March 24, 2015 - SPACE
- The 1,000-metre wide monster will hurtle terrifyingly close to the
planet within days, sparking fears of an unprecedented disaster.
The object called ‘2014-YB35’ is almost the same size as Ben Nevis and will skim the Earth on FRIDAY travelling at more than 23,000 mph.
Small meteorites often pass close by however one of this size is a once in 5,000-year occurrence, according to concerned astronomers.
A collision with Earth would unleash an explosive force equivalent to more than 15,000 million tonnes - 15,000 megatons - of TNT.
The path of the asteroid is shown below in an animated 'trajectory map' released by NASA. It can clearly be seen only narrowly missing the Earth.
The graphic shows the path of the asteroid closing in on earth.
It would eclipse the destruction caused by the 1908 Tunguska Event which saw a 50-metre lump of extraterrestrial rock crash into Siberia.
It flattened an estimated 80 million trees and sent a shock wave across Russia measuring five on the Richter scale.
Experts warn it is only a matter of time before an asteroid capable of “lifer altering” damage collides with our planet.
Bill Napier, professor of astronomy at the University of Buckinghamshire, said there is a “very real risk” of a comet or damaging asteroid hitting Earth.
He said: “Smaller scale events like Tunguska are absolutely a real risk, largely they are undiscovered and so we are unprepared.
“With something like YB35, we are looking at a scale of global destruction, something that would pose a risk to the continuation of the planet.
“These events are however very rare, it is the smaller yet still very damaging impacts which are a very real threat.”
Experts warn if one of these monsters were to hit Earth plumes of debris thrown into the atmosphere, changing the climate and potentially making the planet inhabitable for all life.
Smaller impacts would be capable of destroying cities and knocking out transport and communication networks.
Professor Napier added: “The real risk is from comets which even if the Earth passes through the tail can generate a massive plume of smoke with hugely significant consequences.
“There is absolutely a real risk and if you look at history, certainly biblical records, there are reports of fires in the heavens.
“Red hot debris resulting from the impact of something a kilometre wide would be capable of incinerating the planet.”
The asteroid could come very close to crashing into the earth.
According to NASA’s Near Earth Object Programme the enormous lump of rock will pass within 2.8 million miles - a tiny distance in astronomical terms - of Earth on Friday.
Images from NASA’s jet propulsion Laboratory show the asteroid 'on course' with the Earth's own trajectory.
Though its exact size is unknown it is estimated to be from between 500 metres and 1km wide with 990 metres the most likely.
The object was first spotted by the Catalina Sky Survey at the end of last year with astronomers expected to be closely watching its progress this week.
Astronomers have named June 30 as Asteroid Day to highlight the dangers of Potentially Dangerous Asteroids (PHAs) hurtling through space.
Initiative co-founder Grigorij Richters warned there are thousands which have not been identified which could ”destroy life”.
He said: “It just takes one asteroid to completely destroy life, not just humanity, but all species.
WATCH: Could we stop an asteroid - Featuring Bill Nye.
“Asteroid Day is all about raising awareness, understanding there’s a threat and dealing with it.”
The Minor Planet Center has classified 2002 FG7 and 2014 YB35 as "Potentially Hazardous Asteroids."
NASA said there are more than 1,500 PHAs in outer space which show an orbit dangerously close to swiping Earth.
A spokesman said: “Potentially Hazardous Asteroids (PHAs) are currently defined based on parameters that measure the asteroid's potential to make threatening close approaches to the Earth.
“This ‘potential’ to make close Earth approaches does not mean a PHA will impact the Earth.
“It only means there is a possibility for such a threat.
“By monitoring these PHAs and updating their orbits as new observations become available, we can better predict the close-approach statistics and thus their Earth-impact threat.” - Express.
NOTE: Thanks to Jacqui Chasson for contributing to this post.
A general view of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) experiment is seen during a media visit to the Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in the French village of Saint-Genis-Pouilly, near Geneva in Switzerland, July 23, 2014. Credit: Reuters/Pierre Albouy
March 24, 2015 - GENEVA, SWITZERLAND
- Scientists at Europe's CERN research centre have had to postpone the
imminent relaunch of their refitted 'Big Bang' machine, the Large Hadron
Collider, because of a short-circuit in the wiring of one of the vital
magnets.
"Current indications suggest a delay of between a few days and several weeks," a statement from the world's leading particle physics research centre said on Tuesday.
Engineers had been expected to start on Wednesday pumping proton beams in opposite directions all the way round the two 27-km (17-mile) underground tubes in the LHC, closed down for the past two years for a refit.
That would have been the prelude to the start of particle collisions in late May at twice the power of those in the LHC's first run from 2010-2013.
The smashing-together of particles inside the LHC is designed to mimic conditions just after the Big Bang at the dawn of the universe. In a breakthrough in 2012, CERN scientists announced the discovery of a new subatomic particle, a basic building block of the universe, which appeared to be the boson imagined and named half a century earlier by theoretical physicist Peter Higgs.
Hopes for the second run lie in breaking out of what it known as the Standard Model of how the universe works at the level of elementary particles, and into "New Physics."
That includes searching for the dark matter that makes up about 96 percent of the stuff of the universe but can only be detected by its influence on visible matter around it.
CERN scientists expressed disappointment at the last-minute problem, in just one of the underground machine's eight sectors, which have been rewired and checked thoroughly during the closedown. But the research centre's director general, Rolf Heuer, played down its significance.
"All the signs are good for a great run 2," he said in a statement. "In the grand scheme of things, a few weeks delay in humankind's quest to understand our universe is little more than the blink of an eye."
Scientists and engineers at CERN, mindful of a serious leakage in 2008 which caused a delay of two years in the start-up for the first LHC run, have long insisted that there can be no rushing into full operations.
Frederick Bordry, director for accelerators, said it could take time to resolve what he described as an intermittent short-circuit because it was in a cold section of the machine, meaning that part would probably have to be warmed up.
It would then have to be recooled. "So what would have taken hours in a warm machine could end up taking us weeks," he added. - Reuters.
March 24, 2015 - EARTH
- The Inuit Tribe are indigenous people who live in the Canadian
Arctic, Greenland, Siberia and Alaska. Their elders have written to the
National Space and Aeronautics Administration (NASA) to tell them that
the earth's axis has shifted. The elders do not believe that carbon
emissions from humans are causing the current climate changes.
