Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
User Journal

Journal Journal: Spiegel 8 part series on climate research

Journal by AHuxley

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-2,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-3,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-4,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-5,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-6,00.html
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,686697-7,00.html
http://www.spieg
Earth

Submission + - Are We Ready for a Solar Radiation Katrina? 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "Every few decades, the sun experiences a particularly large storm that can release as much energy as 1 billion hydrogen bombs. Now NPR reports that an exercise held in Boulder, Colorado, has investigated what might happen if the Earth were struck by a solar storm as intense as the huge storms that occurred in 1921 and 1859 — a sort of solar Katrina — and that researchers found that the impact is likely to be far worse than in previous solar storms because of our growing dependence on satellites and other electronic devices that are vulnerable to electromagnetic radiation. "In many ways, the impact of a major solar storm resembles that of a hurricane or an earthquake," says FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate except a solar Katrina would cause damage in a much larger area than any natural disaster e.g. power could be knocked out almost simultaneously in countries from Sweden to Canada and the US so a lot more people in a lot more places would need help. In the exercise, the first sign of trouble came when radiation began disrupting radio signals and GPS devices, says Tom Bogdan, who directs the Space Weather Prediction Center. Ten or 20 minutes later electrically charged particles "basically took out" most of the commercial satellites that transmit telephone conversations, TV shows and huge amounts of data we depend on in our daily lives. But the worst damage came nearly a day later, when the solar storm began to induce electrical currents in high voltage power lines strong enough to destroy transformers around the globe leaving millions of people in northern latitudes without power. "It's one of those events that is of low probability but high consequence," says Dr. Roberta Balstad, a research scientist with Columbia University's Center for Research on Environmental Decisions. "The consequences could be extreme.""
Space

Submission + - Signs of water found on Saturnian moon Enceladus (spacefellowship.com)

Submitted by Matt_dk
Matt_dk writes: Scientists working on the Cassini space mission have found negatively charged water ions in the ice plume of Enceladus. Their findings, based on analysis from data taken in plume fly-throughs in 2008 and reported in the journal Icarus, provide evidence for the presence of liquid water, which suggests the ingredients for life inside the icy moon. The Cassini plasma spectrometer, used to gather this data, also found other species of negatively charged ions including hydrocarbons.
Space

Submission + - Irish Astronomers Investigate Sky Explosion

Submitted by puroresu
puroresu writes: Astronomers in Ireland have appealed to the public to contact them with eyewitness accounts of a massive explosion in the sky over the country. From the BBC:

Astronomy Ireland chairman David Moore said: "So far, reports have been registered by residents in west Cork, Kerry, Cavan and as far north as Donegal, thus suggesting that this spectacular event may have been witnessed by people all over the country.

"In the past two decades there have been two major explosions in the skies over Ireland.

"When we investigated these, we were able to conclude that one was a Russian military satellite that exploded over the country, and the other was a rock from space
Input Devices

Submission + - How to Bootstrap a new technology

Submitted by
djk1024
djk1024 writes: "I've just filed for a patent on a new approach to motion capture that is simple, cheap, easy, accurate and portable. It's RF based , accurate to 1 mm. and simple enough that a sophisticated hobbyist could build one in a couple weekends from plans and standard electronics.

So now what? I quit my job and have been working on this full-time for the past couple years, now I'm broke so can't continue development on my own. I'm also not an electrical or RF guy so I'm not able to carry on my own independent development on the electronics. So I'm quite frustrated at this point. I think I've got the greatest thing since sliced bread; the possibility of cheap consumer level motion capture and I don't have decent strategy for getting it off the ground. I've been in the software development field for over 30 years and I gone through a large number of start ups, but always just as the head techie, and always as part of a team. This doing it alone sucks.

I would love some advice on how I can best go forward.

Thanks,

--- Dennis"
Biotech

How Many Bits Does It Take To Kill You? 300

Posted by timothy from the two-bits-buys-a-razor-blade dept.
pegr writes "Andrew 'bunnie' Huang, Reverse Engineer, XBox hacker, and generally smart guy, muses over the H1N1/swine flu virus as only a reverse engineer can: 'I now know how to modify the virus sequence to probably make it more deadly.' Not that he would, of course. bunnie has consistently made the esoteric available to us mere mortals, and his overview of the H1N1 virus is a fascinating read from a unique perspective." (Seen today also at the top of Schneier on Security.)
Upgrades

Submission + - Rate of technical progress slows (ieee.org)

Submitted by
Amiga Trombone
Amiga Trombone writes: "An article in the IEEE Spectrum argues that the rate of technological progress has slowed in the last 50 years. While there have been advances in areas such as computers, communications and medicine, etc., the author points out that these advances have largely been incremental rather than revolutionary. He contrasts the progress made within the life-span of his grandmother (1880-1960) with that in his own (1956-present). Having been born the year after the author, I've noticed this, too. While certainly we've produced some useful refinements, little of the technology available today would have surprised me much had I been able to encounter it in 1969. While some of it has been implemented in surprising ways, the technology itself had largely been anticipated."
Idle

