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A plan to build a 6,000km-long wall across the Sahara Desert to stop the spread of the desert has been outlined. The barrier - formed by solidifying sand dunes - would stretch from Mauritania in the west of Africa to Djibouti in the east. The plan was put forward by architect Magnus Larsson at the TED Global conference in Oxford. A 2007 UN study described desertification as "the greatest environmental challenge of our times".

MELBOURNE (AFP) – The world’s longest golf course, stretching along 1,365 kilometers (848 miles) of desert highway with holes at 18 towns and service stations, is to open in Australia this year, organizers said Tuesday. The Nullarbor Links, which will span two time zones and measure more than the entire length of Britain, is expected to be completed next month and will host its inaugural tournament on October 22. “We’re very excited about it. It’s been a long time coming and a lot of effort,” project chairman Don Harrington told AFP. “This is the longest golf course in the world....

ANN ARBOR, MI – The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, announced today that it has filed a friend of the court brief opposing the ACLU’s campaign to tear down another war memorial cross.At issue is a small cross originally erected on Sunrise Rock in 1934 by the Veterans of Foreign Wars in memory of the dead of all wars.  The cross is located in California’s Mojave Desert, in a remote area where the only visible signs of human activity are off-road vehicles and trail hikers.  The ACLU succeeded in its...

If only they could pave highways with this stuff. Scientists have discovered a patch of the earth's surface that remains virtually the same as it was 1.8 million years ago - and it looks pretty good for its age. Researchers are calling an expanse of "desert pavement" in Israel's Negev Desert the oldest continuous surface on earth, the current issue of the journal GSA Bulletin reports.

Energy: The governor wants to carpet the desert with solar panels. The senator says it will destroy the ecosystem. The battle between environmentalists and conservationists is one of alternative energy's big drawbacks.We have commented frequently on how our energy needs have been thwarted repeatedly by the not-in-my-back-yard (Nimby) crowd and the new Banana (build-absolutely-nothing-anywhere-near-anybody) phenomenon. Environmentalists and conservationists have long fanned local fears to block oil and gas exploration from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to the Outer Continental Shelf. Even nonpolluting and carbon-free nuclear power plants have been stopped dead in their tracks. So it's delicious irony to watch...

When an asteroid was spotted heading towards our planet last October, researchers rushed to document a cosmic impact from start to finish for the first time. Roberta Kwok tells the tale.Around midnight on 6 October 2008, a white dot flitted across the screen of Richard Kowalski's computer at an observatory atop Mount Lemmon in Arizona. Kowalski had seen hundreds of such dots during three and a half years of scanning telescope images for asteroids that might hit Earth or come close. He followed the object through the night and submitted the coordinates, as usual, to the Minor Planet Center in...

WASHINGTON -- California's Mojave Desert may seem ideally suited for solar energy production, but concern over what several proposed projects might do to the aesthetics of the region and its tortoise population is setting up a potential clash between conservationists and companies seeking to develop renewable energy. Feinstein said Friday she intends to push legislation that would turn the land into a national monument, which would allow for existing uses to continue while preventing future development.

WASHINGTON (AP) — More than 500,000 acres in the Mojave Desert would be off-limits to wind or solar energy production under legislation Sen. Dianne Feinstein intends to introduce. The land is coveted by companies seeking to develop alternative energy, setting up a potential clash with one of the more powerful members of Congress. The land would seem ideally suited for solar energy production. Nineteen companies have submitted applications to build solar or wind facilities on the property, but such development would violate the spirit of what conservationists had intended when they donated much of the land to the public, said...

The discovery of Caucasoid mummies in China shows that East and West might have been meeting since the Bronze Age. Do they validate some of the ancient legends? Cherchen Man mummy Christopher Columbus is said to have been the first who broke down the barrier that was the Atlantic Ocean, that body of water that separated two continents. But no such barriers – whether natural or ideological – existed between Europe and the East – one could travel over land. Nevertheless, the discovery of Caucasoid mummies has provided not only indisputable evidence that Europeans travelled very far East, it has...

