Science & TechnologyS


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Flashback Aliens cause global warming

An historical approach detailing how over the last thirty years scientists have begun to intermingle scientific and political claims.

My topic today sounds humorous but unfortunately I am serious. I am going to argue that extraterrestrials lie behind global warming. Or to speak more precisely, I will argue that a belief in extraterrestrials has paved the way, in a progression of steps, to a belief in global warming. Charting this progression of belief will be my task today.

Arrow Up

The Future Is Finally Here: Russian Aerocar Arrives

Imagine a world where roads don't exist, old-style cars are a distant memory and you can zip over 450 kilometres in one hour. A Russian designer believes aerocars are not far away. Aleksandr Begak has successfully tested a prototype more than 100 times.

Aerocar
©Unknown

Cow Skull

Where Death is a Science

In a matter of days, the first dead human will be put out to rot in the North Carolina mountains, all in the name of science.

Dr. John Williams runs the Forensic Anthropology Lab at Western Carolina University, he says, "I want to have them smell it, see it and if they can handle it great."

Laptop

Hackers commandeer Israel Bank site, post anti-Israel jibes

Hackers commandeered the Bank of Israel Web site early Friday and filled it with virtual graffiti in Arabic defaming Israel.

Web surfers who attempted to access the site Friday morning were met with Arabic scrawlings that the anonymous vandals placed on the site. The Bank of Israel has taken down the site until the glitch could be fixed.

Better Earth

Coastal Fog Tower Channels Water in Chile

Here is an interesting idea which could allow sustainable agriculture to be deployed even in the most arid places on Earth. The project is called Fog Tower and it consists of a helical structure that absorbs and sewers water from surrounding areas. The designers of the Fog Tower are Alberto Fernandez and Susana Ortega and they are planning to install the concept in some areas in Chile.

Coastal Fog Tower
©Unknown

Bizarro Earth

Astrophysicist Links Temperature Change with Sun's Energy Output

Global temperature change can be attributed to slight variations in the sun's energy output, not man-made carbon dioxide emissions. That's according to astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, who was in Salt Lake City today to present his research to a crowd at The Sutherland Institute.

Pharoah

Egypt: Tomb of Cleopatra and lover to be uncovered

Cairo - Archaeologists have revealed plans to uncover the 2000 year-old tomb of ancient Egypt's most famous lovers, Cleopatra and the Roman general Mark Antony later this year.

Cow Skull

Study says near extinction threatened human population 70,000 years ago

Human beings may have had a brush with extinction 70,000 years ago, an extensive genetic study suggests. The human population at that time was reduced to small isolated groups in Africa, apparently because of drought, according to an analysis released Thursday.

The report notes that a separate study by researchers at Stanford University estimated the number of early humans may have shrunk as low as 2,000 before numbers began to expand again in the early Stone Age.

Attention

The biggest European network of sandstone caves discovered in east Bohemia



sandstone caves
©CT24
The newly discovered sandstone caves

The region of Broumov with its picturesque rock formations has long attracted tourists and climbers. Now, scientists have revealed that the area has far more to offer - a vast network of sandstone caves hidden below ground. Spanning more than 27 kilometres, the caves are the most extensive underground sandstone labyrinth in Europe. Research work in the area started two years ago and cave explorers have only now finished mapping the whole space. Earlier today I spoke to Petr Kuna from the nature reserve of Broumov and asked him to tell me something about the caves:

Bulb

Radio telescope reveals secrets of massive black hole

At the cores of many galaxies, supermassive black holes expel powerful jets of particles at nearly the speed of light. Just how they perform this feat has long been one of the mysteries of astrophysics. The leading theory says the particles are accelerated by tightly-twisted magnetic fields close to the black hole, but confirming that idea required an elusive close-up view of the jet's inner throat. Now, using the unrivaled resolution of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Long Baseline Array (VLBA), astronomers have watched material winding a corkscrew outward path and behaving exactly as predicted by the theory.

"We have gotten the clearest look yet at the innermost portion of the jet, where the particles actually are accelerated, and everything we see supports the idea that twisted, coiled magnetic fields are propelling the material outward," said Alan Marscher, of Boston University, leader of an international research team. "This is a major advance in our understanding of a remarkable process that occurs throughout the Universe," he added.

Image
©Marscher et al., Wolfgang Steffen, Cosmovision, NRAO/AUI/NSF
Artist's conception of region near supermassive black hole where twisted magnetic fields propel and shape jet of particles.