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Scientists have identified four new man-made gases that are contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer. Two of the gases are accumulating at a rate that is causing concern among researchers. Worries over the growing ozone hole have seen the production of chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) gases restricted since the mid 1980s. But the precise origin of these new, similar substances remains a mystery, say scientists. Lying in the atmosphere, between 15 and 30km above the surface of the Earth, the ozone layer plays a critical role in blocking harmful UV rays, which cause cancers in humans and reproductive problems in...

Cosmos with Neil deGrasse Tyson: Same Old Product, Bright New Packaging If there was any doubt that the rebooted Cosmos series, which premiered last night, would be politically charged and have a materialistic ideological message, consider what viewers saw in its first sixty seconds. The opening featured President Obama giving a statement endorsing the series. That's not necessarily bad, except for what happened next. Immediately following President Obama's endorsement, the show replayed Carl Sagan's famous materialistic credo from the original Cosmos series that "The cosmos is all there is, or ever was, or ever will be." Does it violate the...

The Environmental Protection Agency’s rule to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants is tainted by secretiveness and collusion with environmental groups, according to a conservative environmental lawyer. Energy and Environmental Law Institute attorney Chris Horner has presented an 81-page regulatory comment showing the EPA’s “New Source Performance Standard” (NSPS) — which limits carbon emissions from new coal plants — was developed by officials masking their true agendas, using secret and private email accounts and in collusion with environmental groups.

When Porter the dog tries to figure out why his owner has placed a toy bone under a bucket, his response might provide some insight about human development, autism and other learning disabilities. That's the hope of Laurie Santos, who runs the Canine Cognition Center at Yale, which opened in December. She pointed to the 4-year-old chocolate lab mix, brought in by psychology grad student Kristi Leimgruber. Porter is growing up in the same kind of environment as human children, Santos said, so comparing how he learns with the way people learn can tell us a lot about human development.

Drudge posted an article (from a banned source) which stated that very low levels of Fukushima radiation will likely reach the West Coast next month. Incredibly, the article states that there is no federal agency which currently samples Pacific Coast seawater for radiation. I find it disturbing that: 1. There is money being spent for many frivolous activities, yet three is no monitoring for radiation on the West Coast? 2. The EPA is monitoring puddles on people's private property, yet there is no monitoring of radiation on the West Coast!

One thousand years ago, on a floodplain of the Mississippi River near modern-day St. Louis, the massive Native American city known today as Cahokia sprang suddenly into existence. Three hundred years later it was virtually deserted... While analyzing cores from Horseshoe Lake, an oxbow lake that separated from the Mississippi River some 1,700 years ago, Munoz's team discovered a layer of silty clay 19 centimeters (7.5 inches) thick deposited by a massive ancient flood. It's unlikely that the ancient floodwaters were high enough to inundate the ten-story mound at Cahokia's center, a structure now called Monk's Mound... But a flood...

An asteroid at least the size of a 60-story building will make a distant flyby of Earth this week, and you watch astronomers track the space rock tonight (March 9) in a live webcast, weather permitting. The asteroid poses no threat to Earth. The online Slooh community observatory will host the free webcast at 10 p.m. EDT (0200 GMT) to track asteroid 2014 CU13, a space rock about 623 feet (190 meters) wide discovered on Feb. 11 that will pass Earth at a range of about eight times the distance between Earth and the moon on Tuesday (March 11). The...

A sprawling city in the heartland of the United States was a cultural melting pot hundreds of years before Europeans ever set foot in North America. A study of dozens of teeth found at Cahokia, an ancient metropolis near modern-day St. Louis, shows that immigrants moved to the city from across the Midwest and perhaps as far away as the Great Lakes and Gulf Coast regions. Cahokia rose to prominence around A.D. 1050, when it underwent what some archaeologists call a cultural Big Bang. "All of a sudden, there's a giant rise in the size of the site," said study...

The mainstream media often overlooks all the amazing and positive developments that are happening in the bitcoin world, as well as the incredibly innovative and supportive community that is building around bitcoin. To paraphrase Mark Twain: “The reports of bitcoin’s death have been greatly exaggerated.”

Explanation: What created this unusual hole in Mars? The hole was discovered by chance in 2011 on images of the dusty slopes of Mars' Pavonis Mons volcano taken by the HiRISE instrument aboard the robotic Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter currently circling Mars. The hole appears to be an opening to an underground cavern, partly illuminated on the image right. Analysis of this and follow-up images revealed the opening to be about 35 meters across, while the interior shadow angle indicates that the underlying cavern is roughly 20 meters deep. Why there is a circular crater surrounding this hole remains a topic...

