Saint Francis Xavier

 

(Francisco de Jasso y Azpilicueta: Castle of Xavier, 1506 – Island of Sancian, China, 1522). Spanish missionary. While studying philosophy and theology in Paris he met Ignacio de Loyola, who recruited him for his project to found a new order. Francis made his first vows in Paris (1534), or a priest in Venice (1537) and participated in the foundation of the Society of Jesus in Rome (1539).

Since them he has been consecrated to missionary activity: in 1541 he was sent to India as a pontifical legacy, with the mission to evangelize the lands located east of Cape Good Hope, responding to a request from John III of Portugal. In 1542 in Goa (the capital of Portuguese India), it carried out intense activity caring for the sick, visiting prisoners, preaching Christianity, converting natives, negotiating with local authorities and defending justice against the abuses of settlers.

Its apostolate spread across southern India, Ceylon, Malacca, the Moluccas Islands and Japan. As he was preparing to enter China to continue his work, he died of pneumonia at the gates of Canton. He was canonized in 1622 and declared patron of missions of the Catholic Church.

Biography:

Francisco de Jasso was the youngest son of Juan de Jasso y Atondo, president of the Royal Council of Navarre, and María de Azpilicueta y Aznárez, head of the lordship of Javier, defenders of the cause of Juan de Albert in front of Ferdinand II the Catholic in the war that determined the annexation of Navarre to the Crown of Castile (1512-1515). After the death of his father (1515) and the demolition of the towers and walls of Javier’s castle by order of Cardinal Cisneros (1516) as a result of the support given by his brothers Juan and Miguel to the uprising in favour of the dethroned Navarra king, Francisco Javier oriented towards the ecclesiastical career and the cultivation of the humanities, which he studied in Leyre and Pamplona.

In 1525, probably already acquired the tonsure, he moved to Paris to complete his training; he entered as an intern at the College of Santa Barbara, where he made friends with Pedro Fabro and Ignacio de Loyola. In 1530 he graduated from as a teacher in the arts and went on to teach philosophy with the position of regent professor at Dormans-Beauvais College, while studying theology. In order to acquire ecclesiastical benefits, in 1531 he requested in 1531 the council of Pamplona to grant a canonja , claiming his status as a Navarra cleric and his degree in arts.

However, his relationship with Ignacio de Loyola, who intended to attract him to the project of founding a new religious order, as well as his displeasure with the university environment and the impression caused by the death of his mother and sister, which took place at that time, determined Francisco Javier to abandon his promotional claims within the ecclesiastical establishment. Together with Ignacio de Loyola and five other comrades, gathered in the Parisian chapel of Montmatre, on August 14,1534 he vowed vows of chastity and poverty, of life consecrated to the apostolate and of pilgrimage to the Holy Land, or, in the event that the latter was not possible, to make himself available to the Pope.

In 1537 he moved to Venice, where he met with his companions in order to travel to Rome to obtain the papal blessing before starting his pilgrimage; during his staying in Venice he received news of the concession of the requested cononja, to which he renounced, and the beginning of the war between Constantinople and Venice, which meant the indefinite delay of the trip to the Holy Land. Ordained a priest on June 24 of that year, he devoted himself to preaching in Bologna until his departure to Rome, where Francis and his companions met with Paul III and definitively abandoned their pilgrimage purposes.

During their stay at the Holy See they managed the foundation of a new religious order, the Society of Jesus, to which the Pope granted his verbal approval in September 1539. That year Ignacio de Loyola learned that Jonh III of Portugal asked missionaries to march to preach Christianity in his possessions in the East Indies and entrusted the task to Fracis Xavier, who in March 1540 left for the Portuguese court to organize the expedition, with the title of pontifical legacy for all lands located east of the Cape of Good Hope.

Started the trip in Abril 1541, he arrived in Goa, the capital of Portuguese possessions in India, thirteen months later. He carried out an active evangelizing work in this city, especially since the foundation of the school-seminar of Santa Fe for native priests, and of dedication to the sick and prisoners. In September 1542 he organized a missionary expedition to the coast of Pesqueria, in southeastern India, to preach Christian doctrine among the villages; established a Christian community and provided it with a catechism in the indigenous language. After that, the evangelization of Travancor and Ceylon, Madra and Malaca and the Moluccas Islands began. Francis Xavier administered baptism to thousands of natives, overcome the opposition of the Brahmins and established a assiduous correspondence with the members of the Society of Jesus in Rome, whose news, to which his reputation as taumaturgo gave rise to numerous missionary vocations among his companions.

