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Endless Mysteries of the Universe - Astronomical Investigations

Explore the intriguing mysteries of space, from dark energy to cosmic rays, presenting challenges that engage astronomers worldwide. Delve into the enigmatic realms of the universe with scientific curiosity.

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Endless Mysteries of the Universe - Astronomical Investigations

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  1. Creationism News -- June 2012创造论新闻 -- 2012年6月 Dedicated to David Coppedge who sacrificed his career as the Head Systems Administrator for the Cassini Spacecraft in JPL to honor the Creator of the Universe. He also spent literally thousands of hours to make his excellent websites. The contents of this presentation were taken from David Coppedge’s website http://crev.info. Pray for the results of his discrimination lawsuit against JPL. Pastor Chui http://ChristCenterGospel.org ckchui1@yahoo.com 1/1/2020 1

  2. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” Science Magazine (1 June 2012)  Robert Coontz introduced the feature: Endless mysteries lurk in the depths of space. To pare the list down to eight—now, there’s a challenge.…  From the outset, the team decided that true mysteries must have staying power (as opposed to mere “questions” that researchers might resolve in the near future). Some of the finalists are obvious shoo-ins; others have received less of the popular limelight. The final selection spans the entire history of the universe on scales ranging from our sun and its planetary system to the entire cosmos. Each mystery is sure to be solved largely through astronomical observations—if it is solved: In at least one case, experts aren’t sure that a seemingly simple question will ever be answered. 1/1/2020 2

  3. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • The top eight mysteries selected by Science are: • What is dark energy? Adrian Cho began, “The nature of the “dark energy” that is causing the expansion of the universe to accelerate is now perhaps the most profound mystery in cosmology and astrophysics. And it may remain forever so.”  (This is the “seemingly simple question” Coontz worried would never be answered.) • How hot is dark matter?  Adrian Cho described the decades-old controversy about whether dark matter is hot (ordinary matter) or cold (unknown stuff).  They still don’t know what it is, but Cho believes “that could soon change.” 1/1/2020 3

  4. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • Where are the missing baryons?  For laymen, baryons are atoms and ions, or “ordinary matter.”  But where the missing baryons are is no ordinary matter; astronomers can only account for less than half of what they expected to find. • How do stars explode?  Supernova explosions have been animated by artists for years.  That doesn’t mean they are understood.  Yudhijit Bhattacharjee lamented, “Many details of what goes on inside a star when its fuel has been spent and it explodes into a giant fireball known as a supernova, as well as how that explosion unfolds, remain a mystery.” 1/1/2020 4

  5. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • What re-ionized the universe?  According to consensus theory, a few hundred million years after the Big Bang, the universe became transparent when matter re-ionized.  TV programs explain this as just a matter of fact, but as for what caused it, Edwin Cartlidge admitted, “No one is sure.” • What’s the source of the most energetic cosmic rays?  Daniel Clery wrote, “After a century of cosmic-ray research, the most energetic visitors from space remain stubbornly enigmatic and look set on keeping their secrets for years to come.” 1/1/2020 5

  6. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • Why is the solar system so bizarre?  Richard A. Kerr described how each planet, when visited by spacecraft, turned out to be more puzzling than expected.  “As exoplanet hunters get beyond stamp-collecting planets solely by orbit and mass, they will have a far larger number of planetary outcomes to consider, beyond what our local neighborhood can offer,” he concluded his tour.  “Perhaps patterns will emerge from inchoate diversity.” • Why is the sun’s corona so hot?  Every once in awhile, a new theory claims this mystery has been explained.  Apparently not; Richard A. Kerr surveyed leading theories, but it still made Science’s Top 8 Mystery List. 1/1/2020 6

  7. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • “Why is the solar system so bizarre?” deserves a closer look.  Kerr said that Pluto has been partially explained as a member of a previously undiscovered population of trans-Neptunian objects.  “The mysteries of the remaining eight planets,” i.e., all of them – Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune – “are proving more recalcitrant,” he said.  Before space probes, planetary scientists expected to find patterns that would support a general theory of planetary origins.  That hope has evaporated: 1/1/2020 7

  8. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • Looming over all the attempts to explain planetary diversity, however, is the chilling specter of random chance. Computer simulations show that the chaos of caroming planetesimals in our still-forming planetary system could just as easily have led to three or five terrestrial planets instead of four. Mercury may have largely formed with a thick rocky shell only to have it blown away by a chance collision with a still-forming planet nearly its own size. A rare big hit to Uranus might have not only knocked it on its side, where it spins to this day, but also shaken up its rocky core. If so, the more organized churnings of a shallow fluid shell could be generating its magnetic field, producing the observed tilt. 1/1/2020 8

