My Journal of Thoughts
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/missed-the-weekends-meteor-shower-catch-the-shooting-stars-here/
Missed the Weekend’s Meteor Shower? Catch the Shooting Stars Here
In case you were not able to wish on the shooting stars of the Perseid meteor shower, which peaked Friday night, or if your view was hampered by the full moon, check out some of these photos:
To read the rest of the article you must go to the blaze.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/what-is-it-mysterious-orange-goo-washes-up-baffles-alaska-village/
What is it? Mysterious Orange Goo Washes Up, Baffles Alaska Village
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Leona Baldwin’s husband saw it first, and she got on the marine radio to alert others in the remote Alaska village of Kivalina that a strange orange goo was sitting on top of the town’s harbor.
The news attracted all the townspeople, anxious to get a gander of the phenomenon that covered much of the harbor and then began washing ashore Wednesday.
The next day it rained, and residents found the orange matter floating on top of the rain buckets they use to collect drinking water. It was also found on one roof, leading them to believe whatever it was, it was airborne, too.
By Friday, the orange substance in the lagoon had dissipated or washed out to sea, and what was left on ground had dried to a powdery substance.
A sample of orange goo in Anchorage, Alaska, collected Aug. 3, 2011, in Kivalina, Alaska, after the substance came in from the river into the village’s harbor. (AP Photo/Mark Thiessen)
Samples of the orange matter were collected in canning jars and sent to a lab in Anchorage for analysis.
To read the rest of the article you must go to the Blaze.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/prince-of-monaco-gets-way-cool-custom-lexus-for-his-wedding/
Prince of Monaco Gets Way-Cool Custom Lexus for His Wedding
A week from now Prince Albert II of Monaco will be getting married, and when he and the new princess leave for their honeymoon rattling cans and a “Just Married” signed will dress the back of a very special Lexus LS 600h L Landaulet. AKA The coolest car ever seen.
From autoblog:
“Yes, it’s being called a Landaulet – you know, like the Maybach – but instead of the rear seat passengers being completely alfresco, there’s a transparent bubble roof, in this case, one without any reinforcements or pillars. Lexus says that the roof was built by one of the world’s leading transparent component-production companies in France. The entire Landaulet conversion was handled by Belgian coachbuilder Carat Duchatelet in close collaboration with Lexus, and it took just over 2,000 hours to complete.
for the rest of the article you must go to the Blaze.
I want to wish Prince Albert and his bride happiness and love, laughter and good health, and a long life together.
His mother Grace Kelly was one of the most beautiful women in the world. She made so many good movies, I love the movie “High Society” with Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra. The music in that movie was wonderful. She met and married her real life Prince and started her family. How many of us dream of our Prince Charming? We know that a real life Prince is not going to be the one who sweeps us off our feet, so we use the term to describe the average guy who wins our heart and love. Grace Kelly got to marry a real life Prince and became a real life Princess.
Prince Albert and I are the same age, as I believe he was born in 1958 too. Great year, lol. As a child, I remember reading articles and looking at the pictures. They were one of the few Catholic royal families. I am glad he found love and is getting married. Hopefully they will start a family of their own. If he can finally find the right one, it gives those of us who haven’t found the right person, hope that even though we are in our 50’s that there is still hope that we can finally find the right person to marry and start a wonderful new life together.
Already a hot day in the valley of the SUN. This is just the beginning of Summer, so we have until Oct, the tripple digits. Hope everyone has a great day.
Chrisy
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/solar-flare-eruption-creates-spectacular-video-images/
Solar Flare Eruption Creates Spectacular Video, Images
GREENBELT, Md. (The Blaze/AP) — A medium-sized solar flare has erupted from the sun in an impressive display captured by NASA cameras. Scientists say that the event won’t have a significant impact on Earth.
NASA says the flare peaked Tuesday and created a large cloud that appeared to cover almost half the surface of the sun. Images were recorded by the orbiting satellite called the Solar Dynamics Observatory.
