| Monday, October 3, 2005 |  |
| Serving Earth | 0 comments |
| 3 Oct 2005 @ 21:35 Serving Earth 9.29.2005 A thousand years ago, Mayan civilization collapsed. Today, a Space Age "situation room" in Panama is helping Central Americans avoid mistakes that doomed the Maya. September 29, 2005: Central America, that narrow land bridge between North and South America, represents less than 0.5 percent of Earth's land mass. But it is home to 7 or 8 percent of the world's species of plants and animals. That rain forest home, however, is assaulted by both nature and man: earthquakes, hurricanes, illegal logging and ranching, and deforestation from slash-and-burn agriculture. Now, NASA scientists are helping Central America keep watch on its biological treasures and stop environmental depredations through SERVIR, an acronym standing for the Spanish words meaning Mesoamerican Regional Visualization and Monitoring System. This link hasphotos and in depth description of the system |
| Scientists Capture Giant Squid in Photos | 2 comments |
| 3 Oct 2005 @ 02:51 Scientists Capture Giant Squid in Photos By HIROKO TABUCHI, Associated Press WriterWed Sep 28, 2:05 PM ET The giant squid can be found in books and in myths, but for the first time, a team of Japanese scientists has captured on film one of the most mysterious creatures of the deep sea in its natural habitat. The team led by Tsunemi Kubodera, from the National Science Museum in Tokyo, tracked the 26-foot long Architeuthis as it attacked prey nearly 3,000 feet deep off the coast of Japan's Bonin islands. "We believe this is the first time a grown giant squid has been captured on camera in its natural habitat," said Kyoichi Mori, a marine researcher who co-authored a piece in Wednesday's issue of the Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences. The camera was operated by remote control during research at the end of October 2004, Mori told The Associated Press on Wednesday. Mori said the giant squid, purplish red like its smaller brethren, attacked its quarry aggressively, calling into question the image of the animal as lethargic and slow moving. "Contrary to belief that the giant squid is relatively inactive, the squid we captured on film actively used its enormous tentacles to go after prey," Mori said. "It went after some bait that we had on the end of the camera and became stuck, and left behind a tentacle" about six yards long, Mori said. Kubodera, also reached by the AP, said researchers ran DNA tests on the tentacle and found it matched those of other giant squids found around Japan. "But other sightings were of smaller, or very injured squids washed toward the shore — or of parts of a giant squid," Kubodera said. "This is the first time a full-grown, healthy squid has been sighted in its natural environment in deep water." Kubodera said the giant squid's tentacle would not grow back, but the squid's life was not in danger. Jim Barry, a marine biologist at Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, has searched for giant squid on his own expeditions without luck. "It's the holy grail of deep sea animals," he said. "It's one that we have never seen alive, and now someone has video of one." New Zealand's leading authority on the giant squid, marine biologist Steve O'Shea, praised the Japanese team's feat. "Through sheer ... determination the guy has gone on and done it," said O'Shea, chief marine scientist at the Auckland University of Technology, who is not linked to the Japanese research. O'Shea said he hopes to capture juvenile giant squid and grow them in captivity. He captured 17 of them five years ago but they died in captivity. "Our reaction is one of tremendous relief that the so-called ... race (to film the giant squid) is over ... because the animal has consumed the last eight or nine years of my life," O'Shea said of the film. Giant squid have long attracted human fascination, appearing in myths of the ancient Greeks, as well as Jules Verne's "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Scientific interest in the animals has surged in recent years as more specimens have been caught in commercial fishing nets or found washed up on shores. Kubodera would make no claims about the scientific significance of his team's work. "As for the impact our discovery will have on marine research, I'll leave to other researchers to decide," he said. Other biologists saidi they expected the video would provide insight on the animal's behavior underwater. "Nobody has been able to observe a large giant squid where it lives," said Randy Kochevar, a deep sea biologist also with the Monterey aquarium. "There are people who said it would never be done." More > |
| Bill In Congress About Weather Control | 0 comments |
