Free Republic

Ocean water is pushing miles beneath Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier,” making it more vulnerable to melting than previously thought, according to new research which used radar data from space to perform an X-ray of the crucial glacier. As the salty, relatively warm ocean water meets the ice, it’s causing “vigorous melting” underneath the glacier and could mean global sea level rise projections are being underestimated, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica — nicknamed the “Doomsday Glacier” because its collapse could cause catastrophic sea level rise —...

Sure, in the past eunuchs didn’t actually consent to the practice for some unknown reason, but they had beautiful voices, could be trusted to protect harems, and even gained political power. We could use more of them, and some surgeons and trans activists want to bring back the practice... Their relentless push to mutilate minors–and it is minors, not adults, who are the focus of the effort to stop this horror–is appalling. The president, his spokesmen, and even his health advisors are attacking anybody who opposes surgery on minors.

A giant seaweed bloom – so large it can be seen from outer space – may be headed towards Florida’s Gulf Coast. The sargassum bloom, at around 5,000 miles wide, is twice the width of the United States and is believed to be the largest in history.

The U.S. Geological Survey reported a 3.8 magnitude earthquake at 6:15 a.m. centered on the northeastern edge of West Seneca, near the Lackawanna border. Erie County Executive Mark Poloncarz said shortly after 6:30 a.m. that he had spoken with his county emergency services department and confirmed the initial reports showed the quake had been "felt as far north as Niagara Falls and as south as Orchard Park." Buffalo Mayor Byron Brown told WBEN Radio that no injuries have been reported. “It was a heavy vibration that shook the whole house. It was crazy,” said Jim LiPuma of Academy Road.

In the teeth of the Depression, Treasury secretary Andrew Mellon famously told President Herbert Hoover to “liquidate labor, liquidate stocks, liquidate farmers, liquidate real estate”—in other words, to resist bailing out any industry through state intervention. This was a tough sell even in those days, and of course Hoover succumbed to politics and took the opposite approach, greatly and needlessly damaging the US economy for decades to come.Less often quoted are Mellon’s follow-up words to Hoover: Liquidation would “purge the rottenness out of the system,” so “people will work harder” and “live a more moral life.”Mellon, having lived most of...

Seventy percent of coral reefs off the coast of Florida are eroding and experiencing a net loss of habitat, according to new research out of the University of Miami Rosenstiel School of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Science. The decline is a result of bleaching events which are driven by climate change, ship groundings and disease. In 2014, researchers discovered an outbreak of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease, which is decimating reefs both in Florida and the Caribbean. The state’s coral reefs also support around 70,000 jobs and generate $8.5 billion annually, data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA)...

Hurricane Fiona (was) the strongest hurricane of the Atlantic season, and now forecast models show a developing storm could become a MONSTROUS threat to the US Gulf Coast by next week. An area of disorganized activity a couple hundred miles east of the the eastern reaches of the Caribbean Sea will likely become the next tropical depression — named Hermine — in the next few days, maybe even the next few hours, according to the National Hurricane Center. This small cluster of storms has meteorologists’ attention because both American and European forecasting models have consistently showed them developing into a...

House GOP leader Rep. Liz Cheney (R-WY) repeated her call for Rep. Steve King (R-IA) to resign from Congress following his newly-publicized comments on rape and incest. “What if we went back through all the family trees and just pulled out anyone who was a product of rape or incest?” King said earlier this week at Iowa’s Westside Conservative Club. “Would there be any population of the world left if we did that?” King was apparently attempting to defend legislation to restrict abortion even in cases of rape and incest when he went on the bizarre tangent.

The country would face an economic hellscape if the government shutdown lasts "months or even years," as the president has suggested it might, experts tell NBC News. The doomsday scenario might be unlikely — the longest the federal government has ever shut down is 21 days, a record that will fall if the current closure lasts until Saturday — but it is chilling. "We'll be in no man's land," Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody's Analytics, told NBC News. If the worst were to happen, experts say the devastating impact would be widespread: 38 million low-income Americans lose food stamps...

This arsenal of firearms is among the dozens of weapons that have been taken off London’s streets during the Met’s latest gun amnesty. Since Monday 45 weapons have been surrendered across the capital as part of the Give Up Your Gun campaign, including shotguns, revolvers, rifles and handguns, Scotland Yard said. Detectives from the Met’s gang unit today urged anyone still in possession of an illegal firearm to hand it in before the amnesty ends on Sunday night.