To watch the video you must go to the Blaze.
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/scientists-puzzled-by-increasing-break-deformities/
Scientists Puzzled by Increasing Beak Deformities
ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) — Scientists have observed the highest rate of beak abnormalities ever recorded in wild bird populations in Alaska and the Northwest, a study by two federal scientists said.
The U.S. Geological Survey study on beak deformities in northwestern crows in Alaska, Washington and British Columbia follows a trend found earlier in Alaska’s black-capped chickadees.
“The prevalence of these strange deformities is more than 10 times what is normally expected in a wild bird population,” said research biologist Colleen Handel.
Handel and wildlife biologist Caroline Van Hemert published their findings in The Auk, a Quarterly Journal of Ornithology. They captured Alaska crows in six coastal locations and used documented reports and photographs for birds elsewhere.
The cause of the deformity — called “avian keratin disorder” — hasn’t been determined, Handel said. An estimated 17 percent of adult northwestern crows are affected by the disorder in coastal Alaska.
The keratin layer of the beak becomes overgrown, resulting in elongated and often crossed beaks. The deformity showed up in adults birds, most often in the upper beak but sometimes in the lower beak or both.
The abnormality sometimes is accompanied by elongated claws, abnormal skin or variations in feather color.
Van Hemert said the disorder first was noticed in significant numbers around 1999. It has increased dramatically over the past decade, affecting 6.5 percent of adult black-capped chickadees in Alaska annually.
Biologists have documented more than 2,100 affected individuals and increasing numbers of other species, such as nuthatches and woodpeckers, have been spotted with beak deformities.
Both chickadees and northwestern crows live year-round in Alaska with generally restricted seasonal movements between wintering and breeding areas, but do not forage in the same areas, the researchers said.
“They’re eating different things, they live in different habitat — crows are mostly intertidal, chickadees tend to be in birch forests — they‘re kind of occurring in different parts of their habitats and ecosystems and they’re still affected by what seems to be the same problem,” Van Hemert said.
The scientists said beak deformities can be caused by environmental contaminants, nutritional deficiencies, and bacterial, viral, fungal or parasitic infections.
In the past, large clusters of beak deformities have been associated with environmental pollutants such as organochlorines in the Great Lakes region and selenium from agricultural runoff in California.
The deformities affect birds’ ability to feed, Van Hemert said, though many birds appear to cope by relying on food provided by humans at feeders rather than foraging.
Deformed beaks also can prevent adequate preening, she said, leaving feathers matted, dirty and without insulating value needed to survive the cold.
The increasing occurrence of deformities in multiple bird species with broad geographic distribution suggests that avian keratin disorder is spreading, they said.
by Steven Morris
Baby corals find their way to reefs by detecting the sound of snapping shrimps and grunting fish, scientists revealed today.
![[A new study has found that coral larvae detect and move towards sound in order to find reef habitats. Photograph: Jim Maragos/AP]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/coral_0.jpg "coral.jpg")
A new study has found that coral larvae detect and move towards sound in order to find reef habitats. Photograph: Jim Maragos/APIt had long been assumed that coral larvae drift aimlessly after being released by their parent colonies and almost by chance land back on reefs. But scientists now believe that though they are anatomically very simple, the larvae can pick up the sound of a reef and head towards it.
The discovery is worrying as it is feared the larvae might also be drawn to dangerous man-made sounds in increasingly noisy oceans or struggle to find reefs because human noise masks their sound.
One of the experts involved in the study, Steve Simpson, senior researcher in the University of Bristol’s School of Biological Sciences, said: “Until recently we assumed that these larvae drift aimlessly, but this study shows they are able to detect sound and move towards it. This could help them find bustling reef habitats but may also draw them towards human sources of noise such as turbines and drilling operations.”
Simpson said a reef was a noisy place but usually when humans dive they hear little but their own breathing. But actually a reef is full of “clicks from snapping shrimps that combine to produce a crackling noise and grunts and chirps produced by fish as they communicate.”
