Cloud Seeding Could Cool Off Seas Where Hurricanes Form, Making Them Weaker
Hurricanes form in warm tropical waters, drawing strength from the heat of the ocean surface — that’s why they are expected to worsen as sea surface temperatures increase. But if we could cool them off, they may chill out and decrease in strength. Cloud seeding the areas in front of their path might be a way to do this, a new study says.
The idea is to target marine stratocumulus clouds, which cover about a fourth of the world’s oceans. Reflecting more light away from the sea surface would theoretically prevent it from getting as warm. “Then there will be less energy to feed the hurricanes,” said Alan Gadian of the University of Leeds. |  |
Tasmania considers cigarette ban for anyone born after 2000
A week after Australia upheld its world-first laws plain packaging laws, Tasmania's upper house unanimously passed a motion to introduce the ban from 2018.
The measure was proposed by Ivan Dean, a Tasmanian independent MP, who said the ban would be easy to enforce because the state already has restrictions on sales of cigarettes to minors. It would be the world's first such age-based ban and is also reportedly being considered in Singapore and Finland. |  |
Town holds breath over 100-year-old package
After a 100-year wait, a town in central Norway will learn on Friday what’s inside the mystery package left behind by a former mayor.
Speculation is rife about the contents of the three-kilo parcel, sealed and bound in 1912 by the then mayor of Sel, Johan Nygaard, who wrote on the package that it “can be opened in 2012”, newspaper VG reports.
Having kept it to himself for the first few years, Nygaard handed the package to council authorities for safe-keeping in the 1920s.
“We haven’t the faintest idea what’s inside,” said Kjell Voldheim, who works at the Gudbrandsdal Museum where the package is held.
Speculation is rife about the contents of the three-kilo parcel, sealed and bound in 1912 by the then mayor of Sel, Johan Nygaard, who wrote on the package that it “can be opened in 2012”, newspaper VG reports.
Having kept it to himself for the first few years, Nygaard handed the package to council authorities for safe-keeping in the 1920s.
“We haven’t the faintest idea what’s inside,” said Kjell Voldheim, who works at the Gudbrandsdal Museum where the package is held.
Ape 'Genius' Smarter Than the Average Chimp
Certain apes appear to be much smarter than others, with at least one chimpanzee now characterized as being "exceptional" when compared to other chimps.
The standout chimp, an adult female in her 20's named Natasha, scored off the charts in a battery of tests. The findings, published in the latest Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, suggest that geniuses exist among non-humans, but that no one attribute constitutes intelligence. Instead, a perfect storm of abilities seems to come together to create the Einsteins of the animal kingdom. Natasha's keepers at the Ngamba Island chimpanzee sanctuary in Uganda knew she was special even before the latest study. |  |
Animals Are as With It as Humans, Scientists Say
An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are -- a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus. But will this make us stop treating these animals in totally inhumane ways?
While it might not sound like much for scientists to declare that many nonhuman animals possess conscious states, it's the open acknowledgement that's the big news here. The body of scientific evidence is increasingly showing that most animals are conscious in the same way that we are, and it's no longer something we can ignore. |  |
Video: Turning garbage into natural gas
Sierra Energy is developing a new kind of gassifier that could take in garbage and turn it into natural gas, diesel fuel and a saleable construction material called slag. Their prototype gassifier in Sacramento demonstrates how landfills could easily turn into gold mines.
NASA unveils Mars rover Curiosity’s travel plans
The first destination of NASA’s Mars rover Curiosity will be an area near its Gale Crater landing site, where three kinds of terrain come together in a striking and unusual way.
The rover’s primary mission is to reach the base of Mount Sharp — a three-mile high mound with layers of exposed rock — as it searches for the building blocks of possible Martian microbial life. But the six-wheeled Curiosity will first visit a site in a different direction because of the three adjoining rock formations, which scientists say could help them better understand the history of the crater and of Mars. They named the site Glenelg after a rock formation in northern Canad. |  |
King James medical mystery unraveled
England's King James I gave us Jamestown and the King James Bible. But historians have long suspected he also gave his descendant King George III an inherited case of madness.
Best known from the 1994 movie, The Madness of King George, the bouts of insanity afflicting George III, the bad guy in the American Revolution, have long been blamed on his predecessor, James. James was a bit odd, and porphyria, an inherited affliction of the nervous system and skin linked to unusual behavior in some cases, has long been suspected as the culprit. But historians and porphyria experts who have looked through the medical letters surrounding King James have run the monarch's symptoms through diagnostic software and suggest another syndrome better explains the oddness of King James I. |  |
A 63-year-old engineer is Japan's 'last ninja'
A 63-year-old former engineer may not fit the typical image of a dark-clad assassin with deadly weapons who can disappear into a cloud of smoke. But Jinichi Kawakami is reputedly Japan's last ninja.
