Earth is bombarded all the time by space rocks, but people rarely notice them--only 1,042 have ever been seen falling. People didn’t start recording these impacts until a couple hundred years ago, and then suddenly, they noticed all the time.
Data designer Carlo Zapponi has a lovely new animation, Bolides, showing all these recorded impacts, along with every known meteorite fall--most of which weren’t seen when they happened. The information comes from The Meteorite Bulletin, which is maintained by the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. The word "bolide" comes from the Greek word for missile, and is used to describe bright fireballs.
As the saying goes: Where there's smoke, there's fire. That's certainly the case for Indonesia's Paluweh volcano. When the Landsat Data Continuity Mission satellite flew over Paluweh on April 29, it captured images of the smoke from the eruption and an infrared picture of fiery, molten lava at the apex of the volcano. Lava has been spewing from the island in recent months, according to NASA.
The image shows off the satellite's ability to distinguish the contrast between hot and cold, capturing "the boundaries between the hot volcanic activity and the cooler volcanic ash without the signal from the hot spot bleeding over into pixels [showing] the cooler surrounding areas," NASA reported. Older instruments couldn't do this as well — just as the sight of a flashlight distorts the eyes' ability to see darkness, hot objects can distort instruments' ability to see cooler ones nearby. But that's not the case with this new instrument, which was designed to get past previous limitations.
Californians are preparing for a prolonged season of wildfires after an unusually dry winter that left millions of acres of scrub brush in the most populous U.S. state primed to burn. The tinder-box conditions have sparked more than 840 wildfires since January, about 320 more than the five-year average, according to the state Forestry and Fire Protection Department, known as Cal Fire. A fast-moving fire in Ventura County over the weekend charred an area the size of San Francisco, forced the evacuation of a college with 4,900 students and threatened 4,000 homes northwest of Los Angeles.
Wind-swept fires across the state following similarly dry winter months in 2008 burned more than 1.2 million acres and killed 13 firefighters, according to Cal Fire. In 2007, firestorms swept through Southern California, destroying 1,500 homes, displacing almost a million residents and killing 17.
Any day now, billions of cicadas with bulging red eyes will crawl out of the earth after 17 years underground and overrun the East Coast. The insects will arrive in such numbers that people from North Carolina to Connecticut will be outnumbered roughly 600-to-1. Maybe more.
Scientists even have a horror-movie name for the infestation: Brood II. But as ominous as that sounds, the insects are harmless. They won't hurt you or other animals. At worst, they might damage a few saplings or young shrubs. Mostly they will blanket certain pockets of the region, though lots of people won't ever see them.
Many people think that all Preppers do what they do because they think that the end of the world is coming. While this may be true for some, many preppers also prepare for everyday events and disasters.
As I sit watching the news over the last few days, I see people who were killed and injured in a bombing in Boston. Then yesterday another explosion close to where I live in Texas levels almost an entire town, killing at least 5 and as many as 15, injuring hundreds and leaving thousands without a place to live. There were thousands that were told to evacuate in a matter of minutes. One lady didn’t even have on any shoes and was loaned a pair. [APN]
It's time for the world's public health officials to pay very close attention to the new bird flu outbreak in China first detected in March. To put it bluntly, there are now some seriously dangerous developments occurring around the new disease outbreak in China that infectious disease specialists and international public health specialists need to track closely.
Let's start with three new developments reported on earlier this week by Jason Koebler, U.S. News & World Report's science and technology correspondent: the first reported case of the new bird flu strain outside China; the fact that any potential vaccine tests in animals (not humans) may be up to six weeks out; and, more ominously, that Chinese officials suspect that there may be cases of human to human transmission in the 100-plus reported cases (which include 22 deaths).
A hybrid farmland grass, developed by a team of UK researchers, could help reduce flooding, a study has shown.
A team of plant and soil scientists said tests showed the new cultivar reduced run-off by 51%, compared with a variety widely used to feed livestock. They added that rapid growth and well developed root systems meant that more moisture was retained within the soil rather than running into river systems.
While U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention director Tom Frieden suggests there is no cause for panic over the H7N9 influenza strain and says that Americans, “go about their daily lives,” this unusually dangerous virus has concerned officials at the CDC to such an extent that they are rapidly working to develop an effective vaccine in the event it makes its way to North America.
According to the World Health Organization, the H7N9 bird flu virus is one the most lethal influenza strains ever identified. The first case appeared in China in late February and has since spread to scores of others, with at least 109 cases having been reported to WHO thus far, 22 of which have resulted in death. This amounts to a kill rate of 20%. These are laboratory confirmations, so in all likelihood there are hundreds, perhaps thousands, of others who may be infected with the virus that haven’t received medical attention. [SHTFPLAN]
Flood-weary residents fortified their homes against the rain-swollen Illinois River and considered whether to stand their ground as waterways remained flooded across the US mid-west. Even as some of therivers showed signs of cresting, forecasters said the recovery would not be fast or easy. The National Weather Service expected many of the waterways to remain high into next month, straining levees during the river's expected slow descent.
