Free Republic

A Pembroke man was playing with Google Earth - an online digital map of the planet - when he came across something that seemed out of this world: an apparent meteorite crater in Pawtuckaway State Park in Nottingham. "I was just searching around on Google, looking at lakes, because I'm a sailor," said Stephen Dupuis, 52. "As I was panning down through the landscape, it kind of caught my eye." Dupuis, a multimedia artist, has been fascinated with astronomy and outer space since his father, a former engineer, built the heat shields used for the Apollo spacecraft in the 1960s....

By Jack Wheeler jwheeler@politicalusa.com9/27/2001   The most sacred spot on earth to all members of the Islamic religion is the Holy City of Mecca, revered as the birthplace of Mohammed. It is one of the five basic requirements incumbent upon all Moslems that they make (if their health will allow it) a pilgrimage to Mecca once in their lives (the other four: recognize that there is no god but Allah, that Mohammed is Allah's prophet, ritually pray five times a day, and give alms to the poor). The founding events of Islam are Mohammed's activities in Mecca and Medina,...

It's the stuff of science fiction movies. Bruce Willis, by a mighty effort, saving the world from extinction by a huge meteor. But Bruce Willis won't do it, and in our current state of readiness, neither will anyone else (sic!). That is why LSU geophysicist Brooks Ellwood is plumbing the geologic record, trying to correlate known mass extinctions to meteor strikes. "When we think about the human race and life in general, what do we worry about? We worry about nuclear holocaust and major glaciation. Then we worry about the giant chunks of rock that fly past Earth all the...