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Magnitude 6.3 earthquake off coast of Oregon warns of Cascadia subduction zone slippage

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.org
Wed, 22 Aug 2018 00:00 UTC
Cascadia subduction zone

Cascadia subduction zone
A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck off the coast of Oregon on Wednesday. The quake, which occurred 188 miles west of the town of Bandon is sparking fears that the Cascadia subduction zone will slip causing a major apocalyptic tsunami.

The quake was recorded at a depth of about 10 km, according to the USGS website and there was no tsunami warning issued. Robert Sanders said people as far away as Portland reported feeling the tremblor. No injuries or damage has been reported.

All seems well and quiet on the West Coast. For now. But scientists still warn that the Cascadia subduction zone could cause a major event if the Juan de Fuca ocean plate, which goes under the North American continental plate causes a "slip" and a massive 9.0 earthquake.

Comment: See also:

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Moon

Polar ice found on Moon now raises hope for lunar colony with supply of water


RT
Tue, 21 Aug 2018 18:58 UTC
moon shot
© Amr Abdallah Dalsh/REUTERS
Should the human race ever choose to live on the moon they might be able to set up colonies near the lunar poles, where scientists have just discovered sources of ice water within the shadows of craters.

The European Space Agency has toyed with a vision of a lunar village in recent years. Now the NASA discovery of frozen water on the moon could give space enthusiasts a new impetus to put such a plan into action.

Discovered in the darkest craters of the moon, the ice was identified with the help of the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory's Moon Mineralogy Mapper. The device was on board India's first lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 in 2008.


Comment: See also:

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Telescope

From micro to macro: The intelligent design of the cosmos


Evolution News
Tue, 21 Aug 2018 19:33 UTC
Large Omega Centauri cluster
© NASA, ESA, and Hubble SM4 ERO, via U.C. Riverside
Large Omega Centauri cluster
From the molecular nanomachines within a tiny cell to the large-scale structure of the universe, design is everywhere to be found. Sometimes the best defense of intelligent design is just to ponder the details. Here are some new illustrations:

Fastest Creature Is a Cell

If you were asked what the fastest creature on earth is, would you guess a cheetah or a peregrine falcon? There's an even faster critter you would probably never guess. It's called Spirostomum ambiguum, and it's just 4mm in size. This protozoan, Live Science says, can shorten its body by 60 percent in just milliseconds. How does it do it? Scientists "have no idea how the single-celled organism can move this fast without the muscle cells of larger creatures," the article says. "And scientists have no clue how, regardless of how the contraction works, the little critter moves like this without wrecking all of its internal structures." Saad Bhamla, a researcher at Georgia Tech, wants to find out. And in the process, he will gain design information that can be applied in human engineering:
"As engineers, we like to look at how nature has handled important challenges," Bhamla said in the release. "We are always thinking about how to make these tiny things that we see zipping around in nature. If we can understand how they work, maybe the information can cross over to fill the gap for small robots that can move fast with little energy use." [Emphasis added.]

Comment: For a discussion of intelligent design on the biological level, check out the latest episode of the Truth Perspective:

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Bizarro Earth

Soil hasn't recovered from ancient Mayan forest clear-cutting

Chris Chipello
Futurity
Tue, 21 Aug 2018 18:51 UTC
mayas
The Maya civilization's deforestation decimated carbon reservoirs in the tropical soils of the Yucatán peninsula region long after people abandoned ancient cities and the forests grew back, according to a new study.

The new findings, which appears in the journal Nature Geoscience, underscore how important soils and our treatment of them could be in determining future levels of greenhouse gases in the planet's atmosphere.

The Maya began farming around 4,000 years ago, and the spread of agriculture and building of cities eventually led to widespread deforestation and soil erosion, previous research has shown. Scientists also suspect that deforestation contributed to the mysterious collapse of Mayan civilization more than 1,000 years ago.

What's most surprising in the new study is that the soils in the region haven't fully recovered as carbon sinks in over a millennium of reforestation, says McGill University geochemist Peter Douglas, lead author of the new paper.
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Galaxy

Hubble releases most detailed image of universe yet


RT
Mon, 20 Aug 2018 22:40 UTC
hubble universe
© ESA / Hubble & NASA, RELICS
NASA's deep space Hubble Telescope has made a new stunning picture, capturing thousands of galaxies in a single shot that would make one looking at it feel really tiny.

One of the most detailed possible pictures of the universe features an unbelievable 15,000 galaxies, the NASA team behind the telescope said.

Hubble used its ultraviolet sight and joined forces with other space and ground-based telescopes to gather data for the impressive image.

The ultraviolet light helps scientists travel back in time as it "opens a new window on the evolving, tracking the birth of stars over the last 11 billion years back to the cosmos; busiest star boring period, about 3 billion years after the Big Bang," NASA said.