Is the Cold Fusion Revolution Here? Published March 8, 2014 | There seems to be a lot happening in the world of cold fusion/low energy nuclear reaction (LENR) right now. So we can now rightly say that a cold fusion revolution could be beginning. Some of the most important developments include: Peter Hagelstein and Mitchell Swartz’s 2014 Cold Fusion Independent Activities Period (IAP) Course at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in January. Jerry Rys the Alien Scientist blogger attended the course and created a great video about it which does an excellent job of describing cold fusion what cold...

Several stunning images captured by a Minnesota photographer illustrate just how cold it is at Lake Superior. The pictures taken by Andrew Krueger showed large sheets of ice piled up along the shore as temperatures remained below freezing this week. Scientists from the Great Lakes Environmental Research Laboratory said ice coverage was at its highest percentage in 35 years, according to USA Today. “Persistent cold temperatures in the Midwest this winter have almost completely frozen over many of the Great Lakes,” the lab reportedly said in a press release.

The death of Ireland’s High King during the famous bloody battle of Clontarf almost exactly 1,000 years ago will be remembered with a special service in his burial county of Armagh next month. Brian Boru (Bóraime) may have been born in County Clare but, as the well-known theme song ‘The Boys from the County Armagh’ notes, his ashes lie in the city, at the Church of Ireland Cathedral. The legendary leader had requested to be buried in Armagh, possibly due to its religious links to St Patrick, and it is said he was brought to the city by the clergy...

Explanation: Get out your red/blue glasses (red for the left eye) and look out over this expansive martian landscape. The panoramic stereo view is composed of images from the roving Curiosity's Navcam taken at a rest stop during a 100 meter drive on Sol 548 (February 19). The 5.5 kilometer high peak of Mount Sharp, also known as Aeolis Mons, is on the horizon, its base a destination for Curiosity. In the foreground are rows of striated rocks along the Junda outcrop. Centered toward the south-southeast the scene spans 160 degrees. (Another Navcam image here looks back along Curiosity's route...

Explanation: Brilliant Venus and the central Milky Way rise in the early morning hours of March 1 in this sea and skyscape. The scene looks out from a beach at Sea Isle City, New Jersey, USA, planet Earth. Of course, Earth orbits well within the solar system's habitable zone, that Goldilocks region not too close and not too far from the Sun where surface temperatures can support liquid water. Similar in size to Earth, Venus lies just beyond the inner boundary of the habitable zone. The watery reflection of light from our inhospitable sister planet is seen along a calm,...

Explanation: NGC 1333 is seen in visible light as a reflection nebula, dominated by bluish hues characteristic of starlight reflected by dust. A mere 1,000 light-years distant toward the heroic constellation Perseus, it lies at the edge of a large, star-forming molecular cloud. This striking close-up view spans about two full moons on the sky or just over 15 light-years at the estimated distance of NGC 1333. It shows details of the dusty region along with hints of contrasting red emission from Herbig-Haro objects, jets and shocked glowing gas emanating from recently formed stars. In fact, NGC 1333 contains hundreds...

Dr. Frank Jobe, a pioneering orthopedic surgeon who was the first to perform an elbow procedure that became known as Tommy John surgery and saved the careers of countless major league pitchers, died Thursday. He was 88.

That chicken wing you're eating could be as deadly as a cigarette. In a new study that tracked a large sample of adults for nearly two decades, researchers have found that eating a diet rich in animal proteins during middle age makes you four times more likely to die of cancer than someone with a low-protein diet -- a mortality risk factor comparable to smoking. "There's a misconception that because we all eat, understanding nutrition is simple. But the question is not whether a certain diet allows you to do well for three days, but can it help you survive...

Sudden bursts of anger may trigger heart attacks, strokes or other cardiovascular events within two hours of a flare-up, a team of U.S. researchers suggest. In a new study published in The European Heart Journal, researchers examined studies that spanned amore-than-18-year period from experts in the medical field. The Harvard School of Public Health team found that cardiovascular events can be triggered by psychological stress, such as an angry outburst, which has “shown to increase heart rate and blood pressure, and vascular resistance.” And people who are obese, smokers, or have a history of heart disease are more susceptible to...

GRAND PORTAGE, Minn. — For moose, this year’s winter-long deep freeze across the Upper Midwest is truly ideal weather. The large, gangly creatures are adapted to deep snow: Their hollow fur insulates them like fiberglass does in a house. And the prolonged cold helps eradicate pests that prey on moose, like ticks and meningeal worm, or brain worm. Yet moose in Minnesota are dying at an alarming rate, and biologists are perplexed as to why. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Mark Keech, right, a research biologist, and Tiffany Wolf, a veterinarian, fitted a moose with a radio collar...

