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Earth

Long-Lost Continent Found Under the Indian Ocean 168

Posted by samzenpus from the calling-Cthulhu dept.
ananyo writes "The drowned remnants of an ancient micro-continent may lie scattered beneath the waters between Madagascar and India, a new study suggests. Evidence for the long-lost land comes from Mauritius, a volcanic island about 900 kilometers east of Madagascar (abstract) The oldest volcanic rocks on the island date to about 8.9 million years ago. Yet grain-by-grain analyses of beach sand collected at two sites on the Mauritian coast revealed around 20 zircons — tiny crystals of zirconium silicate that are exceedingly resistant to erosion or chemical change — that were far older. One of these zircons was at least 1.97 billion years old. The researchers that made the discovery think that geologically recent volcanic eruptions brought shards of the buried continent to the Earth's surface, where the zircons eroded from their parent rocks to pepper the island's sands. Analyses of Earth's gravitational field reveal several broad areas where sea-floor crust at the bottom of the Indian ocean is much thicker than normal — at least 25 to 30 kilometers thick, rather than the normal 5 to 10 kilometers. Those crustal anomalies may be the remains of a landmass that researchers have now dubbed Mauritia, which they suggest split from Madagascar when tectonic rifting and sea-floor spreading sent the Indian subcontinent surging northeast millions of years ago."

Comment Re:Well... (Score 2) 1063

by VorpalRodent (#42559283) Attached to: US Near Bottom In Life Expectancy In Developed World

Challenge Accepted!

Clockwise, just including the grocery section of my local Super Walmart:
Frozen pizza
Popcorn chicken
Fruits and veggies
Meat
Milk
Endcap with soda
Endcap with Chips
Endcap with on sale dessert

You are correct - my meals are much better when I don't have to hunt them myself. I will stick to the outside aisles of the grocery section.

Comment Re:Lithium ion battery (Score 4, Funny) 151

by VorpalRodent (#42519125) Attached to: Boeing Dreamliner Catches Fire In Boston
I was considering lauding your rigorous statistics, but I can't find anything to support it. The closest thing I can find is the fact that there have been zero deaths of human cannonballs in the last 18 months. This suggests to me that flying in nothing at all is better than flying in an airplane. While ducks and other seasonal game may disagree on the point, I would think that most other birds would agree that plane-less flight is actually safer on a per-mile basis.

Besides, bathtubs can't fly. That's just silly.
Businesses

Ask Slashdot: Should Employers Ban Smartphones? 510

Posted by samzenpus from the no-phone-for-you dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Due to a concern that smartphones (and other electronic devices) could be infected with malware and used to spy on sensitive information, my employer has recently banned all personal electronic devices from their spaces. The concern comes from articles like this one. My question to slashdot readers: How reasonable is this concern? How can this sort of malware be prevented from showing up on our devices? Is there a way to educate employees about preventing this sort of thing rather than banning the devices altogether? This current reality is that people have started to rely on having their smartphones with them at all times for things such as receiving emergency calls from day cares and schools, making personal calls during normal working hours (i.e. to make doctor's appointments), accessing password managers, and scheduling calendar events."

Comment Re:Great... (Score 1) 395

by VorpalRodent (#42250214) Attached to: High-Frequency Traders Use 50-Year-Old Wireless Tech
I am insufficiently familiar with how the electronic trading system works at the level they're utilizing it, so if someone has some direction on where I can research it more, that would be great, and maybe I'm arguing for what is substantially the same solution, but why would we need to create such a fundamental change as the institution of "rounds".

Couldn't the calculation of those bits of data which rely on outstanding orders simply be done less frequently? I'm assuming it isn't truly realtime, so why not just make it every second instead? Wouldn't that achieve roughly the same result of removing the value of that latency?

Comment Other activities (Score 3, Funny) 1651

by VorpalRodent (#41523917) Attached to: To Encourage Biking, Lose the Helmets
I'm just glad someone is finally remarking how silly this is. I've been saying for years that ladder helmets are necessary. My kids, before doing any dangerous activity, go to the closet and get their helmet out. Whether that be their ladder-climbing helmet, their swing set helmet, or their swimming pool slide helmet, they know that being safe is better than being dead. Anything that requires being more than standing height from the ground requires a helmet. The kids are excited about it, too - for their birthdays this year, they know they'll be getting new "going down the stairs" helmets.

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