UK had ‘evidence’ that Syria had used chemicals. The ‘evidence’ largely relied on video clips and photos shared on social media, provided by the Western-funded White Helmets (that “rescuer” group that somehow only operates in Al-Qaeda and co-terrorist occupied areas and participates in torture and executions), as well as by Yaser al-Doumani, a man whose allegiance to Jaysh al-Islam is clear from his own Facebook posts, for example of former Jaysh al-Islam leader, Zahran Alloush. This, we were told, was ‘evidence.’ This and the words of the highly partial, USAID-funded, US State Department allied Syrian American Medical Society, which, like Al-Qaeda’s rescuers, only supports doctors in terrorist-occupied areas. On April 12, even US Secretary of Defense James Mattis told the House Armed Services Committee that the US government does not have any evidence that sarin or chlorine was used, that he was still looking for evidence. Syria, finding the claims to be lies and the sources tainted, requested that the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) immediately come to Syria to investigate the claims. Accordingly, the OPCW agreed to send a team—the visas for which Syria granted immediately—which arrived in Damascus on April 14. President Trump, instead of waiting for an investigation to confirm his ‘evidence,’ chose the very night before this investigative team would arrive in Syria to inspect the allegations, to bomb Syria. The timing of the attacks is more than just a little timely. And the bombings were illegal. General Mattis tried to dance around the legality, stating, “the president has the authority under Article II of the Constitution to use military force overseas to defend important United States national interests.” But he is wrong, this does not permit the US to illegally bomb a sovereign nation, and he knows it. So does Russia. In a statement on April 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin declared the attacks as illegal, noting: “Without the sanction of the Security Council of the United Nations, in violation of the UN Charter, norms and principles of international law, an act of aggression against a sovereign state that is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism has been committed.” What if chemicals had been at targeted locations? In the same Pentagon briefing, General Joseph Dunford specified the US and allies’ targets in Syria, alleging they were “specifically associated with the Syrian regime's chemical weapons program.” One target, at which 76 missiles were fired, was the Barzeh scientific research centre in heavily-populated Damascus itself, which Dunford claimed was involved in the “development, production and testing of chemical and biological warfare technology.” This ‘target’ is in the middle of a densely-inhabited area of Damascus. According to Damascus resident Dr. (of business and economy) Mudar Barakat, who knows the area in question, “the establishment consists of a number of buildings. One of them is a teaching institute. They are very close to the homes of the people around.” Of the strikes, Dunford claimed they “inflicted maximum damage, without unnecessary risk to innocent civilians.” If one believed the claims to be accurate, would bombing them really save Syrian lives, or to the contrary cause mass deaths? Where is the logic in bombing facilities believed to contain hazardous, toxic chemicals in or near densely populated areas? Regarding the actual nature of the buildings bombed, Syrian media, SANA, describes the Pharmaceutical and Chemical Industries Research Institute as “centered on preparing the chemical compositions for cancer drugs.” The destruction of this institute is particularly bitter, as, under the criminal western sanctions, cancer medicines sales to Syria are prohibited. Interviews with one of its employees, Said Said, corroborate SANA’s description of the facility making cancer treatment and other medicinal components. One article includes Said’s logical point: “If there were chemical weapons, we would not be able to stand here. I've been here since 5:30 am in full health – I'm not coughing.” Of the facility, the same SANA article noted that its labs had been visited by the OPCW, which issued two reports negating claims of any chemical weapons activities. This is a point Syria’s Ambassador al-Ja’afari raised in the April 14 UN Security Council meeting, noting that the OPCW “handed to Syria an official document which confirmed that the Barzeh centre was not used for any type of chemical activity” that would be in contravention to Syria’s obligations regarding the OPCW. Bombings based on Al-Qaeda and Jaysh al-Islam Claims The entire pretext of the US and allies’ illegal bombings of Syria is immoral and flawed. There is no evidence to the claims that Syria used chemicals in Douma. Numerous analysts have pointed out the obvious: that Syria would not benefit from having used chemical weapons. But America, Israel and allies would benefit from staged attacks. The website Moon of Alabama noted discrepancies in the videos passed around on social media as “evidence” of Syria’s culpability, including the following: "The 'treatment' by the 'rebels', dousing with water and administering some asthma spray, is unprofessional and many of the 'patients' seem to have no real problem. It is theater. The real medical personnel are seen in the background working on a real patient.” Russia’s Defense Ministry has released interviews with two men who were included in the footage alleging a chemical attack has occurred. One of the men, Halil Ajij, said he worked in the hospital in question, they had treated people for smoke poisoning, saying: “We treated them, based on their suffocation," also noting: “We didn’t see any patient with symptoms of a chemical weapons poisoning,” he said. In an April 14 interview on Sky News, the former British Ambassador to Syria, Peter Ford, argued that the most elementary stage in the accusations game is to allow the actual inspection to occur. “The evidence that chemical weapons were dropped is non-existent. Let the inspectors go in and possibly within days we will have a verdict but the jury is still out. ...I'm totally confident that the inspectors will not produce one shred of evidence to back up the assertions of the Americans. If the Americans had proof, they’d have brought it forward. What they're saying and what Mrs. May is saying, is just ‘take our word for it, trust us’. There’s not even a dodgy dossier this time.” Israel and America benefit from the attacks... and are guilty of chemical weapons use While the world’s eyes have been glazed over by chemical weapons script-reading journalists of corporate media, little notice is given to the ongoing Israeli slaughter and maiming of Palestinian unarmed demonstrators, targeted assassinations that last re-began with the March 30 murders of at least 17 unarmed Palestinians protesting in Gaza’s eastern regions. Israel’s murder of these unarmed youths, women and men got only mild tut-tuts from the UN, and was relegated to “clashes” by slavish corporate media. Israel is literally getting away with murder, as eyes are turned elsewhere. According to Secretary Mattis, the US-led illegal attack on Syria “demonstrates international resolve to prevent chemical weapons from being used on anyone under any circumstances in contravention of international law.” The irony? Both America and its close ally Israel have used chemical weapons on civilians. The US has attacked civilians in Vietnam and Iraq, to name but two countries, with chemical weapons. In 2009, I was living in Gaza and documenting Israel’s war crimes when Israel bombed civilians all over Gaza with white phosphorous. These were civilians with nowhere to run or hide, including civilians who had fled their homes and taken shelter in a UN-recognized school. I myself documented numerous instances of Israel’s use of white phosphorous. If this doesn’t outrage American citizens, the billions of US taxpayers’ dollars sent to Israel and spent on the bombing of sovereign nations — and not on America’s impoverished, nor on affordable health care — should outrage. However, as author Jonathan Cook noted, the issue is not merely Trump’s threats to Syria: “There is bipartisan support for this madness. Hillary Clinton and the Democratic leadership in the US, and much of the parliamentary Labour party in the UK, are fully on board with these actions. In fact, they have been goading Trump into launching attacks.” By not attacking Russian forces in Syria this time, the US narrowly avoided a direct military confrontation with Russia, one which would have had global ramifications, to say the least. The question now is: will the regime-change alliance be stupid and cruel enough to support yet another false flag chemical attack in their unending efforts to depose the Syrian president, or will they give up the game and allow Syria’s full return to peace? The US and allies claim their concern for Syrian civilians, but do everything in their power to ensure civilians suffer from terrorism and sanctions.

