Madame Butterfly

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  3. Posted

    Scientists find planet with 3 suns

     

    (Reuters) -- Astronomers have detected a planet outside our solar system with not one, but three suns, a finding that challenges astronomers' theories of planetary formation.

     

    The planet, a gas giant slightly larger than Jupiter, orbits the main star of a triple-star system known as HD 188753 in the constellation Cygnus.

     

    The stellar trio and its planet are about 149 light-years from Earth and about as close to each other as our sun is to Saturn, U.S. scientists reported on Thursday in the current edition of the journal Nature.

     

    A light-year is about 6 trillion miles (10 trillion km), the distance light travels in a year.

     

    If you stood on the planet's surface, you would see three suns in sky, although its orbit centers around the main yellow star among the trio. The larger of the other two suns would be orange and the smaller would be red, astronomers at California Institute of Technology said in a statement.

     

    The new finding could upset existing theories that planets usually form out of gas and dust circling a single star, and could lead scientists to look in new places for planets.

     

    "The implication is that there are more planets out there than we thought," the commentary said.

     

    Caltech astronomer Maciej Konacki, who wrote the research article, refers to the new type of planets as "Tatooine planets," because of the similarity to Luke Skywalker's view of his home planet by the same name, with its multiple suns, in the original "Star Wars" film.

     

    The fact that a planet can even exist in a multiple-star system is amazing in itself, according to Konacki. Binary and multiple stars are quite common in the solar neighborhood, and in fact outnumber single stars by some 20 percent.

     

    But so far, most extrasolar planets -- those discovered outside our planetary system -- have been detected by watching for a characteristic wobble in the stars their orbit, reflecting the gravitation pull the planets exert on their suns.

     

    This method is less effective for binary and multiple star systems, and existing theories said planets were unlikely to form in this kind of environment.

     

    Konacki found a new way to identify planets by measuring velocities of all bodies in a binary or multiple star system.

     

    Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved

  5. Posted

    New Harry Potter Adventure Flies Off Shelves

    By Mike Collett-White, Reuters

     

     

     

     

    LONDON (July 16) - Children and adults poured into stores around the world on Saturday to snatch up copies of the latest Harry Potter adventure, which looks set to become the fastest-selling book in history.

     

    Publishers say up to 10 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" could fly off the shelves in the first 24 hours, as "Pottermania" broke out in Sydney, Beijing, Edinburgh, New York and around the planet.

     

    The carefully orchestrated launch was the finishing touch to months of hype and to elaborate measures to stop details of the boy wizard's latest escapades leaking out.

     

    When a handful of copies were sold before the deadline in Canada this week, purchasers were ordered not to disclose its contents, and, according to media reports, even to read it.

     

    Children descended on the Scottish city of Edinburgh, where Potter author J.K. Rowling read from the latest book the moment witching hour passed at one minute past midnight, local time.

     

    "I am excited," she said on her way into a dramatically lit Edinburgh Castle. "You get a lot of answers in this book."

     

    Just hours after the 672-page tome was released simultaneously around the globe, Web sites ran plot summaries of the sixth and penultimate episode of the Potter saga.

     

    It promises plenty of dark twists for Harry and his pals at Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft.

     

    Eager to Read About Witches and Wizards

     

    In Australia, thousands of "Pottermaniacs," some carrying live snakes, besieged bookstores in the outback, in the country's snowfields and along its beaches.

     

     

     

    Before dawn in Sydney, 1,000 fans boarded a special train called the Gleewarts Express which took them to a secret location outside the city where they received their copies in the early morning.

     

    Dressed as their favorite characters, fans poured over copies in a cold and eerie country mist.

     

    Kate Suthers flew out from Britain to take the train.

     

    "I did it three years ago and it was fantastic," said Suthers of a similar launch of an early Potter book.

     

    "There are so many unanswered questions," said Elizabeth Mackay, 15, as she read the first few pages inside a Sydney shop. "It's so exciting, something has happened, a bridge has collapsed."

