Earth ChangesS

Cloud Lightning

Lightning Injures Woman in Virginia

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© iStockphoto
Listed in good condition

Lightning injured a 25-year-old woman as she was letting her dogs outside around 4:30 a.m. Sunday.

A Suffolk Police spokesperson said Brandy Futrell was touching a metal gate when lightning struck near her home in 7000 block of Ruritan Boulevard.

Her husband found her lying on the ground not breathing and with no pulse, police said. He performed CPR until she started breathing on her own. Medics arrived and took her to Sentara Obici General Hospital.

Doctors list her in good condition, according to police.

No Entry

SOTT Focus: 'Ashteria' is a Pretext to Shut Down International Air Travel

Volcanic revolution
© SOTT.net
The pathocracy's desperate push for control is leading many otherwise intelligent people to believe they are seeing things that are not really there. On April 15 British airports were told by the British Civil Aviation Authority to begin grounding flights. At the same time, the Air Traffic Control Service for the UK (Nats) imposed restrictions on where planes could fly after the government's Meteorological Office warned that ash could damage jet engines. By April 17 most routes in northern Europe were suspended and the shutdown had spread to TransAtlantic flights. All the while Europeans were subject to nauseating platitudes from politicians about passengers' safety being their "paramount concern." If jet engines could not withstand the "dangerous ash cloud" that had magically disguised itself as clear blue skies, why then was NATO playing multiple war games over European airspace during the lockdown? At least 60 aircraft (including fighter jets) from Germany, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, USA, France, Norway, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and Sweden took part in the Brilliant Mariner maritime exercise... while all commercial jets were grounded (because "safety was our paramount concern"). In fact, there may have been more military exercises taking place during this time.

If passenger safety was the primary consideration throughout this fiasco, why then has the airline industry and the relevant regulatory authorities repeatedly suppressed the findings of independent studies that sound the alarm over a very real danger facing passengers and crew alike during air travel?

Bizarro Earth

Puerto Rico Hit by 5.8 Earthquake

On Sunday, May 16, 2010, Puerto Rico witnessed an earthquake of magnitude 5.8 at around 1:16 a.m (0516 GMT). No causalities were reported but some houses in the western and northern towns were damaged.

A rock slide on the highway in Utuado also occurred due to the earthquake. Here, a concrete house was also shifted four inches away from its foundation.

Some shocks were felt in most part of the island including places like the islands of Vieques, St. Croix, Culebra and the rest of the Virgin Islands.According to the U.S. Geological survey , the earthquake was felt by high-rise dwellers on the western side of the U.S. Carribean Islan and 63 miles away from San Juan.

The US Geological survey also found out that the city of Moca was the epicenter of the earthquake.

Bizarro Earth

California: 3.7 Earthquake Shakes San Diego County

A moderate earthquake has rattled the border of eastern San Diego County but there are no reports of damage or injuries.

The United States Geological Survey says the 3.7 magnitude quake struck at 11:33 a.m. Sunday about 85 miles east of downtown San Diego.

The epicenter was reported 15 miles southwest of Mexicali, in an area rocked by a magnitude 7.2 earthquake on Easter Sunday, April 4.

A sheriff's dispatcher says they have received no calls about the quake.

Cloud Lightning

US: Middle Tennessee once again at risk for flooding

A look back at the flooding
© AP/Jeff RobersonA look back at the flooding that unfolded at the beginning of May. This photo was taken Tuesday, May 4, 2010 at the OpryMills Mall in Nashville, Tenn.

Slow-moving showers and thunderstorms today are pushing through middle Tennessee, an area that definitely doesn't need any more rain. The region is still recovering from the devastating flooding that took place earlier in the month, and the rain today could cause renewed flooding in some areas.

Other states surrounding Tennessee will also be at risk for flash flooding through this evening as slow-moving showers and thunderstorms also affect Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, Kentucky and southern Missouri.

It's important to stress that today's event will not be anything like the one that occurred at the beginning of the month with over 13 inches of rain falling in Nashville over the span of just two days. An event like that is quite rare.

Alarm Clock

Gulf Spill Oil Driven by Complex Ocean Currents and Eddies

NASA image shows a close up view of a massive oil slick
© NewscomThis NASA image shows a close up view of a massive oil slick in the Gulf of Mexico as it continued moving close to shore, near Louisiana.