After a Mississippi doctor revealed last year that she accidentally cured a baby born with HIV, skeptics suggested the tests that initially showed she was infected may have been wrong. However, on Wednesday doctors at an AIDS conference in Boston revealed that the virus has been cleared from a second baby born 9 months ago in Long Beach, Calif. In the U.S. transmission from mother to child can usually be prevented via prenatal drugs, but the mother, who is mentally ill and has advanced AIDS, didn't take the medication she was prescribed. After hearing about the Mississippi baby, the girl's...

It may be a good idea to get a blood pressure reading in both arms rather than just one. A difference in those readings, a new study suggests, is an independent risk factor for heart disease. Using data from a large health study, researchers examined 3,390 people 40 or older who were free of cardiovascular disease, following them for an average of more than 13 years. During the study period, 598 participants had a first heart attack, stroke or other cardiovascular problems. More than a quarter of those had a difference in systolic blood pressure, the upper number in a...

In Europe 150 million years ago, this dude was the biggest, baddest bully in town. Two scientists in Portugal announced on Wednesday that they have identified the largest carnivorous dinosaur ever found in Europe, a 33-foot-long (10-meter-long) brute called Torvosaurus gurneyi that was the scourge of its domain in the Jurassic Period.

Apple’s normally soporific annual shareholder meeting contained a glimmer of interest this year when a shareholder from a conservative think tank asked the company to stop worrying about sustainability, green issues, and climate change and concentrate instead on the bottom line of profitability. Tim Cook essentially told his interrogator from the National Center for Public Policy Research to go boil his head, which is nice of him and provides good copy. But this fails to elucidate the dilemma that Cook actually faces. He is indeed focusing on the bottom line by taking the actions that he does on these very...

Transmutation Revolution? Mitsubishi Granted Patent for ‘Nuclide Transmutation’ Process Posted on March 4, 2014 by admin • 64 Comments Thanks to Cold Fusion Now and AlainCo at LENR Forum for picking up what seems to be a very important development — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has been granted a patent by the European Patent Office for a “Nuclide transmutation device and nuclide transmutation method” which the introduction to the patent states could allow for the transforming of long-lived radioactive waste into short-lived radioactive nuclides or stable nuclides, and the transmutation of abundant elements into rare earth elements. The patent application was...

Explanation: The eggs from this chicken may form into stars. The above pictured emission nebula, cataloged as IC 2944, is called the Running Chicken Nebula for the shape of its greater appearance. The image was taken recently from Siding Spring Observatory in Australia and presented in scientifically assigned colors. Seen near the center of the image are small, dark molecular clouds rich in obscuring cosmic dust. Called Thackeray's Globules for their discoverer, these "eggs" are potential sites for the gravitational condensation of new stars, although their fates are uncertain as they are also being rapidly eroded away by the intense...

For many people in the U.S., me included, this winter has been miserable. The polar vortex, which I'm fairly certain was a term only meteorologists had heard before this winter, has wreaked havoc in much of the country. ... This type of weather affects few, if any, industries more than electricity providers. The Electric Reliability Council of Texas (ERCOT), which is responsible for balancing the state's electricity supply and demand, reported an all-time high winter peak demand Jan. 7 and was required to issue an alert the day before when some 13,000 MW of generation--3,700 MW of forced outages caused...

The Mini S analyser may look like something out of Ghostbusters but it is designed for use in hazardous locations © ACSThe latest gadget to come out of the labs of Purdue University in the US may look like the fictional ‘proton pack’ from Ghostbusters, but it’s actually a portable mass spectrometer that can be carried around on the user’s back. While it can’t capture an unruly poltergeist, the team who developed it say it could be a useful tool for environmental and forensic monitoring, and have shown it can identify chemical weapons, drugs and explosives.Most mass spectrometry happens in...

Gobekli Tepe Summary In 1994, almost forty years after The Urantia Book’s 1955 publication, excavations began at the Gobekli Tepe archaeological site in Turkey. The Gobekli Tepe site already reveals 50 engraved stone monoliths, some of them dating back to 12,000 years ago, that are at least 6,000 years older than Stonehenge and the Egyptian pyramids. A full excavation to the bottom of the site has not yet occurred, and only a small percentage of the site has been uncovered. The evidence suggests that the complex of round rooms with two especially large pillars in the middle were built for...