     

    There were crowds too at bookstores in Singapore and in New Delhi, the Indian capital, where attendants wore black capes and magician's hats.

     

    In Britain, thousands of parents and children queued outside bookshops waiting for midnight.

     

    "Every book just gets bigger and bigger," said David Roche of Waterstone's book retailer in central London.

     

    A Portuguese girl called Carlotta was the first in the chain's flagship store to buy the new book.

     

    "She comes from Portugal, a long way on a broomstick for a young lady," said an actor resembling Albus Dumbledore, the fictional headmaster of Hogwarts school of magic in the books.

     

    Fans Benefit From Competition

     

    Global sales of the first five books in the seven-part series have topped 270 million and the three Harry Potter movies to date have grossed more than $2.5 billion.

     

    But the Half-Blood Prince may not prove a windfall for everyone.

     

    The rush for market share has forced retailers, under pressure from Internet sites, to slash prices.

     

    Rowling thought up the Harry Potter character in 1990, and initially struggled to find a publisher.

     

    She has been credited with winning over a new generation of young readers and publishers have not been slow to cash in with extravagant and aggressive marketing campaigns.

     

    The books have made Rowling the richest woman in the United Kingdom, richer even than the queen, with a personal fortune estimated in 2004 at $1 billion.

     

    Additional reporting by Michael Perry in Sydney and Krittivas Mukherjee in New Delhi.

  10. Posted

    Ancient Biblical Scroll Fragments Found, Scholar Says

    By DANIELLE HAAS, AP

     

    JERUSALEM (July 15) - A secretive encounter with a Bedouin in a desert valley led to the discovery of two fragments from a nearly 2,000-year-old parchment scroll - the first such finding in decades, an Israeli archaeologist said Friday.

     

     

     

     

    The finding has given rise to hope that the Judean Desert may yield more treasures, said Professor Chanan Eshel, an archaeologist from Tel Aviv's Bar Ilan University.

     

    The two small pieces of brown animal skin, inscribed in Hebrew with verses from the Book of Leviticus, are from "refugee" caves in Nachal Arugot, a canyon near the Dead Sea where Jews hid from the Romans in the second century, Eshel said in an interview with The Associated Press.

     

     

     

    The scrolls are being tested by Israel's Antiquities Authority. Recently, several relics bearing inscriptions, including a burial box purported to belong to Jesus' brother James, were revealed as modern forgeries.

     

    More than 1,000 ancient texts - known collectively as the Dead Sea Scrolls - were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in 11 caves overlooking the western shores of the Dead Sea.

     

    "No scrolls have been found in the Judean Desert" in decades, Eshel said. "The common belief has been that there is nothing left to find there."

     

    Now, he said, scholars may be spurred on to further excavations.

     

     

    "What's interesting and exciting is that this is a new discovery. This is the first time we've seen anything from the south since the 1960s."

    -Bible scholar Steven Pfann

     

    Archaeologist and Bible scholar Steven Pfann said he had not seen the fragments. If authenticated, they would "in general not be doing more than confirming the character of the material that we have from the southern part of the Judean wilderness up until today."

     

    But "what's interesting and exciting is that this is a new discovery," Pfann added. "This is the first time we've seen anything from the south since the 1960s."

     

    Eshel said he was first shown the fragments last year during a meeting in an abandoned police station near the Dead Sea.

     

    A Bedouin said he had been offered $20,000 for the fragments on the black market and wanted an evaluation.

     

    The encounter that both excited and dismayed the archaeologist who has worked in the Judean Desert since 1986.

     

    "I was jealous he had found it, not me. I was also very excited. I didn't believe I would see them again," said Eshel, who took photographs of the pieces he feared would soon be smuggled out of the country.

     

    But in March 2005, he discovered the Bedouin still had the scroll fragments. Eshel bought them with $3,000 provided by Bar Ilan University and handed them over to the Antiquities Authority, he said.

     

    "Scholars do not buy antiquities. I did it because I could not see it fall apart," Eshel said.