So you think that you're pretty smart because you never signed up for a Facebook account. And while your friends are concerned about who got to use their profile data without permission, you gloat that your personal information is safe and remains out of the clutches of Facebook. Or is it? During his testimony in front of a House committee on Wednesday, Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg stated that his company does track internet users who have not subscribed to Facebook. Responding to a question poised by U.S. Representative Ben Luján (D-New Mexico), Zuckerberg responded that Facebook tracks non-users for security reasons. That means that these non-subscribers haven't a clue about what information Facebook has obtained about them. This didn't sit well with the lawmakers in Congress, who might draft regulations to be applied against the social media app and others of its ilk. "We've got to fix that," said Rep. Luján, referring to a process that forces non Facebook users to sign up for the service if they want to know what personal information the company has obtained. Facebook has responded by saying that it has no plans to develop a method to allow non-users to see the data about them collected by the company. Besides politicians, privacy advocates are also disturbed by Zuckerberg's comments. Chris Calabrese, vice president for policy at the Center for Democracy & Technology, said that Facebook needs to reveal what it is doing with all of this information. "You said that everyone controls their data, but you're collecting data on people who are not even Facebook users, that have never signed a consent, a privacy agreement."-U.S. Representative Ben Luján Some cyber security experts expect to see executives from Google, Amazon, Reddit and Twitter to be called soon to testify on Capitol Hill.

MOSCOW, April 15 (Itar-Tass) - RIA Novosti. Vladimir Putin discussed the situation in Syria by phone with Iranian President Hassan Roukhani after a missile strike by the United States and its allies, the Kremlin's press service said. The leaders noted that this step caused "serious damage to the prospects for a political settlement in Syria." Putin stressed that if such actions, committed in violation of the UN Charter, continue, it will inevitably lead to chaos in international relations. The presidents also discussed the general state of affairs in the Middle East region, including the situation in Yemen. The parties noted the need for further development of multifaceted Russian-Iranian cooperation and expansion of mutually beneficial ties in the trade and economic sphere. The act of aggression against Syria On Saturday night, the United States, Britain and France fired over a hundred missiles in Syria, three people were injured. In Washington, this step was explained by an answer to the "hemataka" in the city of the Duma. Most of the missiles of the Syrian air defense were able to shoot down. At the same time, there is no evidence of Damascus using prohibited substances. The US and its allies attacked before the OPCW was investigated. Specialists of the Russian Center for the Reconciliation of Warring Parties (CPAP) last week visited the site of the alleged incident and found no traces of chemical weapons. Vladimir Putin called the incident "an act of aggression against a sovereign state, which is at the forefront of the fight against terrorism." Link: https://ria.ru/syria/20180415/1518691398.html

In the Swiss laboratory they answered Lavrov's words about the poisoning of Sergey and Yulia Skripely with the poison BZ Employees of the Swiss chemical laboratory reacted to the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on the results of samples from the poisoning site of Sergei and Yulia Skripely. According to their laboratory analyzes, which the head of the Russian Foreign Ministry referred to, the former employee of the GRU and his daughter were poisoned not by Novikom, but by the chemical BZ, which was in service with the NATO countries. "Only the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons can comment on this statement. But we can repeat what was said ten days ago: we have no doubt that Porton Down has identified the substance. Porton Down, like Spitz, are the designated OPCW laboratories, "representatives of the laboratory wrote on Twitter. At the same time, specialists answered that their conclusions can be trusted, since the verification standards are very high. On April 12, experts (OPCW) announced the results of the investigation into the Salisbury incident. The report does not include the name of the substance, nor is there any information about its origin. On March 4, a British spy and former employee Sergei Skripal and his daughter Julia were poisoned in Salisbury. Now the condition of both victims has improved and they are on the mend. Reference: https://iz.ru/732430/2018-04-15/v-sh...palei-iadom-bz

Source: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution The North Atlantic is a key juncture in the world ocean circulation system that has impacts on our climate. The Gulf Stream carries warm, salty water to the Labrador Sea and the Nordic Seas, where it releases heat to the atmosphere and warms Western Europe. The cooler, denser water then sinks to great depths to propel currents around the world and eventually circulate water back up to the Gulf Stream. In the mid-19th century, a long period of cooler climate, known the Little Age, came to an end. Sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers that had formed around the Arctic region began to melt, creating a huge natural tap of fresh water that gushed into the North Atlantic. This huge influx of fresh water diluted seawater on the ocean surface, making it lighter and less able to sink deep. That weakened the sinking of cold water and the amount of heat released to the atmosphere in the region. Today, Earth's climate is warming, and even though sea ice in the region has diminished, the ocean circulation remains weak -- possibly because Greenland's Ice Sheet is thawing and releasing fresh water to the North Atlantic. Credit: Illustration by Natalie Renier, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution New research led by University College London (UCL) and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) provides evidence that a key cog in the global ocean circulation system hasn't been running at peak strength since the mid-1800s and is currently at its weakest point in the past 1,600 years. If the system continues to weaken, it could disrupt weather patterns from the United States and Europe to the African Sahel, and cause more rapid increase in sea level on the U.S. East Coast. When it comes to regulating global climate, the circulation of the Atlantic Ocean plays a key role. The constantly moving system of deep-water circulation, sometimes referred to as the Global Ocean Conveyor Belt, sends warm, salty Gulf Stream water to the North Atlantic where it releases heat to the atmosphere and warms Western Europe. The cooler water then sinks to great depths and travels all the way to Antarctica and eventually circulates back up to the Gulf Stream. "Our study provides the first comprehensive analysis of ocean-based sediment records, demonstrating that this weakening of the Atlantic's overturning began near the end of the Little Ice Age, a centuries-long cold period that lasted until about 1850," said Dr. Delia Oppo, a senior scientist with WHOI and co-author of the study which was published in the April 12th issue of Nature. Lead author Dr. David Thornalley, a senior lecturer at University College London and WHOI adjunct, believes that as the North Atlantic began to warm near the end of the Little Ice Age, freshwater disrupted the system, called the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC). Arctic sea ice, and ice sheets and glaciers surrounding the Arctic began to melt, forming a huge natural tap of fresh water that gushed into the North Atlantic. This huge influx of freshwater diluted the surface seawater, making it lighter and less able to sink deep, slowing down the AMOC system. To investigate the Atlantic circulation in the past, the scientists first examined the size of sediment grains deposited by the deep-sea currents; the larger the grains, the stronger the current. Then, they used a variety of methods to reconstruct near-surface ocean temperatures in regions where temperature is influenced by AMOC strength. "Combined, these approaches suggest that the AMOC has weakened over the past 150 years by approximately 15 to 20 percent" says Thornalley. According to study co-author Dr. Jon Robson, a senior research scientist from the University of Reading, the new findings hint at a gap in current global climate models. "North Atlantic circulation is much more variable than previously thought," he said, "and it's important to figure out why the models underestimate the AMOC decreases we've observed." It could be because the models don't have active ice sheets, or maybe there was more Arctic melting, and thus more freshwater entering the system, than currently estimated. Another study in the same issue of Nature, led by Levke Ceasar and Stefan Rahmstorf from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, looked at climate model data and past sea-surface temperatures to reveal that AMOC has been weakening more rapidly since 1950 in response to recent global warming. Together, the two new studies provide complementary evidence that the present-day AMOC is exceptionally weak, offering both a longer-term perspective as well as detailed insight into recent decadal changes. "What is common to the two periods of AMOC weakening -- the end of the Little Ice Age and recent decades -- is that they were both times of warming and melting," said Thornalley. "Warming and melting are predicted to continue in the future due to continued carbon dioxide emissions." Oppo agrees, both noting, however, that just as past changes in the AMOC have surprised them, there may be future unexpected surprises in store. For example, until recently it was thought that the AMOC was weaker during the Little Ice Age, but these new results show the opposite, highlighting the need to improve our understanding of this important system.