Submission + - Dad Builds 700 pound Cannon for Son's Birthday 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Charleston Daily Mail reports that machinist Mike Daugherty built his son a working cannon for his birthday — not a model — a real working cannon. "It looks like something right out of the battle at Gettysburg," says Daugherty. The 700 pound cast iron and steel howitzer, designed to use comparatively small explosive charges to propel projectiles at relatively high trajectories with a steep angle of descent, has a 4-inch gun barrel that is 36 inches long mounted on a wooden gun carriage with two 36- inch diameter wheels and took Daugherty about two weeks to build at a cost of about $6,000. "I've always been interested in the Civil War and cannons, so I thought it would be a good gift," says Daugherty's 11-year old son Logan. Daugherty said he is not worried about the federal government coming to get his son's cannon because he spoke to the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and found it is legal to own such a cannon because it does not use a firing pin and is muzzle loaded so the government does not consider the weapon a threat. Two days after the family celebrated Logan's 11th birthday, father and son offered a field demonstration of the new cannon on top of a grassy hill overlooking Fairmont, West Virginia and on the third try, the blank inside the barrel went boom and a canon was born. For a followup they popped a golf ball into the gun barrel, lit the fuse, and watched the golf ball split the sky and land about 600 yards away. "Any rebels charging up this hill would be in trouble with a cannon like this at the top," Logan says."
Idle

Submission + - NZ woman fired for using uppercase in email (nzherald.co.nz)

Submitted by
tomachi
tomachi writes: "This is hilarious. An accountant in NZ has been awarded $17,000 NZD for unfair dismissal after her boss fired her without warning for using uppercase letters in a single email to co-workers. The email, which advises her team how to fill out staff claim forms, specifies a time and date highlighted in bold red, and a sentence written in capitals and highlighted in bold blue. It reads: "To ensure your staff claim is processed and paid, please do follow the below checklist.""
The Media

Submission + - Murdoch Criticizes BBC for Providing 'Free News' 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "News Corporation's James Murdoch says that a "dominant" BBC threatens independent journalism in the UK and that free news on the web provided by the BBC made it "incredibly difficult" for private news organizations to ask people to pay for their news. "It is essential for the future of independent digital journalism that a fair price can be charged for news to people who value it," says Murdoch. "The expansion of state-sponsored journalism is a threat to the plurality and independence of news provision." In common with the public broadcasting organizations of many other European countries, the BBC is funded by a television license fee charged to all households owning a television capable of receiving broadcasts. Murdoch's News Corporation, one of the world's largest media conglomerates, owns the Times, the Sunday Times and Sun newspapers and pay TV provider BSkyB in the UK and the New York Post, Wall Street Journal, and Fox News TV in the US. Former BBC director general Greg Dyke responded that Murdoch's argument that the BBC was a "threat" to independent journalism was fundamentally wrong. "Journalism is going through a very difficult time — not only in this country but every country in the world — because newspapers, radio and television in the commercial world are all having a very rough time," says Dyke. "That is nothing to do with the BBC, that is just... what's happening.""
NASA

Submission + - Treasured 'Moon Rock' is Petrified Wood 1

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "BBC reports that a treasured piece at the Dutch national museum — a supposed moon rock from the first manned lunar landing given to former Prime Minister Willem Drees during a goodwill tour by the three Apollo-11 astronauts shortly after their moon mission in 1969 — has been revealed as nothing more than petrified wood, curators say. A jagged fist-size stone with reddish tints, it was mounted and placed above a plaque that said, "With the compliments of the Ambassador of the United States of America ... to commemorate the visit to The Netherlands of the Apollo-11 astronauts." The plaque does not specify that the rock came from the moon's surface. Researchers from Amsterdam's Free University said they could see at a glance the rock was probably not from the moon. They followed the initial appraisal up with extensive testing. "It's a nondescript, pretty-much-worthless stone," wrote Geologist Frank Beunk in an article published by the museum. Beunk says the rock, which the museum at one point insured for more than half a million dollars, was worth no more than $70. The "rock" had originally been been vetted through a phone call to Nasa. As the US Embassy in the Hague said it was investigating the matter, the Rijksmuseum says it will keep the piece as a curiosity."
Education

Submission + - Students' Scheduling Errors May Last Days 2

Submitted by
Hugh Pickens
Hugh Pickens writes: "The Washington Post reports that thousands of high school students in Prince George's County missed a third day of classes Wednesday, and school officials said it could take more than a week to sort out the chaos caused by a computerized class-scheduling system as students were placed in gyms, auditoriums, cafeterias, libraries and classes they didn't want or need at high schools across the county and their parents' fury over the logistical nightmare rose. "The school year comes up the same time every year," said Carolyn Oliver, the mother of a 16-year-old senior who spent Wednesday in the senior lounge at Bowie High School. "When I heard they didn't have schedules, I was like, 'What have they been doing all summer?' " When school opened Monday, about 8,000 high school students had no class schedules and were sent to wait in holding spaces while administrators tried to sort things out. By Tuesday evening, that number was down to 4,000. As of noon Wednesday, 3,400 of the school district's 41,000 high school students had no class schedules, officials said. Superintendent William R. Hite Jr. said that some schools didn't realize there was a problem with schedules until school started and that the trouble was exacerbated by difficulties with SchoolMax, a $4.1 million computer system introduced last school year. SchoolMax went online in Prince George's a year ago to help the county track students' grades, attendance and discipline data. Last year, the program crashed at least four times and was plagued by errors that led to botched schedules, an overcount of students and mistakes on report cards. Jessica Pinkney, a junior, said she was moved to the cafeteria Wednesday morning after two days in the gymnasium because the cafeteria had air conditioning. "We just sit and do nothing," says Pinkney. "But I'm meeting new people, so it's getting more interesting.""

Slashdot Top Deals

"Atomic batteries to power, turbines to speed." -- Robin, The Boy Wonder

Close