     

    The finding constitutes the 15th scroll fragments found in the area from the same period of the Jewish "Bar Kochba" revolt against the Romans, and the first to be discovered with verses from Leviticus, Eshel said.

     

    The Dead Sea Scrolls were written by the Essenes, a monastic sect seen by some as a link between Judaism and early Christianity. The scrolls comprise more than 1,000 ancient texts found a half century ago in the caves above Qumran in the West Bank, one of the most significant discoveries in the Holy Land.

  11. Posted

    Bees Challenge Dino-Killer Winter Theory

    By Larry O'Hanlon, Discovery News

    Nov. 10, 2004 — Tropical honeybees and other warmth-loving insects are continuing to challenge the idea that a "nuclear winter" enshrouded the Earth for years after the asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.

     

    The survival of the tropical honeybee Cretotrigona prisca beyond the gigantic end-Cretaceous extinction is a sure sign that it could not have been cold for long, said University of New Orleans graduate student Jacqueline M. Kozisek.

     

     

    She presented her ideas on the matter Monday at the meeting of the Geological Society of America in Denver.

     

    "These tropical honeybees were very, very close to modern tropical honeybees," said Kozisek.

     

    So close that those preserved in amber might have had similar limits to how much cold they could stand. They might also have been the ancestors of today's tropical honeybees, she said.

     

    Today's tropical honeybees thrive at 88 to 93 degrees Fahrenheit (31-34°Celsius), according to entomological researchers, Kozisek said. The same goes for the flowering plants off which they make their living.

     

    If modern tropical honeybees are any measure, any post-impact cooling from debris blocking sunlight could not have lowered temperatures more than 4 to 13 degrees (2-7°C) without rubbing out bees. Current nuclear winter theories from the Chicxulub impact estimate drops of 13 to 22 degrees F (7-12°C), too cold for tropical honeybees.

     

    "We know that countless other lineages of tropical plants, insects, fish and reptiles also survived," said paleontologist Peter Wilf of Pennsylvania State University. "The asteroid didn't kill everything everywhere, or we wouldn't be here today."

     

    In recent years, paleontologists have been gathering increasing evidence that the event that killed off 70 percent of species 65 million years ago was very selective, Wilf said.

     

    One recent study calls on a massive heat pulse caused by debris reentering the atmosphere after being shot into space by the impact at Chicxulub, he said. Such a blast of heat would have only lasted a few hours and killed only organisms unable to hide in water or other shelter.

     

    For that reason, the news of tropical honeybees surviving comes as no surprise, Wilf said.

     

    Kozisek conducted her study by searching the paleontology literature for information about organisms that appears to have survived the extinction event. She then picked out tropical honeybees because they had almost indistinguishable modern relatives and a narrow temperature range.

  12. Posted

    Marine Mammals Eavesdrop on Orcas

    By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

    Nov. 12, 2004 — When killer whales sound off, mammals listen, according to a recent study that found seals, sea lions, dolphins, porpoises and other marine mammals eavesdrop on the killer whales that like to eat them.

     

    The study suggests some animals pay attention to other animals communicating when it is in their best interests to listen to the enemy. It also reveals how call patterns of animals can co-evolve because of eavesdropping.

     

     

    “ When we played calls of transients, the seals disappeared under water and moved toward shallow areas and patches of seaweed where they would be safe from killer whales.
    ”

     

     

     

    Marine biologists conducted the extensive study from 1999-2003 in Johnstone and Queen Charlotte Straits, British Columbia, and in Glacier Bay, Icy Strait and Stephens Passage, southeastern Alaska. From a boat or from an elevated point on shore, the scientists used binoculars to locate transient and killer whales and then followed them by boat. An underwater microphone called a hydrophone picked up the whale calls.

     

    The findings are published in the current journal Animal Behavior.

     

    Although the two types of whales are from the same species, Orcinus orca, they have very different lifestyles. According to the research, resident killer whales live in large, stable groups and feed only on fish, especially Pacific salmon.