Research to raise a few eyebrows: Why expressive brows might have mattered in human evolution Source: University of York Eyebrows on fleek: Model of a modern human skull next to Kabwe 1. Highly mobile eyebrows that can be used to express a wide range of subtle emotions may have played a crucial role in human survival, new research from the University of York suggests. Like the antlers on a stag, a pronounced brow ridge was a permanent signal of dominance and aggression in our early ancestors, which modern humans traded in for a smooth forehead with more visible, hairy eyebrows capable of a greater range of movement. Mobile eyebrows gave us the communication skills to establish large, social networks; in particular to express more nuanced emotions such as recognition and sympathy, allowing for greater understanding and cooperation between people. The study contributes to a long-running academic debate about why other hominins, including our immediate ancestors, had gigantic brow ridges while anatomically modern humans evolved flatter foreheads. Senior author of the paper, Paul O'Higgins, Professor of Anatomy at the University of York, said: "Looking at other animals can offer interesting clues as to what the function of a prominent brow ridge may have been. In mandrills, dominant males have brightly coloured swellings on either side of their muzzles to display their status. The growth of these lumps is triggered by hormonal factors and the bones underlying them are pitted with microscopic craters -- a feature that can also be seen in the brow bones of archaic hominins." "Sexually dimorphic display and social signalling is a convincing explanation for the jutting brows of our ancestors. Their conversion to a more vertical brow in modern humans allowed for the display of friendlier emotions which helped form social bonds between individuals." Using 3D engineering software, the researchers looked at the iconic brow ridge of a fossilised skull, known as Kabwe 1, held in the collections of the National History Museum. It belonged to a species of archaic hominin -- Homo heidelbergensis, who lived between 600,000 and 200,000 years ago. The researchers discounted two theories commonly put forward to explain protruding brow ridges: that they were needed to fill the space where the flat brain cases and eye sockets of archaic hominins met, and that the ridge acted to stabilise their skulls from the force of chewing. Professor O'Higgins said: "We used modelling software to shave back Kabwe's huge brow ridge and found that the heavy brow offered no spatial advantage as it could be greatly reduced without causing a problem. Then we simulated the forces of biting on different teeth and found that very little strain was placed on the brow ridge. When we took the ridge away there was no effect on the rest of the face when biting. "Since the shape of the brow ridge is not driven by spatial and mechanical requirements alone, and other explanations for brow ridges such as keeping sweat or hair out of eyes have already been discounted, we suggest a plausible contributing explanation can be found in social communication." According to the researchers, our communicative foreheads started off as a side-effect of our faces getting gradually smaller over the past 100,000 years. This process has become particularly rapid in last 20,000 years and more recently, as we switched from being hunter gatherers to agriculturalists -- a lifestyle that meant less variety in both diet and physical effort. Co-author of the paper, Dr Penny Spikins from the Department of Archaeology at the University of York, said: "Modern humans are the last surviving hominin. While our sister species the Neanderthals were dying out, we were rapidly colonising the globe and surviving in extreme environments. This had a lot to do with our ability to create large social networks -- we know, for example, that prehistoric modern humans avoided inbreeding and went to stay with friends in distant locations during hard times. "Eyebrow movements allow us to express complex emotions as well as perceive the emotions of others. A rapid "eyebrow flash" is a cross-cultural sign of recognition and openness to social interaction and pulling our eyebrows up at the middle is an expression of sympathy. Tiny movements of the eyebrows are also a key component to identifying trustworthiness and deception. On the flip side it has been shown that people who have had botox which limits eyebrow movement are less able to empathise and identify with the emotions of others. "Eyebrows are the missing part of the puzzle of how modern humans managed to get on so much better with each other than other now-extinct hominins."

