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Nepal Sharply Hikes Permit Fee for Everest Climbers 

Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 
Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 
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Nepal Sharply Hikes Permit Fee for Everest Climbers 

Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 
Mount Everest, the world highest peak, and other peaks of the Himalayan range are seen through an aircraft window during a mountain flight from Kathmandu, Nepal January 15, 2020. (Reuters) 

Nepal will increase the permit fees for climbing Mount Everest by more than 35%, making the world’s tallest peak more expensive for mountaineers for the first time in nearly a decade, officials said on Wednesday.

Income from permit fees and other spending by foreign climbers is a key source of revenue and employment for the cash-strapped nation, home to eight of the world’s 14 highest mountains, including Mount Everest.

A permit to climb the 8,849 meter (29,032 feet) Mount Everest will cost $15,000, said Narayan Prasad Regmi, director general of the Department of Tourism, announcing a 36% rise in the $11,000 fee that has been in place for nearly a decade.

"The royalty (permit fees) had not been reviewed for a long time. We have updated them now," Regmi told Reuters.

The new rate will come into effect from September and apply for the popular climbing April-May season along the standard South East Ridge, or South Col route, pioneered by New Zealander Sir Edmund Hillary and Sherpa Tenzing Norgay in 1953.

Fees for the less popular September-November season and the rarely climbed December-February season will also increase by 36%, to $7,500 and $3,750 respectively.

Some expedition organizers said the increase, under discussion since last year, was unlikely to discourage climbers. About 300 permits are issued each year for Everest.

"We expected this hike in permit fees," said Lukas Furtenbach of Austria-based expedition organizer, Furtenbach Adventures.

He said it was an "understandable step" from the government of Nepal. "I am sure the additional funds will be somehow used to protect the environment and improve safety on Everest," Furtenbach said.

Regmi did not say what the extra revenue would be used for.

Hundreds of climbers try to scale Mount Everest and several other Himalayan peaks every year.

Nepal is often criticized by mountaineering experts for allowing too many climbers on Everest and doing little to keep it clean or to ensure climbers' safety.

Regmi said cleaning campaigns were organized to collect garbage and rope fixing as well as other safety measures were undertaken regularly.

Climbers returning from Everest say the mountain is becoming increasingly dry and rocky with less snow or other precipitation, which experts say could be due to global warming or other environmental changes.

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Saudi Arabia: NCW Marks World Wildlife Day with Strategic Plan for Biodiversity Protection

The NCW says it is focused on enhancing wildlife management efficiency. SPA
The NCW says it is focused on enhancing wildlife management efficiency. SPA
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Saudi Arabia: NCW Marks World Wildlife Day with Strategic Plan for Biodiversity Protection

The NCW says it is focused on enhancing wildlife management efficiency. SPA
The NCW says it is focused on enhancing wildlife management efficiency. SPA

The National Center for Wildlife (NCW) reaffirmed its commitment to protecting wildlife and preserving natural habitats, recognizing this responsibility as essential to nature conservation and ecosystem sustainability in Saudi Arabia. This observance aligns with World Wildlife Day, marked annually on March 3.

The center emphasized its efforts in wildlife development, which include breeding endangered species and reintroducing them into their natural habitats, developing and managing protected areas, and implementing environmental monitoring programs and scientific research.

This approach builds on a phased institutional effort, expanding breeding and reintroduction programs for wildlife species from seven to 21, with a strategic plan to reach 50 programs by 2030.

The NCW is also focused on enhancing wildlife management efficiency and advancing operational tools, thereby strengthening a national approach grounded in science and long-term planning.

Varieties

Student Solves Mystery of Icy ‘Snowmen’ in Solar System’s Outer Reaches

Contact binaries are made up of two connected spheres, reminiscent of a snowman (Shutterstock)
Contact binaries are made up of two connected spheres, reminiscent of a snowman (Shutterstock)
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Student Solves Mystery of Icy ‘Snowmen’ in Solar System’s Outer Reaches

Contact binaries are made up of two connected spheres, reminiscent of a snowman (Shutterstock)
Contact binaries are made up of two connected spheres, reminiscent of a snowman (Shutterstock)

A student has unraveled a long-standing cosmic enigma concerning some of our solar system’s most peculiar objects: icy “snowmen” that populate its outer reaches, according to The Independent.

Astronomers have long debated the origins of these 'contact binaries' – objects comprising two connected spheres, reminiscent of a snowman.

Now, researchers at Michigan State University claim to have evidence.

These peculiar celestial “snowmen” are found in the Kuiper Belt, a vast expanse beyond Neptune, which is filled with icy remnants dating back to the solar system's formation. The region lies beyond the turbulent asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

These ancient building blocks, known as planetesimals, have largely persisted untouched for billions of years. Roughly one in 10 of these objects are classified as ‘contact binaries.’

