News Briefs 25-04-2008
Posted by G.C at 04:00, 25 Apr 2008Klaatu barada nikto (just in case)…
- Were the ancient Egyptians the first to use concrete? Pyramid construction theorists, start your engines…
- Think humanity is headed for extinction now? Just be thankful you weren’t here for the drought that nearly wiped us out 70,000 years ago.
- Although, with the price of rice in Thailand hitting $1,000 a tonne as well as the run on rice and flour in the States, perhaps history is already repeating itself…
- And now for something completely different… In arguably the most eagerly awaited but never conceived match-up of all time, I give you the aptly titled… ZOMBIE vs. SHARK! Local aquariums and mortuaries will accept bets until show-time.
- Ancient supercontinent break-up solved? A new twist on an old theory from the merry old blokes at Geophysical Journal International.
- Has the ‘Great Arctic Thaw’ already begun? With methane and carbon dioxide levels on the rise, the NOAA says it’s, “too soon to tell”. Thankfully, it’s never too soon to invest in hip waders…
- Paleontological paternity test proves Tyrannosaur is the long lost ancestor of *all* birds. Which would mean (according to the transitive property of equality)… T. Rex tastes like chicken.
- And in keeping with the above ‘genetics one-for-all’ theme… New study reveals how humans started evolving into two separate species before merging back into one population. More here from N.Geo…
- Survey of EPA Scientists depicts “an agency under siege” from widespread political interference – all thanks to the president with the lowest job approval rating in *history* (according to a recent Gallup poll).
- Supposedly extinct pygmy elephants are alive and well in the Northeast corner of Borneo. Perhaps Flores Man had an elephant named “Shep”.
- Australia, my how you’ve grown…unilaterally speaking, that is.
- Will planetary pinball wipe out life on Earth before the Sun’s expiration date (5 billion years from now)? Seats on Rocketship X-M are already sold out.
- Does sensing the Earth’s magnetic field lead to suicide? A Russian scientist sees a link (and he isn’t stationed in Siberia… yet)
- Scientists may have captured photos of a black hole emitting a super-charged plasma jet. More here.
- According to a study from the University of Colorado, climate change in the Southern Hemisphere could be affected as the Antarctic ozone holes recover.
- Was last weekend’s off-target Soyuz landing more dangerous than NASA first reported? Inquiring minds want to know…
- The big brains over at Princeton have discovered an exotic state of quantum matter that may lead to the first ‘spintronic’ devices. In other news, the first “spintronica" albums will be on shelves by Sunday…
- Darth Vader assaults Jedi Church. No… seriously (and it’s not just a shameless plug for the upcoming animated Clone Wars film).
Quote of the Day:
“A working prophet is able to see deeper than most of us into the human soul. Orwell in 1948 understood that despite the Axis defeat, the will to fascism had not gone away… the irresistible human addictions to power were already long in place… the means of surveillance in Winston Smith’s era are primitive next to the wonders of computer technology… most notably the Internet.”
Thomas Pynchon, foreword to ‘1984’
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Comments
1 May 2004
5 weeks 13 hours
Can anyone tell me what a "black bin bag" is?
1 May 2004
18 weeks 11 hours
Is it "black bin bag" or "black bean bag"?
10 August 2004
17 weeks 6 days
I presume they are the kind you put inside wheelie garbage bins. Hope this helps!
Regards, Kathrinn
19 October 2004
5 years 1 week
And now, the rest of the story.
*history* = Gallup Polling history. NOT U.S. history.
"President Bush's approval rating now is at 28%, which ties for the lowest of his administration, but is not the lowest in Gallup Poll history. Harry Truman reached a 22% approval rating in 1952, and Richard Nixon had two 24% job approval scores in 1974." In other words, although Bush's disapproval rating is the highest in Gallup history, his approval rating is not the lowest.
On the approval rating of the Democrat controlled Congress:
"By historical standards, the current 20% approval rating is among the lowest Gallup has ever recorded." - Gallup
Only 29 percent of Americans gave Bush a positive grade for his job performance, below his worst Zogby poll mark of 30 percent in March. A paltry 11 percent rated Congress positively, beating the previous low of 14 percent in July. - Zogby
When one of your basic political strategies is to constantly infuse the society with unwavering and relentless cynicism with regards to your political foes, it's not surprising when you get muddied, often more so, by your own foul play.
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My apologies go out to all who were just offended by this hostile, confrontational and completely unreasonable post.
30 April 2004
6 hours 59 min
When one of your basic political strategies is to constantly infuse the society with unwavering and relentless cynicism with regards to your political foes, it's not surprising when you get muddied, often more so, by your own foul play.
Heheh. The funny thing is I'm not sure which party you are referring to...
But you and Toto just keep clicking those heels furiously. It is rather amusing to watch.... ;)
Kind regards,
Greg
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You monkeys only think you're running things
12 April 2007
8 hours 49 min
May I suggest the judge that a fitting sentence for this douchebag would be to force him to wear a Jar Jar Binks mask every Halloween, for the rest of his natural life :-)
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It's not the depth of the rabbit hole that bugs me...
It's all the rabbit SH*T you stumble over on your way down!!!
Red Pill Junkie
19 December 2007
2 years 34 weeks
. . . May very well have been caused by the eruption of Indonesia's Toba supervolcano, which exploded with the equivalent of a gigaton of TNT - 3000 times the Mt. St. Helen's explosion in the States. If the sounds extreme, the Yellowstone supervolcano here has blown three times according to the geologists. The last, some 640,000 years ago, was twice as powerful as the Toba event.
There's only a half-dozen or so of these things worldwide, but if one does erupt, they define catastrophic. It would definitely thin the herd, not to mention screw up the policy wonks' efforts to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere.
3 August 2005
3 years 26 weeks
From the referenced article: "Once you get orbit crossings, you sort of transition from the orderly yet chaotic configuration that the solar system is in currently to a much more violently chaotic situation. Then all bets are off – a lot of bad things can happen."
No matter how "violent" the chaos, in most outcomes chaos dampens out and produces a non-violent and pseudo-stable result. Most butterfly wing flaps, and even the most violent turbulence inducing actions (such as a Space Shuttle reentering the atmosphere) do not result in hurricanes and such. If Mercury started crossing Venus's orbit and got thrown around, it'd probably settle into another pseudo-stable orbit. How long it took to get there would be the variable dictating its probability of causing problems for other planets. Not only would Merury's gravity pose a problem, but so would the more chaotic and numerous Lagrange points created between the planet and any other body with which it interacts. However, interactions due to close encounters are highly unlikely -- for most trajectories that little planet could fly right out of the solar system without disturbing any other planet.
No, I am not the brain specialist.....
YES. Yes I AM the brain specialist.
30 April 2004
7 weeks 3 days
Is the price of rice rising or is it the new North American Pesos (US Dollars) that it is priced in is falling?
Cheers
22 November 2004
2 days 13 hours
how about both?
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if everything is under control, you are not going fast enough (Mario Andretti)