The sky has changed, claim Inuit elders
The
Inuit elders note climate change in the melting glaciers, deterioration
of sealskin, and burns on seals, and disappearing sea ice. The
attribute these changes in climate to changes in the sky.The tribal
elders claim that the sun no longer rises where it used to rise. The
days heat up more quickly and last longer. The stars and moon are also
in different places in the sky and this affects the temperatures. This
is a population that relies on the placement of the moon and stars for
their survival as they live in total darkness during part of the year.
The
elders say they can no longer predict the weather, as they have been
able to in the past. They observe that warmer winds are changing the
snow banks, making their ability to navigate overland more difficult.
Polar bear populations are increasing, which causes the bears to wander
into the Inuit neighborhoods.
What scientists report
On
April 20, 2011, CNN News reported that an earthquake moved the main
island of Japan by 8 feet and shifted the Earth on its axis. They quoted
Kenneth Hudnut, a geophysicist with the U.S. Geological Survey, as
saying, "At this point, we know that one GPS station moved (8 feet), and
we have seen a map from GSI (Geospatial Information Authority) in Japan
showing the pattern of shift over a large area is consistent with about
that much shift of the land mass."
They quoted the National
Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology in Italy, that estimated that
"the 8.9-magnitude quake shifted the planet on its axis by nearly 4
inches (10 centimeters)." Astronomers concur that there has not been a
shift in the earth's rotational axis, but that there have been subtle
polar shifts over the last ten years. This is a change in what is called
the figure axis.
These changes are caused by continental drift,
which has been shifting the location of the North Pole towards the south
about 10 cms per year for the last 100 years. Teams at the University
of Texas using NASA's GRACE satellite found that the North Pole's normal
drifting to the south changed in 2005 and since then, the drift has
been eastward. They detected a 1.2 meter change from 2005 to 2013. They
conclude that the shift is caused by climate change caused by global
warming.
About the Inuit or Eskimo people
The
Inuit people inhabit the far northern reaches of the Canadian Arctic
and have done so for centuries. The area they inhabit is almost
continually frozen under a layer of permafrost. For months at a time,
their days begin and end in darkness. A nomadic people, they built tents
or teepees of caribou skin in warmer months, and lived in igloos in the
winter. Previously, they were known as Eskimo. The word Eskimo is from a
word in their language that means "eater of raw meat." This group of
Arctic dwellers has now been renamed Inuit, a word that means "the
people." Inuk is the word to describe one member of the tribe, or "one
person." The Inuit speak many different dialects that all stem from the
Eskimaleut or Inuit-Aleut language. They are primarily hunters, relying
on Arctic wildlife for their survival. They fish, hunt sea mammals, such
as seals and walrus, and land mammals, like Arctic hare and caribou and
use seal skin and blubber for clothing, tents, and fuel. Most of their
diet is made up of raw meat as there is very little plant life in their
environment. - Natural News.
March 24, 2015 - EARTH
- A Swedish scientist claims in a new theory that humanity has exceeded
four of the nine limits for keeping the planet hospitable to modern
life, while another professor told RT Earth may be seeing an impending
human-made extinction of various species.
Environmental science
professor Johan Rockstrom, the executive director of the Stockholm
Resilience Centre in Sweden, argues that there are nine “planetary boundaries” in a new paper published in Science – and human beings have already crossed four of them.
Those
nine include carbon dioxide concentrations, maintaining biodiversity at
90 percent, the use of nitrogen and phosphorous, maintaining 75 percent
of original forests, aerosol emissions, stratospheric ozone depletion,
ocean acidification, fresh water use and the dumping of pollutants.
“The planet has been our best friend by buffering our actions and showing its resilience,” said Rockstrom. “But for the first time ever, we might shift the planet from friend to foe.”
Image from ideas.ted.com
Rockstrom’s
planetary boundary theory was first conceived in 2007. His new paper
reveals that because of climate stability, which began when the Ice Age
ended 11,000 years ago, a planetary calm helped our ancestors to
cultivate wheat, domesticate animals, and launch industrial and
communications revolutions. But those advances have strained the
stability of the planet, and Rockstrom says we have broken four
boundaries: too much nitrogen has been added to ecosystems, too many
forests have been cut down, the climate is changing too quickly and
species are going extinct at too great a rate.
Speaking to RT’s
Ben Swann, Professor of Ethics Bron Taylor from the University of
Florida said that we have accelerated the extinction crisis through
deforestation and ocean acidification, a development which is driving
species to extinction. “[Human] beings have increased, even
from 1925, from 2 billion – which is considered to be a sustainable
population for human beings, according to northern European consumption
standards – to 7.2 billion at this point,” he said.
WATCH: We are looking at the first human-made extinction - environmental scientist.
“What
we have also done is increased the number of domestic animals, the ones
we eat and the ones that are companion animals. We have 4.3 domestic
animals one for every two human beings on the planet. Cultivating the
land they need creates species extinction because where they are, other
organism are not. Where we cut down forests for cattle, other species
are not there."
“We are losing literally tens of thousands of endemic or native species to these trends.”
Professor
Taylor told RT that scientists say we entering the Sixth extinction,
but that this an anthropogenic extinction caused by human beings.
“If you don’t have control over something, there is no moral obligation,” said Taylor. “In
this case, we are doing it. So we have to ask the question: If we are
doing something that is driving species off the planet, are we in some
sense morally culpable?” “What right do we have to drive
[out] other species, who got here in precisely in the same way that we
have, who have participated in the long struggle for existence just as
we have?”
Meanwhile, Professor Rockstrom is using his
planetary boundary theory not as a doomsday message but as analysis to
keep the planet “safe” for humanity. He said nations can cut
their carbon emissions to almost nothing and pull the Earth back across
the climate boundary. “For the first time,” he said, “we have a framework for growth, for eradicating poverty and hunger, and for improving health.” - RT.
Meet Bina48, the robot who can tell jokes, recite poetry and mimic humans.
March 24, 2015 - TECHNOLOGY-
Would you want your consciousness to live on, long after your physical
body is exhausted? Or have a ‘mind clone’ sit in on meetings as you take
the day off? Is that even possible?
Meet Bina48, the robot who
can tell jokes, recite poetry and mimic humans. One of the most
sophisticated robots ever built, capable of independent thought,
emotion, Bina48 is modelled on Bina Aspen, wife of Martine Rothblatt —
the CEO of biotech outfit United Therapeutics.