After a new stay in India and Malacca, dedicated to reorganizing the established missions and providing them with operations rules, he went to evangelize Japan, when he arrive in 1549; he preached for two years in Kagoshima, Hirado, Yamaguchi and Bungo, establishing favorable contacts for his work with the Japanese Daymians or feudal governors, although the opposition of the Buddhist monks greatly hindered his activity, in the face of the few conservations achieved in Japan, it was persuaded that to succeed in its company it was necessary to evangelize China previously, since it considered that the Japanese had assimilated the culture of this empire and that, therefore, the example of Christianity in China would exert decisive influence on Japan.

Claimed by the missionary communities of India, he returned to Goa in 1551, where he began the necessary procedures to organize his intended trip to China, hindered by the prohibition in this empire over the entry of foreigners into his territory. After his appointment as a provincial of India, which had been constituted as the independent Jesuit province of Portugal, he left for China with a Portuguese embassy in April 1552, but had to stop in Malaca, where he spent two months trying to overcome the resistance that Governor Alvaro de Ataide opposed the project.

He finally reprimanded the trip to the island of Sancayan, where death occurred before the Chinese reed arrived that was to transport him to Canton. His remains were transferred to Goa in 1554, where his cult spread quickly. At the beginning of the 17^th century the process of his beatification began, proclaimed by Paul V on October 25, 1619; appointed patron of Navarre in 1621, on March 12 of the following year he was canonized by Gregory XV, together with Saint Teresa of Jesus and Saint Ignatius of Loyola. Pius X declared him patron of the Sacred Congregation of Propaganda Fide in 1904, and Pius XI patron of all missions in 1927. His party is celebrated on December 3.

 

Lebron James’ Lakers and Tyrese Haliburton’s Pacers, to the first NBA Cup final

 

Indiana’s team surprises the Milwaukee Bucks with the star performance of their base, while Los Angeles roams the New Orleans Pelicans

 

The NBA’s most laureate team against another who has never won a title. Los Angeles Lakers veteran LeBron James vs Indiana Pacers of rising star Tyrese Haliburton. The NBA Cup final, the new American professional basketball tournament, is served and is quite a surprise. At the start of the competition, no one would have bet on a final like this, but the cup is the cup, even if it is the first time it has been played. Single-game qualifiers in such an equal championship lend themselves to any outcome. On Saturday in Las Vegas the honors of the new trophy will premiere.

On the way, all the favourites have been left. The first to fall were Nikola Jovic’s Denver Nuggets, which didn’t even go beyond the group phase. The Boston Celtics stumbled in quarters with Indiana, which Thursday was also able against Giannis Antetokounmpo’s Milwaukee Bucks (128-119).

The NBA Cup has seen a star grow. Tyrese Haliburton is for now the tournament’s most prominent player. Since he began his NBA career he has been able to maintain averages of more than 40% hit on 2-point shots and about 50% in field shots. At 23 years and 1.96 meters tall, the base was already the third best rookie of the season of its premiere, the 2020-2021, with the Sacramento Kings. In February 2022 he entered a transfer for which Domantas Sabonis left the Pacers for California and he ended up in Indiana. Last time was his first full season and he already made a hole in the All Star in Salt Lake City, after showing an inappropriate maturity of his age and a range of resources difficult to stop. In their matches against the Celtics and against the Bucks he has consecrated himself and the Pacers caress what can be his first title.

In front of Boston, he scored the first triple of his career with 26 points, 13 assists and 10 rebounds without any loss of ball. He was key to his team’s triumph, as was Thursday. Against Milwaukee he has scored 27 points, 15 assists and 7 rebounds. We’re playing the right way and we’re surprising the world right now. “We’re going to keep doing it”, Haliburton said at the end of the game.

Myles Turner scored 26 points for Indiana, while Obi Toppin contributed 14 in a six-hit series on eight field shots. The Indiana team is unleashed in attack all season, with 128.3 points on average, and 132.6 in cup games.

Giannis Antetokounmpo scored as much as he could and scored 37 points and 10 rebounds for the Milwaukee Bucks. Damiam Lillard scored 24 points; Khris Middleton,20, and Brook Lopez,18. However, Indiana’s alternatives far ousted Milwaukee’s, adding 43 points to 13. “Our bench really made a difference in today’s game”, Indiana coach Rick Carlisle said. “We have one of the best benches in the NBA, if not the best bench in the NBA”, Haliburton said. We are a very deep team, with many different players who can bring their grain of sand. I’m sure we have a lot of guys that people aren’t very familiar with, but they’re sure to be very familiar with”, he added.

The semifinal was fairly even until the end. The first quarter ended Milwaukee’s lead 27-29. In the second, Indiana’s alternates were in charge of opening the gap with a 36-22 partial. The Bucks recovered in the third quarter and came to the decisive moment with an advantage for them (91-94). Indiana was plugged in the last quarter, with a 14-8 partial and Haliburton’s successes at the key moments consolidated and expanded that advantage in the face of Antetokounmpo’s impotence.

