Remember how Wile E. Coyote, in his obsessive pursuit of the Road Runner, would fall off a cliff? The hapless predator ran straight out off the edge, stopped in midair as only an animated character could, looked beneath him in an eye-popping moment of truth, and plummeted straight down into a puff of dust. Splat!
Four decades ago, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology computer model called World3 warned of such a possible course for human civilization in the 21st century. In Limits to Growth, a bitterly disputed 1972 book that explicated these findings, researchers argued that the global industrial system has so much inertia that it cannot readily correct course in response to signals of planetary stress. But unless economic growth skidded to a halt before reaching the edge, they warned, society was headed for overshoot—and a splat that could kill billions. [sciam]
The evidence for 'Planet X' - the mysterious hypothesised planet on the edge of our solar system - has taken a new turn thanks to the mathematics of a noted astronomer.
Rodney Gomes, an astronomer at the National Observatory of Brazil in Rio de Janeiro, says the irregular orbits of small icy bodies beyond Neptune imply that a planet four times the size of Earth is swirling around our sun in the fringes of the solar system.
Planet X - perhaps mis-named now that Pluto has been demoted to a dwarf planet - has been widely hypothesised for decade, but has never been proven. Gomes measured the orbits of 92 Kuiper belt objects - small bodies and dwarf planets - and said that six objects appeared to be tugged off-course compared to their expected orbits.
Catastrophic nuclear accidents such as the core meltdowns in Chernobyl and Fukushima are more likely to happen than previously assumed. Based on the operating hours of all civil nuclear reactors and the number of nuclear meltdowns that have occurred, scientists at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz have calculated that such events may occur once every 10 to 20 years (based on the current number of reactors) -- some 200 times more often than estimated in the past. The researchers also determined that, in the event of such a major accident, half of the radioactive caesium-137 would be spread over an area of more than 1,000 kilometres away from the nuclear reactor. Their results show that Western Europe is likely to be contaminated about once in 50 years by more than 40 kilobecquerel of caesium-137 per square meter. According to the International Atomic Energy Agency, an area is defined as being contaminated with radiation from this amount onwards. In view of their findings, the researchers call for an in-depth analysis and reassessment of the risks associated with nuclear power plants.
Come tornado season, meteorologist Joshua Wurman spends his life on the road, zooming down highways in search of thunderstorms.
This summer, he and his colleagues will turn nomad to launch a first-of-its-kind program aimed at exploring tornado winds — not from the outside but from deep within the tornado vortex.
"Our goal is a much more integrated picture of the tornado," Wurman, president of the Center for Severe Weather Research based in Boulder, Colo., told OurAmazingPlanet. And that's a picture that could reveal how tornadoes deal their damage and save lives, he added. [msnbc]
With the way that things are heading in this country, it is not surprising that there are approximately 3 million preppers in the United States today. What is surprising is that there are not more people prepping. The economy is rapidly falling to pieces, the national debt is absolutely soaring, the earth is becoming increasingly unstable, a major war could erupt in the Middle East at any time, and the fabric of our society is coming apart right in front of our eyes.
We have become incredibly dependent on technology and we have become incredibly dependent on our economic system. If a major natural disaster, a killer pandemic, an EMP attack or the imposition of martial law caused a significant transportation disruption, America would literally change overnight.
We live during a time of tremendous global instability, and yet most people still see no need to start prepping at all. Most people just continue to have blind faith in our leaders and in our system. But what happens if our leaders fail us? What happens if our system collapses? What are they going to do then? [AP]
Tammy Niederhelman thought that nothing could be worse than the nightmares. What could be more wrenching than a dream in which your 12-year-old son is screaming for help and you cannot reach him?
A nightmare based on reality. On 22 May 2011 Niederhelman was at work in the intensive care unit of Freeman hospital in Joplin, Missouri, toward the end of her nursing shift, when it was announced that a storm was coming. She didn't think much of it – these warnings were two a penny – but she called her son Zach and told him to follow the drill: get into the bathtub and cover himself with pillows and wait it out.
A new NASA survey has pinned down the number of asteroids that could pose a collision threat to Earth in what scientists say is the best estimate yet of the potentially dangerous space rocks.
The survey found there are likely 4,700 potentially hazardous asteroids, plus or minus 1,500 space rocks, that are larger than 330 feet (100 meters) wide and in orbits that occasionally bring them close enough to Earth to pose a concern, researchers said. To date, only about 30 percent of those objects have actually been found, they added.
Citizens of British Columbia have just completed Zombie Preparedness Week. This interlude of low-cost, deadpan merriment had a serious purpose however: a community ready for assault from the living dead would also be primed to survive earthquake, wildfire, catastrophic flood, windstorm or lethal pandemic.