A vision of a
future where we all have such “mind clones” is what futurist 60-year-old
Rothblatt shared on March 15 with several thousand attendees during the
third day of the annual tech festival South by Southwest (SXSW 2015) in
Austin, Texas. How do you create a cyber-human?
The
first step is creating what Rothblatt calls a “mind file” — a digital
record that encapsulates your thoughts, mannerisms and more. And if you
have a Facebook profile, says Rothblatt, your mind file is well
underway. How long did it take to create Bina48?
The
flesh-and-blood Bina was interviewed for more than 20 hours, a
conversation which touched upon topics throughout her childhood and her
career. That conversation was then transcribed and uploaded to an
artificial intelligence database.
Bina48’s hardware was created by
robot designer David Hanson over the course of three years for
$125,000. She has a “character engine” — software that tries its best to
imbue her with a more cohesive view of the world, with logic and
motive.
The “mind clone” has a head and torso that looks eerily
like the real-life Bina. Her skin is made of a material called “frubber”
that, with the help of 30 motors underneath it, allows her to frown,
smile and look a bit confused.
What can Bina48 do? It, or rather she, can …
Bina48
has, in fact, even been interviewed by The New York Times. When asked
by NYT, “What is it like to be a robot?”, she said, “Um, I have some
thoughts on that. Even if I appear clueless, perhaps I’m not. You can
see through the strange shadow self, my future self. The self in the
future where I’m truly awakened.
And so in a sense this robot, me, I am
just a portal.”
When Bina’s mortal self dies, Rothblatt said the
robot version of her wife will live on, making it possible for “our
identity to begin to transcend our bodies”, truly making humans
immortal. Who is Rothblatt?
She is a transgender activist and a trans-humanist philosopher who believes technology will one day grant humans eternal life.
Recently, Forbes named her as the highest-paid female CEO in the US based on the $38 million she earns a year.
Her
daughter’s rare lung disease is what spurred her to start United
Therapeutics and develop an oral medication that changed the lives of
thousands of patients.
Rothblatt is also working with Craig Venter, who helped
sequence the human genome, to use organs from genetically-modified pigs
for human organ transplants to create a never-ending supply.
Rothblatt
founded a religion, the Terasem Movement, which puts together her
cultural Judaism, Zen-like yoga and a deep belief in technology. One of
the four founding beliefs: “Death is optional”.
She was the force
behind SiriusXM radio, a worldwide satellite radio, and wrote the books
Virtually Human and The Apartheid of Sex.
Virtually Human has been
described by The Washington Post as “a big-think manifesto on the rights
of yet-to-be-created cyber-humans, who might one day be uploaded with
all of your thoughts, dreams, memories and online activity and live for
eternity as a sort-of you”.
According to Rothblatt, robots in the
future will have constitutional rights and “cyber psychiatrists” who
will ease their anxiety about not being completely human.
We are
living in a world where all of your life is captured. There is work
going on at Amazon, Google, and Apple that is Mindware. It is software
designed to process and recreate all of these inputs to create a
consciousness. - Indian Express.
Newport Beach Maintenance Supervisor Joe Delgato stands in a pile of pelagic red crabs that have been washing up on Balboa Island. The crabs are red when they wash up and slowly turn whitish as they die. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
March 24, 2015 - CALIFORNIA, UNITED STATES - Tiny crabs stillcoming in waves off Balboa Island — Thousands… created a rim of red along the shoreline,
scattered on the sand along the sleepy seaside of Balboa Island in
Newport Beach… Experts say the crabs – which are about 1-to 3-inches
long – haven’t been seen in the area for decades…
The pelagic crabs are the latest in a year of odd sightings…
glow-in-the-dark organisms called pyrosomes washed ashore in September,
and before that a blue, jellyfish-like creatures… - Feb 25, 2015 (emphasis added) - Orange County Register.
[E]xperts
say the crab hadn’t been seen this far north in decades… Passers-by
stopped to marvel at the unusual sight… Daniel Stringer, who’s lived on
Balboa Island for 47 years, says he’s never seen the little crabs… - Feb 22, 2015 - CBS L.A..
Thousands of tiny crabs that look like mini lobsters washed up on the shores of Balboa Island this week, covering the sand with a sea of red…
They appeared on Balboa Island several weeks ago and then disappeared,
but have reappeared. Most appear to have washed ashore dead, but many
are still swimming in… crews have been scooping up [remains]. - Feb 26, 2015 - Newport Beach Independent.
A pelagic red crab is alive but starting to dry up on the beach of Balboa Island where thousands of others have washed up. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
City worker Mike Story scoops up the crabs Wednesday on Balboa Island. Experts say these crustaceans, which normally live in the warm waters off the coast of Baja California, haven't been seen in the area for decades. MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
MINDY SCHAUER, STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER
[T]housands
of candy-red crabs rarely seen in coastal Southern California have
washed ashore in Newport Beach… this marks the first time in years that
[Southern California Marine Institute director Daniel Pondella] has
heard of them being seen in Southern California. “This is the first warm
year we’ve had in quite awhile,” he said. “It could just be a sign of
the warm water we’re currently experiencing.”…“I’ve never seen these things before,” [Newport Beach resident Darren Zinter] said. “It’s incredible.” - Jan 22, 2015 - LA Times.
Feb 23, 2015: Bazillions of crab-like things washed ashore [see photo]. - Tweet from @MLukeMc.
Feb
23, 2015: Thousands of dead crabs washed up on shore on #BalboaIsland.
Residents want to know why! (Photo: Tim Sullivan) @ABC7 - Tweet from @ABC7Greg. More on the pyrosomes:
Pyrosomes Wash onto Big Corona Beach… something not been seen before in Corona del Mar,
a city expert said. “Pyrosoma is a glow in the dark pelagic tunicate,”
said Michelle Clemente, a Newport Beach marine education supervisor, in
an email. “Although it is not uncommon to our waters…no one around here has ever seen it!”- Corona Del Mar Today.
The
ocean oddities arrived all summer. The glow-in-the-dark organisms
called pyrosomes washed ashore… jellyfish-like creatures [were] a bit
earlier… “These are strange times,” said Chris Lowe, a professor and
head of the Shark Lab at Cal State Long Beach… “It’s tricky,” Lowe said.
“The animals are acting as if we’re going to have an El Niño, but the
ocean’s conditions aren’t conclusive.” - OC Register.