Source: University of Manchester Image of pregnant ichthyosaur with octuplets. Palaeontologists have discovered part of the skeleton of a 180 million-year-old pregnant ichthyosaur with the remains of between six and eight tiny embryos between its ribs. The new specimen was studied by palaeontologists Mike Boyd and Dean Lomax from The University of Manchester. It was collected around 2010 from near Whitby, North Yorkshire and is from the Early Jurassic. The fossil was in the collection of fossil collector, Martin Rigby, who thought the specimen might be a block of embryos. Dean confirmed the suspicion and the specimen was acquired by the Yorkshire Museum, York. Ichthyosaurs were aquatic reptiles that dominated the Jurassic seas. They gave birth to live young, rather than laying eggs, and did not need to return to land, even to breed. They were carnivores, feeding upon other reptiles, fish, and marine invertebrates such as the squid-like belemnites. Ichthyosaur fossils are quite common in the UK and often found in British Jurassic rocks. However, only five ichthyosaur specimens from Britain have ever been found with embryos and none with this many. All five were collected from Jurassic exposures in the south-west of England and are between 200-190 million years old. This is the first to be found in Yorkshire. The new specimen is a star attraction in the new major exhibition, Yorkshire's Jurassic World, which recently opened on March 24. The Jurassic rocks of Yorkshire have produced hundreds of ichthyosaur and other marine reptile skeletons, but have not, until now, yielded any reptilian embryos. The new specimen, as well as being the first embryo-bearing ichthyosaur recorded from Yorkshire, is also geologically the youngest of the British embryo-bearing specimens, being from the Toarcian Stage of the Jurassic, around 180 million-year-old. The specimen is a small boulder that has been cut in half and polished, which exposes several large ribs (of the adult) and several strings of vertebrae and various indeterminate tiny bones. Boyd and Lomax say there are at least six embryos present, but probably eight. Mike said: "We also considered the possibility that the tiny remains could be stomach contents, although it seemed highly unlikely that an ichthyosaur would swallow six to eight aborted embryos or newborn ichthyosaurs at one time. And this does not seem to have been the case, because the embryos display no erosion from stomach acids. Moreover, the embryos are not associated with any stomach contents commonly seem in Early Jurassic ichthyosaurs, such as the remains of squid-like belemnites." Eight different species of ichthyosaur have been documented with embryos. By far, the most commonly found ichthyosaur with embryos is Stenopterygius. Over a hundred specimens of Stenopterygius from Holzmaden and surrounding areas in Germany have been found with embryos, ranging from one to eleven in number. "The German sites are approximately the same age as the new specimen from Whitby and it is possible that the new specimen is also Stenopterygius, but no identifiable features are preserved in the adult or embryos. Nonetheless, this is an important find." added Dean. Sarah King, curator of natural science at the Yorkshire Museum, said: "This is an incredible find and the research by Dean and Mike has helped us confirm it is the first example of fossilised ichthyosaur embryos to be found in Yorkshire. Its display in Yorkshire's Jurassic World incorporates the latest digital technology to reveal the embryos and to explain the significance of the discovery. It also allows us to show a softer and more nurturing side to the Sea Dragons which were the top marine predator of their time."

The British Center for Government Communication (GCHQ) and the Ministry of Defense are ready to give a "proportional" response to possible cyber attacks against Russia against computer networks in the UK. About this newspaper The Sunday Times sources said in the British security services. According to the publication, cyber experts have already "taken positions" in computer networks of goals in Russia. At the same time, the key infrastructure of the United Kingdom - for example, the establishment of the health care system - has been warned by the authorities about the dangers of cyber attacks. It is also reported that after an incident with the alleged poisoning of the Skrypal family in Salisbury, British intelligence warned its Prime Minister Theresa May about the possibility of a Russian President Vladimir Putin's response to the British ministers, members of parliament and other dignitaries compromising. Compromising materials, the newspaper writes, can be published by hackers behind whom the Kremlin stands. If you believe the title of the article, the Russians "threaten to launch a dirty campaign" against the British elite. Link: https://www.vesti.ru/doc.html?id=3007248

MOSCOW, April 15 (Itar-Tass) - RIA Novosti. The United States intends to announce the expansion of sanctions against Russia because of the situation in Syria. This was reported by the Permanent Representative to the UN Nikki Haley CBS News. According to her, the Minister of Finance Stephen Mnuchin will announce an appropriate decision on April 16. Hayley was utterly saddened that new restrictive measures will affect enterprises involved in the supply of equipment and technologies related to the use of chemical weapons by the Syrian authorities. The Kommersant newspaper earlier reported that the US ambassador in Moscow, John Huntsman, sent a letter to the Russian Foreign Ministry warning about the preparations being made. The forthcoming expansion of restrictive measures was also reported by Atlantic Council expert Brian O'Toole. In a quote from the document he quoted, it is said that the US authorities want to expand anti-Russian sanctions as a response to Moscow's support of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, "which allowed him to commit crimes against the Syrian people." A representative of the White House told RIA Novosti that he has nothing to say about the information about the new sanctions. A sharp aggravation of the situation around Syria occurred on the night of April 14. The United States, France and the United Kingdom have inflicted air strikes against objects in Syria. During the attack, more than 100 missiles were fired, most of which were successfully shot down by Syrian air defense systems. The reason for this was unsubstantiated reports about the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian authorities. Vladimir Putin criticized the actions of the West, calling the attack an act of aggression against a sovereign state. At a meeting of the UN Security Council, Russia presented a draft resolution condemning the attack, but the document was rejected. Link: https://ria.ru/world/20180415/1518697649.html

From the moment the first people came online, the Internet has been used to share information. Over the years this evolved from simple text-based commands, to point-and-click uploads of hours of video. Pirates are often at the forefront when it comes to finding new ways to share content, eager to expand their horizons. But how much has really changed over the years? While piracy today is more widespread than ever, the urge to share content online has been around for several decades. The first generation used relatively primitive tools, such as a bulletin board systems (BBS), newsgroups or IRC. Nothing too fancy, but they worked well for those who got over the initial learning curve. When Napster came along things started to change. More content became available and with just a few clicks anyone could get an MP3 transferred from one corner of the world to another. The same was true for Kazaa and Limewire, which further popularized online piracy. After this initial boom of piracy applications, BitTorrent came along, shaking up the sharing landscape even further. As torrent sites are web-based, pirated media became even more public and easy to find. At the same time, BitTorrent brought back the smaller and more organized sharing culture of the early days through private trackers. These communities often focused on a specific type of content and put strict rules and guidelines in place. They promoted sharing and avoided the spam that plagued their public counterparts. That was fifteen years ago. Today the piracy landscape is more diverse than ever. Private torrent trackers are still around and so are IRC and newsgroups. However, most piracy today takes place in public. Streaming sites and devices are booming, with central hosting platforms offering the majority of the underlying content. That said, there is still an urge for some pirates to band together and some use newer technologies to do so. This week The Outline ran an interesting piece on the use of Telegram channels to share pirated media. These groups use the encrypted communication platform to share copies of movies, TV shows, and a wide range of other material. Telegram allows users to upload files up to 1.5GB in size, but larger ones can be split, in common with the good old newsgroups. These type of sharing groups are not new. On social media platforms such as Facebook and VK, there are hundreds or thousands of dedicated communities that do the same. Both public and private. And Reddit has similar groups, relying on external links. According to an administrator of a piracy-focused Telegram channel, the appeal of the platform is that the groups are not shut down so easily. While that may be the case with hyper-private groups, Telegram will still pull the plug if it receives enough complaints about a channel. The same is true for Discord, another application that can be used to share content in ‘private’ communities. Discord is particularly popular among gamers, but pirates have also found their way to the platform. While smaller communities are able to thrive, once the word gets out to copyright holders, the party can soon be over. This is also what the /r/piracy subreddit community found out a few days ago when its Discord server was pulled offline. This triggered a discussion about possible alternatives. Telegram was mentioned by some, although not everyone liked the idea of connecting their phone number to a pirate group. Others mentioned Slack, Weechat, Hexchat and Riot.im. None of these tools are revolutionary. At least, not for the intended use by this group. Some may be harder to take down than others, but they are all means to share files, directly or through external links. What really caught our eye, however, were several mentions of an ancient application layer protocol that, apparently, hasn’t lost its use to pirates. “I’ll make an IRC server and host that,” one user said, with others suggesting the same. And so we have come full circle… Source: Torrentfreak.com

