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United States
Mid-Term Elections in Progress
Polls have opened throughout the United States, with Americans tasked with selecting leadership at the national, state, and local level government. National attention is especially directed towards races for all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, 35 contested seats in the Senate, and 36 gubernatorial races. Also up for grabs are a wide array of state-level top offices, 46 out of 50 state legislatures, and mayoral races. One observation by numerous pundits is that a larger-than-normal number of the current round of elections are considered toss-ups.
This map depicts the American states holding elections for governor during today’s mid-term elections. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Al Jazeera
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Lebanon
Deadly Cholera Outbreak
A growing cholera outbreak in Lebanon is the first of its kind since 1993. The initial case in this outbreak was reported on October 5 in the rural region of Akkar, and has since caused 2,250 infections and 18 deaths. Health officials blame Lebanon’s political and financial turmoil, which has impacted the maintenance of water quality and sanitation infrastructure. An inability to control borders with war-torn Syria has also increased cases of cholera, since crowded refugee camps with lack of sanitation are at high-risk for spreading the disease. Lebanon received vaccines from France in late October, which will play an essential role in limiting the spread. The government has prioritized distributing chlorine tablets to affected communities, and installing water filters in local water sources and hospitals in an effort to curb the spread of cholera.
This map depicts confirmed cases of cholera in different regions of Lebanon, as of November 4, 2022. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Reliefweb
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Space
Earth’s Closest Known Black Hole
Astronomers using the Gemini North telescope in Hawaii, one of the twin telescopes at the International Gemini Observatory, just discovered the closest black hole to Earth ever found, and published their findings in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The dormant black hole, named Gaia BH1, weighs 10 times the mass of the sun. Gaia BH1 is located some 1,600 light years away in the constellation Ophiuchus, which makes it three times closer to Earth than the black hole that was previously thought to be closest. The new discovery was made possible by careful observations of the motions of the sun-like star which orbits Gaia BH1, similar to Earth’s orbit around the sun. This is the first detection of a sun-like star in such a wide orbit around a stellar-mass black hole ever found in our galaxy. While there are millions of black holes floating around the Milky Way, these new findings indicate there are important gaps in the fundamental understanding of how black holes form and evolve.
This map depicts the image of the star around Gaia BH1, its reconstructed orbit, and the relative light-bending effects if the star and black hole were able to be seen up close. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: Where did archeologists find a burial site that reset the time humans are thought to have domesticated cats by over 5,000 years?
A: Cyprus
Archaeologists and anthropologists had long believed that ancient human beings and the species Felis catus, or what we now call the domesticated cat, first began living harmoniously around 4,000 years ago in Egypt. Human agriculture resulted in mass grain storage, which would have attracted rodents, and in turn would have attracted cats, and humans would then welcome and encourage to control the rodents. But in the 1980’s, archaeologists working a human habitation site in Shillourokambos on the island of Cyprus discovered a human buried with some of his property and a carefully buried cat. Dating at least 9,000 years old, the site was the earliest evidence of any cat, domesticated or wild, on Cyprus. Given that Cyprus is an island far from the mainland, the only sensible explanation for its presence there was that cats had been deliberately brought to the island by humans, and, given the care in its burial, that it would have been cared for and valued by humans in the community.
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Q: The Mekong River runs for some 2,700 miles (4,350 km), rising in southeastern China and flowing through six countries before emptying in the South China Sea. Which country has the largest share of the river?
Stay tuned for the answer to today’s question in tomorrow’s DailyGeo.
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