The
memory of the cataclysms was erased, not because of lack of written
traditions, but because of some characteristic process that later caused
entire nations, together with their literate men, to read into these
traditions allegories or metaphors where actually cosmic disturbances
were clearly described. - Worlds in Collision, Immanuel Velikovsky. March 24, 2015 - SPACE
- Jupiter’s large orbital journey across the early solar system may
have cleared the way for the oddball arrangement of our planetary
system, scientists say – even to the point of destroying burgeoning
young planets.
Researchers at the California Institute of Technology created a model for the formation of Jupiter and Saturn, dubbed 'Grand Tack,'which
shows Jupiter’s migration towards the sun – the area of the inner solar
system, where planets like Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars exist – until
Saturn is formed. Saturn’s formation caused Jupiter to reverse course
and migrate outward to its current orbit.
In other exoplanet
systems, there is generally evidence of super-Earths that have formed,
which are planets 10 times the mass of Earth. “[Those planets]
tend to have very thick and massive atmospheres with pressures that
exceed that of the Earth by factors of hundreds, if not thousands,” lead study author Konstanti Batygin, a planetary scientist at Caltech in Pasadena, told Space.com.
Jupiter smashed the solar system like a wrecking ball, study claims.
These
super-Earths are conspicuously absent in our solar system, so
researchers think they may have existed in the inner solar system before
Jupiter’s migration. They theorize that as Jupiter moved inward and
then outward, its gravitational pull would have set off a series of
collisions that smashed the newborn planets to pieces.
“It’s the same thing we worry about if satellites were to be destroyed in low-Earth orbit,” co-author Gregory Laughlin, an astronomer at the University of California, Santa Cruz, said in a statement. “Their
fragments would start smashing into other satellites and you’d risk a
chain reaction of collisions. Our work indicates that Jupiter would have
created just such a collisional cascade in the inner solar system.”
Scientists
say the resulting debris would have mostly spiraled into the sun and
caused a second generation of inner planets to form later from the
depleted material. This could explain why Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars
are younger than our outer solar system planets, with smaller and with
thinner atmospheres.
“While Earth-mass planets may indeed be
plentiful in the galaxy, truly Earth-like planets, with low atmospheric
pressure and temperatures on the surfaces, are likely an exception to
the rule,” said Batygin. - RT.
March 24, 2015 - TURKEY - In Hozat and Ovacik snowfall exceeded half a meter (20 inches), says this article on gercekgundem.com. And there is 20 cm (8 inches) of snow in the city center of Pülümür.
Normal life in Tunceli is stopped
Due to the increasing snowfall during the night in Tunceli, the
Tunceli-Pülümür and Tunceli-Erzincan highways remained closed to traffic
due to the dozens of vehicles stuck on the road.
A large
number of machines were sent to the area to open roads. Meanwhile,
Tunceli-Hozat, it was learned that the Tunceli-Ovacik road transport in
closed due to snow.
About 250 villages are cut off.
Snow removal in Turkey.
Heavy snowfall in Turkey
Due to intensive heavy snowfall in Kayseri the Kayseri-Malatya road was closed for transportation.
Police teams that do not allow the passage of vehicles on the highway.
Snow removal and salting operations continue in order to avoid more disruption in transportation.
March 24, 2015 - EARTH - The
following constitutes the latest reports of unusual and symbolic animal
behavior, mass die-offs, beaching and stranding of mammals, and the
appearance of rare creatures.
‘Two-faced’ cow sold at auction set for slaughterhouse
'Two Face' was sold at an auction Photo: Mareeba Saleyards
A cow that appears to have two faces looks set for the slaughterhouse after being sold at an auction in Australia.
The
deformed bullock attracted a lot of attention at an auction in Mareeba,
North Queensland, where it was reportedly sold to an abattoir.
Named Two Face, the 440kg double-headed bullock was sold for $537AUD (£270) this week.
While
the animal’s genetic deformity may have caused a stir amongst cattle
buyers, its former owners say he is in “great condition”.
“Here's
an interesting bullock from today's sale. Just happened to have two
faces,” Mareeba Saleyards explained in a Facebook post.
“Second face has an eye, one tooth and working nostrils, and in great condition.”
'Two Face' Photo: Mareeba Saleyards
The animal was born with a genetic deformity Photo: Mareeba Saleyards
Yard chairman Gerry Collins told AAP: “Sometimes the genetic engineering doesn't quite work according to plan.
“There was a fair bit of curiosity and interest, but I don't know whether there was a lot of interest in a commercial sense.
“There's nothing wrong with it as far as the animal is concerned.”
The bullock was sold to an abattoir, according to several reports, however Mr Collins did not confirm who had bought the bull.
"It
was an absolute prime condition animal, he just had two faces," said
Mark Peters, a livestock sales manager. “He’s as fat as a fool.”
Vodafone
has warned its customers of possible signal problems in the coming
months as falcons have decided to build their nests in the firm’s masts.
Faster service will only be achieved once the birds move on.
The
falcons, ironically the world’s fastest birds, are set to slow down the
provider’s mobile network, after occupying masts around London, their
ideal nesting spot.
Customers will have to wait up to two months
for the falcons’ chicks to hatch and take flight before regaining their
standard service.
The mobile-phone giant is unable to remove the
nests, as it’s a criminal offence to disturb birds while they are
nesting under the Wildlife and Countryside Act of 1981.
If they were to disobey this law, the company could face a fine of up to £5,000 and offenders could face six months in prison.
There
are 30 nesting pairs in Greater London, and six more birds have
recently occupied nests in Hammersmith, Shadwell and Lewisham.
WATCH: Mum gathers chicks under her.
The falcon takeover will cause delays to service upgrades and customers may face disruption to their current network.
Reacting to the news on Twitter, an outraged user said: “The law is an ass” as “people are paying through the nose for 4G, can’t get a decent signal for months because of birds?!”
A dissatisfied user tweeted: “So
Vodafone are having network issues in the area again,” sarcastically
adding, “clearly it’s Revenge of the Falcon… The sequel.”
This isn’t the first time falcons have caused Vodafone users inconvenience.
In April 2013, users complained about poor service in Southampton, where engineers discovered falcons nesting in the masts.
A frustrated customer tweeted at the time: “I cannot believe there’s some protected falcon nesting on the Vodafone masts,” even though she found the situation slightly amusing, she said “having no signal is not funny at all.” “I never get signal at uni, stupid Vodafone,” another Southampton student tweeted.
