Bannon “claims European integration is coming to an end

Deutsche Welle: Steve Bannon plans Brussels-based foundation ‘The Movement’ for EU far-right. “Donald Trump’s ex-strategist Steve Bannon told the Daily Beast he hopes the foundation will fuel the spread of right-wing populism across Europe. He wants to offer a rightwing alternative to George Soros’s foundation.”

Deutsche Welle: US-Rechtspopulist Steve Bannon plant rechte Bewegung in Europa. “Der Ex-Berater von Donald Trump und Vorreiter der radikalen Rechten in den USA will eine rechtspopulistische Bewegung in Europa gründen – als Gegengewicht zum Investor George Soros, der liberale Gruppen unterstützt.”

“The massive response shows how hungry the public is for information on the ticks that bite them”

NPR shots: Researchers Study Thousands Of Ticks Collected By The People They Bit.

“Nieto’s project wasn’t just a goodwill gesture: It was an unprecedented attempt to include the public in tick research. Nieto, a microbiologist at Northern Arizona University, and his team published the results of their brief tick-collecting experiment Thursday in PLOS One. They say it shows the potential of citizen science to fill in gaps in research—and that data gathered this way could ultimately help form a more proactive public health response when it comes to identifying and preventing tick-borne disease. “

“When we saw this, we knew straight away, this had never been seen or recorded before”

Royal Commission on the Ancient and Historical Monuments of Wales: Cropmarks 2018.

“The unprecedented spell of hot, dry weather across Wales has provided perfect conditions for archaeological aerial photography. As the drought has persisted across Wales, scores of long-buried archaeological sites have been revealed once again as ‘cropmarks’, or patterns of growth in ripening crops and parched grasslands. The Royal Commission’s aerial investigator Dr Toby Driver has been busy in the skies across mid and south Wales over the last week documenting known sites in the dry conditions, but also discovering hitherto lost monuments. With the drought expected to last at least another two weeks Toby will be surveying right across north and south Wales in a light aircraft to permanently record these discoveries for the National Monuments Record of Wales, before thunderstorms and rain wash away the markings until the next dry summer.”

NPR: In Ireland, Drought And A Drone Revealed The Outline Of An Ancient Henge.

“A drone flight and a lingering dry spell have exposed a previously unknown monument in Ireland’s Boyne Valley, forgotten for thousands of years and long covered by crops — which, struggling to cope with a lengthy drought, finally revealed the ancient footprint.

Photographer and author Anthony Murphy discovered the site. He was flying a drone near Newgrange, a famous prehistoric stone monument in County Meath, on Tuesday, taking pictures of the known archaeological attractions. Then he saw something strange — a perfect circle, etched in the color of the crops, in an otherwise unremarkable field.”

Links via MetaFilter: It’s like a carpet and chair, only with vegetation and buildings, In Ireland, Drought and a drone revealed the outline of an ancient henge.

Flight by electrostatic repulsion

The Atlantic: Spiders Can Fly Hundreds of Miles Using Electricity. “Scientists are finally starting to understand the centuries-old mystery of “ballooning.“ ”

“The upper reaches of the atmosphere have a positive charge, and the planet’s surface has a negative one. Even on sunny days with cloudless skies, the air carries a voltage of around 100 volts for every meter above the ground. In foggy or stormy conditions, that gradient might increase to tens of thousands of volts per meter.

Ballooning spiders operate within this planetary electric field. When their silk leaves their bodies, it typically picks up a negative charge. This repels the similar negative charges on the surfaces on which the spiders sit, creating enough force to lift them into the air.”

Link via MetaFilter.

Otto Frank desperately sought to get his family to safety, seeking asylum

Deutsche Welle: Anne Frank’s family tried to escape to US but couldn’t overcome restrictions: study. “Bureaucracy, war and suspicion prevented Anne Frank’s family being able to emigrate to the US from their home in Holland during World War II. Similarities with the US attitude towards current immigrants have been drawn.”

“New research from the Amsterdam-based Anne Frank House has shown Anne’s father Otto Frank made numerous attempts for the family to emigrate to the United States, starting in 1938.

“I am forced to look out for emigration and as far as I can see the USA is the only country we could go to,” Otto Frank wrote in 1941 to his American friend Nathan Strauss in New York.

The only American consulate in the Netherlands issuing visas had been in Rotterdam but it was destroyed during the German bombing of May 1940. All applications for asylum then had to be resubmitted, and the Frank family’s request was never processed.

As the US closed all German consulates, the Nazi regime reciprocated and ordered all American consulates to close in occupied and collaborationist territory. Frank’s efforts to get a passage to Cuba failed and after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941, all transatlantic shipping was suspended.

It was then, in July 1942, that the Frank family went into hiding in the annex of his business premises on the Prinsengracht canal in Amsterdam where they stayed for two years before being discovered and deported, first to a transit camp and then to Auschwitz and Bergen-Belsen concentration camps.”