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"Through field studies, we determined that Chicxulub has about 18,000 cubic kilometers of impact melt, approximately four times the volume of water in Lake Michigan," Pope said. "Sudbury has about 31,000 cubic kilometers of impact melt, approximately six times the volume of lakes Huron and Ontario combined, and nearly 70 percent more than the melt at Chicxulub." ...The researchers then used an analytical cratering model to examine possible causes for the huge difference in melt. According to the simulation results, the difference in melt volume could be readily explained if Chicxulub -- the impact crater that doomed the dinosaurs --...

N.Korea atomic test seen harming NE Asia economies Tue Aug 8, 2006 5:39 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A test of a nuclear weapon by North Korea would have a "negative though not cataclysmic" impact on South Korea's economy and could pose strains on China, said a study on Tuesday by a leading U.S. economist. An analysis by Marcus Noland of the Institute for International Economics found that among North Korea's neighbors, South Korea was the most economically vulnerable to a nuclear breakout by the North. A test by isolated North Korea, which declared itself a nuclear power in February...

Feminine Side of ADHD: Attention disorder has lasting impact on girls Bruce Bower Although hyperactive behavior often abates during the teen years for girls with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, many struggle with serious academic, emotional, and social problems related to that condition, a 5-year study finds. Compared with teenage girls who had no psychiatric disorder, those with ADHD had difficulties that included delinquency, depression, substance abuse, eating disorders, poor mathematics and reading achievement, rejection by peers, and lack of planning skills, reports a team led by psychologist Stephen P. Hinshaw of the University of California, Berkeley. "ADHD in girls is likely...

An asteroid that's about one-half-mile wide is hurtling toward Earth, expected to narrowly miss the planet early Monday. Astronomers say the space rock, called 2004 XP14, will pass "exceptionally close" to Earth in astronomical terms -- 268,624 miles away at its closest approach, The Scotsman reported. That's a little more than the moon's average distance from Earth. The asteroid, discovered in December 2004, at first produced concerns that it could hit Earth later in the century but subsequent studies ruled out such a collision. However, 2004 XP14 has been classified as a Potentially Hazardous Asteroid, or PHA, by the Minor...

WASHINGTON - Six-party talks: Dead? Tensions around the Sea of Japan: Off the charts. And in Washington: What do we do now? North Korea delivered some unwanted fireworks to the Bush administration on the Fourth of July, shooting off missiles in an act heard around the globe. Now the White House must figure out how to transform what it calls a "provocation" into an opportunity. "We're just going to have to do our homework, do the analysis and see what we can divine about what they had in mind," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said of North Korea. Even before...

An apparent crater as big as Ohio has been found in Antarctica. Scientists think it was carved by a space rock that caused the greatest mass extinction on Earth, 250 million years ago. The crater, buried beneath a half-mile of ice and discovered by some serious airborne and satellite sleuthing, is more than twice as big as the one involved in the demise of the dinosaurs. The crater's location, in the Wilkes Land region of East Antarctica, south of Australia, suggests it might have instigated the breakup of the so-called Gondwana supercontinent, which pushed Australia northward, the researchers said. "This...

My concern is for the environmental impact the illegal immigrants make on the flora and fauna of the border areas.

Pravda.RU:Top Stories:More in detail 15:33 2003-03-18Very Large Meteorite Fell Down in Siberia The falling of the meteorite is still mysterious. Scientists say that it might weigh 60 tons The night was rather dull in the north-east of the Russian Irkutsk region on September 25, 2002. All of a sudden, night turned into day. A very bright glow covered the sky, it was hard to look at it. Those people, who happened to be outside at 2 a.m., saw a ball of fire that was flying very fast across the sky. Weird rusting sounds could be heard. A few seconds...

Shape-shifting car will brace for impact 15:34 10 May 2006 NewScientist.com news service Tom Simonite A car that can anticipate a side-on impact and subtly alter its body shape to absorb the force of the crash is being developed by researchers in Germany. The car will use hood-mounted cameras and radar to spot a vehicle on course for a side-on collision. Once it realises an impact is imminent it will activate a shape-shifting metal in the door. This reinforces the bond between door and frame, which is normally a weak spot, and distributes the force of the blow more safely....