     

    Transient killer whales live in less tightly structured groups and exclusively hunt warm-blooded prey, which include harbor seals, Steller and California sea lions, harbor and Dall's porpoises, Pacific white-sided dolphins and an occasional seabird snack.

     

    The scientists who listened in on the resident and transient whales paid attention to the killer whales' vocalizations before, during and after hunting, which often could be heard on the hydrophone because the whales munched and crunched with great gusto.

     

    Overall, the scientists found that residents were a much chattier group. They produced .34 calls per minute versus .05 calls per minute for transients.

     

    Many transients went silent just before a hunt, but then became quite communicative after they killed their prey and seemed to want to share food with other transients. The researchers theorize this is because marine mammals have a keen sense of hearing and can eavesdrop on the transients.

     

    Salmon, in contrast, have poor hearing, so the scientists indicate the residents would not improve their hunting skills by curbing their calling.

     

    Volker Deecke, lead author of the paper and a biologist at the University of British Columbia, as well as a researcher at the Cetacean Research Lab in Vancouver, conducted another study that further supports the claim that killer whale prey listens to transients.

     

    "When we played calls of transients, the seals disappeared under water and moved toward shallow areas and patches of seaweed where they would be safe from killer whales," Deecke told Discovery News. "When we played calls of familiar killer whales (residents), the seals could not have cared less — they stuck around and, if anything, moved a little closer to our loudspeaker."

     

    The findings could suggest marine mammals translate what the whales are saying, but Deecke has doubts.

     

    "This doesn't necessarily mean that the seals understand what the killer whales are communicating, but it does prove that their acoustic perception is sophisticated enough to allow them to distinguish between the calls of harmless and dangerous killer whales," he said.

     

    Deecke, however, did add that studies on other animals have shown Dr. Dolittle-type abilities exist among different species. He said forest monkeys can decipher the alarm call of another monkey species, and hornbills, a tropical forest bird, can decipher monkey and eagle alarm calls.

     

    Patrick Miller, a Royal Society International Fellow at the Sea Mammal Research Unit at the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland and an expert on killer whales, agreed with the recent findings.

     

    "I think Volker's work documenting the calling behavior of transient killer whales is an important contribution to our understanding of this fascinating animal," Miller told Discovery News.

     

    He indicated that eavesdropping saves the seals from living a life on the run.

     

    "The seals are able to tell apart the calls of the resident and transient whales, which is important because the fish-eating whales call a lot of the time and the seals could waste a lot of time reacting to non-threatening sounds," Miller said.

  13. Posted

    Another Stonehenge Found in Russia?

    By Jennifer Viegas, Discovery News

    Nov. 17, 2004 — Russian archaeologists have announced that they have found the remains of a 4,000-year-old structure that they compare to England's Stonehenge, according to recent reports issued by Pravda and Novosti, two Russian news services.

     

    If the comparison holds true, the finding suggests that both ancient European and Russian populations held similar pagan beliefs that wove celestial cycles with human and animal life.

     

     

    Since devotional objects and symbols are at the Russian site in the region of Ryazan, their meanings might shed light on pagan ceremonies that likely also took place at Stonehenge.

     

    Just as the location of Stonehenge on Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England, appeared to be significant for the megalith's creators, so too did Ryazan for the Russian builders. The site overlooks the junction of two rivers, the Oka and Pronya. It was highly traveled by numerous cultures in ancient times.

     

    Ilya Ahmedov, lead archaeologist of the Ryazan excavation and a researcher in the State History Museum of Russia's department of archaeological monuments, described the remains of the structure to Novosti.

     

    Ahmedov said he and his team found ground holes indicating a monument with a 22.97-feet diameter circle consisting of 1.6-foot thick wooden poles spaced at equal distances from each other. Inside the circle is a large rectangular hole with evidence that four posts once stood in that spot.

     

    The archaeologists believe the central structure would have led to spectacular views.