The enduring mystery has been how such delicate structures could have formed without being violently smashed together.

Jackson Barnes, a graduate student at the university, has developed the first computer simulation to show how such two-lobed shapes can arise naturally through gravitational collapse.

This is the process by which matter contracts under its own gravity, overpowering forces that would otherwise pull it apart.

The research has been published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Earlier computer models treated colliding objects as fluid-like blobs that quickly merged into single spheres, making it impossible to recreate contact binaries.

Using high-performance computing facilities, Barnes’ simulations instead allow objects to retain their strength and settle gently against one another.

Other theories have suggested that rare events or exotic conditions might be required to produce these shapes, but researchers say such explanations are unlikely to account for their apparent abundance.

“If we think 10% of planetesimal objects are contact binaries, the process that forms them can’t be rare,” said Earth and Environmental Science assistant professor Seth Jacobson, the study’s senior author.

“Gravitational collapse fits nicely with what we’ve observed.”

Contact binaries were first seen in close detail in January 2019, when Nasa’s New Horizons spacecraft flew past a Kuiper Belt object later nicknamed Ultima Thule.

The images prompted scientists to re-examine other distant bodies, revealing that about 10% of planetesimals share the same distinctive shape.

In the sparsely populated Kuiper Belt, these objects drift largely undisturbed and are rarely hit by other debris.

In the early history of the Milky Way, the galaxy consisted of a disc of gas and dust. Remnants of that era persist in the Kuiper Belt today, including dwarf planets such as Pluto, along with comets and planetesimals.

Planetesimals are among the first solid bodies to form as dust and pebble-sized material clumps together under gravity. Much like snowflakes compressed into a snowball, they are loose aggregates pulled from clouds of tiny particles.

Barnes’ simulation shows that as one of these clouds rotates, it can collapse inward and split into two separate bodies that begin orbiting each other.

Such binary planetesimals are commonly observed in the Kuiper Belt. Over time, their orbits spiral closer until the pair gently touch and fuse, preserving their rounded shapes.

The reason these fragile-looking structures survive for billions of years, Barnes explained, is simple chance. In such a remote region, collisions are rare. Without a major impact, there is little to pull the two bodies apart, and many contact binaries show few, if any, impact craters.

Scientists have long suspected gravitational collapse was responsible, but until now they lacked models capable of testing the idea properly.

“We’re able to test this hypothesis for the first time in a legitimate way,” Barnes said. “That’s what’s so exciting about this paper.”

He believes the model could also help researchers understand more complex systems involving three or more bodies. The team is already working on simulations that better capture the details of the collapse process.

As future space missions venture deeper into the outer solar system, the researchers said the familiar snowman shape may turn out to be far more common than once thought.

Varieties

80% of China’s Lanterns Are Made in One Little Town

80% of the country's lanterns are still made by hand (Getty images)
80% of the country's lanterns are still made by hand (Getty images)
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80% of China’s Lanterns Are Made in One Little Town

80% of the country's lanterns are still made by hand (Getty images)
80% of the country's lanterns are still made by hand (Getty images)

In China, red lanterns could guide a traveler to safety in cold winter alleyways, be symbols of power outside an imperial hall, or act as a call to religious devotion when hung in a temple.

They are also absolutely synonymous with lunar new year celebrations right across the vast country and link today's Chinese people with the culture of their ancestors, according to BBC.

To imagine how many lanterns would be hung here, at any given time, is like trying to count how many trees would be in the Amazon.

And yet it is claimed that a remarkable 80% of the country's lanterns are still made – by hand – in one small town in Hebei Province.

Walking around the dusty streets of Tuntou you see evidence of lantern making everywhere you go.

A view through an open door into a courtyard might reveal a small group of villagers sitting on stools and making lanterns while they chat, while down the main street, red lanterns are piled up one on top of the other.

Nobody seems to know just how many hundreds of years ago the craft started in this part of northern China but, if you're born in Tunou, you are immersed in lantern making from a very young age.

“When you see others in your family doing it every day, you get the hang of it quickly,” one woman told the BBC, adding that “kids here can pick it up at from around 10-years-old.”

It seems remarkable that, in an era of high-tech production lines, this town has been able to maintain a stranglehold on the lantern market, using production techniques from another era.

When asked about this, one elderly lantern maker said it was because they could easily fill diverse orders, no matter how small in scale, and do it more cheaply than factories could.

In the future, modern production may find a way to match what this village can do by hand, offering the same diversity of options at a competitive price, but it has not happened yet.

But a challenge for Tuntou is that many young people these days are not satisfied with a life of lantern making, instead opting for the lure of the city and the possibilities that urban existence can bring. This could mean a shortage of labor in the years to come.

However, for now, this is China's lantern town, and its residents are proud that it is known this way.