The Mars rover Opportunity's examination of Martian rocks last week provided the first convincing evidence that our neighbour world was once "awash" in water, as one NASA scientist described it. But where did the water come from? And why does Mars have no liquid water now, while Earth apparently has been covered with the stuff for 4 billion years? Scientists are just beginning to piece the story together, and it goes right back to the beginning. Mars, like Earth, was formed from dusty and rocky debris left over after the sun was born 4.57 billion years ago. Initially, there were...

Schools shouldn't see a major financial hit because of Monday's immigration rallies because the state quit counting students for funding purposes two weeks ago. Several districts reported up to a threefold jump in absences Monday, so there was potential for a serious loss of funding. Students who missed class won't face any unusual punishments beyond the normal steps for unexcused absences, school officials said. Schools are paid by the state based on the number of students in attendance. If a student has an unexcused absence, the district doesn't get paid for that student on that day. Funding is "based on...

Scientists have discovered a huge crater in the Saharan desert, the largest one ever found there. The crater is about 19 miles (31 kilometers) wide, more than twice as big as the next largest Saharan crater known. It utterly dwarfs Meteor Crater in Arizona, which is about three-fourths of a mile (1.2 kilometers) in diameter. In fact, the newfound crater, in Egypt, was likely carved by a space rock that was itself roughly 0.75 miles wide in an event that would have been quite a shock, destroying everything for hundreds of miles. For comparison, the Chicxulub crater left by a...

WASHINGTON, Feb. 17, 2006 – Iraqi police forces have been well trained and are making a positive contribution to the country, U.S. military officials said. "It's a humbling experience to see what the national police are doing on behalf of the good people of Iraq, and it's a rewarding experience to contribute to their success and to be part of their continued growth and improvement," U.S. Army Col. Gordon "Skip" Davis, head of the American-led public order special police transition teams, said in a briefing from Baghdad today. The SPTTs have been working with the Iraqi Public Order Special Police...

SACRAMENTO - For the fourth year in a row, Assemblyman John J. Benoit, R-Palm Desert, has introduced a bill to overturn a 2002 law restricting school districts' ability to hire private companies for busing and other services. The measure is part of a package of bills presented Wednesday that Assembly Republicans want reflected in any legislation asking voters to approve borrowing billions for new roads, schools and other public-works infrastructure. But Benoit and other Assembly Republicans left open the possibility that they would support bond legislation even if it lacks their proposals. Benoit said his bill, AB 2024, would help...

Many of my friends ask me why I criticize President Bush, when they feel he is trying very hard to protect America and stand up for the American people. So I thought about it and decided that I feel this way because my life under Bush is impacted on almost every possible level, and on some levels that shouldn't even be possible. Some ways are obvious, like the price of gasoline at the pump. Bush doesn't control the price per gallon, but I know he can, because Presidents Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter did it. I see red every time...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Pregnant women coached through their first delivery do not fare much better than those who just do what feels natural, according to a study released on Friday. Researchers at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center found that women who were told to push 10 seconds for every contraction gave birth 13 minutes faster than those who were not given specific instructions. But they said the difference has little impact on the overall birth, which experts say can take up to 14 hours on average. "There were no other findings to show that coaching or not coaching...

AN asteroid the size of a house that exploded with the power of an atom bomb over Antarctica last year may help scientists prepare for the entrance of larger bodies into the Earth's atmosphere. The 1000-tonne asteroid crashed to Earth in millions of pieces last September, 900km from the nearest humans at Japan's Syowa station. A trail of dust recorded by a physicist 1500km away at Australia's Davis station shows that if the asteroid had not fragmented into tiny pieces when it hit the Earth's atmosphere, it would have had an impact similar to the bombing of Hiroshima. Dr Andrew...