     

    "Within the circle, two couples of the poles (in the rectangular area) make up gates," Ahmedov told Pravda. "Sunset can be seen through the gates if an observer stands in the center of the circle. One more pole outside the circle points at the sunrise."

     

    The researchers found a small ceramic vessel in the central hole. The vessel is decorated with a zigzag design, which Ahmedov said resembles the rays of the sun, and wavy lines that he believes symbolize water. Lying next to the vessel was a bronze awl in a birch bark casing and an "altar of animal bones," according to a press release from Informnauka, the Russian science news agency .

     

    Outside of the circle, the archaeologists excavated two other vessels without any ornamentation. The research team said forest dwellers that originally came from Iran likely made these two objects. They lived in the Ryazan area during the Bronze Age 4,000 years ago.

     

    Fragments of human bones and teeth also were found outside the circle's boundary. Ahmedov and his colleagues think they might have belonged to a tribal chief who was posthumously sanctified. Burial tombs also exist near Stonehenge.

     

    Ahmedov explained that solar and lunar cults were related to a fertility cult and to the mythological link between life and death. The circular shape was thought to hold magical properties because it has no beginning or end and was regarded as a symbol of eternity.

     

    "(A) parallel can be drawn to Stonehenge, which is close to our monument in terms of the erection date and initially also was made of wood," Ahmedov told Pravda. "However, no blood relationship could have existed between the peoples who erected Stonehenge and the Ryazan observatory. The latter evidently indicates the influence of (an) alien population (the Iranian forest dwellers) from the South-East of the Eurasian steppe."

     

    Mike Pitt, author of the book "Hengeworld" and the editor of British Archaeology magazine, told Discovery News that he doubts Stonehenge directly influenced the construction of the Russian monument.

     

    "There are no known connections between Russia and Britain at the time Stonehenge was built, so if there were any similarities between the two structures, they would have to be coincidence," Pitt said.

     

    He added, "Stonehenge is unique, but it is possible to see precursors and inspiration for its design in timber structures that are now quite common in Britain, not least around Stonehenge, but as yet seen nowhere else, not even across the Channel in France."

     

    Ahmedov and his team plan to excavate the Ryazan site again in the summer, when they hope to investigate another line of pole holes that they spotted 32.8 feet away from the circular monument.

  14. Posted

    Stonehenge Quarry Found in Wales

    By Rossella Lorenzi, Discovery News

     

     

    July 12, 2005 — Stonehenge's megaliths come from the mountains of Wales, according to a study which pinpoints the quarry where the bluestones were cut around 2500 B.C.

     

    Writing in the July-August issue of British Archaeology, Timothy Darvill, professor of archaeology at Bournemouth University, and Geoff Wainwright, a retired English Heritage archaeologist, describe a "small crag-edged promontory with a stone bank across its neck" at one of the highest points of Carn Menyn, a mountain in the Preseli Hills of Pembrokeshire, in southwest Wales.

     

     

    Measuring less than half a hectare, the site is "a veritable Aladdin's Cave of made-to-measure pillars for aspiring circle builders," according to Darvill.

     

    "Within and outside the enclosure are numerous prone pillar stones with clear signs of working. Some are fairly recent and a handful of drill holes attest to the technology used. Other blocks may have been wrenched from the ground or the crags in ancient times," write the researchers.

     

    Archaeologists have long suspected that the bluestones, which form Stonehenge's inner circle, came from the Preseli Hills, but no evidence of a quarry had been found in the area.

     

    Darvill and Wainwright report that geochemical analysis show that the rock formations at the prehistoric quarry are identical to those at Stonehenge.

     

    Weighing about four tons and between six and nine feet in height, the bluestones would have been transported 240 miles to the famous site at Salisbury Plain in Wiltshire, England.

  15. Posted

    Babies Exposed to Hazardous Chemicals in Womb

    Report Finds 287 Contaminants in Babies' Umbilical Cord Blood

    By Maggie Fox, Reuters

     

     

     

    AP

    A new study finds babies are exposed to potentially hazardous chemicals passed onto them by their mothers in the womb.