The South Korean government will announce a tentatively called “joint countermeasure for overseas websites distributing pirated content” in the middle of this month. The South Korean government will start the development of technology that blocks illegal reproduction and distribution websites, like “The Night of the Rabbit” which distributes contents, including webtoon, with having servers in a foreign country. It is planning to dramatically reduce damages caused by the infringement of digital contents copyrights worth 1 trillion won (US$934.58 million) a year. According to government officials on April 8, the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism, the Ministry of Science and ICT and the Korea Communications Commission will announce a tentatively called “joint countermeasure for overseas websites distributing pirated content” in the middle of this month. The ministries will begin the development of illegal foreign website blocking technology in May. The government has been continuously blocking illegal content providers that have servers abroad and infringed the copyrights on webtoon and movie, but has failed to root out them. Currently, the government simply blocks specific URLs so it is impossible to block illegal websites when they change the patch to other URLs and use an alt-route. Recently, many illegal websites use the hypertext transfer protocol over secure socket layer (HTTPS) which integrates hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) with cryptographic technology so it is hard to block them, according to experts. In fact, the Korea Copyright Protection Agency (KCPA) asked the Korea Communications Standards Commission to block the access of 72 illegal websites last year but 31 of them avoided the curbs in this manner. The Night of the Rabbit also continuously provides the service of about 1,500 illegal copies of South Korean webtoon series using this technology despite the government’s restrictions. Accordingly, the government has decided to develop the technology that can fundamentally block these websites instead of the current URL blocking technology. These illegal content providers are doing serious damage to the domestic digital content industry. Pirated contents are shaking the foundations of the digital content industry, especially webtoon which is frequently used by consumers. According to the KCPA, the amount of damages caused by the infringement of digital contents copyrights increased from 1.07 trillion won (US$1 billion) in 2015 to 1.2 trillion won (US$1.12 billion) in 2017. According to a report from Webtoon Guide, a webtoon statistician and analyst, the damages in the webtoon market alone reached 1.26 trillion won (US$1.18 billion) last year. An official from the webtoon industry said, “Pirate websites steal new series of webtoon that were carefully crafted by creators in two hours but private companies have limits to respond to them. So, we are hoping that the government attacks pirate websites even by hiring legitimate hackers. In particular, it is urgent to come up with technical and political measures to block pirate sites that infringe the copyrights with having servers in a foreign country and bypassing the domestic law.”

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In an increasingly capitalist world, people are brought up to see financial opportunities wherever they exist. The world of piracy is no different and as a result, there are always people out to make a quick buck from infringement. But what happened to "sharing is caring" and when, if ever, will pirates return to those once proud roots? Perhaps more to the point, does anyone even care anymore? Long before peer-to-peer file-sharing networks were a twinkle in developers’ eyes, piracy of software and games flourished under the radar. Cassettes, floppy discs and CDs were the physical media of choice, while the BBS became the haunt of the need-it-now generation. Sharing was the name of the game. When someone had game ‘X’ on tape, it was freely shared with friends and associates because when they got game ‘Y’, the favor had to be returned. The content itself became the currency and for most, the thought of asking for money didn’t figure into the equation. Even when P2P networks first took off, money wasn’t really a major part of the equation. Sure, the people running Kazaa and the like were generating money from advertising but for millions of users, sharing content between friends and associates was still the name of the game. Even when the torrent site scene began to gain traction, money wasn’t the driving force. Everything was so new that developers were much more concerned with getting half written/half broken tracker scripts to work than anything else. Having people care enough to simply visit the sites and share something with others was the real payoff. Ironically, it was a reward that money couldn’t buy. But as the scene began to develop, so did the influx of minor and even major businessmen. The ratio economy of the private tracker scene meant that bandwidth could essentially be converted to cash, something which gave site operators revenue streams that had never previously existed. That was both good and bad for the scene. The fact is that running a torrent site costs money and if time is factored in too, that becomes lots of money. If site admins have to fund everything themselves, a tipping point is eventually reached. If the site becomes unaffordable, it closes, meaning that everyone loses. So, by taking in some donations or offering users other perks in exchange for financial assistance, the whole thing remains viable. Counter-intuitively, the success of such a venture then becomes the problem, at least as far as maintaining the old “sharing is caring” philosophy goes. A well-run private site, with enthusiastic donors, has the potential to bring in quite a bit of cash. Initially, the excess can be saved away for that rainy day when things aren’t so good. Having a few thousand in the bank when chaos rains down is rarely a bad thing. But what happens when a site does really well and is making money hand over fist? What happens when advertisers on public sites begin to queue up, offering lots of cash to get involved? Is a site operator really expected to turn down the donations and tell the advertisers to go away? Amazingly, some do. Less amazingly, most don’t. Although there are some notable exceptions, particularly in the niche private tracker scene, these days most ‘pirate’ sites are in it for the money. In the current legal climate, some probably consider this their well-earned ‘danger money’ yet others are so far away from the sharing ethos it hurts. Quite often, these sites are incapable of taking in a new member due to alleged capacity issues yet a sizeable ‘donation’ miraculously solves the problem and gets the user in. It’s like magic. As it happens, two threads on Reddit this week sparked this little rant. Both discuss whether someone should consider paying $20 and 37 euros respectively to get invitations to a pair of torrent sites. Ask a purist and the answer is always ‘NO’, whether that’s buying an invitation from the operator of a torrent site or from someone selling invites for profit. Aside from the fact that no one on these sites has paid content owners a dime, sites that demand cash for entry are doing so for one reason and one reason only – profit. Ridiculous when it’s the users of those sites that are paying to distribute the content. On the other hand, others see no wrong in it. They argue that paying a relatively small amount to access huge libraries of content is preferable to spending hundreds of dollars on a legitimate service that doesn’t carry all the content they need. Others don’t bother making any excuses at all, spending sizable sums with pirate IPTV/VOD services that dispose of sharing morals by engaging in a different business model altogether. But the bottom line, whether we like it or not, is that money and Internet piracy have become so intertwined, so enmeshed in each other’s existence, that it’s become virtually impossible to separate them. Even those running the handful of non-profit sites still around today would be forced to reconsider if they had to start all over again in today’s climate. The risk model is entirely different and quite often, only money tips those scales. The same holds true for the people putting together the next big streaming portals. These days it’s about getting as many eyeballs on content as possible, making the money, and getting out the other end unscathed. This is not what most early pirates envisioned. This is certainly not what the early sharing masses wanted. Yet arguably, through the influx of business people and the desire to generate profit among the general population, the pirating masses have never had it so good. As revealed in a recent study, volumes of piracy are on the up and it is now possible – still possible – to access almost any item of content on pirate sites, despite the so-called “follow the money” approach championed by the authorities. While ‘Sharing is Caring’ still lives today, it’s slowly being drowned out and at this point, there’s probably no way back. The big question is whether anyone cares anymore and the answer to that is “probably not”. So, if the driving force isn’t sharing or love, it’ll probably have to be money. And that works everywhere else, doesn’t it? Source: Torrentfreak.com

