The death toll from Thailand's worst floods in half a century climbed above 500, as advancing pools of polluted black water threatened Bangkok's subway system Monday and new evacuations were ordered in the sprawling capital.

The latest district added to the government's evacuation list late Sunday was Chatuchak, home to a large public park and an outdoor shopping zone that is a major tourist attraction. The Chatuchak Weekend Market was open but missing many vendors and customers Sunday as floodwaters poured past the market's eastern edge.

So far, Bangkok Gov. Sukhumbhand Paribatra has ordered evacuations in 11 of Bangkok's 50 districts, and partial evacuations apply in seven more.

The evacuations are not mandatory, and most people are staying to protect homes and businesses. But the orders illustrate how far flooding has progressed into the city and how powerless the government has been to stop it.

Chatuchak, just a few miles (kilometers) north of Bangkok's still-unaffected central business zone, is home to the government's national emergency flood relief headquarters. It is housed in the Energy Ministry - a building now surrounded by water.

Alaska is facing a life threatening winter storm with near hurricane force winds, more than a foot of snow and severe coastal flooding, the National Weather Service says.

"This is an extremely dangerous and life-threatening storm which will be one of the worst on record over the Bering Sea and the west coast," NWS forecasters said in a bulletin Monday afternoon.

The storm was about 600 miles southwest of Shemya in the far western Aleutian Islands on Monday afternoon and was expected to move over the Bering Sea toward Alaska's west coast on Tuesday.

A 6.9 magnitude earthquake rattled the sea-floor just northeast of Taiwan. The earthquake was deep- 209.5 km or erupted 130.2 miles below the surface. The epicenter of the earthquake was 497 km (309 miles) ENE from T'ai-Pei, Taiwan and 1140 km (708 miles) S (186°) from Seoul, South Korea. A low tsunami alert was issued but is not expected to be a threat to the mainland.

A 4.7 magnitude earthquake struck 9 km (5 miles) from Prague, 10 km from Sparks and about 71 km (44 miles) from Oklahoma City. It is the strongest tremor to strike the state since the 5.6 magnitude earthquake struck over the weekend. Geologists still have no explanation for why such intense earthquakes are rattling the state.

The death toll from Thailand's worst floods in decades jumped above 500 on Sunday as the seemingly unstoppable waters crept deeper into Bangkok, swamping main roads and threatening the city centre.

The government said the disaster has now killed 506 people nationwide -- an increase of 60 from the figure reported a day earlier. So far no deaths in Bangkok have been reported in the official toll.

At least 20 percent of the capital is already submerged in floodwater contaminated by rubbish, dead animals and industrial waste, raising fears about outbreaks of disease in the densely populated metropolis of 12 million people.

The slow-moving water is now just a few kilometres (miles) away from business and tourist districts, and authorities are desperately seeking to push the floods through waterways in the east and west of the city and out to sea.

Amid mounting concern over the advancing waters, Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra on Saturday said Bangkok's economic and political heartland risked only "minor and brief" flooding at most.

We started this series with a pretty 'out-there' topic: prophecy. But the Cassiopaean Experiment, while pretty 'out-there' to begin with (at least from the mainstream perspective), also deals with more 'down-to-earth' subject matter. Issues relating to more conventionally understood and practiced science (albeit with often unconventional interpretations) make up a large portion of the received data.

It's been my experience that people tend to forget that scientists are 'human' too, or more precisely, scientists can be just as willfully blind, self-serving, conformist, fearful and mendacious as anyone else. Some of them are even unabashed con men who falsify their data, or intellectual prostitutes who will produce the results they are paid to, whether they believe them or not. Just because it's been peer-reviewed, or written by a person with a string of letters after their name, doesn't mean it's true, or even remotely so. And if history tells us anything, it's that the history of science is a long history of wrong or incomplete ideas. So it's best to be skeptical whenever scientists speak in terms of absolutes with certainty, whenever they put the lid on testing alternate hypotheses. Chances are, they're simply deceiving themselves, and you.

Science is a work in progress. The theories that are taken for granted as being true may very well turn out to be completely bogus following the intervention of new discoveries and innovations. Sadly, space and weather science are two areas where innovation not only rarely occurs, it is actively hindered by scientists and politicians with vested interests in keeping old, inadequate theories at the forefront of popular and academic belief systems. Like many of the examples that will follow in subsequent installments of this series, the ones below are just a sample of ideas that at first glance may look just plain wrong. But new discoveries have been proving many outdated preconceptions to be just that.

Heavy rains and flooding in southern France over the weekend forced the evacuation of about six hundred people, and three people died in weather-related deaths as a dozen local regions remained on alert on Sunday.

Rivers overran their banks, flooding streets and homes and leaving hundreds stranded. Television images showed cars floating along roads and residents mopping up their sodden, muddy homes.

A retired couple, both aged 71, in the southeastern coastal town of Bagnols en Foret died late Saturday night or Sunday morning from carbon monoxide poisoning while trying to bail out rising water in their cellar, police said.

On Saturday, police told Reuters they found the body of a 51-year-old homeless man who had been washed away from his campsite in the Herault southern region.

According to volcanologists, the people of Goma, are not directly threatened by the eruption of this volcano because the lava flows are directed towards the Virunga National Park (Virunga National Park).

However, had he added, people should be held in compliance with the rules of hygiene to protect against such volcanic ash released by the volcano.

During the last eruption of this volcano in January 2010, the lava had burned over 11 hectares of the forest of the Virunga Park, which extends over 790,000 ha. World Heritage Site by UNESCO since 1979, the Virunga National Park is home to various species of mammals (hippos, gorillas ...), reptiles and birds.

The eruptions of Nyamulagira May 2004 and November 2006 had made the most active volcano in Africa.

Nyamulagira and Nyiragongo volcanoes are two of eight active volcanoes that make up the Virunga chain, located in the Virunga National Park in eastern DRC.

Clouds of dust belched from the corners of almost every room in Joe Reneau's house as the biggest earthquake in Oklahoma history rocked the two-story building.

A roar that sounded like a jumbo jet filled the air, and Reneau's red-brick chimney collapsed and fell into the roof above the living room. By the time the shaking stopped, a pantry worth of food had been strewn across the kitchen and shards of glass and pottery covered the floor.

"It was like WHAM!" said Reneau, 75, gesturing with swipes of his arms. "I thought in my mind the house would stand, but then again, maybe not."

The magnitude 5.6 earthquake and its aftershocks still had residents rattled Sunday. No injuries were reported, and aside from a buckled highway and the collapse of a tower on the St. Gregory's University administration building, neither was any major damage. But the weekend earthquakes were among the strongest yet in a state that has seen a dramatic, unexplained increase in seismic activity.

Oklahoma typically had about 50 earthquakes a year until 2009. Then the number spiked, and 1,047 quakes shook the state last year, prompting researchers to install seismographs in the area. Still, most of the earthquakes have been small.

Rainfall intensity has increased over the past 120 years in Italy's northern regions according to scientists at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Bologna, Italy.

The torrential rains that triggered flash flooding and mudslides in northern Italy during October 2011 were unusual but not completely unexpected according to research performed by scientists at the Institute of Atmospheric Sciences and Climate in Bologna, Italy.

The floods in Italy destroyed many buildings and took the lives of at least nine people. Coastal areas near Liguria and Tuscany were particularly hit hard by the heavy rains and Italy has declared a state of emergency for regions damaged by flood waters. On November 3, 2011 emergency management officials evacuated the town of Vernazza in anticipation of more heavy rains to come.