WTH..?!?! Don't know what it means really, only that the political desperation factor is ratcheting up. I hope his tweet has nothing to do with nuclear weapons.

“A typical person is more than five times as likely to die in an extinction event as in a car crash,” says a new report.Nuclear war. Climate change. Pandemics that kill tens of millions. These are the most viable threats to globally organized civilization. They’re the stuff of nightmares and blockbusters—but unlike sea monsters or zombie viruses, they’re real, part of the calculus that political leaders consider everyday. And according to a new report from the U.K.-based Global Challenges Foundation, they’re much more likely than we might think. In its annual report on “global catastrophic risk,” the nonprofit debuted a...

Measurements of underground water storage (aquifers) — rather than surface water (lakes, rivers, etc.) — reveal the long-term effects of drought. This map shows ground water conditions in the U.S. during the week of November 28, 2011, compared to the long-term average. (Map by Chris Poulsen, National Drought Mitigation Center, based on data from the GRACE science team.) Measurements of underground water storage (aquifers) — rather than surface water (lakes, rivers, etc.) — reveal the long-term effects of drought. This map shows ground water conditions in the U.S. during the week of November 28, 2011, compared to the long-term...

As many states move forward with pro-growth spending and tax reforms, a couple of state legislatures are taking steps in the opposite direction. Legislators in Virginia and Kansas are advancing bills that seek to dissolve the physical nexus standard in their respective states and implement an Internet sales tax on out-of-state companies. This type of tax will not only kill jobs and close down businesses, as it has done in other states, but it is also entirely unconstitutional. In Kansas, SB 371 moves to push the long arm of the tax collector past its appropriate state boundary and count third-party...

Original link: http://youtu.be/qDF1Mi3z4mI Just when you thought it was safe to grab some munchies in the cupboard, a new study warns of cancer in cans and bags—in cans of Pringles and in bags of a myriad of other potato chips. This disturbing truth about an all-time favorite snack may be forcing food manufacturers to change their processing methods. But can the changes really make a difference? Researchers find that potato chips, among other processed foods, are loaded with the cancer causing chemical, acrylamide (uh-kril-uh-mahyd). The substance forms when carbohydrate-rich foods are cooked at very high temperatures. Some of the worst...

The fastest-ever rise in greenhouse gas emissions, revealed by the Guardian on Monday, is an "inconvenient truth" the world must face, the UN's climate change chief has said. But she added that the data should not lead to fatalism that the problem is impossible to tackle. The figures showing that efforts to control greenhouse gases have had little effect are likely to stretch already strained relations between developed and developing countries over climate change to breaking point in the next two weeks in rows over who is responsible for the fastest ever rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

Second-hand smoke globally kills more than 600,000 people each year, accounting for 1% of all deaths worldwide, according to a new study. The alarming findings - published on Thursday in the British medical journal Lancet - are based on a survey of 192 countries in 2004. Researchers estimated that annually second-hand smoke causes about 379,000 deaths from heart disease, 165,000 deaths from lower respiratory disease, 36,900 deaths from asthma and 21,400 deaths from lung cancer. Children account for about 165,000 of the deaths, according to the researchers. "This helps us understand the real toll of tobacco," said Armando Peruga, of...

Tropical Depression #5 has formed in the southeast Gulf of Mexico. The initial motion is somewhat uncertain due to the broad area of the system center. Satellite Images Floater One Imagery Buoy Data: Florida & Eastern GOM Western GOM Storm Models

The chemical Bisphenol A, which has been used for years in clear plastic bottles and food-can liners, has been restricted in Canada and some U.S. states and municipalities because of potential health effects. The Food and Drug Administration will soon decide what it considers a safe level of exposure to Bisphenol A (BPA), which some studies have linked to reproductive abnormalities and a heightened risk of breast and prostate cancers, diabetes, and heart disease. Now Consumer Reports' latest tests of canned foods, including soups, juice, tuna, and green beans, have found that almost all of the 19 name-brand foods we...

I have reason to suspect that the "monetary transmission mechanism" is full of rocks (again), and we are about to have another instance of what could colloquially be called "fun." (Yes, that's sarcasm.) Here's what we know and what I can deduce from it: JP Morgan's "cash position" was analyzed by a writer who published on SCRIBD, which showed that actual cash held has deteriorated radically. By more than half in the last year. The deterioration is continuing, not slowing. I am hearing repeated anecdotes from multiple areas that foreclosed property held by banks with multiple full-price offers that include...