Ancient drought 'changed history' By Roland Pease BBC science unit, San Francisco The sediments are an archive of past climate conditions Scientists have identified a major climate crisis that struck Africa about 70,000 years ago and which may have changed the course of human history.The evidence comes from sediments drilled up from the beds of Lake Malawi and Tanganyika in East Africa, and from Lake Bosumtwi in Ghana. It shows equatorial Africa experienced a prolonged period of drought. It is possible, scientists say, this was the reason some of the first humans left Africa to populate the globe. Certainly,...

ABOARD USS THEODORE ROOSEVELT (NNS) -- The USS Theodore Roosevelt (CVN 71) Carrier Strike Group (TRCSG), along with Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8, has been deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Maritime Security Operations (MSO) for more than two months, and continues to make a positive impact on the Gulf region. Since departing Naval Station Norfolk, Va., Sept 1., the nearly 7,500 Sailors who make up TRCSG and CVW-8, have used teamwork to successfully support Iraqi oil platform security; Visit, Board, Search and Seizure (VBSS) operations; and provide support to coalition troops in Iraq. “I am extremely...

Researchers applaud “grassroots” climate change studyWhite House tries to bury the National Assessment, but experts say that the project was successful and innovative. Begun in 1998 and completed in 2001, the U.S. National Assessment is the only study to broadly examine how global warming might affect communities in the U.S. Because of the subject matter, however, the assessment has been mired in political controversy since its release, and officials in the Bush Administration have sought to remove any reference to the report from publications coming out of their Climate Change Science Program (CCSP). However, in a paper posted to ES&T’s...

Government officials are evaluating and revising disaster plans around the United States in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, just as they did after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. While war and automobiles kill more people than nature, find out what natural disasters top scientists’ worry lists. #10 Pacific Northwest Megathrust Earthquake Geologists know it’s just a matter of time before another 9.0 or larger earthquake strikes somewhere between Northern California and Canada. The shaking would be locally catastrophic, but the biggest threat is the tsunami that would ensue from a fault line that’s seismically identical to the one that...

NEW ORLEANS (NNS) -- USS Iwo Jima’s (LHD 7) Damage Control (DC) team has joined relief and recovery efforts in New Orleans, providing much-needed dewatering capabilities to the city’s medical facilities. Armed with two of the ship’s P-100 and four electric submersible pumps, Iwo’s DCs have already removed 40,000 gallons of water from the flooded basement of the Medical Center of Louisiana’s Charity Hospital downtown. “The waterline was almost at the top of the basement when they began dewatering,” said Charity Hospital Staff Member Dr. Jeff Johnson. “I am amazed at how fast they’ve been able to remove so much...

The elite doesn't understand the South Matt Towery September 1, 2005 I'm known to write occasionally that the rest of America doesn't understand the South. Now comes some clear and convincing evidence. As fate would have it, InsiderAdvantage, the company that I lead, just this week purchased the long-established Washington, D.C.-based Southern Political Report. Hastings Wyman, a widely respected political reporter in Washington, will continue to edit the publication. But as Hurricane Katrina approached, we were in the last stages of creating a daily web-based version of the report. Immediately, we called on all the resources of the Southern Political...

Native Hawaiians Seek Self-governing Body Sen. Akaka quote: Bill Could Mean Eventual Independence for Hawaiians By National Public Radio, 8/17/2005 8:22:38 AM Editor's Note: Here is the complete National Public Radio transcript from Aug. 16, 2005 with Anchor Steve Inskeep, Reporter Martin Kaste and various guests. This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Steve Inskeep. Congress is considering legislation that would give native Hawaiians their own government. It would essentially grant them political status similar to that of Native American tribes. Here's NPR's Martin Kaste. (Soundbite of surf; birds) MARTIN KASTE reporting: You'll find no more potent symbol of...

It Takes a Cosmic Village to View a Comet< 06.29.05 Like people gazing skyward to watch Independence Day fireworks, an international array of telescopes will train expert eyes on a dramatic encounter between NASA's Deep Impact spacecraft and a passing comet. The explosive event will happen 133.6 million kilometers (83 million miles) from Earth in the early hours of July 4 Eastern Daylight Time (late July 3 Pacific Daylight Time). Telescopes on the ground and others orbiting in space will document the mission's crucial moments using different wavelengths of light. Image right: Artist's concept showing Deep Impact just before impact...