Meanwhile, the semi-final of the Western Conference had much less history. The current Lakers are an irregular team, but except in their days of nonsense they are far superior to the Pelicans. New Orleans held only the first quarter (29-30 in their favour). In the second they sank (38-24) and in third they disappeared (43-17). He reached the last quarter with a 110-71 advantage in favour of the Lakers or, what is the same, with the semifinal more than resolved. In the end, the distance widened even further, to 133-89 at the end of the game.

Darvin Ham, the Angels coach, decided to give rest to LeBron James, who went to the bench with 30 points in just 23 minutes, and Anthony Davis, who scored 16 points and 15 rebounds in 31 minutes.

The NBA has bet heavily on this new competition format, similar to the traditional European cup tournaments, with a strong promotion, new designs of the pavilions and the excitement of the single-party qualifiers. The new tournament seems to have boosted television audiences in this early part of the season.

In addition to the title, the champion team players will receive a $500,000 prize each. The runners-up will have $200,000 a head, while those of the two losing semifinal teams charge $100,000 and the players of those eliminated in the quarterfinals, $50,000. This Saturday the best player of the tournament and the ideal quintet will also be chosen. LeBron Jamen and Tyrese Haliburton have plenty of ballots.

A 407 million-year-old mushroom declared the oldest pathogen

 

A funncial plant pathogen preserved in the fossil collections of the Natural History Museum has been identified as the oldest disease-causing fungus.

Potteromyces asteroxylicla, who is 407 million years old, has been named after the celebrated author of Peter Rabbit’s history and mushroom enthusiast, Beatrix Potter. The discovery is published in Nature Communications.

Beatrix’s drawings and his study on the growth of fungi, which in some cases advanced decades to scientific research, have earned him the reputation of being an important figure in mycology.

Potteromyces was discovered in fossil samples from Rhynie Chert, a fossil site in Scottland. The site is known to a community of early devonic plants and animals, including bacteria and fungi.

The new study, completed in collaboration with mycologists from the Royal Botanic Garden of Kew, suggests that fungi that cause diseases, such as ash, that currently decimate native ash in the United Kingdom, and fungi that can circulate the nutrients on which plants and other organism depend to survive, have a historical precedent in Potteromyces.

The Dr. Christine Strullu-Derrien, a scientist associate at Natural History Museum and lead author of the study describing the new species, say in a statement: “Although other fungal parasites have been found in this area before, this is the first case of one that cause a disease in a plant. Moreover, Potteromyces can provide a valuable point from which to date the evolution of different groups of fungi, such as Ascomycota, the largest fungal edge”.

Strullu-Derrien found the first Potteromyces specimen in 2015. Their reproductive structures, known as coniioforos, had a unusual shape and formation as had never been seen before.

Equally unusual was the fact that this mysterious fungus was found attacking an old plant called Asteroxylon mackiei. The plant had responded by developed dome-shaped growths, proving it must have been alive while the fungus attacked.

In order for the team to determine that it was indeed a new species, another case of the fungus needed to be found. This is because the nature of fungi differs greatly among individuals.

Confirmation was achieved when a second specimen was found in the collections of the National Museums of Scotland in another slide from Rhyne Chert.

Climate activists throw mud onto the facade of the Basilica of St. Mark in Venice

 

A group of environmental activists threw mud on Thursday on the facade of the Basilica of Sant Mark in Venice, in a protest that has resulted in the arrest of at least six people.

Several of these activists have used fire extinguishers to throw the mud on the south façade and a column of the basilica, located in the central Sant Mark square. Then several more have come together to display a banner on which you could read “Reparation Fund”, the campaign promoted by organization Last Generation.

The maintenance staff of the church itself have been able to clean up much of the dirt, although the architect of the basilica, Mario Piana, who has arrived at the site shortly after the incident, has harshly condemned this protest action, according to the RAI network.

The mayor of Venice, Luigi Brugnaro, has also expressed on social media his discomfort at an action he considers “very serious and shameful”, “it is legitimate to express discrepancies, but always with respect for the law and our cultural and religious heritage”, said Brugnaro, who criticized “vandalism” as a method of “finding solutions” in the field of the environment.

A WORLD OF “KNIT ROBOTS” AND THE NEED TO THEM ANTICIPATED

 

The possibility of early deployment of autonomous lethal weapons on battlefields presents an urgent need to take global action to regulate these technologies

 

It is the conclusion of a new book entitled “The Military Carrer of AI: Good Common Governance in the Age of Artificial Intelligence” written by Dennise Garcia, professor of political science and international affairs at the University of Northeastern, who was part of the International Panel for the Regulation of Autonomous Weapons from 2017 to 2022.