Simpson explained how larvae are separated from reefs in the first place: “Coral eggs and larvae are released by their parent colonies (often in dramatic mass spawning events – analogous to a fireworks night on the reef) and then drift out to sea where they spend a few hours to days growing and developing in the plankton.
“When they are competent to settle onto the seabed they seek out suitable solid substrate (eg a bare patch of rock), and then cement themselves and gradually start to lay down their skeleton. Over time they bud – split – asexually, and eventually build a new colony, sometimes metres across.”
Simpson discovered several years ago that baby reef fish use sound as a cue to find coral reefs, but was amazed when his Dutch collaborators working in the Caribbean started finding that coral larvae, which must quickly find a safe place to land or die, can do the same thing.
The team designed a “choice chamber”, offering small invertebrates two or more contrasting conditions and allows them to move freely towards the one they prefer.
They played recordings of a coral reef in one area and the results clearly showed that the flea-sized larvae were strongly attracted to the noise.
How the creatures, which look like tiny eggs covered in hairs, detect sound is unknown. Simpson said: “At close range sound stirs up water molecules, and this could waggle tiny hair cells on the surface of the larvae, providing vital directional information for baby corals.”
Simpson said the increase of manmade noise in oceans and seas was a worry.
“Anthropogenic noise has increased dramatically in recent years, with small boats, shipping, drilling, pile driving and seismic testing now sometimes drowning out the natural sounds of fish and snapping shrimps,” he said.
© Guardian News and Media Limited 2010
by Murray Wardrop
Humans have wrought such vast and unprecedented changes on the planet that we may be ushering in a new period of geological history.
![[ Earth has entered a new age of geological time Photo: BARCROFT ]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/earth-2.jpg "earth-2.jpg")
Earth has entered a new age of geological time Photo: BARCROFTThrough pollution, population growth, urbanisation, travel, mining and use of fossil fuels we have altered the planet in ways which will be felt for millions of years, experts believe.
It is feared that the damage mankind has inflicted will lead to the sixth largest mass extinction in Earth’s history with thousands of plants and animals being wiped out.
The new epoch, called the Anthropocene – meaning new man – would be the first period of geological time shaped by the action of a single species.
Although the term has been in informal use among scientists for more than a decade, it is now under consideration as an official term.
A new working group of experts has now been established to gather all the evidence which would support recognising it as the successor to the current Holocene epoch.
It will consider changes human activities have brought to Earth’s biodiversity and rock structure as well as the impact of factors including pollution and mineral extraction.
It is hoped that within three years, their case will be presented to the International Union of Geological Sciences, which would decide whether the transition to a new epoch has been made.
The theory has been proposed by a group of scientists, including Paul Crutzen, the Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist, in the journal Environmental Science & Technology.
They conclude: “The Anthropocene represents a new phase in the history of both humankind and of the Earth, when natural forces and human forces became intertwined, so that the fate of one determines the fate of the other. Geologically, this is a remarkable episode in the history of this planet.”
Dr Jan Zalasiewicz, of the University of Leicester, co-author of the paper, added: “It is suggested that we are in the train of producing a catastrophic mass extinction to rival the five previous great losses of species and organisms in Earth’s geological past.”
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2010
by Alok Jha
It is one of evolution’s crowning achievements – a mini green power station and organic factory combined and the source of almost all of the energy that fuels every living thing on the planet.
![[Scientists hope to be able to mimic one of evolution's crowning achievements: leaves. (Photograph: Graeme Robertson)]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/Synthetic-leaves-Sun.jpg "Synthetic-leaves-Sun.jpg")
Scientists hope to be able to mimic one of evolution’s crowning achievements: leaves. (Photograph: Graeme Robertson)Now scientists developing the next generation of clean power sources are working out how to copy, and ultimately improve upon, the humble leaf. The intricate chemistry involved in photosynthesis, the process where plants use sunlight to convert water and carbon dioxide into sugar, is the most effective solar energy conversion process on Earth. And researchers believe that mimicking parts of it could be the ticket to a limitless supply of clean power.
