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Wednesday, December 31
The Warm Turns: The Earth has been warming ever since the end of the Little Ice Age. But guess what: Researchers say mankind is to blame for that, too
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 31 Dec 2008 09:21 PM EST
When the sun is active, it's not uncommon to see sunspot numbers of 100 or more in a single month. Every 11 years, activity slows, and numbers briefly drop near zero. Normally sunspots return very quickly, as a new cycle begins. But this year, the start of a new cycle, the sun has been eerily quiet.
The first seven months averaged a sunspot count of only three and in August there were no sunspots at all — zero — something that has not occurred since 1913.
According to the publication Daily Tech, in the past 1,000 years, three previous such events — what are called the Dalton, Maunder and Sporer Minimums — have all led to rapid cooling. One was large enough to be called the Little Ice Age (1500-1750).
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Tuesday, December 30
The World's Deadliest Conventional Weapons
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Tue 30 Dec 2008 11:08 PM EST
Some are terrifying. Some are silent. But they're all very effective.
The five deadliest conventional weapons in the world are all part of the U.S. Armed Forces' arsenal, though many are used by other countries as well.
Some date back to World War II in concept, but they are still lethal and continue to be used in battle in Iraq and Afghanistan
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Monday, December 29
This Machine Might* Save the World
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 29 Dec 2008 06:23 AM EST
* that's a big, fat "might"
Two desktop-printer engineers quit their jobs to search for the ultimate source of endless energy: nuclear fusion. Could this highly improbable enterprise actually succeed?
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Sunday, December 28
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Sun 28 Dec 2008 04:41 PM EST
Easily one of the most important stories of 2008 has been all the evidence suggesting that this may be looked back on as the year when there was a turning point in the great worldwide panic over man-made global warming. Just when politicians in Europe and America have been adopting the most costly and damaging measures politicians have ever proposed, to combat this supposed menace, the tide has turned in three significant respects....First, all over the world, temperatures have been dropping in a way wholly unpredicted by all those computer models which have been used as the main drivers of the scare....Secondly, 2008 was the year when any pretence that there was a "scientific consensus" in favour of man-made global warming collapsed. At long last, as in the Manhattan Declaration last March, hundreds of proper scientists, including many of the world's most eminent climate experts, have been rallying to pour scorn on that "consensus" which was only a politically engineered artefact, based on ever more blatantly manipulated data and computer models programmed to produce no more than convenient fictions.
Thirdly, as banks collapsed and the global economy plunged into its worst recession for decades, harsh reality at last began to break in on those self-deluding dreams which have for so long possessed almost every politician in the western world. As we saw in this month's Poznan conference, when 10,000 politicians, officials and "environmentalists" gathered to plan next year's "son of Kyoto" treaty in Copenhagen, panicking politicians are waking up to the fact that the world can no longer afford all those quixotic schemes for "combating climate change" with which they were so happy to indulge themselves in more comfortable times.
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Friday, December 26
Home Generator -Zero Point Energy - Off the Grid
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Fri 26 Dec 2008 12:28 AM EST
Wednesday, December 17
NASA: A Giant Breach in Earth's Magnetic Field
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Wed 17 Dec 2008 11:24 PM EST
NASA's five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth's magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to "load up" the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.
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Monday, December 15
Popular Science: Top 100 Innovations of 2008
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 15 Dec 2008 04:12 PM EST
For decades, we've fantasized about watching paper-thin TVs, soaring hundreds of feet with personal jetpacks, riding in cars that drive themselves, and re-growing organs.
The 21st annual Best of What's New celebrates all of those dreams coming true. Now we've collected them all into one single slideshow. Launch it here to learn about these achievements and 96 other breakthroughs that, whether long awaited or completely unexpected, are equally amazing.
(H/T: Steve)
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Monday, December 8
Men under threat from 'gender bending' chemicals
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Mon 08 Dec 2008 10:35 PM EST
Scientists are warning that manmade pollutants which have escaped into the environment mimic the female sex hormone oestrogen...The authors claim that the chemicals found in food packaging, cleaning products, plastics, sewage and paint cause genital deformities, reduce sperm count and "feminise" males.
Although the report only looked at the impact of gender bending chemicals on the animal world, its authors say the findings have disturbing implications for human health.
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Saturday, December 6
New US military report on global warming raises worry
by
Roland, the Gunslinger
on Sat 06 Dec 2008 03:43 PM EST
FTA: ...a section of the 56-page report on climate change and natural disasters prompted criticism yesterday from some leading specialists who said that spreading the inaccurate perception that the causes of climate change remain an open question could result in government agencies not taking the issue seriously enough.
The report, titled Joint Operating Environment 2008, states that "the impact of global warming and its potential to cause natural disasters and other harmful phenomena such as rising sea levels has become a prominent - and controversial - national and international concern. Some argue that there will be more and greater storms and natural disasters, others that there will be fewer."
It adds: "In many respects, scientific conclusions about the causes and potential effects of global warming are contradictory."
(The global warming side hasn't made its case. Simple as that. Leave the hyperbole at home, stop whining, and make. your. case. -Roland)
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