No society is free from natural disasters – the magnitude 6 earthquake in northern Italy on Sunday is a sharp reminder of that. What separates hazard from disaster is a mix of factors, but common to them all are civic readiness and citizen education.
Any investment in preparedness is a bargain in financial terms. That is because, since the turn of the millennium, worldwide economic losses from disaster have reached almost $1.4 trillion. In the last five years alone, costs have topped $800bn; 2011, with losses of more than $350bn, was the most expensive in history – according to the insurance industry. [guardian]
Aftershocks continued to be felt in northern Italy on Sunday after a strong earthquake in the early hours killed at least four, injured more than 50 and reduced historic churches and castle towers to rubble.
The epicentre of the quake, which the US Geological Survey recorded at magnitude 6.0, was 3.2 miles below ground, north of Bologna in the Emilia-Romagna region, and was felt across Italy, from Liguria to the Veneto.
Hundreds of terrified residents fled their homes and hospitals were evacuated after the 20-second earthquake struck at 4.04am. While major towns including Bologna emerged unscathed, helicopters were flying over remote villages as day broke, looking for collapsed buildings in which survivors could be trapped. [guardian]
If you're not lucky enough to live in the path of the May 20 "ring of fire" solar eclipse, you can still watch the spectacular event online.
Several different organizations will broadcast live footage of the solar eclipse Sunday, as seen through telescopes in various locations around the world. Viewers can track the eclipse as it moves from East Asia, crosses the Pacific and darkens the skies over much of western Northern America. SPACE.com will offer several of the solar eclipse webcasts for readers.
The Slooh Space Camera, for example, will stream live feeds from telescopes in Japan, California, Arizona, and New Mexico, starting at 5:30 p.m. EDT (2130 GMT). Viewers will be able to snap their own pictures of the eclipse via the website, Slooh officials said. To watch, go to Slooh's homepage on Sunday. [space]
More than a year after a devastating earthquake and tsunami triggered a massive nuclear disaster, experts are warning that Japan isn't out of the woods yet and the worst nuclear storm the world has ever seen could be just one earthquake away from reality.
The troubled Reactor 4 at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant is at the centre of this potential catastrophe.
Reactor 4 -- and to a lesser extent Reactor 3 -- still hold large quantities of cooling waters surrounding spent nuclear fuel, all bound by a fragile concrete pool located 30 metres above the ground, and exposed to the elements. A magnitude 7 or 7.5 earthquake would likely fracture that pool, and disaster would ensue, says Arnie Gundersen, a nuclear engineer with Fairewinds Energy Education who has visited the site. [CTV]
The first tropical storm of the hurricane season formed Saturday off the coast of South Carolina with top winds of 60 mph (97 kph), but it wasn't threatening land.
Forecasters said early Saturday evening that Tropical Storm Alberto was centered about 130 miles (209 kilometers) east of Charleston, S.C.
No coastal watches or warnings were in effect, but forecasters said they may have to issue one later for the Carolinas coast. The Miami-based National Hurricane Center says there were no hazards affecting land so far, and the tropical-strength winds weren't reaching shore. Forecasters said Saturday evening that a ship near the center of Alberto measured winds about 15 mph stronger than originally reported.
Douglas McCauley and Paul DeSalles did not set out to discover one of the longest ecological interaction chains ever documented. But that's exactly what they and a team of researchers -- all current or former Stanford students and faculty -- did in a new study published in Scientific Reports.
Their findings shed light on how human disturbance of the natural world may lead to widespread, yet largely invisible, disruptions of ecological interaction chains. This, in turn, highlights the need to build non-traditional alliances -- among marine biologists and foresters, for example -- to address whole ecosystems across political boundaries. [sciday]
Civil Protection Authorities of Veracruz seeking in the mountainous area north of the state of an object that fell from the sky at about 10 and half of Friday night.
Early reports indicate that the impact could be in the community belonging to San Jose Chicharrín Atenco Puebla or in Martinez de la Torre or Tlapacoyan, Veracruz side.
However, both states seek brigade which lit up the sky and caused a slight tremor in various locations Veracruz. Witnesses living in martineneces congregations reported that they saw a shooting star in the sky falling at great speed. When they lost sight of the earth shook so deduced that it was a meteorite. [link]
Pollution is warming the atmosphere through summer thunderstorms, a new study suggests. How much the warming effect of these clouds offsets the cooling that other clouds provide is not yet clear.
Pollution particles in the air strengthen thunderstorm clouds, causing their anvil-shaped tops to spread out high in the atmosphere and capture heat — especially at night.
"Global climate models don't see this effect because thunderstorm clouds simulated in those models do not include enough detail," study researcher Jiwen Fan, of the Department of Energy's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, said in a statement. "The large amount of heat trapped by the pollution-enhanced clouds could potentially impact regional circulation and modify weather systems." [LS]
