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NASA called to investigate ‘meteorite’ discovered in Aussie school playground — RT World News

Social media was ablaze with wild speculation about a fallen meteorite which had allegedly landed in the playground of a school in Far North Queensland, with NASA reportedly called in to investigate. But all was not as it seemed.

A slew of anecdotes and theories emerged online, as people rushed to find out more information. It didn’t take long, however, for the amateur astronomers to be somewhat underwhelmed to discover the true, far more mundane origins of the ‘space rock’.

“We have had all sorts of inquiries from all around the world,” said Malanda State School principal Mark Allen, before breaking the real news that the viral meteorite strike in its playground was actually a school project.  

Allen described the exercise as a “bit of fun” in which students at the school were asked to “report” on a meteorite landing as part of an assignment which tasked them with interviewing witnesses and emergency services at the scene, with someone reportedly deciding to take the initiative and bring the case all the way to NASA. 

“The local police loved to get involved for the school and the kids to make it more realistic,” local resident Daniel Moss explained. “This is a small town, they didn’t expect it [the school project] to go viral.”

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JoJo Siwa Says Paparazzi Called Police to Force Her Outside for Photos After Coming Out

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JoJo Siwa Says Mom Knew She Didn’t ‘Only Like Boys’ Two Years Ago

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Neil Patrick Harris Shares His Thoughts on Straight Actors Playing Gay Characters

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Caitlyn Jenner on Why She’s Closest to Daughter Kylie, ‘Too Controversial’ for Trans Community

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Hundreds detained as protests called by Putin foe Navalny erupt across Russia

MOSCOW — Police detained more than 200 people in Russia’s Far East and Siberia on Saturday as protesters defying bitter cold and a ban by authorities, staged nationwide rallies to demand the release of jailed Kremlin critic, Alexei Navalny.

Navalny called on his supporters to protest after being arrested last weekend when he returned to Moscow from Germany after being poisoned in August with a military-grade nerve agent.

Video footage from Vladivostok showed riot police chasing a group of protesters down the street, while demonstrators in Khabarovsk, braving temperatures of around -14 Celsius (7 degrees Fahrenheit), chanted “Shame!” and “Bandits!”

Police in the Siberian city of Yakutsk grabbed a protester by his arms and legs and dragged him into a van, video footage from the scene showed.

The OVD-Info monitoring group said that 238 people, including 56 in Novosibirsk, had been detained so far at the nationwide rallies.

In Moscow, police put up barricades around Pushkinskaya Square as workers were engaged in re-tiling it, an apparent attempt to thwart a demonstration that was scheduled to start at 1100 GMT.

Police also detained a few people gathered on the square before the rally, including a lone picketer.

Navalny, an ex-lawyer who has accused President Vladimir Putin of ordering his murder, could face years in jail over legal cases that he calls trumped up. Putin has denied involvement.

Navalny’s supporters are hoping they can produce a show of anti-Kremlin street support despite winter conditions and the coronavirus pandemic to pressure the authorities into freeing him.

The West has told Moscow to let him go, sparking new tensions in already strained Russia ties as U.S. President Joe Biden launches his administration.

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In a push to galvanize support ahead of the protests, Navalny’s team released a video about an opulent palace on the Black Sea they alleged belonged to Putin, something the Kremlin denied. As of Saturday, the clip had been viewed more than 65 million times.

Authorities had banned the protests in advance. Police have cracked down in the run-up to the rallies, rounding up several of Navalny’s allies they accused of calling for illegal protests and jailing at least two of them, including Navalny’s spokeswoman, for more than a week each.

Navalny’s allies hope to tap into what polls say are pent-up public frustrations over years of falling wages and economic fallout from the pandemic. But Putin’s grip on power looks unassailable and the 68-year-old president regularly records an approval rating of over 60 percent, many times higher than that of Navalny.

The U.S. Embassy published the locations and times of the protests, telling Americans to stay away. Russia’s foreign ministry called this a “gross interference” in the country’s domestic affairs.

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Bitcoin falls 11% after report suggests a critical flaw in the cryptocurrency called ‘double spend’ may have occurred | Currency News | Financial and Business News

  • Bitcoin fell as much as 11% on Thursday after a report from BitMEX Research suggested that a critical flaw called “double spend” had occurred in the Bitcoin blockchain.
  • Double spend is a highly feared scenario where a user is able to spend their bitcoins more than once.
  • A double-spend event has not been confirmed, and BitMEX has given mixed messages.
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Bitcoin fell as much as 11% on Thursday, hitting its lowest level in nearly three weeks, as the popular cryptocurrency was hit with a double whammy that jolted faith in its user base.

First, Janet Yellen, President Joe Biden’s nominee for treasury secretary, suggested during her confirmation hearing on Tuesday that lawmakers “curtail” the use of Bitcoin because of its use in illicit activities.

And second, an unconfirmed report from BitMEX Research on Wednesday suggested that a critical flaw called “double spend” had occurred in the Bitcoin blockchain.

Double spend is when someone is able to spend the same bitcoin twice. It is a feared and dire scenario for the digital asset, and the blockchain was thought to have solved the issue when Satoshi Nakamoto published the Bitcoin white paper in 2009.

Early attempts to launch a digital cash system were ultimately halted by vulnerabilities that could have enabled double spending and undermined faith in the system.

BitMEX Research tweeted that “it appears as if a small double spend of around 0.00062063 BTC ($21) was detected.”

Read more: GOLDMAN SACHS: These 22 stocks still haven’t recovered to pre-pandemic levels – and are set to explode amid higher earnings in 2021 as the economy recovers

BitMEX later said it appeared that the double spend was actually an RBF transaction, which is when an unconfirmed bitcoin transaction is replaced with a new transfer paying a higher fee. But BitMEX’s Fork Monitor said that “no (RBF) fee bumps have been detected.”

BitMEX said in another tweet: “A transaction in the losing chain sent 0.00062063 BTC to the address 1D6aebVY5DbS1v7rNTnX2xeYcfWM3os1va, and a transaction in the winning chain which spent the same inputs only sent 0.00014499 BTC to this address.”

If the double spend did in fact occur, it could be a fatal blow to the popular cryptocurrency, indicating that the flaw Nakamoto set out to solve remains a vulnerability that could crush confidence in the asset.

Meanwhile, institutional investors continue to gain exposure to bitcoin. Filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Wednesday said BlackRock had enabled two of its mutual funds to invest in the cryptocurrency.

Read more: We spoke to the Winklevoss-backed crypto platform Gemini about Bitcoin, how to use stable coins, and why regulation won’t kill the boom in digital currencies



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