The untapped potential for using the sun’s rays is huge. All human activity for a whole year could be powered by the energy contained in the sunlight hitting the Earth in just one hour. Harnessing even a small amount of this to make electricity or useful fuels could satisfy the world’s increasing need for energy, predicted to double by 2050, without further endangering the climate.
Most solar power systems use silicon wafers to generate electricity directly. But although costs are coming down, these are still too expensive in many cases when compared with fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas. Scientists are keen to develop more efficient and cheaper alternatives sources of energy.
At Imperial College London, researchers have embarked on a £1m project to study, and eventually mimic, photosynthesis. Part of a project called the “artificial leaf”, involves working out exactly how leaves use sunlight to make useful molecules. The team then plans to build artificial systems that can do the same to generate clean fuels such as hydrogen and methanol. These would then be used in fuel cells to make electricity or directly to power super-clean vehicles.
Similar projects are gathering pace around the world: the US is poised to approve a federal research budget of around $35m a year for ideas that could create fuels from sunlight and the Dutch government has allocated €40m for similar research.
According to James Barber, a biologist at Imperial College London and leader of the artificial leaf project, if artificial photosynthesis systems could use around 10% of the sunlight falling on them, they would only need to cover 0.16% of the Earth’s surface to satisfy a global energy consumption rate of 20 terawatts, the amount it is predicted that the world will need in 2030. And unlike a biological leaf, the artificial equivalent could be placed in the arid desert areas of the world, where it would not compete for space agricultural land.
Ultimately, Barber hopes to improve on nature’s own solar cell. “If the leaf can do it, we can do it but even better,” he said. “[But] it doesn’t mean that you try to build exactly what the leaf has. Leonardo da Vinci tried to design flying machines with feathers that flapped up and down. But in the end we built 747s and Airbus 380s, completely different to a bird and, in fact, even better than a bird.”
Photosynthesis starts with a chemical reaction where sunlight is used to split water into hydrogen and oxygen. The oxygen is released into the atmosphere while the hydrogen is used to create sugars and other organic molecules for the plant. The aim of Barber’s artificial leaf project is to find an efficient way of mimicking that water-splitting reaction to create a clean and limitless source hydrogen. Unlike normal leaves, the new devices would not suck CO2 out of the atmosphere.
Hydrogen is a clean, energy-rich fuel that could be used in fuel cells to make electricity or else combined with carbon dioxide from the atmosphere (or from the exhaust of fossil-fuel power stations) to make methanol, a fuel that could be dropped into vehicles without the need for any engine modifications. “The challenge is to get hydrogen out of water using a ready supply of energy,” said Barber.
For domestic purposes, Dan Nocera, a chemist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, has calculated that using artificial leaf to split a few litres of water a day into hydrogen and oxygen would be enough to supply all a home’s energy needs.
Scientists can already produce hydrogen by splitting water but current techniques are expensive, use harsh chemicals and need carefully controlled environments in which to operate. The critical part of the artificial leaf project is developing catalysts made from cheap materials that can be used to split water in everyday conditions.
John Loughhead, executive director of the UK Energy Research Centre, described the artificial leaf idea as very promising because “we know that plants have already evolved to do it and we know that, fundamentally, it’s a workable process on a large scale.”
He added: “Ultimately, the only sustainable form of energy we’ve got is the sun. From a strategic viewpoint, you have to think this looks really interesting because we know we’re starting from a base of feasibility.”
Barber’s colleagues at Imperial, led by chemist James Durrant, have recently developed a catalyst from rust that carried out part of the water-splitting reaction. So far the process is not very efficient, so Durrant’s team is looking at improving this by engineering the surface of the rust. “We’re looking at adding small catalytic amounts of cobalt onto the surface of the iron oxide to make it more efficient.”