  9. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • “Ferreting out rare random events in the early days of the nascent solar system could be problematic, scientists concede. They may have to settle for working out many of the rules of the planet-making game without pinning down exactly how a particular planetary quirk came to be.” • Thus the “inchoate diversity” of which he spoke (inchoate meaning unorganized, disordered).  Kerr left it to future astronomers to find a way out of that chilling specter of random chance.  “As exoplanet hunters get beyond stamp-collecting planets solely by orbit and mass, they will have a far larger number of planetary outcomes to consider, beyond what our local neighborhood can offer,” Kerr ended as optimistically as possible.  “Perhaps patterns will emerge from inchoate diversity.” 1/1/2020 9

  10. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • What?  Science doesn’t have the answers?  These are BIG mysteries.  Some of them are the very questions for which TV animators for the Science Channel, NOVA and National Geographic offer solutions that are neat, simple, and wrong.  We deceive students by teaching simplistic, wrong answers without revealing that scientists have only partial answers, if any.  What distinguishes science, whose root means “knowledge,” from other methods of human inquiry that also have more questions than answers? 1/1/2020 10

  11. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • Batters get three strikes and are out.  Planetary scientists are zero for 8 as far as observations meeting predictions (even worse when moons like Io, Enceladus and Titan are included).  Astronomers and cosmologists are not batting any better.  In any other human endeavor, a zero score would be called utter incompetence.  Astronomers and planetologists are very good at describing  what is (i.e., stamp collecting), but NOT how it came to be.  Those two skills are completely different.  They can remain on as stamp collectors, but not as prophets. 1/1/2020 11

  12. Astronomers Wrestle with “Endless Mysteries”天文学家角力“无穷奥秘” • Notice that planetary science is stuck with the Stuff Happens Law (the opposite of scientific explanation).   That’s what Kerr meant by the “chilling specter of random chance.”  If materialists are stuck with throwing up their hands and saying, “stuff happens” when asked why human beings won the cosmic lottery, they need to step off the pedestal of Knowledge and yield the platform to those who can state a positive case for design (reference: The Privileged Planet documentary).   It’s the planetary scientists – not the planets – that are being recalcitrant. 1/1/2020 12

  13. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Observations don’t always fit what evolutionists expect.  Darwin’s theory always wins anyway. • When you wish upon a bone:  Roger Close of Monash University looked at fossil wishbones and tried to find an evolutionary pattern.  There wasn’t any.  The furcula (wishbones) of mesozoic birds showed just as much diversity as those of modern birds, if not more so.  The article on PhysOrg summarizing Close and Rayfield’s paper in PLoS ONE did not mention transitional forms, or any pattern from simple to complex. 1/1/2020 13

  14. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Close expected his research to “broaden our understanding of the functional anatomy or biomechanics of early avian evolution.”  He expected to clarify the findings in a 2002 study of wishbones by Hui, but alas, “a murkier picture seems to emerge” from his data set.  In the PhysOrg article, Close left the door open for Darwin: “While this may be interpreted as evidence that early birds flew differently to those alive today, it might equally well indicate that they had evolved different anatomical solutions to accomplish the same feats.” 1/1/2020 14

  15. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Adult birds as dinosaur fetuses:  Two evolutionists, by studying the shape of bird heads and dinosaur hatchlings, came up with a new idea about the origin of birds: they are dinosaurs that never grew up.  Somehow, the first birds were dinosaurs that “sped up the clock” of embryonic development and arrested it before maturity.  As a result of what might be called the Peter Pan theory of evolution, ostriches, condors, hummingbirds and penguins were not far behind. 1/1/2020 15

  16. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • “What is interesting about this research is the way it illustrates evolution as a developmental phenomenon,” said Arkhat Abzhanov, associate professor at Harvard and study co-author. “By changing the developmental biology in early species, nature has produced the modern bird — an entirely new creature — and one that, with approximately 10,000 species, is today the most successful group of land vertebrates on the planet.” 1/1/2020 16

  17. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Is this a new law of nature?  Are whales arrested embryos of cattle?  Are humans arrested embryos of monkeys?  In the report on Science Daily, they didn’t point to any other instances of such an evolutionary process, but added “arrested embryonic development” to Darwin’s strategic toolkit: • Ultimately, Abzhanov said, the way the bird skull evolved — through changes in the developmental timeline — highlights the diversity of evolutionary strategies that have been used over millions of years. 1/1/2020 17

