Nautilus Magazine: There’s Mysteriously Large Amounts of Methane on Mars

Almost no matter where the methane comes from, it’s an intriguing discovery. If you dropped a molecule of methane into the atmosphere of Mars, it would survive about 300 years—that’s how long, on average, it would take for solar ultraviolet radiation and other Martian gases to destroy the molecule. By rights, the Martian atmosphere should have been scrubbed of its methane eons ago. So, the methane we see must come either from a source that is producing methane today or from a subsurface reservoir that is venting methane produced sometime in the past. On Earth, 95 percent of methane is biological in origin. The class of bacteria known as methanogens feeds on organic matter and excretes methane. They populate our planet’s wetlands, which account for nearly a quarter of the methane present in the Earth’s atmosphere globally. Cows’ gut bacteria are the second largest producers. It is the possibility of microbial life that has propelled the search for methane on Mars.

But even if the methane there comes from geologic processes, it would give us a profound new respect for what looks outwardly like a geologically dead world. Methane can be produced by the geochemical process of serpentinization, which is widespread in Earth’s crust, especially at warm and hot hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor known as Lost City and Black Smokers. This process requires a source of geologic heat as well as liquid water. Those happen to be two main ingredients of life, as well. [...]

Surprisingly, during a single two-month period, four sequential observations reported a spike of 7 ppbv. These values were much too high to explain by comets, meteorites, or dust. They must have been of Martian origin—perhaps a burp from a relatively small and localized subsurface source to the north of the landing site. The Martian winds would blow that methane away over several months, explaining why the signal went away when it did. Alternatively, that pulse could be from a distant and much bigger source, which would require some other unknown mechanism to remove methane quickly. Like the earlier observations of plumes, the spikes seen by Curiosity remain a tantalizing clue to a still-enigmatic Mars.

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Reuters: History of 'papal tyranny' catches up with pope in northern Italy

The pope passed right by the plaque while standing in his white open popemobile after saying Mass in a square a few dozen meters away during a day-long visit to an area hit by earthquakes in 2012.

Put up in 1881 on the side of castle in the center of town, the marble plaque measuring about 1 meter by 2 meters commemorates the 1870 unification of Italy, which it says "emancipated human thought from papal tyranny." [...]

The region northwest of Bologna that the pope visited was hit by twin quakes in 2012, killing 28 people. Many family-run factories and food processing plants were severely damaged, dealing a devastating blow to the local economy in the area famous for its Parmesan cheese and Parma prosciutto. [...]

To restore the economy, they decided that factories would be restored first, followed by homes and schools. Cultural heritage sites such as churches were fixed last. The Carpi cathedral reopened last week.

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Deutsche Welle: CSU plans family-centered campaign, as Germans warm to gay marriage

The CSU is currently considering a five-point program of policy measures for families with children. According to the news report, it includes a one-off payment to help parents pay for equipment for their first baby, increased income tax deductions for parents for each child they have, the introduction of a bank account to pay for a child's education into which the state would make contributions, the gradual abolition of day care costs and the reduction of social insurance contributions for low-income families. [...]

At the same time, an opinion survey carried out by pollster Emnid for "Bild am Sonntag" on gay marriage showed that 75 percent of respondents favored full legal equality for homosexuals in life partnerships with the laws for a traditional marriage between a man and a woman. Twenty percent of the 501 people contacted by the pollsters said they were against equality in law for gay couples, with the remaining 5 percent having no opinion.

In January, a survey by the Federal Anti-Discrimination Bureau (ADS) showed 83 percent of respondents saying marriage between two men or two women should be allowed. [...]

The chancellor candidate for the Social Democratic Party (SPD), Martin Schulz, has called for equality for gay marriage, and the party looks set to make it an election issue. The party has proposed protection for the status of marriage and family and to extend it to "other forms of cohabitation,"  Thomas Oppermann, chairman of the SPD parliamentary group, said last month. The Greens and Left (Linke) parties also support the idea.

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Motherboard: Cats Are Actually Nice, Scientists Find

But don't take my word for it. Thanks to new research from Oregon State University, published on Friday in Behavioural Processes, there is scientific evidence that cats are, according to empirical study, nice. In fact, the study concluded, cats like interacting with humans more than they like eating food. Let that sink in: more than food. I don't like anybody more than food. [...]

"Increasingly cat cognition research is providing evidence of their complex socio-cognitive and problem solving abilities," the authors wrote in the paper. "Nonetheless, it is still common belief that cats are not especially sociable or trainable. This disconnect may be due, in part, to a lack of knowledge of what stimuli cats prefer, and thus may be most motivated to work for." [...]

The researchers concluded that there were no significant differences between the homed and the shelter cats, and that most cats preferred human socialization to any of the other categories. Half of the cats preferred social interaction to every other stimulus type, while only 37 percent preferred food.

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The New York Times: Chechen Authorities Arresting and Killing Gay Men, Russian Paper Says

On Saturday, a leading Russian opposition newspaper confirmed a story already circulating among human rights activists: The Chechen authorities were arresting and killing gay men.

While abuses by security services in the region, where Russia fought a two-decade war against Islamic insurgents, have long been a stain on President Vladimir V. Putin’s human rights record, gay people had not previously been targeted on a wide scale. [...]

By Saturday, the paper reported, and an analyst of the region with her own sources confirmed, that more than 100 gay men had been detained. The newspaper had the names of three murder victims, and suspected many others had died in extrajudicial killings. [...]

“You cannot arrest or repress people who just don’t exist in the republic,” the spokesman, Alvi Karimov, told the news agency.

“If such people existed in Chechnya, law enforcement would not have to worry about them, as their own relatives would have sent them to where they could never return,” Mr. Karimov said.

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