Simon Gordon, Senior Media Relations manager at Vodafone, told the Mail Online: “We apologize to any customers who experience a dip in service, but we have to respect the environment and the law.”
Calling the situation “unprecedented,” Gordon says, to his knowledge, it is the first time this has happened in London.
“They
can sometimes nest on the mast itself which is like a big metal
climbing frame or use the box underneath where the computer stuff sits,” he told the paper.
He said Vodafone is inspecting individual sites to upgrade equipment as part of its 4G project.
Falcons
nearly became extinct in the 1960s after their numbers were threatened
by pesticides, but laws controlling the use of such chemicals meant the
species slowly recovered.
Stuart Harrington, co-founder of London Peregrine Partnership told the Evening Standard: “There are more peregrine falcons in London than there are in more picturesque areas up north.
“London
probably has the highest density of peregrine falcons in the UK, with
many flying up from the south coast and settling here.” - RT.
12 pilot whales dead in Bunbury harbour, Australia
The
fight to save members of a whale pod stranded at a beach in WA's south
continues after a dozen long-finned pilot whales were confirmed dead.
The pod of whales became stranded along the breakwater wall and
adjacent beach in Bunbury harbour early Monday and Department of Parks
and Wildlife nature conservation leader Kim Williams said 12 whales had
died in the stranding, while six were earlier herded out to sea.
"This
afternoon's efforts have focussed on the rescue of four remaining
whales that were stranded in the shallows, and they were pulled out to
sea using a sling and boats," he said.
"Unfortunately one of
these whales has re-stranded and is being taken out to deeper water
again, while the other three are not swimming strongly and there is a
chance they will also re-strand."
Around 50 people, including staff and volunteers from the Dolphin Discovery Centre helped with the rescue effort.
Rescuers said a confused whale looked as though it was trying to reach
its calf on rocks but it wasn't there. In doing so, the whale continued
to beach itself.
Rescuers had to bring the calf back to the shore in an attempt to coax the mother to stop.
"There is another pod of 15 long-finned pilot whales that has been
swimming in the area all day, and we are hoping the whales we released
this afternoon will join them. - WA Today.
Large hailstones kill horses, birds and ravage cotton crops in northern New South Wales, Australia
Just weeks before picking, severe storms have wreaked havoc on north-western New South Wales cotton crops.
Large
hailstones pounded the Narrabri region and winds close to 100
kilometres an hour ripped at crops and pulled at tiled rooves.
The cotton crop of the Narrabri Community Education Trust farm has
suffered extensive damage, but farmer Rob Eveleigh, who helps manage the
crop, said other growers around it may have lost everything.
He said the 60 hectares of cotton was being grown as a fundraiser for local schools.
"It's probably in the order of 25 to 30 per cent damage which is a big loss obviously. That's the profits," he said.
"I know not too far away from there there's growers who lost whole crops.
"It's just one of those thing. If you're in farming, you just have to take it on the chin and move on."
A woman holds a huge piece of hail at Narrabri from a super cell storm.
Photo: This cotton crop has been decimated by huge hail stones, heavy rain and strong winds.
Horses killed and locals pick up dead birds
David Brodrick, from the Narrabri Shire Weather Station,believed winds reached over 150 kilometres in some parts of the region out of the weather station's reach.
He said people had been contacting him about animals killed by the enormous hail.
"You could see that this was a super cell storm on the Doppler radar," he said
"The highest winds that we recorded on a weather station from this storm were about 95 kilometres an hour. "I've heard this morning about several horses which were caught in the storm have been killed.
"We've
had several comments on our Facebook page about wildlife and dead
birds. One lady said that she was sick of picking up a number of dead
birds, so it's a really horrific event from that point of view."- ABC Australia.
A very rare whale washed up on the Merizo reef yesterday.
The 15-foot beaked whale was still alive when it washed up in Bile Bay in Merizo.
Residents reported it to authorities at 10:30 a.m. When authorities
arrived an hour later it was dead, said to Brent Tibbatts, Guam
Department of Agriculture fisheries biologist.
Tibbatts said
Guam Department of Agriculture authorities planned to haul it away
yesterday evening at high tide to perform a necropsy at a Guam
Department of Agriculture facility.
Tibbatts said no external
cause of death could be seen on the whale's body. During the necropsy,
scientists will collect tissues samples for DNA and study the whale's
stomach to get a better understanding of its death. According to Tibbatts, beaked whales are extremely rare everywhere in the world.
"They usually dwell at a depth of around 8,000 feet in open ocean. So,
for one to come so close to our reef, it must have been very sick,"
Tibbatts said.
Although Guam has seen a number
of beached whales in recent years, the last beaked whale to wash up on
Guam's reef was in 2008 near the commercial port, according to Tibbatts.
It's illegal to remove body parts from the whale and Tibbatts
discourages anyone from getting too close to the corpse for health and
safety concerns.
Dead whales can pass communicable diseases to
humans like brucella, morbillivirus and herpes, according to Pacific
Daily News files. - Guam Pacific Daily News.
Man stabs his pit pull terrier after it attacks him, wife in Hamden, Connecticut
A family dog or a fighting breed?
The pit bull turned on the owners when they tried to separate it from a family puppy.
A Hamden resident stabbed his adult male pit bull after the dog attacked him and his wife on Friday afternoon.
Both Ford Street residents were taken to Yale-New Haven Hospital with
non-life threatening injuries, Sgt. Anthony Diaz said in a press
release.
Diaz said that the pit bull attacked the woman after
she tried to separate it from one of the puppies at the home. The pit
bull had been biting the puppy, according to Diaz.
The woman's husband then coaxed the dog into a backroom of the residence at which time the pit bull attacked him as well.
The pit bull then broke through a security gate and attacked the husband a second time, at which time he retrieved a knife and stabbed the dog in an attempt to stop the attack, according to Diaz.
Animal Controls Officers arrived on the scene and captured the dog.
Hamden Fire Rescue personnel also arrived on scene to treat both victims before they were taken to the hospital. - Patch.
Birds in Rhode Island found dead due to severe winter
Rhode
Island's severe winter has proven deadly for waterfowl — primarily
Canada geese — whose carcasses are being found across Rhode Island as
the snow and ice start to melt, according to the Department of
Environmental Management. Tides have also pushed them in along the
shoreline.
