… can be seen here. There’s some weird stuff in there. My favorites are the bottomless pit in Libya and the red lake in Iraq.
Undersea river discovered
Scientists recently discovered the sixth largest river in the world. How did the world’s sixth largest river manage to remain undetected for so long? As it turns out, it’s at the bottom of the ocean.
Researchers working in the Black Sea have found currents of water 350 times
greater than the River Thames flowing along the sea bed, carving out
channels much like a river on the land.
The undersea river, which is up to 115ft deep in places, even has rapids and
waterfalls much like its terrestrial equivalents.
The scientists, based at the University of Leeds, used a robotic submarine to
study for the first time a deep channel that had been found on the sea bed.
They found a river of highly salty water flowing along the deep channel at the
bottom of the Black Sea, creating river banks and flood plains much like a
river found on land.
Dr Dan Parsons, from the university’s school of earth and environment, said: “The
water in the channels is denser than the surrounding seawater because it has
higher salinity and is carrying so much sediment.
You can find more information here.
“Solar tsunami” headed for earth
Image via Wikipedia
Brace yourselves, world – things are gonna get sunny, and not in a good way. Astronomers have witnessed a massive explosion on the surface of the sun – a solar flare – and are tracking its progress as it races towards the outer layers of our atmosphere.
Experts said the wave of supercharged gas will likely reach the Earth on
Tuesday, when it will buffet the natural magnetic shield protecting Earth.
It is likely to spark spectacular displays of the aurora or northern and
southern lights.
“This eruption is directed right at us,” said
Leon Golub, of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
(CfA).
“It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”
Scientists have warned that a really big solar eruption could destroy
satellites and wreck power and communications grids around the globe if it
happened today.
While it’s impossible to predict the exact effects of this eruption, it is certainly possible that it will disrupt communications in some areas. The article, which you can read here, notes that NASA “recently warned that Britain could face widespread power blackouts and be
left without critical communication signals for long periods of time, after
the earth is hit by a once-in-a-generation ‘space storm.'”
This is particularly troubling, of course, because we are believed to be in a period of subdued solar activity that is scheduled to end – explosively – in 2013. If a flare like this one is “subdued,” I’d hate to see what’s coming our way in ’13.
UPDATE: You can see pictures of this solar flare, and find more information, at NASA’s website.
The remains of the Soviet space shuttle program
I’ll keep this brief: check out these fascinating pictures of the deteriorating remains of the Russian space shuttle program. There’s a bunch, and while the captions are in Russian, they’re something to see.
Whooping cough epidemic in California
Apparently, an outbreak of Whooping Cough (also known as pertussis) is currently afflicting California. This is particularly shocking because, as the article notes below, Whooping Cough is “almost completely preventable” and the vaccination is readily accessible. From Discover Magazine:
According to a
statement just released by the California Department of Public
Health, pertussis — whooping cough — is now officially an epidemic in
California.That’s right: an almost completely preventable disease is coming back
with a roar in California. There have been well over 900 cases
of pertussis in that state this year, over four times as many
as this time last year (and 600 more suspected cases are being
investigated). If this keeps up, California may see more cases in 2010
than it has in 50 years.If that doesn’t anger and sicken you enough, then this most assuredly
will: there have been five deaths this year from pertussis as well, all
babies under three months of age.
Infants aren’t fully protected against pertussis until they have
completed the first schedule of vaccinations, when they reach 6 months.
Before then, they are vulnerable to the disease. The most likely
reservoir for the bacterium? Unvaccinated people, including other
children. If too many people go unvaccinated, the disease can find a
host and survive long enough to infect others. If enough people are
vaccinated, that chance drops. This effect is called herd immunity,
and it’s the only thing that can keep this highly contagious and
potentially fatal disease away from infants.
The article goes on to speculate that this may be related to the recent spat of anti-vaccination efforts (many of which were prompted by the faulty, biased study that falsely linked autism to vaccinations). You can read more here.
Earthquake rattles New York
From the Huffington Post:
An earthquake that hit parts of Canada earlier today rocked the New
York City area, as well.The 5.5 magnitude quake in Southern Ontario could be felt as far
south as Brooklyn and Staten Island. Parts of New Jersey and upstate
New York, including Buffalo, were also affected.Rochester’s 13WHAM-TV newsroom reported feeling “shaking” that lasted “for about 5
to 10 seconds.”There are no reports of injuries at this time.
Our musical sun
Image via Wikipedia
Apparently, the sun makes music:
For the first time, astronomers have found that the magnetic field in
the outer atmosphere of the Sun produces eerie musical harmonies — a
discovery that could provide new ways of understanding and predicting
solar flares before they happen.Scientists at the University of
Sheffield found that huge magnetic loops that have been observed coiling
away from the outer layer of the Sun’s atmosphere — known as coronal
loops — vibrate like strings on a musical instrument.
You can read more here (although, unfortunately, you can’t listen).
Moths drink the tears of sleeping birds
That sounds at once quasi-poetic and somewhat disturbing. But apparently it’s true. There exists a species of moth in Madagascar that sups on the tears of birds:
A species of moth drinks tears from the eyes of
sleeping birds using a fearsome proboscisshaped like a harpoon,
scientists have revealed. The new discovery – spied in Madagascar – is
the first time moths have been seen feeding on the tears of birds.Roland Hilgartner at the German Primate Centre in Göttingen, Germany, and Mamisolo Raoilison Hilgartner
at the University of Antananarivo in Madagascar, witnessed the
apparently unique sight in the island state’s Kirindy forest.
If this is not weird enough, apparently
Tear-feeding moths and butterflies are known to exist elsewhere in
Africa, Asia and South America, but they mainly feed on large, placid
animals, such as deer, antelope or crocodiles, which cannot readily
brush them away. But there are no such large animals on Madagascar. The
main mammals – lemurs and mongoose – have paws capable of shooing the
moths. Birds can fly away.
You can read more here.
Earthworms form herds, make group decisions
Image by goosmurf via Flickr
This news is a little old, but irregardless, it creeps me out (most likely due to the subject itself). From the BBC:
Earthworms form herds and make “group decisions”,
scientists have discovered.The earthworms use touch to
communicate and influence each other’s behaviour, according to research
published in the journal Ethology.By doing so the worms
collectively decide to travel in the same direction as part of a single
herd.The striking behaviour, found in the earthworm Eisenia
fetida, is the first time that any type of worm, or annelid, has
been shown to form active herds.
You can read more here.
Strange creature discovered in Ontario Creek
Ever since the Montauk Monster controversy, I’m more skeptical of this sort of thing than I used to be (which probably brings me to a normal level of skepticism, overall). Nevertheless, if this isn’t a hoax, it’s certainly quite creepy. From AolNews:
TORONTO – A First Nations community in northern Ontario may be
giving Loch Ness a run for its money.Reports from the remote
community a few hundred kilometres south of Hudson Bay say a strange
creature was pulled from a local creek earlier this month – a creature
some are calling a monster.
[…]According to the website, two local nurses were hiking near the creek
when they noticed their dog Sam sniffing something in the water.The
dog pulled the 30-centimetre-long dead creature from the water and the
two women snapped some photos of it.
You can read more here.