Comment: See also: Also check out SOTT radio's: The Truth Perspective: Are Cells the Intelligent Designers? Why Creationists and Darwinists Are Both Wrong

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Headphones

Eavesdropping on nature: When roots crack and worms crunch

Michael Walther
PhysOrg
Mon, 20 Aug 2018 13:55 UTC
plant roots
© Colourbox
The new method opens a window for science, says Or: "We can learn when roots grow, for example."
Roots can be "listened to" while growing - and worms when burrowing. Researchers from ETH Zurich and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research present a new method for soil analysis.

Healthy soil is alive - a principle that applies to both soils that are natural and those that are cultivated. A large part of what happens underground, however, remains hidden to researchers. Greater awareness of the phenomena involved would be useful in order to better understand the interrelationships in this ecosystem.

Measurable noises

What cannot be seen might perhaps be heard: with this in mind, researchers from ETH Zurich and the French National Institute for Agricultural Research (INRA) have been using piezoelectric sensors to investigate various soils for acoustic emissions.

The result: when roots grow or earthworms burrow tunnels, they make noises that can plainly be traced back to root growth and worm activity. This has been demonstrated by a study conducted by Marine Lacoste from INRA, Siul Ruiz and ETH-professor Dani Or from the Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics at ETH Zurich.
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Star

The Knowledge Systems of Indigenous Australians: Aboriginal traditions describe the complex motions of planets, the 'wandering stars' of the sky

Duane W. Hamacher
The Conversation
Thu, 16 Aug 2018 10:00 UTC
Venus
© Flickr/Indigo Skies Photography, CC BY-NC-ND
Venus shines bright in the sky above Victoria.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised that this story may contain images and voices of people who have died.

The five planets we can see by naked eye were known to the ancient Greeks as "asteres planetai", meaning "wandering stars", due to their wandering journey across the sky relative to the fixed stars. This is where we get the word "planet".

But knowledge of the planets and their movements goes back much further, being prominent in the traditions of the oldest continuing cultures in the world.

Recent research reveals a wealth of information about the planets and their complex motions in the Knowledge Systems of Indigenous Australians.
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Hammer

NSA broke encryption on numerous 'high potential' VPN's, including Al Jazeera, Iraqi military and airlines

Micah Lee
The Intercept
Wed, 15 Aug 2018 14:09 UTC
NSA spying, NSA breaks encryption
The National Security Agency successfully broke the encryption on a number of "high potential" virtual private networks, including those of media organization Al Jazeera, the Iraqi military and internet service organizations, and a number of airline reservation systems, according to a March 2006 NSA document.

A virtual private network, or VPN, uses an encrypted connection to enable users to go over the internet and connect to a private network, such as a corporate intranet. This allows an organization's staff to access internal services like file-sharing servers or private wikis without having to physically be in the office.

The NSA's ability to crack into sensitive VPNs belonging to large organizations, all the way back in 2006, raises broader questions about the security of such networks. Many consumers pay for access to VPNs in order to mask the origin of their internet traffic from the sites they visit, hide their surfing habits from their internet service providers, and to protect against eavesdroppers on public Wi-Fi networks.

Comment: Snake-oil alert: Encryption doesn't prevent mass-snooping

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Fire

Phytoplankton bloom: Lava that destroys on land spurs new life at sea

Brittany Lyte
Civil Beat
Thu, 16 Aug 2018 14:29 UTC
plankton
© University of Hawaii
Satellite image of Hawaii Island indicating phytoplankton blooms
The Big Island's lava-spewing volcano has torched neighborhoods, choked vegetation and desiccated a lake. But in the open ocean, scientists are finding surprising new evidence that Kilauea's apocalyptic ooze is breathing new life into the sea.

Phytoplankton blooming off the coast of Puna has grown so dense since the onset of the Lower East Rift Zone eruption that it can be seen from outer space. Discovered by satellite, this floating algae plume is born of the swift rivers of mineral-rich lava draining into the ocean since May.
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SOTT Logo Radio

The Truth Perspective: Are Cells the Intelligent Designers? Why Creationists and Darwinists Are Both Wrong

Harrison Koehli and Corey Schink
Sott.net
Sat, 18 Aug 2018 16:00 UTC
dna machine
Random mutations. Natural selection. Time. According to the neo-Darwinian conception of evolution, this is all it takes. But there's a problem. In fact, there are several. No one has been able to demonstrate this model in the lab. Random mutations are either neutral or fatal to the organisms in which they occur. But natural selection only works on traits that are already there. So how to the new traits get there? How does genetic mutation actually occur? As shown in lab experiments, it is anything but random, and it is not a long, gradual process, either.

Perry Marshall's excellent book Evolution 2.0 points out the problems with neo-Darwinism and offers a theory for how evolution actually works in real-time. Fundamental to understanding evolution is the fact that DNA is a code. The genome is a language, and evolution requires an understanding of that language. Randomness destroys information. It doesn't create it.

Today on the Truth Perspective we discuss Marshall's book, as well as findings from Douglas Axe, summarized in his book Undeniable. Both ask the question of questions: what is the source of the code of life? What is the source of the information stored in DNA? Materialists claim it was all an accident. Creationists say God put it there. But both sides of the debate could learn a thing or two from each other. The answer is probably not so simple.

Running Time: 01:30:06

Download: MP3

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