Free Republic

A new global study reveals that ancient carbon, once thought securely stored in soils and rocks, is leaking into the atmosphere via rivers. For the first time, researchers have confirmed that carbon trapped in landscapes for thousands of years or longer can return to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide escaping from river surfaces. The study, led by scientists from the University of Bristol and featured as the cover story in Nature, suggests that plants and upper soil layers may be absorbing about one additional gigaton of CO2 annually to balance this release. This highlights an even more critical role for...

Using a combination of archaeological and geological evidence, scientists have finally pinpointed the date of the infamous Tierra Blanca Joven eruption, which likely devastated Maya communities in what is now El Salvador. Ilopango volcano blew its stack 1,589 years ago—give or take a year or two—according to new research published this week in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. That this volcano erupted well over 1,000 years ago was well established, but the new research finally firms up the date, in a paper that will be of interest to archaeologists, historians, geologists, and climate scientists. The Ilopango caldera is...

A new Foreign Military Intelligence (GRU) report circulating in the Kremlin today is saying that United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was injured, and a top US Navy Seal Commander killed when their C-12 Huron military passenger and transport aircraft crash landed nearly 3 weeks ago in the Iranian city of Ahvaz near the Iraqi border. Iranian intelligence agents quoted in this GRU report confirm that the C-12 Huron aircraft is still in their possession in Ahvaz, but will only admit that the plane was “forced to land because of technical problems.” The US Navy Seal member reported killed...

Northrop Grumman Corporation will field the first systems in the upgraded RC-12X Guardrail fleet, providing the U.S. Army with unparalleled signals intelligence (SIGINT) capability, under a recent task order awarded by the U.S. Army. This is a critical step toward making this mission-critical capability operational, scheduled for second quarter of this year. The RC-12X Guardrail is the Army's premier airborne SIGINT sensor and ground processing system, providing instantaneous precision geo-location and identification of threats to enable the Brigade Combat Team's Find, Fix, Finish, Exploit, Analyze and Disseminate (F3EAD) battle command process. The RC-12X Guardrail Modernization program extends the life of...