Science & TechnologyS


Fireball 5

"The entire Earth moved": True polar wander and how Hawaiian hot spots show Earth has shifted on its axis

Jade Boyd
Rice University
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 12:00 UTC
True polar wander
© Illustration courtesy of Victor C. Tsai/Wikimedia CommonsTrue polar wander occurs when the entire Earth shifts relative to its spin axis.
Earth's latest ice age may have been caused by changes deep inside the planet. Based on evidence from the Pacific Ocean, including the position of the Hawaiian Islands, Rice University geophysicists have determined Earth shifted relative to its spin axis within the past 12 million years, which caused Greenland to move far enough toward the north pole to kick off the ice age that began about 3.2 million years ago.

Their study in the journal Geophysical Research Letters is based on an analysis of fossil signatures from deep ocean sediments, the magnetic signature of oceanic crust and the position of the mantle "hot spot" that created the Hawaiian Islands. Co-authors Richard Gordon and Daniel Woodworth said the evidence suggests Earth spun steadily for millions of years before shifting relative to its spin axis, an effect geophysicists refer to as "true polar wander."

"The Hawaiian hot spot was fixed, relative to the spin axis, from about 48 million years ago to about 12 million years ago, but it was fixed at a latitude farther north than we find it today," said Woodworth, a graduate student in Rice's Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences. "By comparing the Hawaiian hot spot to the rest of the Earth, we can see that that shift in location was reflected in the rest of the Earth and is superimposed on the motion of tectonic plates. That tells us that the entire Earth moved, relative to the spin axis, which we interpret to be true polar wander."

Comment: As Pierre Lescaudron writes in Of Flash Frozen Mammoths and Cosmic Catastrophes, there is another more likely driver for the cataclysmic shift of Earth's poles:
The above evidence strongly suggests that, about 13,000 years ago, the geographic North pole was located around Hudson Bay, which is about 60° N, or 30° away from the current North pole.

This would have placed Northern Siberia at 40° degrees of latitude North (the current longitude of Northern Siberia is 70°, to which we subtract 30°, giving us 40° N).

40°N is the current latitude of Spain, Greece, Italy, California and Nevada. It is a latitude typical of temperate climate. It is under this temperate latitude that the woolly mammoths lived, but it's not under this latitude that their corpses were preserved frozen.

The cometary bombardment had dramatic effects for our planet, including the location of its geographic poles. Now let's look at how it happened. According to Charles Hapgood, the cometary bombardment slipped the crust by about 30° and the geographic poles moved to their current location. For Italian engineer Flavio Barbiero, the crust slipped by about 20° degrees.

Hapgood and Barbiero might be close to the truth. In any case, the slippage must have been greater than 20° in order to shift Siberia into the permafrost region (latitude greater than 60°N) and allow the mammoths to remain frozen.

At this point we have a good idea of how the mammoths may have been flash-frozen and how they remained frozen (crustal slippage moving the North pole closer to Siberia). However, the corpses of the mammoths revealed several other puzzling pieces of evidence.
See also:

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Meteor

Two gigantic asteroids will zip past earth today, warns NASA

Nirmal Narayanan
International Business Times, India Edition
Tue, 20 Nov 2018 04:38 UTC
NASA asteroid warning
© GETTYNASA asteroid warning: Two giant space rocks will make an Earth Close Approach today
NASA's asteroid trackers have warned that two gigantic asteroids will zip past earth on November 20, 2018. The first asteroid dubbed, Asteroid 2018 VQ6 will have its close approach at around 07.29 AM GMT, while the second space body, Asteroid VP7 will make its close flyby at 07.49 AM.

Initial analysis conducted by scientists at NASA reveal that VQ6 will measure somewhere between 12 meters to 35 meters in diameter. On the other hand, Asteroid VP7 is estimated to measure somewhere between 12 meters to 28 meters in diameter.

Experts believe that the first asteroids will reach its closest possible distance to Earth at around 0.02931 astronomical units (AU) and the second cosmic body will have its close approach at 0.01961 AU. It should be noted that one astronomical unit equals about 92.95 million miles, and it is actually the distance between the earth and the sun.

As these space bodies are making its close approach at around 2.72 million miles away, experts have classified these asteroids as 'Near Earth Object' (NEO). Even though a distance like 2.72 million miles is very gigantic in human terms, it is very close in astronomical terms.