As artificial intelligence progresses, weapons of was increasingly become capable of killing people without meaningful human supervision, raising troubling questions about how today’s and tomorrow’s wars will take place, and how autonomous weapons systems could weaken accountability when it comes to possible violations of international law accompanying their deployment.

In his book, Denise Garcia condenses these bleak realities and explores the challenges of “creating a global governance framework” that anticipates a world of unbridled AI weapons systems in the context of the deterioration of international law and norms. Thus, he highlights that military AI applications have already been implemented in the ongoing conflicts in Europe and the Middle East, one of the most famous examples of this is the Iraeli Iron Dome.

“The world must come together and create new global public goods, which I would say should include a framework for governing AI, but also commonly agreed rules on the use of AI in the military” Garcia said in a statement from his university.

This expert warns that speeding up militarized AI as such is not the right approach and risks adding more volatility to an already very unstable international system. “Simply pit, AI should not be trusted to make decisions about war”, he says.

Some 4,500 AI and robotics researchers have collectively said AI should not make decisions about human murder, a position, Garcia says, which is in line with European Parliament guidelines and European Union regulation. But U.S officials have pushed for a regulatory paradigm of rigorous testing and designs so that humans can use artificial intelligence technology “to make the decision to kill”.

“This seems good on paper, but it’s very difficult to achieve in reality, as algorithms are unlikely to assimilate the enormous complexity of what happens in war”, Garcia says.

AI weapons systems not only threaten to alter accountability standards under international law, but also make war crimes prosecution much more difficult because of problems associated with the attribution of “combat status” to AI’s “counterbeth” Garcia says.

“International law has evolved to focus on the human being”, he says. “When a robot or software is inserted into the equation, who will be responsible?”.

He continues: “The difficulties of attribution of responsibly will accelerate the dehumanization of war. When humans are reduced to date, human dignity will dissipate”:

Existing AI and quasi-AI military applications have already caused sensation in defense circles. One of those applications allows a single person to control multiple unmanned system, according to a source, such as a swarm of drones capable of attacking by air or under the sea. In the war in Ukraine, marauding munition have sparked a debate about exactly how much control human agents have over decisions on targets.

Some dinosaurs slept in the same posture as birds

 

The posture of a new species of almost complete fossil dinosaur dug in Mongolia reveals that it curled up to sleep in a similar way of that of modern birds.

With the creature’s head tucked into her limbs and the tail comfortably wrapped around her body, her cosy posture resembled that of modern birds at rest, hinting that these dinosaurs not only looked like birds, but could also have behaved like them.

Paleontologists dug the dinosaurs skull and almost complete skeleton in the Gobi Desert, in the Goyo Barun Formation in Mongolia, and most of the bone were still arranged in the animal’s original death pose, which had to lose its life while sleeping, researchers reported in the journal PLOS ONE.

The animal’s long neck wrapped the right side of its trunk and its head was stuck to its side, leaning on the right knee. The rear limbs were bent underneath and most of the tail curved around the left side of the body.

The study authors identified him as an Alvarezsaurid, a type of small theropod (carnivorous bipedo adipine) with long tail and legs and short front limbs. Alvarezsauridos are part of a larger group of dinosaurs  called mainraptorans, which includes bird-like birds and dinosaurs that were their closest relatives.

The new fossil suggests that this sleeping behaviour may have been more common than expected among non-avian relatives of the first birds, the researchers reported.

A rise in the North Sea 4,000 years ago ended large forests

 

The swamps of eastern Engand, a low and extremely flat landscape dominated by agricultural fields, were once a vast forest full of huge yedes

Scientists at Cambridge University studied hundreds of tree trunks unearthed by farmers as they plowed their fields. The team discovered that most of the old wood came from yedes that died suddenly about 4,200 years ago, when the trees fell under the peat and were preserved to this day.

In a study published in the Quaternary Science Review, researchers hypothesize that a rapid rise in sea levels in the North Sea flooded the area with salt water, causing large forests to disappear.

The yave trees (Taxus baccata) are one of the longest species in Europe and can reach up to 20 meters high. Analysis by the Cambridge Tree Rings Unit (TRU) showed that the yeys unearthed in the fields of Fenland (the local name of the swamps) were very old: some of these ancient trees were 400 years old when they died.

Much of the swamps in eastern England formed a wetland until it was drained between the 17^th and 19^th centuries through artificial drainage and flood protection. Today, the area is one of the UK’s most productive agricultural land, thanks to its rich peat soil.

The climate and environmental information contained in these unearthed trees could be a valuable clue to whether this weather event could be related to other events that occurred in other parts of the world at the same time, including a mega-dry in the Middle East that may have been a factor in the collapse of the ancient Kingdom of Egypt.