Free Republic

The White House press corps repeatedly tried to get White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest to endorse a vaccination mandate Tuesday, but Earnest rejected such invitations every time. We counted nine different denials.1. Because of that risk to the vulnerable population, does he believe that it's time to revisit state laws that allow some parents to opt out? MR. EARNEST: Well, I know that there has been substantial litigation around this, too. I think in the mind of the President -- I did have the opportunity to visit with him shortly before the briefing on this very issue -- the...

Experts look for 'watery kingdom' The forest can been seen at low tide in Cardigan Bay Scientists are to carry out an underwater search for a supposed kingdom in Cardigan Bay said to have existed more than 5,000 years ago. Legend has it that the low-lying land of Cantre'r Gwaelod disappeared under the waves during a storm or a tsunami. Experts say the remains of an ancient forest seen sometimes at low tide is evidence that Cantre'r Gwaelod existed. Conservation group Friends of Cardigan Bay will begin the three-year project in Ceredigion this summer. The oldest part of the submerged...

Nature experts have discovered a remarkable submerged forest thousands of years old under the sea close to the Norfolk coast. The trees were part of an area known as 'Doggerland' which formed part of a much bigger area before it was flooded by the North Sea. It was once so vast that hunter-gatherers who lived in the vicinity could have walked to Germany across its land mass.

NASA is saying amateur astronomers with small telescopes and strong binoculars may be able to see the asteroid, although stormy conditions in the Northeast will limit night-time viewing there. Here's how to try to view the asteroid. Editor's note: These times are Eastern Standard Time so adjust them three hours earlier for optimal Pacific Standard Time viewing.]

Asteroid 2004 BL86, which passed closest to Earth today at a distance of 750,000 miles (1.2 million km), has a companion moon. Scientists working with NASA’s 230-foot-wide (70-meter) Deep Space Network antenna at Goldstone, California, have released the first radar images of the asteroid which show the tiny object in orbit about the main body. ... 2004 BL86 measures about 1,100 feet (325 meters) across while its moon is approximately 230 feet (70 meters) across. The asteroid made its closest approach today (Jan. 26th) at 10:19 a.m. (CST), however it will peak in brightness this evening around 10 p.m. (4:00...

At the southern end of Madagascar lie four enormous wedge-shaped sediment deposits, called chevrons, that are composed of material from the ocean floor. Each covers twice the area of Manhattan with sediment as deep as the Chrysler Building is high. On close inspection, the chevron deposits contain deep ocean microfossils that are fused with a medley of metals typically formed by cosmic impacts. And all of them point in the same direction — toward the middle of the Indian Ocean where a newly discovered crater, 18 miles in diameter, lies 12,500 feet below the surface. The explanation is obvious to...

A picture of the gun used in the experiments. The big white box at the left end of the gun is where the target is stored. Credit: Impact Laboratory, University of Kent Bullets of ice shot at high speeds can deposit organic compounds on surfaces they strike. New findings suggest that comets might, indeed, have helped deliver key ingredients of life to Earth and perhaps elsewhere, researchers say. The scientists detailed their findings in the June 13 issue of the journal Astrobiology.Craters on the moon are evidence that the Inner Solar System was prone to giant impacts from asteroids...

At my age, I really should have expected this to happen. All of a sudden I'm seeing lots of little clues that the 1980s are making something of a nostalgic comeback. High school kids I speak to as part of my job have started wearing thin ties and studded belts, and I thoroughly approve of their newly spiked and teased hairstyles. The other day I saw a pair of plastic sandals (remember Jellies?) in a store window and heard Bon Jovi playing on a "classic rock" station. That's right; I'm a golden oldie. Take, for instance, the fact that when...

The sighting came as the Earth passed through the debris cloud from Halley’s Comet, which produces the annual Orionid meteor shower. Bill Cooke of NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told ABC News there were "several bright Orionids last night, as well as a spectacular fireball over middle Tennessee" that he said broke apart at 24 miles altitude just south of Nashville.

