Ancient Supervolcano Affected the Ends of the Earth
About 74,000 years ago, the Toba volcano on the Indonesian island of Sumatra erupted with catastrophic force. Estimated to be 5,000 times larger than the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, it is believed to be the largest volcanic event on Earth in the last 2 million years.
Toba spewed enough lava to build two Mount Everests, it produced huge clouds of ash that blocked sunlight for years, and it the left behind a crater 31 miles (50 kilometers) across. The volcano even sent enough sulphuric acid into the atmosphere to create acid rain downpours in the Earth's polar regions, which researchers have found evidence of in deep ice cores. |  |
5 Weird Things That Shouldn’t Influence Your Vote But Do
A number of irrelevant factors—from a polling place's location to a home sports team's winning percentage—have been found to sway voters
Most of us believe that our political views are based on the issues, or at the very least, on our views of the candidates’ personal qualities, which might matter when it comes to governing. We imagine that we vote for good policies, or politicians that can serve as steady leaders in times of crisis.
But when it comes to voting, as with many other areas of life, we’re not quite as rational as we like to believe.
Most of us believe that our political views are based on the issues, or at the very least, on our views of the candidates’ personal qualities, which might matter when it comes to governing. We imagine that we vote for good policies, or politicians that can serve as steady leaders in times of crisis.
But when it comes to voting, as with many other areas of life, we’re not quite as rational as we like to believe.
Orang-utans infected by mystery Ebola-like virus
They are already the most endangered great apes. Now orang-utans may face an additional threat: Ebola virus, or something a lot like it. Bornean orang-utans have antibodies that recognise not just the Asian species of Ebola virus, but all four African Ebola viruses and a similar African virus called Marburg.
None of the African viruses has ever been seen outside Africa before. The discovery was discussed at a conference last week by the study's leader, Chairul Anwar Nidom of Airlangga University in Surabaya, Indonesia. |  |
Do you believe Bigfoot exists?
An Idaho scientist plans to launch an aerial search via a remote-controlled blimp to track down the creature and prove its existence once and for all. Do you believe sasquatch is real?
Did Hiker Film Bigfoot, Black Bear or 'Blobsquatch'?
A new video that seems to show a Bigfoot-like beast rearing up in a Utah brush patch is racking up millions of views on the web, but are there any compelling facts in the compelling footage?
Beard Card, the YouTube handle of the man who purportedly filmed the video while camping with his family, says he first hit "record" on his camera to document what he thought was a black bear hiding in the bushes. Indeed, the video's tranquil first half has an off-screen voice whispering, "Do you think it's a bear?". |  |
Seeing Things? Hearing Things? Many of Us Do
HALLUCINATIONS are very startling and frightening: you suddenly see, or hear or smell something — something that is not there. Your immediate, bewildered feeling is, what is going on? Where is this coming from? The hallucination is convincingly real, produced by the same neural pathways as actual perception, and yet no one else seems to see it. And then you are forced to the conclusion that something — something unprecedented — is happening in your own brain or mind. Are you going insane, getting dementia, having a stroke?
In other cultures, hallucinations have been regarded as gifts from the gods or the Muses, but in modern times they seem to carry an ominous significance in the public (and also the medical) mind, as portents of severe mental or neurological disorders. |  |
Earth on acid: The present & future of global acidification
Boulder, CO, USA – Climate change and extreme weather events grab the headlines, but there is another, lesser known, global change underway on land, in the seas, and in the air: acidification.
It turns out that combustion of fossil fuels, smelting of ores, mining of coal and metal ores, and application of nitrogen fertilizer to soils are all driving down the pH of the air, water, and the soil at rates far faster than Earth's natural systems can buffer, posing threats to both land and sea life.
It turns out that combustion of fossil fuels, smelting of ores, mining of coal and metal ores, and application of nitrogen fertilizer to soils are all driving down the pH of the air, water, and the soil at rates far faster than Earth's natural systems can buffer, posing threats to both land and sea life.
California's first auction of greenhouse-gas credits nears
SACRAMENTO — After six years of preparation, California is poised to become the first state to combat global warming by capping greenhouse gas emissions and making major polluters pay to release more of these gases into the atmosphere.
It's part of a landmark law approved in 2006 that seeks to cut the state's production of carbon dioxide, methane and related gases to 1990 levels — about 17% lower than current amounts — by 2020. Starting next week, big polluters will be required to buy pollution credits if they plan to emit greenhouse gases above their allotted levels. |  |
Key to survival of forest giants revealed
Anyone flying into Melbourne from the east notices the thousands of hectares of dead Mountain Ash trees that were killed in the 2009 Black Saturday fires, which marked the culmination of an extended heatwave.
Why the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) trees in the area that survived the blaze did not die, as expected, from the heatwave is explained by research by the University of Sydney and University of Western Sydney.
In addition to obvious threats to trees from fire, scientists worldwide are concerned about trees and whole forests dying during increasingly frequent drought and heatwaves, like that of 2009.
Why the Mountain Ash (Eucalyptus regnans) trees in the area that survived the blaze did not die, as expected, from the heatwave is explained by research by the University of Sydney and University of Western Sydney.
In addition to obvious threats to trees from fire, scientists worldwide are concerned about trees and whole forests dying during increasingly frequent drought and heatwaves, like that of 2009.