  18. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • “That you can have such dramatic success simply by changing the relative timing of events in a creature’s development is remarkable,” he said. “We now understand the relationship between birds and dinosaurs that much better, and we can say that, when we look at birds, we are actually looking at juvenile dinosaurs.” • “It shows that there’s so much for evolution to act upon,” Bhullar agreed. 1/1/2020 18

  19. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • The article indicated that they were surprised by the differences in development between birds and dinosaurs: “What the researchers found was surprising — while early dinosaurs, even those closely related to modern birds, undergo vast morphological changes as they mature, the skulls of juvenile and adult birds remain remarkably similar.”  This evidence was not allowed to falsify Darwinism, however; on the contrary, it was used to reinforce it.  Now Darwin has more diversity of evolutionary strategies to use, and a bigger toolkit to work with. 1/1/2020 19

  20. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Bird feeder gets smaller:  One would think birds would love to eat giant insects, especially since pterodactyls lunched on them.  Apparently, the early bird got the small insect.  A prof and his grad student at UC Santa Cruz had to look long and hard to find correlations between insect size, oxygen levels and bird evolution, but turned up enough to report on PhysOrg that the “Reign of the giant insects ended with the evolution of birds.” 1/1/2020 20

  21. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Facts and data gaps, though, kept getting in the way: “But a 20-million-year gap in the insect fossil record makes it hard to tell when insect size changed, and a drop in oxygen levels around the same time further complicates the analysis.”  It left them with a composite explanation involving multiple possibilities: “These include the continued specialization of birds, the evolution of bats, and a mass extinction at the end of the Cretaceous.”  How any of these were related to bug size was not clarified. 1/1/2020 21

  22. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • The authors acknowledged that small insects have always been around, even when the giants reigned.  It’s unclear, then, why they would invoke the evolution of birds to drive the big bugs extinct, when today’s oxygen level (21%) is lower than what they assumed existed (30%) in the past and, according to the “leading theory,” oxygen level was a limiting factor on insect size.    An evolutionary story was ready in the wings, though: “With predatory birds on the wing, the need for maneuverability became a driving force in the evolution of flying insects, favoring smaller body size.”  Strange that the big bugs never needed said maneuverability when the pterosaurs were around. 1/1/2020 22

  23. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • Seal a can’t:  Acknowledging that the strange fish known as coelacanths are iconic “living fossils” famous for their lack of evolution since the Middle Devonian, disappearance from the fossil record, and surprise re-appearance doing just fine in 1938.  Since then, several populations of the lobe-finned fish have been found off the costs of South Africa, Tanzania and the Comoros islands. 1/1/2020 23

  24. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • European researchers “unexpectedly” found some genetic diversity among the geographically-separated living populations.  Writing in Current Biology,(Volume 22, Issue 11, R439-R440, 5 June 2012) Lampert et al. said, “Despite its undeniably slow evolutionary rate, the coelacanth still diversifies and is therefore able to adapt to new environmental conditions.”   One would expect a multitude of changes in environmental conditions to have occurred in 400 million years.  This means the fish can evolve, but didn’t — until modern times.  The lesson? — old fuddy-duddies can still jive: 1/1/2020 24

  25. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • “Coelacanths are generally viewed as evolutionary relics. Levels of population divergence and allelic diversity are low and confirm the assumed slow rate of molecular evolution in coelacanths. Obviously, even such slow evolutionary rates allow for local adaptation. As shown earlier for coelacanths and recently for cycad plants, near extinction need not be an evolutionary dead end.” • One wonders what on earth held these talented evolvers back from doing the Darwin thing till now. 1/1/2020 25

  26. Tales Rescue Evolution from Unexpected Data传说从意外的数据拯救进化 • We must get the evolutionary storytellers out of the science building. • On second thought: what would we do for entertainment?  Look at the fun we just had: a new Peter Pan show of bird evolution, a game of Evolutionary Strategy, a Saturday Night Live skit (since there is “so much for evolution to act upon”) of elderly fish that can still jive, and a charlatan’s promise that even YOU need not be an evolutionary dead end (thank goodness). • Riddle: What is an evolutionary dead end? • Answer: the head of a Darwinist. 1/1/2020 26

  27. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • Today’s transit of Venus, in which our sister planet appears to cross the disk of the sun, will be the last till 2117.  As observatories and millions of people watch the rare planetary alignment, few may know the stories of astronomers who predicted them and explorers who risked life and limb to observe them. 1/1/2020 27

  28. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • Watching the 7-hour event live on the internet (see Space.com) is a privilege that was unavailable the last time the paired events occurred (they come in pairs 8 years apart, separated by a more than a century).  Because some parts of Earth are in darkness when they occur, Europeans often had to travel far to get to places where they could watch.  Only 4 pairs of transits have been observed by humans since Johannes Kepler predicted them: the pair of 1631–1639, the pair in 1761–1769, the pair of 1874–1882 (for which John Philip Sousa composed a special march), and this pair in 2004–2012. 1/1/2020 28