An earthquake nearly 3,000 years ago may be the culprit in the mysterious disappearance of one of China's ancient civilizations, new research suggests. The massive temblor may have caused catastrophic landslides, damming up the Sanxingdui culture's main water source and diverting it to a new location. That, in turn, may have spurred the ancient Chinese culture to move closer to the new river flow, study co-author Niannian Fan, a river sciences researcher at Tsinghua University in Chengdu, China, said Dec. 18 at the 47th annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco. [Ancient Chinese Warriors Protect Secret Tomb]

A mysterious glowing orb has been filmed breaking away from an unidentified meteorite-like object as it streaked across the sky above California. The unusual object can be seen moving through the sky leaving a long tail behind that is characteristic of space debris or a meteorite burning up in the atmosphere. But after a few seconds a second round object separates from the main fireball and moves off in the opposite direction. UFO hunters have claimed the bright orb may have been some sort of escape pod from a crashing ship. However, others have said it is more likely to...

Official Trailer: Patterns Of Evidence: The Exodus

The world’s oceans are now rising far faster than they did in the past, a new study says. The study found that for much of the 20th century — until about 1990 — sea level was about 30 percent less than earlier research had figured. But that’s not good news, scientists say, because about 25 years ago the seas started rising faster and the acceleration in 1990 turns out to be more dramatic than previously calculated.

"We found the very first evidence for archaeological assemblages in association with the Toba ash", says Petraglia. "We found Middle Palaeolithic assemblages below and above the ash indicating the technologies being used at the time of the event. When the stone tool assemblages were analyzed from contexts above and below the ash, we found that they were very similar........We therefore concluded that the Middle Palaeolithic hominins survived the eruption and there was population continuity. This is not what would have been expected based on general theories that the Toba super-eruption decimated populations." Moreover, similar findings published by Christine Lane, et...

This is the result of a DNA study done by Professor Stephen Oppenheimer and funded by The Bradshaw Foundation. As you go on the journey, here are some things I would like you to make note of and I would appreciate your comments:1. 135-115,000 years ago, notice that the first human excursion out of Africa failed/Died out.2. 74,000 years ago Toba exploded and reduced the worldwide human population to 2-10,000. Note the (about) 10,000 year absence of humans in India, Pakistan and parts of SE Asia. Also, there are two populations of 'out of Africa' humans that are seperated from...

The real Noah’s Ark? by Dominic Statham Dr Irving Finkel’s new book in which he claims to have found the original Flood story. Dr Irving Finkel is an Assyriologist at the British Museum in London and an expert in ancient cuneiform scripts. In recent months he has become something of a celebrity, following the publication of his book, The Ark Before Noah: Decoding the Story of the Flood,1 and the Channel 4 documentary, The Real Noah’s Ark.2 The source of this media hype is his recent translation of a small Babylonian tablet, named the Ark Tablet. It is about the...

An enormous impact crater thought to have been created by a meteorite the size of a house smashing into Earth has been discovered in the Antarctic ice sheet. Scientists conducting a routine aerial research flight above East Antarctica noticed a strange ring-like structure in the normally flat and featureless ice. It appeared to be a series of broken 'icebergs' surrounded by a 2km (1.24 miles) wide circular scar, surrounded by a few other smaller circular scars in the ice.

It had been thought that the deserts in northern China are one million years old, but a new study of the Hunshandake Sandy Lands of Inner Mongolia suggests that its desert is only 4,000 years old. Xiaoping Yang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Louis Scuderi of the University of New Mexico, and their colleagues examined the patterns of dunes and depressions in the region and lake sediments, and they dated quartz from the region with a technique known as optically stimulated luminescence. They found that Hunshandake had deep lakes and rivers beginning some 12,000 years ago. "We're amazed by...

This frightening picture of two brothers with their hair on end was snapped just minutes before they were struck by lightning at Moro Rock, California, leaving the younger boy with third-degree burns and another man dead.  Electrical charges in the atmosphere just before a strike can lift hair into the air, providing nature's last warning of a bolt from the blue.These boys, 18 and 12, didn't know that, and the image has spread rapidly across the web this month.  The story behind the classic 1975 picture has come to light on the blog of Michael McQuilken, the teenager on the...

Guest Post by Willis EschenbachFollowing up on my previous investigations into the oceanic pH dataset, I’ve taken a deeper look at what the 2.5 million pH data points from the oceanographic data can tell us. Let me start with an overview of oceanic pH (the measure of alkalinity/acidity, with neutral being a pH of 7.0). Many people think that the ocean has only one pH  everywhere. Other people think that the oceanic pH is different in different places, but is constant over time. Neither view is correct.First, here is a view of a transect of the north Pacific ocean...