The birds have died from malnutrition and starvation, said wildlife
biologist Joshua Beuth, with the DEM Division of Fish and Wildlife. The
die-off is atypical, attributable to this winter's persistent ice and
snow cover;similar die-offs have occurred in Massachusetts and Connecticut, Beuth said.
"I went to several of the sites and took a look at the birds to confirm
our belief of malnutrition and starvation," Beuth said. "There's very
little muscle tissue; [they're] very emaciated and there are no other
signs of trauma that would indicate any other cause of death."
Eagles, coyotes and other mammalian predators have been seen scavenging
on the exposed dead waterfowl, he said. He received the first report in
mid-February; they have picked up since then.
"With all the reports that I've had so far, the concrete number of birds is just over 100 now throughout the state,"Beuth said.
That includes from Watch Hill to the Charlestown, South Kingstown and
Narragansett beaches, Jamestown, Newport Harbor, and Bristol, among
other locations, and in the area of some Newport estates.
"It's
the whole south coast, and I had several reports up in Warwick and also
Lincoln. It's been widespread, and the numbers have been anywhere from 2
birds to 20. I'm sure there were more in some areas that got taken out
by the tide or out to sea."
Though the dead waterfowl are primarily Canada geese, Beuth said he received reports of dead mallards and black ducks;"fewer than 10 of each," he said.
"It's one of the relatively rare cases, especially around here. It
requires the perfect set of conditions to happen in terms of prolonged
snow and ice cover," he said.
"This year we had snow cover
approaching 45 or 50 days on the areas where they traditionally feed,"
which includes large grassy fields, Beuth said.
"And we had ice
cover in salt-water environments, so when we did have pretty solid ice
cover it was all in shallow water where they'd be able to feed. So they
were pushed to the deeper water environments where there is very little
food available."
Beuth said anyone finding a number of dead waterfowl in one area can call his office at (401) 789-1636 or 789-0231. - Providence Journal.
U.S. bird experts mystified by Midwest avian flu spread
A virulent strain of avian flu that has killed turkeys in the heart of the nation's poultry region has been found through molecular testing to be nearly identical to viruses isolated in migratory ducks.
But some wildlife experts are skeptical of suggestions that wild birds are responsible for spreading the H5N2 flu strain that has infected poultry in Minnesota, Missouri and Arkansas.
A top investigator from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) says that testing performed by the government supports a conclusion that the virus is being carried by waterfowl along an established migratory route that stretches south from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. The virus can be transmitted to poultry from ducks through droppings that land on farms or when birds interact, among other ways.
"That's the way we're sort of pointing right now: to ducks as the problem," said Brian McCluskey, lead epidemiologist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service. The agency has not, however, identified how the disease made its way from the ducks to domestic fowl.
Experts who doubt that wild birds are spreading the virus note that the disease has moved from Minnesota in the north, south to Arkansas and Missouri, the opposite direction birds migrate through the area in the spring.
"When you're talking about where I would put my money, I would say that north to south movement in the beginning of March totally does not make sense," said Hon Ip, a microbiologist for the National Wildlife Health Center.
Determining how avian flu is spreading is crucial to preventing future outbreaks, protecting poultry and limiting damage in the $5.7 billion export market. Already, the outbreak has prompted top poultry importers, including Mexico and Canada, to widen trade restrictions.
Previous outbreaks on the West Coast were linked to wild fowl by the USDA. But the virus can be spread in other ways, too, including through contaminated trucks, humans or animal feed. People can carry infected material, such as feces or even feathers, to farms on their clothes, shoes or vehicles.
Once it arrives, avian flu can spread rapidly through a flock, killing birds in as little as 24 hours. The virus has not been identified in humans and is not expected to pose a public health risk, according to the USDA.
The infection in a Minnesota turkey flock was the first along the migratory route known as the Mississippi flyway, which also includes Missouri and Arkansas -- and continues southeast toward the major chicken producing states of Mississippi and Alabama.
After the Minnesota case was identified on March 5, the USDA organized a call to advise state veterinarians along the route that the virus could be headed in their direction, said Richard Fordyce, director of Missouri's Department of Agriculture.
But wildlife experts question whether wild birds are moving the virus along the flyway.
"It is extraordinarily unlikely that avian influenza in the turkey flock in Minnesota has anything to do with wild birds," said Lou Cornicelli, wildlife research manager for the Minnesota Division of Fish and Wildlife . He noted that few migratory ducks have started arriving in Minnesota.
"I would think the investigation is going to look more toward the biosecurity issue with food or transport," Cornicelli added. "The fact that there are no ducks here would indicate that it's not ducks in Minnesota."
One day after the USDA confirmed avian flu in Minnesota, state wildlife employees took a low-level airplane flight to scout a 15-mile radius around an infected turkey farm for wild birds that could have carried the virus.
They spotted just 18 swans and 100 ducks, and they appeared to be "city birds" that do not migrate, Cornicelli said. The state nevertheless tested feces from some of the ducks for avian flu, but the results were negative.
Arkansas officials doubt the role of migratory birds in their state's outbreak, too, partly because the area with the infected farm does not attract many wild birds and waterfowl, said Karen Rowe, bird conservation program leader for the Arkansas Game & Fish Commission.
Most birds in Arkansas are flying north at this time of year, Rowe added. She plans to travel to the farm next week to look for clues about how the virus could have spread.
"Was it carried in on clothing or boots? There's just a lot of unanswered questions," Rowe said.
Butterball LLC, which has contracts to buy turkeys from farms in Arkansas and Missouri that were infected, declined to speculate about how the virus was spread.
Cargill Inc contracts for turkeys from an infected farm near Fortuna, Missouri, and said the origin of that infection is under investigation."We know that AI is spread by migratory wild waterfowl," spokesman Michael Martin said, referring to the virus. "However, we are not taking anything for granted." - Yahoo.
Canadian Tourist Fatally Injured by Jumping Whale in Mexico
A gray whale during its travel by the Pacific ocean coasts, Mexico March 5, 2008. Alejandro Zepeda—EPA
A Canadian woman died from injuries sustained when a gray whale crashed into a tourist boat as it returned from a short excursion out of the resort city of Cabo San Lucas in Mexico.
Two other passengers were injured in the accident, which took place close to the beach around 11am on Wednesday, according to a statement released by tour company Cabo Adventures.