  29. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • Science Daily described how 18th century explorers had a much tougher time when they realized that important measurements could be made about the size of the solar system by observing the transit of Venus: • The idea galvanized scientists who set off on expeditions around the world to view a pair of transits in the 1760s. The great explorer James Cook himself was dispatched to observe one from Tahiti, a place as alien to 18th-century Europeans as the Moon or Mars might seem to us now. Some historians have called the international effort the “the Apollo program of the 18th century.” 1/1/2020 29

  30. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • Bolton Davidheiser, in his 1971 book Science and the Bible (Baker Book House, out of print) told a couple of lesser-known anecdotes about some of the observers of the previous pair of transits in the 17th century: •      The great astronomer John [Johannes] Kepler had predicted mathematically that on December 6, 1631, the planet Venus would pass in front of the sun. Kepler himself did not live to see this day, but a Frenchman named Pierre Gassendi, prepared to observe the phenomenon. He watched in vain, for Venus made its transit across the face of the sun after the sun had set in Europe. 1/1/2020 30

  31. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • According to Kepler, a transit would not occur again for over a hundred years. But an English boy in his teens, Jeremiah Horrocks, did some figuring of his own and found that Venus should repeat its performance in just a few years. Going over his calculations, he found that indeed it was so and that Venus again should pass in front of the sun on December 4, 1639. He was too timid to mention this to anyone except his best friend, William Crabtree. 1/1/2020 31

  32. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • Modem astronomers can tell at what time of day such a phenomenon will be visible at any place on earth where it can be seen, but the calculations of Jeremiah Horrocks told him only the day, and it was to be a Sunday. If he saw this transit he would be the first to do so, for no one ever before had observed Venus move across the disk of the sun. After this day no one on earth would have an opportunity to see it for a hundred twenty-one years. Besides the rarity of the event it had important theoretical implications in the science of astronomy. 1/1/2020 32

  33. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • But the transit was due to occur on a Sunday and “the inward voice seemed to tell him that the Creator Himself is more worthy of worship than the phenomena He has instituted for admiration.” He watched the sun without interruption from sunrise until it was time to go to church. He went to church. When he returned he hastened to his telescope. The transit had just begun! Where his friend Crabtree was watching, the sky was cloudy but it cleared long enough for him to see it also and to confirm the observation of Horrocks. 1/1/2020 33

  34. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • It is interesting to note, in contrast to this, the experience of a Frenchman named Legentil who went to India to observe the next transit of Venus a hundred twenty-one years later. Because a war was in progress his ship was delayed and he did not reach land until after the transit was over. As the following transit was to occur only eight years later, he decided to remain in India and wait. When the day of the transit arrived the sky was cloudy and he saw nothing of it. After being shipwrecked twice on his way home, he arrived in France to find his heirs preparing to divide his possessions. 1/1/2020 34

  35. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • Between that time and the present, Venus has crossed the face of the sun twice. The next transit will occur on June 8, 2004. It is indeed remarkable that a boy in his teens could make a calculation of greater exactitude than the great Kepler. It also is remarkable that he would risk missing such an event instead of missing church one Sunday. 1/1/2020 35

  36. Venus Transit Recalls Adventures of Yore 金星凌日回顾往昔的探险 • If you missed the 2004 transit, don’t miss this one–it will be the last in your lifetime. Share the experience with children if you can; it will be a nice memory and a teachable moment about the clockwork regularity of the heavens, and how our Privileged Planet gives us an ideal platform for making scientific discoveries. 1/1/2020 36

  37. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • The way to make a concept impregnable is to use rhetorical devices to render competition out of bounds, and then nationalize the favored view.  An AP story demonstrates how this is done with evolution. • John Hanna’s report on PhysOrg about draft science standards in Kansas renders any competitors to Darwinian evolution off limits.  “Kansas is now among 26 states helping to draft new science standards alongside the National Research Council, with the goal of creating standard, nationwide guidelines,” he wrote.  Here’s how the last sentence portrays evolutionary theory: 1/1/2020 37

  38. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • The first draft of the multi-state standards declares that evolution and its underlying mechanisms are “key to understanding both the unity and the diversity of life on Earth.” The standards also say evolution is among a few core concepts in life sciences that “have a long history and solid foundation based on the research evidence established by many scientists working across multiple fields.” 1/1/2020 38

