A Republican Congresswoman has shared an image of what appears to be a Batman balloon, claiming that it is an unidentified flying object, ahead of a debate on UFOs in Washington next week. Anna Paulina Luna tweeted about the material she has gathered for the House Oversight UFO hearing, consisting of pictures of several alleged sightings. But a number of Twitter users questioned the credibility of one of the images that shows an object in the air shaped like Batman’s face, leading to speculation that officials have confused a party balloon for a UFO. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter “The military ‘leaked’ a photo of a Batman party balloon and claimed it was a UFO. That seriously made me doubt their ability to analyze anything,” said one person. Another said: “My father was a pilot for 20 years, they make mistakes all the time. I just showed you a picture of when a fighter pilot confused a Batman party balloon for a UFO that had no signs of propulsion.” But, one user who believes it is a UFO, said: “I think there is a massive difference between a hot air balloon and a Batman balloon you buy at Dollar Tree for $4.99 and I am pretty sure you know that! Pilots are not mistaking a Batman balloon as a UFO & the balloon ain’t making it to 25-30 thousand feet” “The pic with a blue background near the center is definitely a UFO and not just a party balloon,” argued another. The debate around UFOs is gaining pace in the US. The House Oversight Committee will hold a hearing on the issue next week after Republican congressmen and women promised to look deeper into the issue. It comes after unconfirmed claims from a former intelligence official that the US military had found crashed alien spacecraft. The Pentagon has said it hasn't discovered any information to substantiate this claim. House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was asked on Monday if he believes in aliens, in light of the hearing. "I will continue to see," McCarthy said. "But I think if we had found a UFO, I think the Department of Defense would tell us because they would probably want to request more money." "I'd love to see whatever facts and information we have," McCarthy added. "I'm very supportive of letting the American people see what we have, where we go." Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

SUNNYVALE, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Aug 1, 2023--

Amazon has announced plans to start selling cars on its website, marking a major new product category for the online retail giant that made its start selling books. The e-commerce firm said on Thursday that it will launch vehicle sales in the US in the second half of 2024, allowing local car dealers to sell directly to customers on its site. In a joint announcement with South Korean car manufacturer Hyundai, the two companies said Amazon will begin by offering Hyundai vehicles. In turn, Hyundai will name Amazon’s cloud computing unit AWS as its preferred cloud provider and integrate its next-generation vehicles with Alexa, Amazon’s popular voice assistant. The idea, according to Amazon, is to have customers purchase a new car online and pick it up – or have it delivered – from their local dealer. Amazon did not say how many dealers would be participating in the program or if customers across the US would be able to make purchases. An Amazon spokesperson said the company would release more details as it builds the program, which is expected to begin with Hyundai franchised dealers and launch during the later part of next year. Currently, Amazon sells vehicle equipment online and offers a showroom for consumers who want to research different types of cars they may want to buy. But consumers can not directly purchase a vehicle on its platform. The announcement shows Amazon’s ambitions to grow its footprint through dealers in an industry that has strong lobbying forces and heavy state regulations. Nearly all states require manufacturers to sell their vehicles through dealerships to ensure the automakers don’t undercut their own network of franchised dealers. Despite its vision, Amazon might face challenges convincing consumers who might not feel comfortable making such a large purchase on its platform. In a statement, an Amazon spokesperson said customers are increasingly purchasing vehicles online and the company will provide a “range of solutions that add transparency” to the car buying process to help them make an informed decision. The latest move comes as Amazon faces another class action lawsuit over refunds on returned products, with plaintiffs accusing the retailer of failing to issue refunds for returned products. The lawsuit was filed in federal court in Amazon’s hometown of Seattle this week. Additional reporting from agencies. Read More ‘We are broken’: Armenia looks to technology to rebuild Ring to preview security features with abuse charity to boost safety SpaceX is launching the world’s biggest rocket – follow live Battery breakthrough brings ‘unprecedented performance’ to next-gen cells

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Chimpanzees are our closest relatives, so it’s not surprising that they can do many of the things that we can. They’re able to create tools and can even use sign language, plus they share 98.8 per cent of their DNA with humans. It is, therefore, no wonder that the question has often been asked: could humans and chimps ever produce offspring? The answer, according to one evolutionary psychologist, is yes – and it’s already happened. Gordum Gallup made the eyebrow-raising claims in an interview with The Sun Online back in 2018. He told the news site that a human-chimpanzee hybrid – which he dubbed a “humanzee” – was born in a Florida lab 100 years ago. And if you’re wondering how the scientists behind the experiment managed to keep it hushed up for decades, it’s because – according to Gallup – they swiftly killed the infant when they realised the implications of what they’d done. Gallup, a professor at New York’s University at Albany, said his former university teacher told him that the secret birth took place at a research facility in Orange Park, where he used to work. “They inseminated a female chimpanzee with human semen from an undisclosed donor and claimed not only that pregnancy occurred but the pregnancy went full term and resulted in a live birth,” the psychologist told The Sun. “But in a matter of days, or a few weeks, they began to consider the moral and ethical considerations and the infant was euthanised.” Putting Gallup’s unsubstantiated story to one side, it’s unclear whether a human-chimpanzee hybrid is even possible. Some experts believe that our human ancestors and chimpanzees may have been capable of interbreeding as late as 4 million years ago according to IFL Science, which notes that our last common ancestor lived 6-7 million years ago. However, the website also notes that this theory is widely contested. It also points out that other animals with similar genetic differences to that of humans and chimps, such as horses and zebras, have been able to reproduce. And yet, the offspring are often infertile. Nevertheless, back in the 1970s, plenty of people believed that a chimp called Oliver was a human-monkey hybrid thanks to his humanistic walk, intelligence and physical features (he was said to have a smaller, flatter face than his ape peers, according to Historic Mysteries). It wasn't until tests were conducted on Oliver in 1996 that the matter was finally settled: he had 48 chromosomes so was categorically not a humanzee but a regular chimp. Oliver The Humanzee www.youtube.com Still, one certainty is that scientists continue to tread an ethical tightrope when it comes to investigating chimps and their potential to further biomedical research. In 2021, scientists created the first (publicly documented) part-monkey, part-human embryo by growing human stem cells in a macaque monkey. The aim of the work, which was carried out at California’s Salk Institute, was to help create organs for transplants and improve our understanding of human development and disease progression. In 2020, a team of German and Japanese scientists spliced human genes into the brains of marmosets, resulting in the monkey fetuses having larger, more human-like brains, according to the study, which was published in the journal Science. Once the experiment was complete, the team destroyed their creations “in light of potentially unforeseeable consequences with regard to postnatal brain function”. One thing’s for sure, no scientist wants to find themselves the architect of a real-life Planet of the Apes. Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.