On 26 May, JPL's unique orbital calculation software determined that Comet Catalina was on what could possibly be a collision course with Earth, though the odds of such an impact were small: just 1 chance in 300,000 of a strike on June 11, 2085. Based on the 980-metre size estimate, that would produce a 6-gigaton impact - equivalent to 6 billion tonnes of TNT. Astronomers expected the addition of further observations to the calculations to rule out any possibility of a collision, as happens with most newly-seen objects. But that did not quite happen. The comet's predicted pathway actually drew...

The Pentagon yesterday announced plans to close 33 major military bases and realign 29 others in a force restructuring designed to consolidate forces and save money -- at least $49 billion over 20 years. Our current arrangements, designed for the Cold War, must give way to the new demands of the war against extremism and other evolving 21st-century challenges, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said in releasing the base closure list. Major proposed closures include the Navy submarine base at New London, Conn.; Fort McPherson, Ga.; Naval Air Station Atlanta, Ga.; Naval Shipyard at Portsmouth, Maine; Naval Air Station at...

NEW DELHI: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabo will go straight to Bangalore on April 9, 2005 and spend the weekend before he arrives in New Delhi in what is being seen as a landmark visit and later what would transpire in the Capital bound to bring bonhomie in the Sino-India relations. Unlike other state guests, Wen will not visit the Infosys campus in Bangalore. Instead he will visit Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), one of the world's largest software and services consulting organisations and India's first global billion-dollar IT company. The Premier will visit another equally prestigious institution, the Indian Institute of...

The Emerging Elisha Generation James W. Goll The Last Journey Of Elijah And Elisha For the past several months I have been meditating on The Elisha Generation -- the generation of believers who walk in the double anointing. Having co-authored the book on Elijah's Revolution with Lou Engle and then composed The Coming Prophetic Revolution, I am now building on those teachings and reaching forward into what comes next. The following are some thoughts on the emerging Elisha Generation. Let's consider the quest of Elisha to obtain all he could from the Lord and also through the human agency of...

The naysayers and pessimistic prognosticators of the impact of the Bush doctrine have another disconfirmation of their misunderestimation of the unredefeated President and his vision for change in the Middle East.

Sergeant Vaughn got a care package today. It’s been almost forty years since I got my last one, a case of twenty-four #2½ cans of sliced peaches from my father. Memory fails me now, but I don’t believe I ever asked before he died what it cost to mail that monster, but it must have been a pretty hefty hit in the wallet for a lifelong blue-collar worker. I had happened to mention in one of my rare letters home from Vietnam that canned, sliced peaches were my favorite item in our C Rations even if they were twenty years...

When it comes to space exploration, where scientists often measure their needs in milli-this and micro-that, Deep Impact, as its name suggests, has all the subtlety of a punch in the mouth. Barring unforeseen delays, NASA will launch on Wednesday a 1,325-pound spacecraft on a one-way trip to the comet Tempel 1. On July 3, the spacecraft will jettison an 820-pound copper projectile in the comet's path and get out of the way as comet and projectile meet at a relative speed of 23,000 mph. This, perhaps not surprisingly, will happen on July 4, and if you are somewhere in...

Link post: the image and the thread (to discuss it) are below: Geology Picture of the Week, January 2-8, 2005: Evidence of Ancient Cretaceous Catastrophe

Considering that news is still dominated by the tsunami and its aftereffects (and aid and recovery efforts), my mind is still on that kind of topic. I recalled back during the days when the Chicxulub impact site was being identified as the main Cretaceous/Tertiary (K/T) event that the supporting evidence for the regional location was thick layers of ejecta at the K/T boundary found around the Caribbean. I checked for pictures and found a few; below is one of the best from Belize. Can you see the K/T boundary? Go to the linked article to read more about this image...