When the Greens speak of "deniers" as they so often do, they are using holocaustal language to describe their opponents metaphorically, but seem to be completely unaware that historically speaking, there was a strong undercurrent of environmentalism swirling under the banner of National Socialism ...

Eating too much protein could be as dangerous as smoking for middle-aged people, a scientific study has found. Research which tracked thousands of adults for nearly 20 years found that people who eat a diet rich in animal protein are four times more likely to die of cancer than someone with a low protein diet. The risk is nearly as high as the danger of developing cancer by smoking 20 cigarettes each day. […] The US study found that people with a high protein diet were 74 percent more likely to die of any cause within the study period than...

In 1964, a pair of engineers at Bell Labs in New Jersey tried to build a better antenna and ended up uncovering the origins of the universe. After ruling out city noise, nuclear bombs and pigeon poop, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson argued that a strange radio hiss in their readings was the first confirmed signal of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). This relic glow emerged as a result of the big bang and now permeates the universe. The discovery solidified big bang theory as our best explanation for cosmic origins, and Penzias and Wilson went on to net a...

Explanation: Dramatic prominences can sometimes be seen looming just beyond the edge of the sun. Such was the case last week as a large prominence, visible above, highlighted a highly active recent Sun. A waving sea of hot gas is visible in the foreground chromosphere in great detail as it was imaged in one specific color of light emitted by hydrogen. A solar prominence is a cloud of solar gas held just above the surface by the Sun's magnetic field. The Earth, illustrated in the inset, is smaller than the prominence. Although very hot, prominences typically appear dark when viewed...

For the second time in what has been a frigid winter in the Northeastern United States, Niagara falls has come to an icy halt as the six million cubic feet of water that typically flow over the falls every minute has frozen over.

The Environmental Protection Agency issued final rules Monday to slash the amount of sulfur in gasoline, which would help cut smog-causing pollution from autos and bring the rest of the country's fuel supply in line with California's standards. The new rule for "Tier 3" gasoline calls for reducing the amount of sulfur in fuel by two-thirds, to 10 parts per million from 30 parts per million. Similar low-sulfur gasoline is already in use in California, Europe, Japan and South Korea. The new gasoline would be available at the pump by January 2017. Cutting sulfur improves the efficiency of catalytic converters...

Seventeen and a half years. Not a flicker of global warming. The RSS satellite record, the first of the five global-temperature datasets to report its February value, shows a zero trend for an impressive 210 months. Miss Brevis, send a postcard to Mr Gore:

Exclusive pictures show autopsy on a four year old bison preserved in ice since ancient times. The autopsy, conducted on 27 February 2014, is understood to be the first in the world on a 9,000 bison, and it could provide vital scientific information. The creature was found in exceptional condition in July 2011 by Yukagir community members in the Sakha Republic, also known as Yakutia, where mammoth remains were also found. This bison, dating from 9,000 years ago, was located on the shore of a lake in the north of Ust-Yana district. The body became visible after a part of...

Abstract The description of a new skull (D4500) from the Dmanisi site (Republic of Georgia) has reopened the debate about the morphological variability within the genus Homo. The new skull fits with a mandible (D2600) often referred as ‘big’ or ‘enigmatic’ because of its differences with the other Dmanisi mandibles (D211 and D2735). In this report we present a comparative study of the variability of the Dmanisi mandibles under a different perspective, as we focus in morphological aspects related to growth and development. We have followed the notion of modularity and phenotypic integration in order to understand the architectural differences...

Oh my ... Josef Mengele, the infamous doctor of Auschwitz, is still alive. It now seems that scientists are exploring the possibility of having three DNAs joined to create a 'perfect' baby. That would mean we take two parents created by God and add the DNA of another to create a human baby as if that is God's planned creation. It is not! What perturbs me more than anything is that these same advocates have no objection to doctors destroying the already forming life in the womb through abortions. Is not the value of an existing life more important than...

Sensor could spot fatigue and adjust duties in an unsafe situation, or help you learn faster With hundreds of lives riding on every decision, the job of air traffic controller ranks near the top of almost any list of the world’s most stressful jobs. The stakes are so high that the Federal Aviation Administration has increased staffing and rest requirements in recent years to help keep controllers alert in the tower. But imagine if a computer could know the precise moment an air traffic controller approaches mental overload, and reassign some of his responsibilities to a fresher colleague. Technology in...