The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is far different than the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska. The complex marine environment has currents and eddies that could carry the oil anywhere in the Gulf.

Oil boom stretches along empty beaches, tar balls have washed ashore along the Alabama and Mississippi coasts, and a swirling, oily sheen covers at least 2,500 square miles of the sea surface in the Gulf of Mexico.

So far, currents, winds, and a plume of fresh water flowing into the Gulf from the Mississippi River have acted in concert to hold at bay the oil spewing from a damaged well head 5,000 feet below the sea surface some 40 miles off the Louisiana coast.

In anticipation of the oil's arrival, some 13,000 people stand ready to combat the spill if it approaches shore, according to the Obama administration. More than a million feet of boom has been deployed. More than half a million gallons of dispersants has been applied.

Alarm Clock

Gulf Oil Spill: Real Disaster Might Be Lurking Beneath the Surface

An aerial view of oil strips
© Zhu Wei/NewscomAn aerial view of oil strips floating off the coast of Mobile, Ala., near the site of the sunk BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico Friday.
From the first moments that the Deepwater Horizon oil rig sank last month, it has been apparent that the blooming Gulf oil spill has been an oil disaster unlike any other. But the full truth of that statement is perhaps only now beginning to become apparent.

The oil that can be seen from the surface is apparently just a fraction of the oil that has spilled into the Gulf of Mexico since April 20, according to an assessment the National Institute for Undersea Science and Technology. Significant amounts of oil are spreading at various levels throughout the water column, says the report, which was posted online a week ago but first published by The New York Times Saturday.

The research, combined with other emerging data, could fundamentally alter researchers' understanding of the oil spill. It suggests that vastly more oil than previously reported could be spilling from the wellhead and the attached riser pipe that now lies crumpled on the seafloor like a kinked and leaking garden hose.

Moreover, it suggests that serious environmental degradation could take place in the open ocean, creating massive "dead zones" where no creature can live because of the lack of oxygen in the water. The spread of oil at all levels of the Gulf also could become a concern for shore communities in hurricanes, which stir up the water column as they come ashore.

Radar

Many of Iceland's volcanoes appear to be awakening

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© UnknownHorses commutes to an other pasture south of Iceland's Eyjafjoell volcano

Many more of Iceland's volcanoes seem to be stirring


Iceland could be at the start of a surge in volcanic activity that may produce more eruptions.

The Icelandic eruption that has caused misery for air travellers could be part of a surge in volcanic activity that will affect the whole of Europe for decades, scientists have warned.

They have reconstructed a timeline of 205 eruptions in Iceland, spanning the past 1,100 years, and found that they occur in regular cycles - with the relatively quiet phase that dominated the past five decades now coming to an end.

At least three other big Icelandic volcanoes are building towards an eruption, according to Thor Thordarson, a volcanologist at Edinburgh University.

"The frequency of Icelandic eruptions seems to rise and fall in a cycle lasting around 140 years," he said. "In the latter part of the 20th century we were in a low period, but now there is evidence that we could be approaching a peak."

Butterfly

Rare Chicken-Guinea Fowl Hybrid has Four Wings

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© Sam Furlong/SWNSRare breed: Tulip the "guin" has two extra wings at the front but cannot fly.
What has four wings, pretty blue eyes and walks with a swagger?

No, it's not a joke - it's a real bird and it's called a guin.

The strange-looking fowl is a hybrid of a chicken and a guinea fowl.

The chick, named Tulip, hatched in Lyn Newman's coop.

Mrs Newman had brought in two guinea fowl to act as a warning system for foxes, but did not know they could breed with her hens.

Mrs Newman, 59, raises a number of fowl in Defford, Worcestershire, but she was astonished when one of her eggs hatched into an odd looking bird even she couldn't identify.

The tiny bird was covered in clumps of feathers and - most strangely of all - had four wings.

Binoculars

"Ash Cloud" May Hit Flights Again

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© The Sunday TimesIceland could be at the start of a surge in volcanic activity that may produce more eruptions
Parts of British airspace could be closed for up to three days from today because of volcanic ash from Iceland.

The ash could close some of the busiest airports in southeast England until Tuesday, the transport department warned yesterday.

At greatest risk today are Northern Ireland and Scotland, with more widespread airport closures possible on Monday.

Philip Hammond, the transport secretary, said the situation was "fluid", but that passenger safety was the government's top priority