"As they orbit the Sun, NEOs can occasionally approach close to Earth. Note that a "close" passage astronomically can be very far away in human terms: millions or even tens of millions of kilometers," NASA says.

Comment: Expecting an asteroid? Proposed budget for NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office suddenly increased three-fold

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Map

Report: NATO mapping software now supplied to Chinese military


RT
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 11:18 UTC
Soldiers map
© Reuters/Erik De Castro
China has obtained cutting-edge mapping software used by NATO and US militaries to collect intelligence on the battlefield, putting its armed forces on equal footing with the most advanced Western armies, a report says.

A Belgium-based defense contractor Luciad has sold the software to China, according to the South China Morning Post (SCMP) citing Chinese government sources. The software, which includes a Luciad Lightspeed application, is used to map the terrain and ensure situational awareness of military commanders.

The software, which is in used by NATO and US militaries, visualizes changes in enemy positions and identifies targets in real time. It's 75 times faster than its closest competitor and is remarkably accurate. The same software is reportedly employed by US Special Operations Forces, whose raid on Osama bin Laden in Pakistan made headlines in 2011.

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Bizarro Earth

British scientists warn government that space storms could cause MASS blackouts

Mac Slavo
SHTFplan.com
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 00:00 UTC
space storms
The Met Office has told United Kingdom ministers that space storms could cause massive blackouts and destroy computers. According to the government agency's study, a space storm could bring down the internet and all communications.

According to a report by The Sunday Times, a new report is claiming that huge solar flares can generate such intense magnetic fields over Earth which in a flash could burn out delicate electronics and even set them on fire. The report, co-authored with scientists from the British Antarctic Survey, Rutherford Appleton Laboratory, and Cambridge University said the UK should construct an early warning system because of their risk.

Great Britain is at a major risk of being crippled by huge electrical disturbances caused by solar storms in space unless a satellite network is built that can detect them coming. (And if you guessed the taxpayers are going to foot the bill, you'd be correct.)

Comment: And it seems that space storms can be the drivers of other not so pleasant phenomena as well:

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Microscope 1

Panpsychism? New research concludes cells do have memory


Evolution News
Mon, 19 Nov 2018 17:39 UTC
memory sculpture
© Wikimedia CommonsMemory (sculpture, marble), by Daniel Chester French, 1886–1887, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Without memory, our lives would be exceedingly troublesome, and dangerous if not impossible. What if you had to look up what "green light" means every time you saw one? Many of us have had to witness loved ones suffering from dementia, including its common symptom of short-term memory loss. Human memory is somehow facilitated by the organ of the brain, where Alzheimer's disease and other forms of dementia take their toll. Cells have no brains. Yet biochemists are increasingly finding that cells do have memory.

Stem Cell Memory

The old picture of stem cells was that they remain pure and static, until signals trigger cell division and differentiation. Ongoing research reveals a new, more dynamic picture of stem cells: cells that can remember things and respond to their surroundings. According to Monique Brouilette in Quanta Magazine:
Stem cells, famous for replenishing the body's stockpile of other cell types throughout life, may have an additional, unforeseen ability to cache memories of past wounds and inflammation. New studies in the skin, gut and airways suggest that stem cells, often in partnership with the immune system, can use these memories to improve the responses of tissues to later injuries and pathogenic assaults.

"What we are starting to realize is that these cells aren't just there to make tissue. They actually have other behavioral roles," said Shruti Naik, an immunologist at New York University who has studied this memory effect in skin and other tissues. Stem cells, she said, "have an exquisite ability to sense their environment and respond." [Emphasis added.]
Most tissues have small reservoirs of stem cells that can replenish cells as they age or die. They can differentiate into any one of the cell types of the tissue. That's been their primary function, Brouilette writes, to serve as "miniature factories" for tissue regeneration. It was thought they had to remain "blank slates" that were unchanged from their histories. "But now a new picture is starting to emerge."
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Brain

The 'little brain' - What factors propelled the cerebellum into the spotlight?

Christopher Bergland
Psychology Today
Sat, 10 Nov 2018 14:40 UTC
cerebellum
© Wikipedia
As an evidence-based journalist who follows newsworthy trends in neuroscience, I've been keeping an eye on the rising popularity of the cerebellum (Latin for "little brain"). In recent weeks, this often-overlooked subcortical brain region has skyrocketed to buzzword status. I have a hunch "cerebellum" might be on the verge of becoming a household word such as "amygdala," "hippocampus," and "prefrontal cortex" that have made the rare leap from the esoteric lexicon of neuroscience to everyday terminology.