     

     

     

    WASHINGTON (July 14) - Unborn babies are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides, according to a report to be released on Thursday.

     

    Although the effects on the babies are not clear, the survey prompted several members of Congress to press for legislation that would strengthen controls on chemicals in the environment.

     

    The report by the Environmental Working Group is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.

     

    "These 10 newborn babies ... were born polluted," said New York Rep. Louise Slaughter, who planned to publicize the findings at a news conference on Thursday.

     

    "If ever we had proof that our nation's pollution laws aren't working, it's reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb," Slaughter, a Democrat, said.

     

    Cord blood reflects what the mother passes to the baby through the placenta.

     

    "Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests," the report said.

     

    Blood tests did not show how the chemicals got into the mothers' bodies.

     

    Among the chemicals found in the cord blood were methylmercury, produced by coal-fired power plants and certain industrial processes. People can breathe it in or eat it in seafood and it causes brain and nerve damage.

     

    Also found were polyaromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which are produced by burning gasoline and garbage and which may cause cancer; flame-retardant chemicals called polybrominated dibenzodioxins and furans; and pesticides including DDT and chlordane.

     

    The same group analyzed the breast milk of mothers across the United States in 2003 and found varying levels of chemicals, including flame retardants known as PBDEs. This latest analysis also found PBDEs in cord blood.

     

    The Environmental Working Group report coincided with a Government Accountability Office report issued on Wednesday that said the Environmental Protection Agency does not have the powers it needs to fully regulate toxic chemicals.

     

    The GAO, the investigative arm of Congress, found that the EPA's Toxic Substances Control Act gives only "limited assurance" that new chemicals entering the market are safe and that the EPA only rarely assesses chemicals already on the market.

     

    "Today, chemicals are being used to make baby bottles, food packaging and other products that have never been fully evaluated for their health effects on children -- and some of these chemicals are turning up in our blood," said New Jersey Democrat Sen. Frank Lautenberg, who plans to co-sponsor a bill to require more testing of toxic chemicals.

     

    Pollutants and other chemicals are believed to cause a range of illnesses. But scientists agree the only way to really sort out the effects is to measure how much gets into people and then see what happens to their health.

  16. Posted

    China hears patter of tiny panda paws

    Twin pandas born at remote mountain reserve

     

     

    Updated: 1:13 p.m. ET July 12, 2005

    BEIJING - China has had a double summer surprise with two pairs of twin pandas born at a remote and foggy mountain reserve.

     

    Guo Guo, seven years old and a first-time mother, gave birth to two cubs on Friday at the Wolong panda reserve in southwest Sichuan province a week after her neighbor, Ying Ying, had twins, Xinhua news agency said.

     

    "Under our experts' 24-hour wardship, the mother panda and her baby cubs have safely passed 'the first three post-delivery risky days'," Li Desheng, assistant director of the reserve, was quoted as saying of Guo guo.

     

     

     

    Guo Guo appeared flustered by her crying cubs at first and reserve staff had to intervene when she accidentally dropped one of her babies the day they were born, Xinhua said.

     

    The Wolong reserve is one of the few places in the world that has had consistent success expanding its population of pandas, which are notoriously difficult to breed in captivity.

     

    More than 70 panda cubs had been born at the reserve, 61 of which had survived, state media previously reported.

     

    The giant panda is one of the world's most endangered species, with fewer than 1,600 living in the wild in western China

  17. Posted

    Native tales hint at past West Coast tsunamis

    Stories, geological clues point to massive quakes, giant waves

     

     

    Updated: 8:38 a.m. ET July 12, 2005

    SEATTLE - Tales about "Thunderbird" and "Whale" by native tribes along the U.S. West Coast, along with geological clues, point to at least two massive quakes and tsunamis that have hit the area in the last 1,100 years, a researcher said on Monday.

     

    "Native people here were well aware that earthquakes happened and that is reflected in their oral traditions," said Ruth Ludwin, a University of Washington researcher who recently published two papers detailing such folklore.