FALFURRIAS — A pair of emergency beacons has been placed in South Texas to help stranded illegal immigrants as they try to head north from the border along a popular desert trail, the U.S. Border Patrol said. The beacons, .. are designed to alert authorities if an immigrant or anyone else finds themselves in distress in the rugged terrain. ... The beacons have instructions in English, Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, ... Border Patrol officials already have placed 18 beacons in the desert in Arizona.

Never heard of this one before, and it's easy to get to. And impressive. Here's a different perspective. And this one is pretty nice. Click for full-size.

One more week for the "art" theme, this time the desert and coastal landscape of Namibia, again from Frantisek Staud.

DOUGLAS — All eyes were turned skyward on Wednesday at Douglas Municipal Airport as the Canadian Forces Snowbirds in their red and white jets with blue stripes shot across the sky casting shadows over “D” Hill. “So, what do you think, guys? Does that look like fun?” asked Snowbird Capt. Eric Willrich of the 2,000 students and spectators who came out for the mid-week air show. Willrich is the newest member of the Snowbirds and has found his niche, just not in a spot between positions No. 4 and No. 6. His forte is on the ground, talking to the...

AL-JAZIRAH DESERT — The Incident Response Team of Marine Wing Support Squadron 374, Marine Wing Support Group 37, patrols the northern Iraqi desert as a security measure for all Marines operating in the area. Named ‘Team Black Rhino,’ these 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward) Marines have become the first wing support squadron to fill the role of a mounted combat team in Operation Iraqi Freedom. Marine Wing Support Squadrons frequently travel around the Anbar province, providing aviation ground support for the flying squadrons operating in country. The team operates on a different level, providing a ground combat component like that...

Speculators have filed applications to develop more than 1 million acres of desert in Southern California with solar, wind and geothermal power plants, setting up a classic clash over land use with environmentalists and off-road enthusiasts. They have submitted at least 130 proposals with the Bureau of Land Management, which oversees all of the territory, in recent years and especially since 2007. The interest is so hot that even if many of the projects fall through, the remaining ones would change the look of the arid landscape. California, particularly the southern half, is the epicenter of the nation's push for...

Will Judean Desert find shed light on Shroud of Turin? By ETGAR LEFKOVITS Updated May 29, 2008 7:28 Can a 6,000-year-old shroud uncovered in the Judean Desert in 1993 help illuminate the centuries-old debate over the Shroud of Turin? The Shroud of Turin Slideshow: Pictures of the week That is the question posed by Olga Negnevitsky, a conservator at the Israel Museum who was involved in the conservation of the lesser-known shroud for the Antiquities Authority after it was discovered inside a small cave near Jericho. The idea to use the older shroud to learn more about the famous one...

Digging in the desert Owen Murray, Canwest News Service Published: Saturday, May 24, 2008 MERV, Turkmenistan -- Tish Prouse would be the first to admit that his interest in archaeology stems from a boyhood love of Indiana Jones. But the Edmonton native had no idea his interest would one day lead him to Turkmenistan, a Central Asian country of brutally hot summers, bitterly cold winters and a pockmarked landscape that invites comparisons with the moon. So why is he here? The answer is Merv, an ancient city along the Silk Road that was once a thriving metropolis, one of the...

This is an extremely rare creature, has very large ears and has been captured on camera in its native habitat for the first time.

OK, to explain the title, I discovered that Goblin Valley State Park -- now another site on my list of "places I just found about and now I've got to visit" -- was a site for filming in GalaxyQuest, starring Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, Tony Shalhoub, etc. Amazing desert scenery. Here's a couple. From www.hickerphoto.com: From photoseek.com: and from www.lookoutnow.com, below. This formation must be one of the most photographed in the park; there are a lot of images of it.

Plans to build Lyon in Dubai, bistros and all By Henry Samuel in Paris Last Updated: 7:09pm GMT 04/01/2008 A businessman in the desert Arab emirate of Dubai has launched plans to faithfully reconstruct the French city of Lyon, right down to its cafes, cinemas and schools, officials from the southwestern city have announced. A French cafe and a view of Dubai The project, due to be completed in 2012, is being driven by businessman Saeed Al Gandhi who fell in love with France’s third biggest city after a visit to draw up plans for a French-language university in Dubai...