Eleven distinguished scientists, most of whom specialize in climatology, on November 16 published an open letter to Senator John McCain (R-AZ), who has repeatedly sponsored congressional legislation that mirrors the Kyoto Protocol, which was rejected by the U.S. Senate in 1997 by a vote of 95-0. The letter disputes assertions by McCain and other alarmists that the Arctic climate is undergoing remarkable and catastrophic climate change. Below are excerpts from the text of the letter. Dear Senator McCain: The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment report by the Arctic Council documents significant ecosystem response to surface temperature warming trends that occurred in...

(actual link) Corvid meteors observed only in late June of 1937 may be secondaries from the Giordano Bruno impact in June of 1178. Objects that products meteorite falls, fireballs, airwaves, and flashes on the Moon do not show a preference for late June and, therefore, are not part of the Taurid Complex.

Friday, 20 December, 2002, 01:57 GMT Moon's youngest crater discovered Is this the youngest crater on the Moon? By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor Astronomers have discovered the only known lunar crater to have been formed in recorded history. In 1953 a flash was seen on the Moon that was taken to be the impact of a small asteroid. But ground-based telescopes were not powerful enough to see any crater. But now, searching more detailed images of the Moon obtained by orbiting spacecraft, researchers have found a small, fresh, crater in the same position as the flash....

http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/ip?2.7e-02 Impact Probability The calculation of impact probability involves the disciplines of orbital dynamics, estimation theory, and numerical analysis. The orbit of a comet or asteroid is determined from a set of observations (right ascension/declination coordinates). The observations are typically accurate to 0.5 arc-sec, although this can vary somewhat according to the pixel size used in the CCD detectors: some observatories have only 1.0 arc-sec accuracy. Because there are some errors in the observations, there will be uncertainties in the orbital determination for the object. The uncertainty in the orbital elements also depends on the number of observations and the...

Near-Earth Asteroid 2004 MN4 Don Yeomans, Steve Chesley and Paul Chodas NASA's Near Earth Object Program Office December 24, 2004 2004 MN4 is now being tracked very carefully by many astronmers around the world, and we continue to update our risk analysis (http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/risk) for this object. Today's impact monitoring results indicate that the impact probability for April 13, 2029 has risen to about 1.6%, which for an object of this size corresponds to a rating of 4 on the ten-point Torino Scale. Nevertheless, the odds against impact are still high, about 60 to 1, meaning that there is a better...

Scientist: Asteroid May Hit Earth in 2029 Thu Dec 23, 5:40 PM ET By JOHN ANTCZAK, Associated Press Writer LOS ANGELES - There's a 1-in-300 chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet long, could hit Earth in 2029, a NASA (news - web sites) scientist said Thursday, but he added that the perceived risk probably will be eliminated once astronomers get more detail about its orbit.   There have been only a limited number of sightings of Asteroid 2004 MN4, which has been given an initial rating of 2 on the 10-point Torino Impact Hazard...

The object, named 2004 YD5, was about 16 feet (5 meters) wide, though that's a rough estimate based on its distance and assumed reflectivity. Had it entered the atmosphere, it would have exploded high up, experts figure. The asteroid passed just under the orbits of geostationary satellites, which at 22,300 miles (36,000 kilometers) altitude are the highest manmade objects circling Earth. Most other satellites, along with the International Space Station, circle the planet at just a few hundred miles up... the second closest pass of an asteroid ever observed by telescope, according to the Asteroid/Comet Connection, a web site that...

What Caused Argentina's Mystery Craters? By Ben Harder for National Geographic News May 9, 2002 For more than a decade, planetary scientists have been puzzling over a mixed bag of meteorite evidence scarring Argentina's plains. They gradually pieced together clues to reconstruct what seemed to be a rough-hewn but generally accurate account of a prehistoric meteorite impact. A mere 10,000 years ago, scientists deduced in the original theory, a sizable meteorite came hurtling through the atmosphere at a bizarrely low angle, smacked the ground with a glancing blow, and broke into numerous pieces that gouged separate, miles-long scars in the...