     

    In one tale, the mythical wind creature "Thunderbird" drives its talons into "Whale's" back and is dragged to the bottom of the ocean, which she said could be interpreted as a tsunami-like event.

     

     

     

    The stories were collected from native tribes in northern California, Oregon, Washington and just south of Canada's Vancouver Island.

     

    Ludwin, who collaborated with seismologists, said she began looking into the region's "geomythology" six years ago because of the lack of such data, which can be found in other areas such as Japan and the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

     

    In December, a 9.15 magnitude earthquake erupted off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. The quake, the strongest in 40 years, sent walls of water as high as 33 feet barreling into 13 Indian Ocean nations and killed 160,000 people.

     

    Last month, a major 7.0 magnitude earthquake off the coast of northern California triggered tsunami alerts along most of the U.S. West Coast. The alarm was quickly called off and there were no casualties or damage.

     

    The Cascadia subduction zone, which generates much of the seismic activity in the Pacific Northwest, had at least seven major earthquakes in the last 3,500 years, according to researchers.

     

    One massive earthquake is estimated to have hit the region in 900, while eyewitness accounts from the 19th century point to a huge earthquake and tsunami that hit the area in 1700.

  18. Posted

    Shuttle program may not be a ‘GO’ for NASA

    Administration might boldly head into the future with new spaceship and a manned mission to Mars. NBC News correspondent Robert Hager reports

     

    Updated: 11:18 a.m. ET July 13, 2005

     

     

    Robert Hager

    Correspondent

     

     

    What does the future hold for the U.S. space program? NBC’s Robert Hager takes a look at how NASA may keep reaching for the stars.

     

    If the Bush administration has it's way, in spite of all the excitement at the Cape Canaveral, Discovery’s launch could really be "the beginning of the end" for the shuttles: the start of a final five years of flights, before they're grounded, for a more ambitious plan building a new, replacement spacecraft to get astronauts back to the moon, and one day, on to Mars.

     

    Critics argue that the shuttles are getting old and besides, they can't reach any higher than the International Space Station, which – by the way – detractors say has been a bum project, costing billions without a single, important scientific breakthrough.

     

     

     

    So, the argument goes, give up expanding that space station within five years, and then close down the shuttle program.

     

    Instead, the administration says, get on to something really inspiring, for a change:

     

    Within six years, design and fly a whole new space ship.

    Within 10 to 15 years, send Americans back to the moon.

    And after that: go for the biggie: a manned mission to Mars.

    It’s high time for such futuristic thinking, according to the director of New York’s Hayden Planetarium, Neal Degrass Tyson. “We will zoom ahead in the 21st century and we won't even have to look back because the solar system will become our backyard,” says Tyson.

     

    But a touch of realism: when President Bush's father proposed such a plan decades ago, congress shot it down fast. And while, this time, lawmakers have put up a little money to begin tinkering, critics charge that seeing an entire moon-Mars program through would cost way more than our nation could afford.

     

    “It is hard to imagine in today's world that we're prepared to spend that kind of money to go to mars when the payoff from it is undefinable. What would we get? It’s a ‘feel good’ program, says Alex Rowland, Duke University space historian.

     

    Rowland and others contend it's much better to pursue less-expensive, unmanned missions, like those little Mars rovers. But never mind, the administration's still counting-down to key decisions soon about a shuttle-replacement and what it should look like to the delight of some. Tyson says, “What comes after Mars? Well, the universe is a big place!”

     

    So "big" that it's daunting to decide how best to explore it and a little hard to believe that that after all these years of the shuttle program, all the tragedies and the successes, that after about another five years, it might really be grounded for good.

  19. Posted

    NASA Calls Off Shuttle Launch Over Faulty Fuel Sensor

    By MIKE SCHNEIDER, AP

     

     

     

    AP

    NASA delayed the launch of the space shuttle Discovery, the first flight in more than 2 years.