The domain name of Yggtorrent, one of the largest French torrent communities, has been put on hold after a complaint sent on behalf of anti-piracy outfit SACEM. While this effectively took out the site and its tracker, Yggtorrent made a swift comeback on a new domain, which they registered with Peter Sunde's Njalla. With millions of visitors per month, Yggtorrent is one of the largest torrent sites on the Internet. Catering to a French audience, it’s not widely known everywhere, but in France, it’s getting close to a spot among the 100 most visited sites in the country. Yggtorrent is not the typical torrent indexer. It sees itself as a community instead and has a dedicated tracker, something that’s quite rare these days. The site is really only a few months old and filled the gap T411 left behind when it closed last year. . Its popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed by copyright holders either. In addition to sending thousands of DMCA notices, local anti-piracy group SACEM went a step further a few weeks ago, asking Yggtorrent’s domain registrar Internet.bs for help. In a letter sent on behalf of SACEM, BrandAnalytic pointed out that the torrent site is offering copyrighted content without permission from the owners, thereby violating the law. “This contravening domain name provides users with copyright-protected works without any express or tacit permission of the societies or their authors, composers and publishers,” the complaint reads. BrandAnalytic/SACEM’s complaint https://torrentfreak.com/images/sacemcomplaint.png Strangely enough, the letter also accuses the site of phishing. As evidence, BrandAnalytic sent a screenshot of the site’s registration page while mentioning that it automatically installs cookies on users’ computers. Since Yggtorrent uses a Whois privacy service, BrandAnalytic says it can’t identify the owners. They, therefore, ask Internet.bs to step in and take the domain offline. “As you are the Registrar of this contravening domain name, we count on your prompt and amicable collaboration to remove it from the global domain tree,” BrandAnalytic writes. The complaint was sent late February and Internet.bs forwarded it to the torrent site at the time, so it could respond appropriately. However, Yggtorrent did not respond at all. After a reminder, the registrar decided to put the torrent site’s .com domain name on hold a few days ago, which means that it became inaccessible. TorrentFreak spoke to an operator of Yggtorrent who explains that the site receives thousands of DMCA complaints and that it’s impossible to answer them all. They’ll now leave the .com domain domain behind and move to a new one, Yggtorrent.is. Instead of using Internet.bs as registrar, the new domain name was purchased through Njalla, the privacy-oriented domain registration service that was founded by former Pirate Bay spokesperson Peter Sunde. “Now, we know that we should not use internet.bs anymore. This is not the first time they suspend a domain name like this. It happened to Extratorrent in the past. “We use Njalla right now, it’s safe,” Yggtorrent’s operator adds. While the site is indeed back online, older torrents may not function as usual, as the tracker of the .com domain is no longer accessible. The site, therefore, recommends users to update the tracker address manually got get them going again. Yggtorrent appears to come out of this issue relatively unscathed. However, being in the crosshairs of SACEM is not without risk. The organization previously took out What.cd and Zone-Telechargement, among others. Yggtorrent’s homepage https://torrentfreak.com/images/yggback.png Source: Torrentfreak.com