“The captain had to make a movement to avoid a whale that surfaced just in front of the boat,” the statement said. “The whale hit one side of the boat, leaving two people injured and another passenger hurt who, unfortunately, later died in hospital.”
Port director Vicente MartÃnez said the woman was 45 years old. Some reports said she was 10 years younger. The collision happened on the Pacific coast side of the Baja California Peninsula. One reported version said the whale jumped out of the water and landed on the boat filled with 24 people, including the crew.
The confusingly worded statement from the tour company appeared to suggest that the victim fell into the water during the collision. Once she was pulled back into the boat, it said, she immediately received mouth to mouth resuscitation from another tourist who happened to be a qualified nurse before naval rescue paramedics arrived and took her to the hospital.
Two other injured tourists were also taken to hospital – one was later discharged and the other’s life was not in danger, the statement said.
Cabo San Lucas promotes whale watching among its major attractions, promising tourists safe and awe-inspiring encounters with the huge docile mammals that every winter migrate thousands of miles from Arctic waters to warm shallow lagoons off the Mexican coast where they breed.
The fatality happened on the same day that Mexican authorities announced a particularly high number of gray whales had gathered in the area during this year’s season, which runs from mid-December to the end of April.The National Commission for Natural Protected Areas said its census indicated a 10% increase on last season, making it one of the highest migrations registered during the last two decades. - TIME.
USDA reports virulent strain of avian flu in Kansas poultry
The
U.S. Department of Agriculture has confirmed an infection of a virulent
strain of avian flu in poultry in Kansas, the first case in a migratory
bird route that runs through the center of the country.
The USDA identified the H5N2 flu strain in a backyard chicken and duck flock in Leavenworth County, Kansas, according to a statement issued on Friday. It is the first case in the Central flyway migratory route, which stretches north-south from Montana to Texas.
The same strain of the virus, which is deadly to poultry, has been found at commercial turkey farms in Minnesota, Missouri and Arkansas. They lie in a neighboring migratory route called the Mississippi flyway. - Yahoo.
Starving & sick: Sea lion pups wash ashore in record numbers
More
than 1,500 starving sea lion pups have washed ashore on the California
coast this year, many of which are on the brink of death. Animal
rescuers are overwhelmed with calls to save them. A weather phenomenon
caused by global warming may be to blame.
The emaciated pups are
arriving at more than five times the normal stranding rate in the Golden
State, from the shores of San Diego up to San Francisco.
Many are
sick with pneumonia. Parasites have swarmed their digestive systems.
Some are so tired that they cannot scamper away when rescuers ‒ or
predators such as dogs ‒ approach them, the New York Times reported. “They come ashore because if they didn’t, they would drown,” Shawn Johnson, the director of veterinary science at Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, told the Times. “They’re just bones and skin. They’re really on the brink of death.”
Peter
Wallerstein, director of Marine Animal Rescue in Los Angeles County,
said his center is overwhelmed by the record number of sea lions in need
of help.
Rescued California sea lion pups rest in their holding pen at Sea World San Diego in San Diego, California (Reuters/Mike Blake)
Dramatic increase of starving sea lion pups in California.
“I’m just dealing with it one animal at a time, as best as we can,” Wallerstein said in an interview with Yahoo News. “We
rescued four today [even though] we are limited to three a day because
the rehab center is so full. We had to leave some adults on the beach.
It’s like a paramedic not having a hospital to bring a patient.” “It’s the highest number I’ve had in 29 years of rescues,” he said. “We get like 50 calls a day on sea lions.” "I've had more than 200 so far this year," Wallerstein told KNBC. "So, we've doubled our rescues and there seems to be no end in sight." “There are so many calls, we just can’t respond to them all,”
Justin Viezbicke, who oversees stranding issues in California for the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), said on a
conference call with reporters. “The reality is, we just can’t get to these animals.”
SeaWorld
announced last Friday that it was canceling its sea lion and otter show
for at least two weeks. Instead of performing, the trainers will help
the park’s Animal Rescue team to provide aid to the sea lions stranded
along the San Diego coastline. "SeaWorld's entire zoological
staff is working tirelessly to save the lives of these emaciated and ill
animals. [We] have already rescued more than 400 sea lions in 2015,
which is more than twice the number of marine mammal rescues the park
would average in a typical year," the theme park said in a statement. "While
the temporary closure of the sea lion and otter show may be a minor
inconvenience to guests, we feel that it is important to ensure we
provide the highest level of care necessary to give these stranded sea
lions a second chance at life.”
Experts believe this year's
El Niño-type conditions ‒ bands of abnormally warm water have swept up
the Pacific Coast since the waning months of 2014 ‒ might be responsible
for driving sea lion prey deeper into the sea. "It's been a really unusually warm year, and disruptive to the normal marine food web, from Baja all the way up to Alaska," Nate Mantua, a climatologist with NOAA's Southwest Fisheries Science Center, told National Geographic.
NOAA has not officially declared an El Niño, however.
With
the animals’ prey further away from their nesting grounds on the
Channel Islands ‒ an eight-island chain off the Southern California
coast ‒ mothers are leaving their pups for longer periods of time to
hunt for food.
The babies then begin to starve. “The prey source is just too far away for the mothers to go out, get food and come back and wean the pups,” Jim Milbury of the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) told Yahoo News.
The
pups then try to fend for themselves, but they are too young to travel
far, dive deep or truly hunt on their own, scientists told the Times.
The
sea lions are turning up under fishing piers and in backyards, along
inlets and on rocky cliffs. One was found curled up in a flower pot.
Even
the pups that remain on the Channel Islands are suffering. The NMFS ‒ a
part of NOAA ‒ found that pups on the eight islands were 44 percent
underweight, Common Dreams reported. Sharon Melin, a NMFS wildlife
biologist, blamed climate change. "The environment is changing too rapidly," Melin said. “Their life history is so much slower that it’s not keeping up.”
The
ocean is up to five degrees warmer in the northeast Pacific and off the
West Coast ‒ probably a record, Mantua told the Associated Press. The
same high-pressure system has caused has a four-year drought in the
state.
The world experienced record-breaking ocean temperatures
in 2014, and, for the first time, the rising measurements were not due
to an El Niño phenomenon at the beginning of the year. - RT.
March 24, 2015 - DIGNE, SOUTHERN FRANCE - An Airbus A320 with 142 passengers and 8 crewmembers has crashed in
Digne region, southern France, media reports say. The jet, which
belonged to Germanwings low-cost airline, was flying from Barcelona to
Düsseldorf.