Floodwaters rose to record levels along the Illinois River in central Illinois. In Missouri, six small levees north of St. Louis were overtopped by the surging Mississippi River, flooding mainly farmland.
The growing underground economy may be helping to prevent the real economy from sinking further, according to analysts. The shadow economy is a system composed of those who can't find a full-time or regular job. Workers turn to anything that pays them under the table, with no income reported and no taxes paid -- especially with an uneven job picture.
"I think the underground economy is quite big in the U.S.," said Alexandre Padilla, associate professor of economics at Metropolitan State University of Denver. "Whether it's using undocumented workers or those here legally, it's pretty large."
Comet could shine brighter than Venus or even the full moon in November
Photographed on April 10, when it was 394 million miles from Earth
The Hubble Space Telescope has given astronomers their clearest view yet of Comet ISON, which experts believe could light up the sky in a breathtaking display later this year. The image of Comet C/2012 S1 (ISON) was photographed on April 10, when the comet was slightly closer than Jupiter’s orbit at a distance of 386 million miles from the Sun, and 394 million miles from Earth. Experts believe it will get dramatically brighter as it swings around the sun in late November, with some claiming the comet could shine brighter than Venus or even the full moon.
The timing of the Boston Bombing with the national partisan gun control debate is a collision of two events that is hard to overlook when you take into account the very real Katrina-style imposition of Martial Law which descended so quickly on the city of Boston last week.
Would the federal government use an opportunity like that of the Boston Bombing in order to grab residents’ guns under the guise of national security?
The grand Mycenaens, the first Greeks, inspired the legends of the Trojan Wars, "The Iliad" and "The Odyssey." Their culture abruptly declined around 1200 B.C., marking the start of a Dark Ages in Greece.
The disappearance of the Mycenaens is a Mediterranean mystery. Leading explanations include warfare with invaders or uprising by lower classes. Some scientists also think one of the country's frequent earthquakes could have contributed to the culture's collapse. At the ruins of Tiryns, a fortified palace, geologists hope to find evidence to confirm whether an earthquake was a likely culprit.
Looking for a bug out bag checklist to make sure your bug out bag isn’t lacking anything critical? Instead of another long written post about bug out bags, we thought we’d put one out there in pictorial form. Hope this gives you a few ideas on items you haven’t checked off your bug out bag checklist quite yet. We know one bug out bag isn’t right for every occasion, but this is how we are packing our bags for a TEOTWAWKI scenario.
And please, let us know if you think we missed anything, or if you’ve discovered a better solution then we have for some of the challenges to bugging out. New products are always hitting the market, and we’d like this page to be a resource for people that stays current. [LINK]
Nasa timelapse shows images from its Solar Dynamics Observatory since it was launched in 2010
Image and video show the violent space weather that can send radiation and solar material toward Earth and interfere with satellites in space
Nasa has unveiled a breathtaking video that shows three years on activity on the solar surface condensed into three minutes. It reveals solar flares and coronal mass ejections caught in the act in unprecedented detail. The images from Nasa's Solar Dynamics Observatory also reveal space weather that can send radiation and solar material toward Earth and interfere with satellites in space.
The operator of Japan’s crippled Fukushima nuclear plant must get its act together and stabilize the plant’s “essential systems,” the International Atomic Energy Agency urged on Monday, saying that it will likely take more time than the 40 years to properly decommission the site.
Picture taken by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on April 17, 2013 shows members of the IAEA Division of Nuclear Fuel Cycle and Waste Technology inspecting the control room of the unit one and two reactor buildings of the crippled TEPCO Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant in Okuma, Fukushima prefecture (AFP / IAEA) The prepared statements from the IAEA were released just hours after Fukushima operator TEPCO said it had switched off a reactor cooling system after discovering two dead rats near critical equipment—the third time in five weeks that cooling equipment at the site has gone off-line because of rodents.
Driving during a tornado warning is an extremely dangerous situation, so make sure you are prepared if you find yourself driving when a tornado strikes. While the best advice is to avoid driving at all during a tornado and remain somewhere low and fortified, you may unfortunately find yourself on the open road in a match of wits with a fierce, churning funnel of wind. Listed below are some good things to know in case a tornado appears nearby while you are driving. [APN]
What appears to be a meteor flash turned the nighttime skies over Argentina as bright as day on Sunday. Amateur video shows the green streak and flash in the background of a concert setting.
The surge in gun and ammo purchases that began after Sandy Hook and continued through the Senate's failed gun control vote appears to have picked up steam again following the Boston Marathon bombing.
For example, at the Syracuse Gun Show on the New York State Fairgrounds last weekend, so many people showed up that some had to wait in line more than two hours just to get into the gun show. Those that waited did so on a windy day, amid sleet and snow flurries.