 3 Oct 2005 @ 02:43 This is something that has been going on behind the scenes for a couple of decades. However, as technology advances, one can wonder if some of the calamatous weather changes have been aided by man made interference. Here is a host of links to educate about this. The first link is a Congressional Bill slated to be voted on yesterday. S. 517: A bill to establish a Weather Modification Operations and Research Board, and for other purposes - DUE TO PASS YESTERDAY OCT 1st.!!! (is Congress in session on a Saturday?) [link] Scalar technology for weather control. [link] [link] Meteorologist who just quit his job last week to dedicate his time to researching anomolies he's seen over the past decade. [link] http://www.alphalink.com.au/~noelmcd/articles/projects.htm [link] [link],686,605.WKU.&OS=PN/4,686,605&RS=PN/4,686,605 WEATHER CONTROL AND WEATHER WARFARE [link] Weather as a Force Multiplier: Owning the Weather in 2025 A Research Paper Presented To Air Force 2025 August 1996 [link] |
| Statues of Ancient Goddesses Discovered | 0 comments |
| 3 Oct 2005 @ 02:37 Statues of Ancient Goddesses Discovered By NICHOLAS PAPHITIS, Associated Press Writer Fri Sep 30, 2:58 PM ET The life-sized marble statues of two ancient Greek goddesses have emerged during excavations of a 5,000-year-old town on the island of Crete, archaeologists said Friday. The works, representing the goddesses Athena and Hera, date to between the second and fourth centuries — during the period of Roman rule in Greece — and originally decorated the Roman theater in the town of Gortyn, archaeologist Anna Micheli from the Italian School of Archaeology told The Associated Press. "They are in very good condition," she said, adding that the statue of Athena, goddess of wisdom, was complete, while Hera — long-suffering wife of Zeus, the philandering king of gods — was headless. "But we hope to find the head in the surrounding area," Micheli said. Standing six feet high with their bases, the works were discovered Tuesday by a team of Italian and Greek archaeologists excavating the ruined theater of Gortyn, about 27 miles south of Iraklion in central Crete. Micheli said the goddesses were toppled from their plinths by a powerful earthquake around A.D. 367 that destroyed the theater and much of the town. The statues fell off the stage, and were found just in front of their original position, she said. "This is one of the rare cases when such works are discovered in the building where they initially stood," she added. Hopes are high that other parts of the theater's sculptural decoration will emerge during future excavations. "Digging has stopped due to the finds, but we suspect there may be more statues in the area," she said. Gortyn, the Roman capital of Crete, was first inhabited around 3000 B.C., and was a flourishing Minoan town between 1600-1100 B.C. It prospered during classical and Roman times, and was destroyed by an Arab invasion in A.D. 824. Greek mythology has it that the town witnessed one of Zeus' many affairs — with the princess Europa whom the god, disguised as a bull, abducted from Lebanon. Europe was named after Europa, who conceived her first son with Zeus under a plane tree in Gortyn. The Italian School of Archaeology has been digging at the site since the early 20th century, in cooperation with Greek state archaeologists. So far, excavations have revealed fortifications, temples, baths, a stadium and an early church of St. Titus, who preached Christianity in Gortyn. |
| I want to teach the world to surf | 0 comments |
| 3 Oct 2005 @ 02:33 I want to teach the world to surf, says the man who invented the $100 laptop By David Usborne in New York Published: 30 September 2005 One man in Boston has a plan that he hopes will bridge the world's gaping digital divide - and quickly. The visionary is Nicholas Negroponte, director of the Media Lab at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his idea consists of a new kind of laptop computer that will cost just $100 (£57) to buy. It will also be a little different in design from the sleek machines some of us in the west have learned to love or covet. It will be foldable in different ways, encased in bump-proof rubber and will include a hand-crank to give it power in those corners of the globe where electricity supply is patchy. |
| Arctic Ice Satellite Photos | 7 comments |
 3 Oct 2005 @ 02:28 The satellite image on the left shows the minimum concentration of Arctic sea ice in 1979, while the image on the right shows the concentration of sea ice recorded on Sept. 21. New satellite observations show that sea ice in the Arctic is melting faster while air temperatures in the region are rising sharply, scientists say More > |