The serious technical malfunction afflicting the life and continued operations of China’s Yutu moon rover since the start of its second Lunar Night time hibernation in late January 2014 has been identified as an inability to properly maneuver the life giving solar panels, according to a top Chinese space official. “Yutu suffered a control circuit malfunction in its driving unit,” according to a newly published report on March 1 by the state owned Xinhua news agency. “The control circuit problem prevented Yutu from entering the second dormancy as planned,” said Ye Peijian, chief scientist of the Chang’e-3 program, in an...

With many of us chained to a desk for hours a day before heading home to slump in front of the telly, we're spending much of our time on our bottoms. And it's having an impact on our health, a growing body of evidence suggests. Last month, for instance, it emerged that spending an extra hour sitting a day (for 13, rather than 12, hours) is linked to a 50 per cent greater risk of being disabled. And this was regardless of whether the participants - all over 60 - also did moderate exercise, according to the U.S. study published...

A large ancient virus that lied dormant in the Siberian permafrost for at least 30,000 years has sprung back to life after French scientists revived it in the laboratory. The virus, found buried 30m down in the frozen ground, poses no danger to humans or animals, but other viruses could be unleashed as the ground becomes exposed, scientists said. "This is the first time we've seen a virus that's still infectious after this length of time," said Professor Jean-Michel Claverie, from the National Centre of Scientific Research (CNRS) at the University of Aix-Marseille in France. The pathogen, called Pithovirus sibericum,...

Explanation: Is Earth the only known world that can support life? In an effort to find life-habitable worlds outside our Solar System, stars similar to our Sun are being monitored for slight light decreases that indicate eclipsing planets. Many previously-unknown planets are being found, including over 700 worlds recently uncovered by NASA's Kepler satellite. Depicted above in artist's illustrations are twelve extrasolar planets that orbit in the habitable zones of their parent stars. These exoplanets have the right temperature for water to be a liquid on their surfaces, and so water-based life on Earth might be able to survive on...

A new type of quasiparticle dubbed the quantum droplet, or "dropleton", has been identified by researchers in the US and Germany. Created in semiconductor quantum wells using ultrashort laser pulses, the dropleton comprises a small number of electrons and holes that are bound together in a liquid-like drop. A quasiparticle is a collective excitation within a material that behaves like a fundamental particle. Recently, physicists have identified quasiparticles called levitons, orbitons, phonitons and even wrinklons – which occur in wrinkled fabrics such as curtains. Bound electrons and holes The dropleton is related to a well-known quasiparticle called an exciton, which...

An archaeologist says he discovered nine tiny scrolls with biblical text from the Qumran caves where the Dead Sea Scrolls were unearthed, according to news reports. The newfound scrolls, which date back to about 2,000 years ago, were hidden inside three leather tefillin cases, also known as phylacteries, traditionally carried by observant Jewish men, Italian news agency Ansa Mediterranean reported. These cases were first pulled out of the caves in the 1950s, but their contents apparently were not examined until now....

<p>The scene, discovered by archaeologists in Illinois more than 40 years ago, depicts one of the most extravagant acts of violence ever documented in ancient America: A thousand-year-old pit found under a tall earthen mound, lined from corner to corner with skeletons — 53 in all — neatly arranged two bodies deep, each layer separated by woven fiber mats.</p>

I subscribe to a couple of Russian Blogs and Websites that post various data and information without the typical hype and filters of Western Science, Academia and the Press, let alone the fringe and "Alien" woo-woo crowd interests. The following are photos of some Super Megaliths from Southern Siberia near the mountains of Gornaya Shoria. The following material is from the website of Valery Uvarov. The super megaliths were found and photographed for the first time by Georgy Sidorov on a recent expedition to the Southern Siberian mountains. The following images are from Valery Uvarov's Russian website. There are no...

A new study led by the University of Colorado Boulder bolsters the theory that the first Americans, who are believed to have come over from northeast Asia during the last ice age, may have been isolated on the Bering Land Bridge for thousands of years before spreading throughout the Americas. The theory, now known as the "Beringia Standstill," was first proposed in 1997 by two Latin American geneticists and refined in 2007 by a team led by the University of Tartu in Estonia that sampled mitrochondrial DNA from more than 600 Native Americans. The researchers found that mutations in the...

An important archeological find of ancient Roman ruins has been made at the Medici Fortress of Arezzo in central Italy. During work for the reorganization of the historic building, evidence of an ancient Roman structure dating from the early decades of the first century AD were brought to light - probably a residence, or domus... The Roman find is of enormous value for understanding the history of the city, Pessina said, and complements other discoveries such as the Church of San Donato in Cremona, dating back to the year 1000, found a few metres from the Roman structure, now being...