For the past decade, I've been trying (without much success) to make the term "cerebellar" a household word by putting the importance of cerebrum-cerebellum interplay in the spotlight. In the list below, I present three key ingredients that I speculate may have created a tipping point which could result in our "little brain" becoming the next big thing in neuroscience.

Comment: Read more about the 'little brain'

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Info

Shanghai opens its 'earthscraper' hotel built inside an abandoned quarry


RT
Sun, 18 Nov 2018 14:36 UTC
Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland
© AFP / Johannes EiseleThe Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland
After almost 10 years of construction, Shanghai has unveiled to the public its 'earthscraper' hotel built vertically along the precipice of an underground, water-filled quarry.

Costing 2 billion yuan ($287.9 million) to complete, the 88-meter-deep hotel is located in the Songjiang district. The Intercontinental Shanghai Wonderland, also known as Shimao Quarry Hotel, has cliff-view rooms that allow guests to stare into the abyss. Prices for the suites range from 3,400 to 3,800 yuan ($489 - $546) per night.

According to British architect Martin Jochman who designed the hotel, "It's the first time to turn an abandoned quarry into a wonderful hotel beneath the ground."
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Monkey Wrench

Molecular biologist: There needs to be a global policy to govern gene editing


cbc.ca
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 10:43 UTC
gene editing
© iStock/Getty ImagesA gene drive uses genetic editing technology like CRISPR to push a desired genetic change through an entire population.
Countries will debate gene drive technology at UN Biodiversity Conference

Gene drives are ready to leave the laboratory and enter the real world. But a molecular biologist argues that the technology - which could be used to fundamentally alter the DNA of an entire species - needs global oversight.

In one example of the technology's potential, a mosquito's DNA could be modified so that when the insect breeds, it spreads a specific genetic change. That change could ultimately wipe out an entire malaria-carrying species.

"These organisms are likely to cross international borders, [one country] cannot make these decisions in isolation, that's just not safe and it's not fair, really," molecular biologist Natalie Kofler told The Current's Anna Maria Tremonti.

Comment: Gene-Editing dangers cause a firefight

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Comet

Canyons flowing from Mars' craters likely caused by catastrophic flood events


University of Texas
Sat, 17 Nov 2018 16:57 UTC
Jezero crater
© NASA/Tim Goudge.Jezero crater is a paleolake and potential landing site for NASA’s Mars 2020 rover mission to look for past life. The outlet canyon carved by overflow flooding is visible in the upper right side of the crater. Ancient rivers carved the inlets on the left side of the crater.
Today, most of the water on Mars is locked away in frozen ice caps. But billions of years ago it flowed freely across the surface, forming rushing rivers that emptied into craters, forming lakes and seas. New research led by The University of Texas at Austin has found evidence that sometimes the lakes would take on so much water that they overflowed and burst from the sides of their basins, creating catastrophic floods that carved canyons very rapidly, perhaps in a matter of weeks.

The findings suggest that catastrophic geologic processes may have had a major role in shaping the landscape of Mars and other worlds without plate tectonics, said lead author Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral researcher at the UT Jackson School of Geosciences who will be starting as an assistant professor at the school in 2019.

"These breached lakes are fairly common and some of them are quite large, some as large as the Caspian Sea," said Goudge. "So we think this style of catastrophic overflow flooding and rapid incision of outlet canyons was probably quite important on early Mars' surface."

Comment: The significance of gradualism and plate tectonics as the main shapers for life are becoming increasingly sidelined by evidence that catastrophism is the most influential driver for the great changes on our planet, and others: Also check out SOTT radio's:

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Brain

'Just like riding a bike' - why don't we forget how?

Boris Suchan
Scientific American
Thu, 15 Nov 2018 16:16 UTC
bicycle riders
© S-F / Shutterstock
The way memories are anchored in the brain plays a role, neuropsychologist Boris Suchan explains

Most of us learn how to ride a bike during childhood. But as we grow older, many of us stop riding and put those once-beloved bikes in storage. Years later, when we discover these relics and hop on, it's as if we never stopped biking.

This is surprising because our memories let us down in so many other instances, such as remembering the name of a place or a person we once knew or where we put our keys. So how is it that we can ride a bicycle when we haven't done so in years?

Comment: More on the different types of memory:

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