jetcloud

clipped from www.edmontonsun.com

A bird is seen flying past a full moon in the final stages of a lunar eclipse as it descends over Edmonton about 6:20 a.m. Tuesday. (Tim Smith/Special to the Sun)

Insomniacs and night owls who were watching the sky early Tuesday morning got a special treat, as the full moon passed through the Earth’s shadow and created a total lunar eclipse.

The eclipse took several hours, but between the hours of about 3 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. the moon glowed a stunning shade of ochre.

It then passed completely into the Earth’s shadow, nearly disappearing from sight.

It was the second and final such eclipse of 2007.

A lunar eclipse happens when the Earth is aligned directly between the sun and moon.

As sunlight passes around the Earth, shorter wavelengths of coloured light are absorbed by the
planet’s atmosphere.

Photo Gallery: Total lunar eclipse

The next total lunar eclipse will be Feb. 21, 2008, and will be visible from Alberta.

clipped from www.terradaily.com

The idea is for TRUTHS to be a master device in orbit, against which other earth observation satellites are tested and calibrated. That ensures they will all be working off the same measurement benchmark. It also reduces costs - a central orbiting reference point means each individual satellite doesn't need to be equipped with its own individual suite of calibration tools.

TRUTHS (Traceable Radiometry Underpinning Terrestrial- and Helio- Studies) is a proposed satellite mission, led by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL), to improve tenfold the accuracy of earth observation satellites used to deliver climate change data. TRUTHS will launch a calibration laboratory into space to help settle international debates around climate change and provide a robust statistical baseline from which to monitor and predict changes in the Earth's climate.

clipped from abcnews.go.com

At virtually any moment — day or night — you can look up and know that somewhere over Earth there's a U-2 pilot at the edge of outer space, watching and listening.

The U-2 is the most famous spy plane in history. Developed in secret for the CIA more than 50 years ago, the U-2 first detected the movement of Soviet nuclear weapons into Cuba, sparking the Cuban Missile Crisis. But the U-2 is not just a piece of Cold War history; it has been quietly brought into the space age and is now flying more than ever.

The military doesn't like to talk about the U-2 plane much. Its missions are secret, much of its technology classified.

The U-2 flies so high, so fast, the pilot wears a spacesuit, the same one worn by astronauts on the space shuttle.

The chase cars talk the pilot down as he lands on bicycle-style landing gear. In that spacesuit, the pilot in the plane simply cannot get a good view of the runway.

clipped from www.desmogblog.com

The National Snow and Ice Data Center data showed sea ice extent for August 8 as 5.8m sq km (2.2m sq miles), compared to the 1979-2000 August average of 7.7m sq km (3.0m sq miles). The current record low was recorded in 2005, when Arctic sea ice covered just 5.32m sq km (2.09m sq miles).

Since the melting season runs until the middle of September, scientists believe this summer will end with the lowest ice cover on record.

Scientists now think we are starting to see a feedback pattern, with a little bit more melting during summer and a little less recovery of ice during the winter. This is expected to speed the decline of Arctic ice with major consequences for wildlife, especially polar bears, which traverse ice-floes in search of food.

Globally, Earth would lose a major reflective surface and so absorb more solar energy, accelerating climatic change around the world.

U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center Arctic sheet ice global warming climate change

clipped from news.xinhuanet.com

Global warming will speed up in the next
decade and at least half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998,
the warmest year on record, reported a UK team of scientists in their
climate predictions. (Xinhua/AFP, File Photo)

    WASHINGTON,
Aug. 9 (Xinhua) -- Global warming will speed up in the next decade and at least
half of the years after 2009 will be warmer than 1998, the warmest year on
record, reported a UK team of scientists in their climate predictions.

    The next-decade prediction results by scientists at
Hadley Center for Climate Prediction and Research in the UK is published
Thursday in the U.S. academic journal Science.

    The new model predicts that warming will slow during
the next few years but then speed up again, and that at least half of the years
after 2009 will be warmer than 1998.

clipped from www.cnn.com

OSLO, Norway (Reuters) -- A chunk of an Arctic glacier broke into the sea and triggered a huge wave that injured 18 people on a sightseeing boat, almost all of them British tourists, Norwegian officials said on Thursday.