Nocera is also working on a catalyst made from cobalt and phosphorus that can split water at room temperature. Speaking last year, when he published his preliminary results in the journal Science, he said efficient water-splitting technology would be useful as a way of storing solar energy,which is a major problem for anyone who wants to use large amounts of solar power. During the day, an artificial leaf could use sunlight to split water and, at night, the stored hydrogen would be used to make electricity as it was needed. Chemical fuels such as hydrogen can store far more energy per unit mass than even the most advanced batteries.
Both Durrant’s and Nocera’s catalysts are many years from becoming commercial products.
© 2009 Guardian News and Media Limited
http://www.capecodonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090607/NEWS/906070335
Scientists at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution sent a robotic vehicle to the deepest-known part of the world’s oceans last week.
The vehicle, called Nereus, dove down 10,902 meters — nearly seven miles — to reach the Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench of the western Pacific Ocean as part of a larger, two-week WHOI voyage. But this expedition, which began May 23 and officially finished yesterday, was in some sense just an engineering test. Now that WHOI knows Nereus can make it down so deep, scientists say, the vehicle’s potential can be unleashed.
For the rest of the article you will have to click on the Cape Cod Times link.
Published on Saturday, January 31, 2009 by The New York Times
The oceans have long buffered the effects of climate change by absorbing a substantial portion of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide. But this benefit has a catch: as the gas dissolves, it makes seawater more acidic. Now an international panel of marine scientists says this acidity is accelerating so fast it threatens the survival of coral reefs, shellfish and the marine food web generally.
![[A coral reef in the depth of Ras Mohammed protection area near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, July 2005. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must fall sharply to avoid inflicting acid damage to the world's marine ecosystems, more than 150 scientists warned Friday. (AFP/File/Tarik Tinazay)]](https://i0.wp.com/www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/oceans_acidity.jpg "oceans_acidity.jpg")
A coral reef in the depth of Ras Mohammed protection area near Sharm el-Sheikh in Egypt, July 2005. Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions must fall sharply to avoid inflicting acid damage to the world’s marine ecosystems, more than 150 scientists warned Friday. (AFP/File/Tarik Tinazay)The panel, comprising 155 scientists from 26 countries and other international groups, is not the first to point to growing ocean acidity as an environmental threat. For example, a group of eminent scientists convened by The Nature Conservancy issued a similar assessment in August. But the new report’s blunt language and international backing give its assessment unusual force. It called for “urgent action” to sharply reduce emissions of carbon dioxide.
“Severe damages are imminent,” the group said Friday in a statement summing up its deliberations at a symposium in Monaco last October. The statement, called the Monaco Declaration, said increasing acidity was interfering with the growth and health of shellfish and eating away at coral reefs, processes that would eventually affect marine food webs generally.
Already, the group said, there have been detectable decreases in shellfish and shell weights, and interference with the growth of coral skeletons.
Jeremy B. C. Jackson, a coral expert at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego who has no connection to the Monaco report, said “there is just no doubt” that the acidification of the oceans is a major problem. “Nobody really focused on it because we were all so worried about warming,” he said, “but it is very clear that acid is a major threat.”
Carbon dioxide, principally from the burning of fossil fuels, is the major component of greenhouse gas emissions, which have risen steadily since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century.
Oceans absorb about a quarter of carbon dioxide emissions, the group said, but as the gas dissolves in the oceans it produces carbonic acid.
The group says acidity of ocean surface waters has increased by 30 percent since the 17th century.
“The chemistry is so fundamental and changes so rapid and severe that impacts on organisms appear unavoidable,” according to James Orr, who headed the symposium’s scientific committee. Dr. Orr is a chemical oceanographer at the Marine Environmental Laboratory in Monaco, an affiliate of the International Atomic Energy Agency, a United Nations body.
According to the declaration, “ocean acidification may render most regions chemically inhospitable to coral reefs by 2050.” The group said that acidification could be controlled only by limiting future atmospheric levels of the gas. Other strategies, including “fertilizing” the oceans to encourage the growth of tiny marine plants that take up carbon dioxide, may actually make the problem worse in some regions, it said.
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