A new computational method for timing the tree of life
With its deeply embedded roots, sturdy trunk and dense profusion of branches, the Tree of Life is a structure of nearly unfathomable complexity and beauty. While major strides have been made to establish the evolutionary hierarchy encompassing every living species, the project is still in its infancy.
At Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, Sudhir Kumar has been filling in the Tree of Life by developing sophisticated methods and bioinformatics tools.
At Arizona State University's Biodesign Institute, Sudhir Kumar has been filling in the Tree of Life by developing sophisticated methods and bioinformatics tools.
Spooky Quantum Entanglement Gets Extra 'Twist'
Quantum physics is the science of the very small. But physicists are making it bigger, setting records for the size and energies of objects they can get to exhibit quantum effects.
Now physicists at the University of Vienna in Austria have "virtually intertwined" or entangled two particles spinning faster than ever in opposite directions. Entanglement occurs when two particles remain connected so that actions performed on one affect the other, despite the distance between them. (Einstein referred to this eerie connection as "spooky action at a distance."). |  |
Virtual traffic lights help solve commuting hell
Your average driver spends a week each year stuck in traffic. So Ozan Tonguz, a telecommunications researcher at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is looking to nature for an innovative solution to gridlock. His team is trying to emulate the way in which ants, termites, and bees communicate right of way in busy colonies and hives.
Tonguz's company, Virtual Traffic Lights, recently patented an algorithm that directs traffic at busy junctions. As cars approach the intersection, they use dedicated short-range communications to quickly exchange information on their number and direction of travel. The largest group of vehicles is given an in-car green light. Cars in the other cluster see a red light and have to wait. |  |
Doubt cast on Fermi's dark matter smoking gun
It was hailed as a smoking gun for dark matter, raising hopes that we might finally pinpoint the particle that is thought to make up 80 per cent of the mass in the universe. But purported evidence of dark matter interactions in the centre of our galaxy may not be as solid as hoped.
Most physicists think dark matter is made of weakly interacting massive particles, or WIMPs, which only interact with normal matter via gravity. When two WIMPs meet, they should annihilate and spew out new particles, including high-energy gamma rays. |  |
Sun erupts 3 CMEs, aurora predicted for tonight
Yesterday, the Sun erupted in a series strong solar flares, which sent out a waves of charged particles known as coronal mass ejections into space. All the action was captured on camera in an amazing video posted online by spaceweather.com. So, with blast of energy moving out into space, many are asking the question: what does this mean for us here on Earth?
Answer: probably not much as only one of the blasts was directed at Earth, and this one appears aimed for only a glancing blow at that. |  |
Hopes linger for Mars methane
Last week’s preliminary verdict from the Mars rover Curiosity on whether the planet’s atmosphere contains methane ended weeks of anticipation. But the verdict — a qualified no — seems unlikely to end years of controversy.
Sporadic claims of Martian methane in the past decade have met with scepticism — and not just because the measurements are difficult to make. Methane at levels of tens of parts per billion could be a sign that microbes are at work on the planet, lending urgency to proposals to hunt for a subterranean Martian biosphere. The European Space Agency (ESA) has already taken steps in this direction, and is planning an orbiter that would map methane sources as a precursor to sending a rover to look for Martian life. Yet some scientists believe that this is premature, even quixotic, and could distract from the current agenda of NASA’s rover, which is to look for signs that the planet was habitable at some time in its warmer and wetter past. |  |
Massive flood that caused ancient 'Big Freeze' located
A giant flood of Arctic meltwater may have triggered an ancient 1,200-year-long chill nicknamed the "Big Freeze," the last major cold age on Earth, a new study finds.
These findings suggest that changes in the flow of water in the Arctic could suddenly alter the modern climate, study investigators added. Starting about 12,900 years ago, the Northern Hemisphere was abruptly gripped by centuries of cold, an era technically known as the Younger Dryas. Scientists have suggested this chill helped wipe out most of the large mammals in North America as well as the so-called Clovis people. |  |
Scientists Observe Cockatoo Making And Using Tools
A Goffin’s cockatoo, a species not known for tool use in the wild, has been observed spontaneously making and using tools for reaching food and other objects.
The cockatoo named Figaro was raised in captivity and currently lives near Vienna. A new study, published in Current Biology, shows Figaro using his powerful beak to cut long splinters out of wooden beams and twigs from a branch to reach and rake in objects out of the bird’s reach. The research team from the University of Oxford and the University of Vienna filmed Figaro making and using these tools. |  |
EXTREMELY RARE never-seen-alive WHALES found (briefly) alive
A pair of rare whales that boffins thought might be extinct has washed up on a New Zealand beach.
Marine biologists previously only knew the spade-toothed beaked whale (Mesoplodon traversii) from a few old bones: but then, not one but two of the rare cetaceans, a mother and her male calf, got stranded. Even when they did show up, researchers first thought that they were the more common Gray's beaked whales, but DNA samples showed that the mammal was indeed the rare spade-toothed breed. |  |
Total solar eclipse and other November skywatching highlights
November's a good month for celestial shadow play. Stargazers will get two eclipses in about as many weeks, the first a dazzling total solar eclipse that will showcase the sun's corona approaching peak activity, and the second a subtler lunar eclipse that will be visible across much of the United States.
The theatrics start on Nov. 13, when residents of northeastern Australia get a false-start sunrise. Just an hour after the sun breaks the horizon in the coastal city of Cairns, it will be fully obscured by the moon, whose shadow will darken the sky and bring the stars back into view for 2 minutes there. |  |
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