Speranza points out another difficulty with the impact-origins theory. Large blocks of limestone sit within the boundaries of the Sirente "crater." Such limestone would not have survived an impact. So if Ormö's theory is correct, one must surmise that somebody set these giant chunks of rock in place since the crater formed. To Speranza, that just didn't make sense. Speranza and colleagues further argue that Ormö's radiocarbon dating gave one age for the main feature (placing it in the 4th or 5th century a.d.) and a completely different age for a nearby "crater" called C9, a date in the 3rd...

Wednesday, 24 July, 2002, 02:29 GMT 03:29 UK Space rock 'on collision course'   An asteroid could devastate Earth       By Dr David Whitehouse BBC News Online science editor An asteroid discovered just weeks ago has become the most threatening object yet detected in space. A preliminary orbit suggests that 2002 NT7 is on an impact course with Earth and could strike the planet on 1 February, 2019 - although the uncertainties are large. Astronomers have given the object a rating on the so-called Palermo technical scale of threat of 0.06, making NT7 the first object to...

Do the media give aid and comfort to terrorists by giving their violence maximum exposure and impact at times while sanitizing the perpetrators and tainting their victims at others? It is standard procedure for many media outlets to describe the perpetrators of terrorist acts - the premeditated slaughter of civilians - with a range of euphemisms, "militants" being the most common. Thus, The New York Times can headline a report on the killing of a hostage as "Iraq Militants Said to Behead a Truck Driver From Bulgaria." Similarly, terrorists killed in a military strike can be described in another as...

Chance Of A Cometary Impact Re-assessedThe chances of the Earth suffering a collision with a cometary body may be higher than previously thought, according to new research by astronomers Bill Napier and Chandra Wickramasinghe. If so, international programmes designed to detect a large class of potentially threatening objects, namely near-Earth asteroids, as well as strategies to mitigate the worst effects of collisions, may be in need of urgent review. This is the disturbing conclusion reached by the astronomers in a paper which is to be published shortly in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Their argument is based...

GALACTIC ENCOUNTERS, APOLLO OBJECTS AND ATLANTIS: A CATASTROPHICAL SCENARIO FOR DISCONTINUITIES IN HUMAN HISTORY Emilio SpedicatoUniversity of Bergamo Acknowledgements The author acknowledges stimulating discussions with Thor Heyerdahl (Colle Micheri, Liguria and Guimar, Tenerife), Laurence Dixon (University of Hertfordhshire), Victor Clube (Oxford University), Emmanuel Anati (Centro Camuno di Studi Preistorici), Zdenek Kukal (Central Geological Survey, Prague), Donald Patten (Seattle), Flavio Barbiero (Livorno), Antonino Del Popolo (Bergamo), Lia Mangolini (Milano), Graham Hancock (Leat Mill, Lifton) and Andrew Collins (Leigh on Sea). Third revised version. First version published in 1985 as Quaderno 85/3. First revised version published in 1990 as Quaderno 90/22...

Early in the evening of June 18, 1178, a group of men near Canterbury, England, stood admiring the sliver of a new moon hanging low in the west. In terms they later described to a monk who recorded their sighting, "Suddenly a flaming torch sprang from the moon, spewing fire, hot coals and sparks." In continuing their description of the event, they reported that "The moon writhed like a wounded snake and finally took on a blackish appearance"... [P]lanetary scientist Jack Hartung of the State University of New York... gathered enough clues to suggest that a large asteroid... might have...

Microscopic analysis, reported in the current issue of the journal Geology, revealed a 3-inch-thick layer of "shocked quartz" — a form of the mineral produced only under intense pressure like that of an impact — that dated to 35.5 million years ago, when a space rock slammed into the Earth about 120 miles southeast of present-day Washington.

Antarctic craters reveal strike The asteroid may have raised sea levels by up to 60cm Scientists have mapped enormous impact craters hidden under the Antarctic ice sheet using satellite technology. The craters may have either come from an asteroid between 5 and 11km across that broke up in the atmosphere, a swarm of comets or comet fragments. The space impacts created multiple craters over an area of 2,092km (1,300 miles) by 3,862km (2,400 miles). The scientists told a conference this week that the impacts occurred roughly 780,000 years ago during an ice age. When the impacts hit, they would have...