  39. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • The only ones opposing this view, according to Hanna, are conservative Republicans, except for one “moderate Republican,” who ousted a conservative Republican in 2006.  She said “she’s comfortable with the language in the draft standards.”  It doesn’t appear that the one conservative Republican on the board, who believes “the draft embraces naturalism and secular humanism,” will get very far with his argument, “They are preferring one religious position over another.”  Who would ever want to throw away the key to understanding? 1/1/2020 39

  40. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • This article illustrates several propaganda tactics evolutionists use to present themselves as scientific and Darwin skeptics as religiously motivated.  It’s worth reviewing these again (get out the Baloney Detector): • • Put “intelligent design” in scare quotes. (Scare-mongering) • • Don’t define intelligent design, but imply that whatever it is, it is against science. (Association) 1/1/2020 40

  41. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • • Define evolution as a “key to understanding.” (Big Lie) • • Portray evolution as a “core concept.” (Loaded Words) • • Assert that it “has a long history”. (Glittering Generalities, Half Truth– so does belief in design) • • Assert that it has a “solid foundation”. (Suggestion) 1/1/2020 41

  42. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • • Claim that the solid foundation is “based on research evidence”. (Bluffing, Glittering Generalities) • • Say evolution has been  “established by many scientists working across multiple fields.” (Bandwagon) • • Worry readers that opposition to evolution “invited some ridicule” (Fear-mongering). • • Scare readers that opposition to evolution could prevent students from competing in “a global job market” (Scare-mongering, Non-sequitur). 1/1/2020 42

  43. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • • Quote the politician who believes “the board should defer to scientists, science educators and business leaders when considering changes.”  (Appeal to authority). • • Present the “scientists, science educators and business leaders” as a unified front all supportive of evolution. (Bandwagon, Intimidation) • • Call their views “mainstream”. (Bandwagon, Euphemism, Either-Or Fallacy) 1/1/2020 43

  44. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • • Give the opposition a statement but no chance to explain what he means. (Card Stacking) • • Quote the “moderate” party member as the one promoting “common sense”. (Euphemism) • • Present the “conservative” party as the one inviting ridicule. (Scare-mongering) • • Appeal to the views of the National Research Council. (Appeal to Authority) 1/1/2020 44

  45. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • Darwinism is one of the most successful, longest-running propaganda scams in the history of science.  Its mandarins and publicists rule through simple, easy-to-understand, cute, fallacious catch-phrases that stop thinking and put their opponents in clown suits.  Now, they want to nationalize their power, taking control from local school boards and deferring to the Darwin Oligarchy to impose nationwide authoritarian rule over what students are allowed to hear. 1/1/2020 45

  46. How to Make Darwinism Impregnable 如何使达尔文主义铜墙铁壁 • Only by understanding their rhetorical tricks and calling them on the carpet for self-serving talking points can opposition leaders hope to level the playing field and return the debate back to where it should be: the evidence. 1/1/2020 46

  47. Stalin’s Railroad of Death Unearthed 斯大林的铁路死亡出土 • Stalin, who read Darwin in divinity school and turned atheist, became a ruthless dictator whose reign of terror killed multiple millions more than Hitler.  One of his evil deeds is being remembered: a railroad project in Siberia that was never completed despite causing the deaths of at least 100,000 people. 1/1/2020 47

  48. Stalin’s Railroad of Death Unearthed 斯大林的铁路死亡出土 • The BBC News told the story through an eyewitness, Lyudmila Lipatova, who survived the brutal years 1947–1953 when a third of the 300,000 slave laborers sentenced to work on the railroad perished due to weather, starvation, or brutality of the guards. 1/1/2020 48

  49. Stalin’s Railroad of Death Unearthed 斯大林的铁路死亡出土 • The story is horrific in the Stalin style.  The same dictator who ordered soldiers into minefields to clear them for the motherland certainly had no conscience when rounding up bodies to work his grand scheme for a thousand-mile railway to link eastern and western Siberia.  Russian men and women could be accused of crimes for the flimsiest of reasons, or no reason whatsoever, their fate doomed to hard labor in camps in temperatures of –50°C in winter, continuing the work in deep snow, and insufferable heat and mosquitoes in summer.  1/1/2020 49

  50. Stalin’s Railroad of Death Unearthed 斯大林的铁路死亡出土 • Merciless guards would sometimes strip naked workers who were less than cooperative and tie them to posts to leave them to the onslaught of the mosquitoes, a torment Lipatova called “worse than any torture instrument.”  The article includes rare photographs.  One  haunting portrait is of a beautiful young woman who was sentenced to the railroad when she was accused of embezzlement for no fault of her own: rats had eaten bank notes in her employer’s safe. 1/1/2020 50

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