Four people were seriously hurt in the accident by Hornbreen glacier on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard and were flown south to a hospital in Tromsoe on the mainland. The others were treated at a local hospital, mostly for minor injuries.

"The glacier calved (split off) and a big wave washed over the boat," Elisabeth Bjoerge Loevold, acting governor of Svalbard, told Reuters. "The boat rocked back and forth and passengers fell on the deck."

"We believe there was no ice from the glacier directly on to the deck, but we don't have all the details," she said. Some Norwegian media reports had earlier said the boat was showered with ice from the glacier.

clipped from www.youtube.com

The Volunteer:A Canadian's Life in the Mossad

Michael Ross

shelleymcc
(5 days ago)
Marked as spam

We need more like him. The more I read, the more I am convinced that 9-qq was an iside job, and evidence and history points to Mossad. Is Ross Jewish? I know that the names Rossberg and Ross stein are Jewish, but I hadn't realized that Ross was ...

clipped from ur.rutgers.edu

DNA of ancient microorganisms, long frozen in glaciers, may return to life as the glaciers melt, according to a paper published online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by scientists at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, and Boston University.

The finding is significant, said Kay Bidle, assistant professor of marine and coastal sciences at Rutgers, because scientists didn’t know until now whether such ancient, frozen organisms and their DNA could be revived at all or for how long cells are viable after they’ve been frozen. Bidle is lead author of the article, “Fossil Genes and Microbes in the Oldest Ice on Earth.”

Bidle and his co-authors, Rutgers colleague Paul Falkowski, SangHoon Lee of Korea’s Polar Research Institute and David Marchant of Boston University – melted five samples of ice ranging in age from 100,000 to 8 million years old to find the microorganisms trapped inside.

clipped from observer.guardian.co.uk

· Research plant is near infected farm
· Ban on export of British livestock

An accidental leak of an experimental vaccine from a private research site was being investigated urgently last night as the likely source of Britain's new foot and mouth disease outbreak. The news came as the government attempted to avert a full-scale crisis in farming and the tourism industry.

Movement of all livestock has been banned, exports to Europe stopped and country fairs cancelled to minimise the risk of the country suffering a disastrous rerun of the 2001 foot and mouth epidemic which cost the nation £8.5bn.

Merial Animal Health, a private pharmaceutical firm shares facilities with a government laboratory in Pirbright, and is commissioned by the European Union to formulate new vaccines for animal diseases. Both companies are expected to meet tight regulatory standards for biosecurity.

Investigators are now focusing on whether

a batch of the vaccine

escaped the site.

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk

Scientific analyses in recent years suggest hurricane numbers have increased since the mid-1980s.

This new study, published in Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society in London, looks at the frequency of these storms from 1900 to the present and it says about twice as many form each year now compared to 100 years ago.

The authors say that man-made climate change, which has increased the temperature of the sea surface, is the major factor behind the increase in numbers.

Dr Greg Holland from the United States National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado, who authored the report.

"Approximately 60%, and possibly even 70% of what we are seeing in the last decade can be attributed directly to greenhouse warming," he said.

Experts say that 2007 will be a very active season with nine hurricanes forecast, of which five are expected to be intense.

Thunder clouds surround the edges of these storms and they can wreak devastation on people and property when they hit land

clipped from www.foxnews.com

CLINTON, British Columbia —  Mark Patterson kicked, choked and wrestled a cougar to rescue a 12-year-old boy from the jaws of the big cat at a resort camp in south-central British Columbia.

Patterson's quick action was credited with saving Colton Reeb who was on a camping trip near Clinton, northwest of Kamloops, when he was attacked by the mountain lion on Wednesday.

The cougar pounced on Reeb while he was walking to a bathroom close to the Kelly Lake Vacation Lodge. Patterson, who owns the lodge, jumped in to rescue the 12-year-old boy, a family friend.

"The cat had Colton's head in its mouth ... blood was squirting out everywhere," Patterson said.

Patterson said five soccer kicks to the cat's head were not enough to wrench the boy's head from the animal's mouth. So he put a chokehold on the cougar "and squeezed as hard as I could, and he finally let go."

Patterson then wrestled with the 70-pound male cougar, which broke free, fixing him with an evil glare and growl, he said.