The 33rd annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony treated the audience at Cleveland’s Public Auditorium to a reunited Bon Jovi, a hilarious induction speech by presenter Howard Stern, and touching tributes to Tom Petty and Chris Cornell. The April 14 event kicked off with The Killers, who honored Petty with a cover of “American Girl.” Singer Brandon Flowers also nodded to a bit of “Free Falling” during the performance. It was followed by Stern’s introduction of Bon Jovi. The SiriusXM radio host, and self-anointed “King of All Media,” commented: “It took years of pondering to decide that this glorious band that sold 130 million albums [should be let] in. Jon Bon Jovi’s twenty minute long speech was a gracious nod to the history of the band, with generous mentions of people along the way who paved the way to the Rock Hall honors. “I’ve been writing a speech like this since I first strummed a broom and sang from the top of the stairs of my childhood home,” said Bon Jovi from the stage. “I’ve written it many ways and many times. Some days, I write the ‘Thank you’ speech. Other days, I write the ‘F–k you’ speech. Writing it has been therapeutic in a lot of ways. I certainly see things differently tonight than I would have 10, 20, 30 years ago. In the end, it’s really all about time.” Each member of Bon Jovi took a moment at the microphone, with Alec John Such thanking Bon Jovi for his “vision,” and former guitarist Richie Sambora saying, “If I wrote a book, it would be [called] ‘The Best Time I Ever Had.’” Drummer Tico Torres thanked his mother, who supported his pursuit of music with words of advice: “Do what you want to do and play for your heart — just promise me you won’t get a tattoo.” Keyboardist David Bryan, whose time in the band also led to work on Broadway, said that being in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame made him “proud as hell. … We grew up as nobody but became somebody.” The band then took the stage for a lively four-song set that included, “You Give Love a Bad Name,” “It’s My Life,” “When We Were Us” from last year’s “This House Is Not for Sale” album, and “Livin’ on a Prayer.” Dire Straits bassist and co-founder John Illsley — who made a decision to induct the band itself — addressed singer Mark Knopfler’s absence, saying, “I can assure you, it’s for personal reasons, let’s just leave it at that. You’ve got to realize this is really more about a group of people more than one person. It’s a collective, a brotherhood, and that’s something that needs acknowledging tonight. … the many musicians who have worked with Dire Straits over the years and made the band’s success possible and led us all the way to Cleveland tonight.” Keyboardist Guy Fletcher made a few short remarks, noting that he never thought of Dire Straits as a “cool band.” Alabama Shakes singer Brittany Howard brought down the house inducting and honoring Sister Rosetta Tharpe, singing from the gut on “That’s All.” Backstage, Sambora embraced Howard, giving her a big hug and telling her that nobody else could have been a better pick. Speaking to Variety, Howard said she wishes more people knew about Tharpe, and suggested that her story is ripe for a movie. The Cars finished their raod to the Rock and Roll Hall in epic fashion, with singer Rick Ocasek decked out in a glittery silver jack and Flowers paying homage to the band (“You’ll never forget your first”) and referencing Phoebe Cates and her iconic pool scene in “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” to “Movin in Stereo.” Ironically, that afternoon was when the band decided to play that song, Greg Hawkes revealed to Variety in the press room. It got the hugest reaction of the set from the crowd, who were treated to “My Best Friend’s Girl,” “You Might Think,” and “Just What I Needed,” with Ocasek singing lead on the song, originally sung by Benjamin Orr. Weezer’s Scott Shriner filled in on bass. “When the band first started, Ben was supposed to be the lead singer and I was supposed to be the good-looking guy in the band — but after a couple of gigs, I kinda got demoted to the songwriter,” Ocasek said. “But obviously it’s hard not to notice that Benjamin Orr is not here. He would’ve been elated to be here on this stage. It still feels strange to be up here without him.” During the set, Bon Jovi drummer Torres was spotted peeking behind an amplifier to get a glimpse of David Robinson. Nina Simone’s younger brother Dr. Samuel Waymon and inductor Mary J. Blige gave beautiful speeches, with Blige saying Simone could “sing anything” and Waymon throwing down a gauntlet to other artists that if they are considering sampling his sister, “You better pay for it.” Simone’s tribute was perfection, with Andra Day taking the stage and the performance capped off by an absolutely gorgeous version of “Feeling Good,” delivered by Lauryn Hill. The tributes continued with Heart singer Ann Wilson and Alice in Chains guitarist Jerry Cantrell paying tribute to the late Chris Cornell with a moving cover of “Black Hole Sun.” The audience was then schooled in rock history when E Street Band guitarist and resident musicologist Steve Van Zandt took to the stage for a special presentation inducting “The Hall of Fame Singles,” a new category introduced this year. The inaugural inductees for 2018 are: “Rocket 88” by Jackie Breston and his Delta Cats (1951), Link Wray and his Ray Men’s “Rumble” (1958), “Louie Louie” by The Kingsmen (1963), Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” (1967) and Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild” (1968). The evening concluded with the induction of The Moody Blues. Wilson returned to the stage to tell of her personal relationship to the music of The Moodies, noting that they were not “cool or ironic.” Said Wilson: “The Moody Blues took me from childhood to adulthood as a disciple; their philosophical, spiritual, romantic and everyday messages were liberating and challenging to my then-forming mind. … The very few boys who took me on dates in those days were instantaneously upstaged if ‘Nights in White Satin’ or ‘Dawn Is a Feeling’ came on the car radio. And when ‘Legend of a Mind’ was played, the date was usually over because the awkward gropings of earthly boys didn’t seem to resonate like that astral plane.” She praised Justin Hayward, saying, “When I dreamed and began writing songs of my own, Justin Hayward’s work was my standard of beauty and purity. … The Moody Blues are as mind-blowing in concert as on record. They have sold 70 million albums and counting worldwide, and they have continued to do so without selling their creative soul for 54 years and counting. Tonight, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame finally honors what 70-plus million listeners and counting have known for over half a century.” The Moodies then took the stage to perform, “I’m Just a Singer in a Rock and Roll Band,” “Wildest Dreams,” “Knights in White Satin,” and “Ride My See Saw.” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony will air on HBO on May 5.

Source: Washington University in St. Louis Washington University graduate student Elissa Bullion uncovers an ancient skull from a burial plot at the Medieval city of Tashbulak in Uzbekistan. Like passionate foodies who know the best places to eat in every town, Silk Road nomads may have been the gastronomic elites of the Medieval Ages, enjoying diets much more diverse than their sedentary urban counterparts, suggests a new collaborative study from Washington University in St. Louis, the Institute of Archaeology in Samarkand, Uzbekistan and Kiel University in Germany. "Historians have long thought that urban centers along the Silk Road were cosmopolitan melting pots where culinary and cultural influences from far off places came together, but our research shows that nomadic communities were probably the real the movers and shakers of food culture," said Taylor Hermes of Kiel University, lead author of the study forthcoming in Scientific Reports and a 2007 graduate of Washington University. Based on an isotopic analysis of human bones exhumed from ancient cemeteries across Central Asia, the study suggests that nomadic groups drew sustenance from a diverse smorgasbord of foods, whereas urban communities seemed stuck with a much more limited and perhaps monotonous menu -- a diet often heavy in locally produced cereal grains. "The 'Silk Road' has been generally understood in terms of valuable commodities that moved great distances, but the people themselves were often left out," Hermes said. "Food patterns are an excellent way to learn about the links between culture and environment, uncovering important human experiences in this great system of connectivity." Said Cheryl Makarewicz, an archaeology professor at Kiel and Hermes' mentor: "Pastoralists are stereotypically understood as clinging to a limited diet comprising nothing but the meat and milk of their livestock. But, this study clearly demonstrates that Silk Road pastoralists, unlike their more urbane counterparts, accessed all kinds of wild and domesticated foodstuffs that made for a unexpectedly diverse diet." "This study provides a unique glimpse into the important ways that nomads cross cut regional settings and likely spread new foods and even cuisine along the Silk Roads, more than a thousand years ago," said study co-author Michael Frachetti, associate professor of anthropology at Washington University. "More specifically, this study illustrates the nuanced condition of localism and globalism that defined urban centers of the time, while highlighting the capacity of more mobile communities -- such as nomadic herders -- to be the essential fiber that fueled social networks and vectors of cultural changes," Frachetti said. For this study, human bones exhumed at archaeological digs in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan were transported to Kiel University in Germany, where they were analyzed by Hermes. To be thorough, he also collected previously published isotopic data for the time period to bring together a complete regional picture. "Prior to this study, there were massive gaps in what we knew about human dietary diversity along the Silk Roads," Hermes said. "The datasets were simply not there. We were able to greatly increase the geographical coverage, especially by adding samples from Uzbekistan, where many of the important routes and population centers were located." The study draws upon field work and museum collections as part of a longstanding scientific partnership between Washington University and the Institute of Archaeology in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. The study's assessment of individual dietary regimens is made possible by studying the isotopic signatures in ancient human bones, allowing the researchers to unlock a trove of information about the food sources, including the proportions and types of plants and animals consumed by individuals over the last decades of life. Stable isotope analysis is the "gold standard" for tracing ancient diets. Makarewicz, a specialist in the technique, has applied it to understanding major evolutionary transitions from hunting and gathering to agriculture in the Near East. She is starting a new interdisciplinary ERC research project exploring the spread of herding across Eurasia. Other co-authors include Elissa Bullion, a doctoral student in anthropology at Washington University and two researchers from the Uzbek partnership: Farhod Maksudov and Samariddin Mustafokulov. Hermes, who has worked with Frachetti on archaeological digs across Central Asia for more than a decade, used these isotopic analysis techniques on human bones recovered from about a dozen nomadic and urban burial sites dating from the 2nd to 13th centuries A.D. The burial sites were associated with a wide range of communities, climates and geographic locations, including a recently discovered settlement high in the mountains of Uzbekistan, the Otrar Oasis in Kazakhstan and an urban complex on the lowland plains of Turkmenistan. While previous archaeological excavations at these sites have confirmed the ancient presence of domesticated crop plants and herd animals, their importance in urban diets was unknown. Isotopic analysis, however, shows how important these foods were over the long-term. "The advantage of studying human bones is that these tissues reflect multi-year dietary habits of an individual," Hermes said. "By measuring carbon isotope ratios, we can estimate the percentage of someone's diet that came from specific categories of plants, such as wheat and barley or millet. Millets have a very distinctive carbon isotope signature, and differing ratios of nitrogen isotopes tell us about whether someone ate a mostly plant-based diet or consumed foods from higher up on the food chain, such as meat and milk from sheep or goats." This study discovered interesting dietary differences between urban settlements along the Silk Road, but surprisingly little dietary diversity among individuals living within these communities. Perhaps driven by the limits of local environments, food production networks or cultural mandates, most people within each urban setting had similar diets. Diets of individual nomads within the same community were found to be much more diverse. These differences, perhaps a function of variable lifetime mobility patterns, the availability of wild or domesticated food options or personal preferences, suggest that nomadic groups were not as bound by cultural limitations that may have been imposed on urban dwellers, Hermes said. "Nomads and urbanites had different dietary niches, and this reflects a combination of environment and cultural choices that influenced diet across the Silk Roads," Hermes said. "While many historians may have assumed that interactions along the Silk Road would have led to the homogenization of culinary practices, our study shows that this was not the case, especially for urban dwellers." For now, Hermes, Frachetti, Makarewicz and their collaborators in Samarkand look forward to applying these isotopic techniques to new archaeological mysteries across Central Asia. "We hope our results lead to a paradigm shift in how historical phenomena can be examined through the very people who made these cultural systems possible," Hermes said. "The results here are exciting, and while not the final word by any means, pave a new way forward in applying scientific methods to the ancient world." "For close to 10 years our academic collaboration has yielded fascinating new discoveries in archaeology and has also fostered new international partnerships, such as the one spearheaded by Taylor Hermes, to carry out archaeological science at Kiel," Frachetti said. "This international approach is what enables us all -- as a team -- to maximize the scientific potential of our collaborative fieldwork and laboratory studies in Uzbekistan for the advancement of historical and environmental knowledge more globally."