As the 21st head of the Ban clan, a line of ninjas that can trace its history back some 500 years, Kawakami is considered by some to be the last living guardian of Japan's secret spies. |  |
One Year After Wildfire, Archeologists Unearth Indian Artifacts
Duluth, MN (Northlands Newscenter) -- It will be one year ago tomorrow that lightning ignited one of Minnesota's largest wildfires.
The Pagami Creek Fire covered 93,000 acres in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wildness. Now, scientists are finding a goldmine of clues to the region's past unearthed by the fire. "This is what folks used to make stone tools out of in what's now known as the boundary waters." Thanks to the Pagami Creek Fire, Archeologist Lee Johnson's job is a lot easier. |  |
Sioux tribes race to raise money to buy ceremonial land at auction
In the pristine Black Hills of South Dakota, the Great Sioux Nation is in a race against the clock to raise money to buy nearly 2,000 acres of ancestral land called Pe’ Sla.
Since 1876, the Battle of Little Big Horn, the land has belonged to the Reynolds, a ranching family that has owned land where the Lakota perform healing ceremonies. But the Reynolds have put the land on the auction block, dividing the 1,940 acres into five tracts to be sold to the highest bidders. The Sioux tribes – known as Lakota, Dakota and Nakota – have turned to the online community, soliciting money to buy the land. |  |
Google Introduces Mayan Ruins to 'Street View'
Along with allowing users to take looks at some of the most famous locales in the U.S. and Europe, Google Inc. is adding interactive images of dozens of pre-Hispanic ruins to the "Street View" feature on its Google Maps website.
Google Mexico and Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History announced Thursday that 30 sites have been added to Street View, and dozens more will be coming online this year. The eventual goal is 90 sites. |  |
Teotihuacan: Ancient City of Pyramids
Located about 30 miles (50 kilometers) northeast of modern-day Mexico City, Teotihuacan was one of the largest urban centers in the ancient world. No one knows who built it. The city flourished between 2,100 years ago, when construction began, and about 1,400 years ago, when it went into a period of decline, including a fire that caused great damage. However, even with the decline, the city was never truly “lost” — the Aztecs made regular pilgrimages to the site in later periods.
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Amluk-Dara stupa: Excavators discover unique complex
Local and foreign excavators revealed on Wednesday that a unique part of a previously-discovered site of the Gandhara civilization at Amluk-Dara, Swat, has been uncovered jointly by Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Directorate of Archaeology and Museums.
Sheltered by the great Mount Elum, the Amluk-Dara stupa is an ancient relic two kilometres from the main road which travels from Barikot to Buner and stands with ancient majesty and can be seen from the surrounding mountains. |  |
Human civilization might have started in Iran
For many decades, students across the world have been told that human civilization started some 5,000 years ago on the banks of Euphrates and Tigris rivers in Mesopotamia, Nile River in Egypt, and Indus River in the Indian Subcontinent. However, some researchers currently believe that human civilization might have started in Iran.
Archeologists who have been working on the crescent-shaped area comprising Russia, Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, have found new evidence of the existence of a complex urban network in Iran which show that this area might have been very prosperous some 5,000 years ago. |  |
Great fall of China: section of wall collapses
Workmen digging up a square in Zhangjiakou city, Heibei province, near the wall have been blamed for triggering the collapse of 100 ft of Great Wall.
“There is an investigation into the causes of the collapse. A number of things may have contributed, including the building work," said a city official. City officials said that “conservation and a rebuilding plan is already underway.” The Great Wall of China, listed as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 1987, was initially built in seventh century BC to keep invaders out of the Chinese Empire. |  |
Maltese man invents ‘special’ autism aid
Autism can now be “aided” through a Maltese researcher’s brainwave: an invention that has been proven to improve relaxation and focus.
Its creator, Dr Adrian Attard Trevisan, insists his ground-breaking headband, known as Mente, is not a cure for autism. He calls it a “special aid”, improving autistic children’s ability to be more in touch with their surroundings by 500 per cent. What resembles a simple headband, with two electrodes – highly sensitive microphones that record signals from the skull – allows autistic children who normally feel tense and uncomfortable in social settings to be more receptive. |  |
Stanford biologist and computer scientist discover the 'anternet'
A collaboration between a Stanford ant biologist and a computer scientist has revealed that the behavior of harvester ants as they forage for food mirrors the protocols that control traffic on the Internet.
On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. The researchers are calling it the "anternet.".
On the surface, ants and the Internet don't seem to have much in common. But two Stanford researchers have discovered that a species of harvester ants determine how many foragers to send out of the nest in much the same way that Internet protocols discover how much bandwidth is available for the transfer of data. The researchers are calling it the "anternet.".
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