The jet took off from Barcelona airport at 08:55 GMT, according to Spanish Airport operator AENA.
Need to know: Airbus A320 Single-aisle narrow-body jet, popular for short- and medium-haul flights Can hold up to 180 passengers As of November 2014, a total of 11,163 A320 jets ordered, and 6,331 planes delivered to date The A320’s biggest users are US Airways, EasyJet China Southern Airlines, China Eastern Airlines British Airways operates 120 Airbus A320s Each A320 costs $97 million The A320’s first flight was on February 22, 1987
France’s
Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve has confirmed the plane crash and
is headed to the scene, local TV reported. He added that debris from the
crashed jet has been found near a village.He added that debris from
crashed jet has been found near the small town of Barcelonnette, a
commune in Alpes-de-Haute-Provence,about 100 km (65 miles) north of the
French Riviera city of Nice.
WATCH: Germanwings Flight 4U2595 Crashes In Southern France With 150 On Board!
President Francois Hollande said there were no survivors among the 148 people on board, RTL reported.
Reports German Wings flight #9525 from Barcelona to Dusseldorf crashes near Digne, France http://on.rt.com/60yp57
"There were 148 people on board," French President Francois Hollande said. "The conditions of the accident, which have not yet been clarified, lead us to think there are no survivors."He also expressed condolences to the families of the victims on his official Twitter account.
Hollande
also expressed his sympathies to German Chancellor Angela Merkel over
the fate of German citizens on board the plane, who were believed to
constitute a majority of the passengers. He added that Turkish residents
are believed to be among the victims as well.
Forty-five passengers on board the crashed jet are believed to be Spanish, said Spain’s Deputy PM Soraya Sáenz de SantamarÃa.
French
Prime Minister Manuel Valls said there are fears up to 150 passengers
and crew died in the crash, adding that the cause is not yet known. "We of course don't know the reasons for the crash," Valls told the media. "We obviously fear that the 142 to 150 passengers and crew died today, given the conditions of this crash."
A local witness said he heard a series of loud noises in the air before the jet crashed to the ground. "There
are often fighter jets flying over, so I thought it sounded just like
that. I looked outside, but I couldn't see any fighter planes," the owner of a French Alpine camping ground, Pierre Polizzi, told AP. "The
noise I heard was long - like eight seconds - as if the plane was going
more slowly than a military plane speed. There was another long noise
about 30 seconds later."
According to the German Civil Aviation Service, 154 people were killed in the crash.
The
plane was lost from the radars at about 09:39 GMT, according to
flightradar24, an internet service displaying real-time aircraft flight
information on a map.
Here is a photo from helicopter of the crash area.
Germanwings, a low-cost airline based in Cologne, tweeted that they will inform media immediately about the incident, “as soon as definite information is available.”
Germanwings,
a German low-cost airline based in Cologne, is owned by Lufthansa, the
largest airline in Europe. The company fleet has a total of 81 aircraft
in service, including Airbus A319s and A320s, and Bombardier CRJ900s.
Germanwings airlines has confirmed on Twitter that one of its A320 jets
crashed.
The Airbus A320, a medium-range commercial passenger jet, typically seats 150 to 180 people.
In
the previous crash involving an Airbus A320 plane, AirAsia’s QZ8501
flight was en route to Singapore from Surabaya, Indonesia, on December
28. Out of 162 people on board, there were no survivors.
The last
notable air disaster in France was in 2000, when a Concorde operated by
Air France crashed on takeoff from Paris Charles de Gaulle Airport
heading for New York. One hundred and thirteen people died in the crash.
- RT.
Scientists At CERN's Large Hadron Collider Hope To Make Contact With PARALLEL UNIVERSE In Days!
The
staggeringly complex LHC ‘atom smasher’ at the CERN centre in Geneva,
Switzerland, will be fired up to its highest energy levels ever in a bid
to detect - or even create - miniature black holes.
If successful a completely new universe will be revealed – rewriting not only the physics books but the philosophy books too.
It is even possible that gravity from our own universe may ‘leak’ into this parallel universe, scientists at the LHC say.
The experiment is sure to inflame alarmist critics of the LHC, many of
whom initially warned the high energy particle collider would spell the
end of our universe with the creation a black hole of its own.
But so far Geneva remains intact and comfortably outside the event horizon. WATCH: "Fringe" - Trailer.
Indeed the LHC has been spectacularly successful. First scientists
proved the existence of the elusive Higgs boson ‘God particle’ - a key
building block of the universe - and it is seemingly well on the way to
nailing ‘dark matter’ - a previously undetectable theoretical
possibility that is now thought to make up the majority of matter in the
universe.
But next week’s experiment is considered to be a game changer.
Mir
Faizal, one of the three-strong team of physicists behind the
experiment, said: “Just as many parallel sheets of paper, which are two
dimensional objects [breadth and length] can exist in a third dimension
[height], parallel universes can also exist in higher dimensions.
“We predict that gravity can leak into extra dimensions, and if it does, then miniature black holes can be produced at the LHC.
"Normally, when people think of the multiverse, they think of the
many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics, where every possibility
is actualised.
"This cannot be tested and so it is philosophy and not science.
“This is not what we mean by parallel universes. What we mean is real universes in extra dimensions.
The collider’s power has been doubled now, and it will have many times more power than any
other comparable facility in the world, and with that power comes
many
other unknown potentials. Scientists at CERN believe that next week’s
experiment in search of the
highly illusive Higgs boson, aka the ‘God Particle’ - could be a game changer.
“As gravity can flow out of our universe into the extra dimensions,
such a model can be tested by the detection of mini black holes at the
LHC.
“We have calculated the energy at which we expect to
detect these mini black holes in ‘gravity's rainbow’ [a new scientific
theory].
“If we do detect mini black holes at this energy, then
we will know that both gravity's rainbow and extra dimensions are
correct."
When the LHC is fired up the energy is measured in
Tera electron volts – a TeV is 1,000,000,000,000, or one trillion,
electron Volts
So far, the LHC has searched for mini black holes at energy levels below 5.3 TeV.
But the latest study says this is too low.
Instead, the model predicts that black holes may form at energy levels
of at least 9.5 TeV in six dimensions and 11.9 TeV in 10 dimensions. - Express.