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    CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (July 13) - A faulty fuel gauge on Discovery's external tank forced NASA to call off Wednesday's launch of the first shuttle flight since the Columbia disaster 2 1/2 years ago. The space agency did not immediately set a new launch date.

     

    The decision came with less than 2 1/2 hours to go before launch, as the seven astronauts were almost done boarding the spacecraft. Up until then, rain and thunder over the launch site appeared to be the only obstacle to an on-time liftoff.

     

    The same baffling problem cropped up during a launch pad test back in April, and NASA has been struggling ever since to figure out the source of the trouble. But the topic came up repeatedly at meetings of top-level NASA managers this week, and the space agency said that it believed it had worked around the problem by replacing cables and other electronics aboard the shuttle.

     

    As recently as Monday, NASA deputy shuttle program manager Wayne Hale described the sensor problem seen in April as simply an ''unexplained anomaly.''

     

    The back-to-back failures suggest the possibility of a wider problem than one or two bad pieces of equipment.

     

    A launch control commentator said that it was unlikely the problem could be solved quickly and that another launch attempt on Thursday was all but impossible. NASA officials refused to speculate on whether the shuttle would have to be rolled back to the hangar for repairs.

     

    NASA has until the end of July to launch Discovery, after which it will have to wait until September - a schedule dictated by both the position of the international space station and NASA's desire to hold a daylight liftoff in order to photograph the shuttle during its climb to orbit.

     

    The problem was with one of the four engine cut-off sensors, which are responsible for making sure the spacecraft's main engines shut down at the proper point during the ascent. A launch could end in tragedy if faulty sensors caused the engines to cut out too early or too late.

     

     

    NASA said it appeared that the sensor was showing a low fuel level, even though the tank was full with 535,000 gallons of super-cold liquid hydrogen and oxygen.

     

    The sensors ''for some reason did not behave today and so we're going to have to scrub this launch attempt,'' launch director Mike Leinbach told his team. ''So appreciate all we've been through together, but this one is not going to result in a launch attempt today.''

     

    During a fueling test of Discovery's original tank in April, one of its sensors gave intermittent readings. NASA could not figure out the exact reason for the failure but replaced the entire tank anyway to install a heater to prevent a dangerous ice buildup.

     

    Shuttle managers considered conducting a fueling test at the launch pad on the replacement tank, but ruled it out to save time, saying that the actual fueling on launch day would be the ultimate test.

     

    ''We are disappointed, but we'll fly again on another day,'' said an astronaut speaking from launch control, David Wolf.

     

     

    AP-NY-07-13-05 14:42 EDT

  20. Posted

    Tsunami Quake Caused 620-Mile Rupture in Sea Floor

     

    LONDON (July 13) - The earthquake that triggered December's devastating Indian Ocean tsunami caused a 620 mile rupture in the sea floor, scientists said on Wednesday.

     

    Using data from 60 Global Positioning System monitoring sites in southeast Asia, scientists at ENS/CNRS research institute in Paris calculated the unprecedented scale of the quake.

     

    "We show that the rupture plane for this earthquake must have been at least 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) long," said Christophe Vigny who headed the research team.

     

    The magnitude 9.15 earthquake, the biggest in 40 years, erupted off the coast of Indonesia's Sumatra island. It triggered a tsunami that left up to 232,000 people dead and missing in 13 Indian Ocean countries.

     

    Indonesia, Sri Lanka, India and Thailand were most affected.

     

    Vigny and his colleagues used displacement data recorded at the GPS sites across southeast Asia to construct and test models of the length of the rupture and the direction of thrust.

     

    The satellite navigation network sites in Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand were between 400 to 3,000 km from the epicenter of the December 26 quake.

     

    "Small but significant seismic jumps are clearly detected more than 3,000 kilometers from the earthquake epicenter," Vigny said in a report in the science journal Nature.

     

    Scientists have warned that a second earthquake in South Asia on March 28 increased stress on fault lines in the region, making it more vulnerable to another rupture and a tsunami.

     

     

    07/13/05 13:03 ET