Date: April 11, 2018 Source: University of Copenhagen The Faculty of Health and Medical Sciences The same people who have a genetic propensity to seek sweet foods also tend to have less body fat. People with a gene variation of FGF21 have a predisposition to less body fat than others, new research conducted at the University of Copenhagen, among others, shows. It comes as a bit of a surprise to the researchers, who last year discovered that precisely this genetic variation could be one of the reasons why some people have a particular craving for sweet things. People with this variation eat more sugar than others. 'It sort of contradicts common intuition that people who eat more sugar should have less body fat. But it is important to remember that we are only studying this specific genetic variation and trying to find connections to the rest of the body. This is just a small piece of the puzzle describing the connection between diet and sugar intake and the risk of obesity and diabetes', says one of the researchers behind the study, Associate Professor Niels Grarup from the Novo Nordisk Foundation Center for Basic Metabolic Research. Higher Blood Pressure and More 'Apple Shape' But the effects associated with the genetic variation are not all positive, the new study shows. The genetic variation is connected with slightly increased blood pressure and more fat around the waist than the hips -- that is, more 'apple shape'. The study is an international collaboration headed by researchers at the University of Exeter Medical School and has just been published in the scientific journal Cell Reports. The researchers' conclusions are based on large amounts of data. They have studied health information from more than 450,000 individuals who have allowed their data to be recorded in the UK Biobank. It includes blood samples, questionnaires on diet and genetic data, among other things. 'Now that so many people are involved in the study, it gives our conclusions a certain robustness. Even though the difference in the amount of body fat or blood pressure level is only minor depending on whether or not the person has this genetic variation or not, we are very confident that the results are accurate. Around 20 per cent of the European population has this genetic predisposition', says Niels Grarup. Potential Drug Target This new knowledge about people with a 'genetic sweet tooth' is mainly important in connection with the development of drugs and future research. Because researchers are currently trying to determine whether it is possible to target or replace FGF21 using drugs in order to treat for obesity and diabetes. 'Due to its connection with sugar, FGF21 constitutes a potential target in the treatment of for example obesity and diabetes. This research helps us to understand the underlying mechanisms of the hormone and to predict its effects and side effects', says Niels Grarup. The study is funded by the European Research Council (ERC), the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the Novo Nordisk Foundation, among others.

Source: Simon Fraser University A new species of scorpionfly fossil from 53 million years ago at McAbee, British Columbia named Eomerope eonearctica. This insect is very similar to a fossil species that lived at the same time north of Vladivostok on the Asian Pacific coast, highlighting connections between Canada and Russia in ancient times. A new 53 million-year-old insect fossil called a scorpionfly discovered at B.C.'s McAbee fossil bed site bears a striking resemblance to fossils of the same age from Pacific-coastal Russia, giving further evidence of an ancient Canada-Russia connection. "We've seen this connection before through fossil plants and animals, but these insects show this in a beautiful way," says Bruce Archibald, a research associate in SFU's Department of Biological Sciences and the Royal BC Museum. "They are so much alike that only the wing colour of the new McAbee species tells them apart." Archibald and Alexandr Rasnitsyn, of Moscow's Russian Academy of Sciences, described the find and its significance in this month's The Canadian Entomologist. "I'm not aware of any case where two such species so much alike and so close in age have been found in both Pacific Russia and Pacific Canada, and that's pretty great," said Archibald. He notes that the insect's only living relative is found in the temperate forest of central Chile, which has a climate that is similar in ways to B.C.'s 53 million years ago. The new Canadian species was named Eomerope eonearctica, and its Russian doppelganger is Eomerope asiatica, described in 1974. The McAbee fossil site has been designated a provincial heritage by the province of B.C. for its spectacular fossil record. Archibald and Rasnitsyn also described a second new scorpionfly species that was found near Princeton, B.C.