TomoNews US
China Hints It Stuck Time Bombs on U.S. Satellites
- Title
- China Hints It Stuck Time Bombs on U.S. Satellites
- Runtime
- 9:20
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- HONG KONG — China has developed a space weapon that can creep into the tailpipes of enemy satellites, where it would grab on and hide, waiting for the right time to blow up. Here are the details:
The South China Morning Post reports that Chinese scientists say they’ve created a space weapon that attaches itself to the inside of an enemy satellite’s booster exhaust cone.
The scientists published their weapon research in the Chinese journal Electronic Technology & Software Engineering in September. They say that the weapon is designed to fit snugly in the exhaust cones of the gas boosters that move satellites around.
The device weighs only 3.5 kilograms and — once it has entered the exhaust cone — would use an electric motor to extend a thin probe that can pass through the narrowest part of the booster.
Once inside the booster chamber, the probe would expand to keep the device firmly attached and hidden inside the exhaust c...
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- Russian and Chinese Warships Sail Straight Through Japan
- Runtime
- 13:29
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TSUGARU STRAIT — A joint naval exercise between China and Russia has completed a near full circle of Japan, reinforcing tensions in the region, according to CNN.
The Chinese warships included a Type 055 destroyer, a Type 052D destroyer and two Type 054A frigates, while the Russian ships included two Udaloy class destroyers, two Steregushchiy class corvettes and a Marshal Nedelin class ship, according to The Drive.
The exercises have brought the charge of hypocrisy because China regularly condemns similar exercises by the U.S. in the Taiwan Strait as destabilizing.
Two weeks ago, for instance, the Chinese military's Eastern Theater Command suggested a U.S. and Canadian transit could ‘seriously jeopardize peace and stability’ in the strait, according to CNN.
Both those ships and now the Chinese and Russian vessels remained in international waters, but notably the Chinese and Russian ships took a route through the Tsugaru Strait, w...
- Title
- Pablo Escobar’s Replacement Captured in Raid
- Runtime
- 6:42
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- NUDO DE PARAMILLO, COLOMBIA — Colombian security forces have arrested the country’s most wanted drug lord, Dairo Antonio Usuga, head of the country’s largest drug cartel, near his jungle hideout, according to the BBC.
The operation involved 500 soldiers, but one special forces sergeant and three special forces soldiers operated as a vanguard, according to Colombian magazine Semana.
Hundreds of soldiers blocked rivers and roads to create a 3.5-square-kilometer search area in Antioquia province, to the northwest of Colombia, according to The Guardian, while the special forces soldiers made their way through the jungle, following information produced via satellite imagery, with U.S. and U.K. agencies involved in the search.
Having passed through eight rings of security, the sergeant who led the operation noticed a commotion in some bushes, and then spotted a shirtless man.
Usuga, also known as Otoniel, will now be extradited to the...
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- The Baldwin Shooting: How Blanks Can Kill You
- Runtime
- 11:27
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- SANTA FE, NEW MEXICO — Actor Alec Baldwin recently fired a gun loaded with blank cartridges on a movie set, killing one and injuring another. Here are the ways in which blank cartridges can kill you:
The BBC reports that actor Alec Baldwin fired a dummy gun on a film set on Thursday, October 21, killing the director of photography and injuring the director.
Initial reports indicate that this was an accident caused by an improperly loaded prop gun.
The most famous death caused by a prop gun was that of actor Brandon Lee, who was killed while filming a scene in which his co-star fired a blank cartridge at him.
The film crew had made a mistake by not double-checking the gun’s barrel before loading it with a blank cartridge.
If they had checked, they would have found that the tip of a dummy bullet had broken off and was still stuck in the barrel of the gun.
A dummy bullet is a fake cartridge that is used...
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- Skeletons From La Brea Tar Pits Show How Dire Wolves & Saber-Tooth Cats Hunted
- Runtime
- 5:47
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- LOS ANGELES — Scientists examined signs of trauma in thousands of dire wolf and saber-tooth cat bones to better understand how these Ice Age beasts hunted and killed their prey.
Researchers at UCLA, in collaboration with the La Brea Tar Pits, analyzed roughly 35,000 bones for the study, which was published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution.
SOURCES: Nature Ecology and Evolution, Business Insider, La Brea Tar Pits and Museum, Encyclopedia Britannica
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-017-0131
http://www.businessinsider.in/A-treasure-trove-of-sabre-tooth-tiger-and-dire-wolf-bones-show-how-prehistoric-predators-made-their-kills/articleshow/58695801.cms
https://tarpits.org/la-brea-tar-pits/timeline
https://www.britannica.com/animal/dire-wolf#ref197131
- Title
- Solar Storm Proves Vikings Beat Columbus to Americas
- Runtime
- 8:24
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- A massive solar storm in the year has helped prove the Vikings had crossed the Atlantic Ocean and settled in Canada by A.D. 1021, according to a study in the journal Nature.
Scientists already knew the solar storm occurred between A.D. 992 and 993 and were able to use a technique that measures increases in atmospheric radiocarbon concentration to correlate its impact on trees at the L'Anse aux Meadows site, on Newfoundland's northern peninsula, with later Viking activity.
The study reanalysed wood excavated from the site in the 1960s, which had been cut using metal Viking tools otherwise unknown in North America at that point.
It found distinctive marks in the tree rings from the solar storm, plus 28 annual growth rings formed after those marks.
Adding 28 years to A.D. 993 showed Vikings had to have been cutting those trees in the year A.D. 1021, which means they arrived in the Americas 471 years before Christopher Columbus, according...
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- A Huge Hole in Arctic’s ‘Most Stable’ Ice Surprises Scientists
- Runtime
- 8:21
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — A huge hole has been discovered in the Arctic’s oldest and thickest ice, previously thought to be the most stable ice in the region.
According to a study published in the Nature Geoscience journal, there was a powerful storm north of Ellesmere Island in May 2020, and a long narrow crack formed on May 14.
By May 15 the crack had formed into a polynya, an area of open water in a region that is normally ice covered, around 30 kilometers wide and 100 kilometers long.
With ice around four meters thick, this Arctic ice is predicted to be the last to remain in place during summer melting seasons, but the study emphasizes its surprising vulnerability to cracks.
In the short term newly open areas of ocean water can create ideal conditions for life, but as ice melts and moves offshore, species like walruses and seabirds lose access to it, and eventually it becomes so hot that species can’t survive.
On May 26 2020...
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- We Need to Change Earth's Orbit — Before the Sun Heats Up
- Runtime
- 8:02
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- In around a billion years, increases in the sun’s energy output will ensure oxygen levels on Earth drop to levels that cannot sustain complex life, according to a study in Nature Geoscience.
However, astrophysicist Ethan Siegel suggests on the website Big Think that one compelling solution to this disastrous outcome is to attach a massive thruster to the South Pole to move Earth’s orbit.
Earth’s problem is that the increasing concentration of helium in the sun’s core leads to gravitational contraction, causing the sun’s inner core to heat up, which in turn increases the rate of fusion.
That ultimately increases the sun’s energy output by about ten percent every billion years, and Siegel explains that “there are only so many defenses and feedback mechanisms our planet has at its disposal.”
As an alternative defense, then, Siegel calculates the Earth would need to move an additional 4.9 percent away from the sun, from an...
- Title
- British Politician Stabbed to Death
- Runtime
- 1:49
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ESSEX, UNITED KINGDOM — The man arrested and for the murder of British Member of Parliament David Amess has been named as Ali Harbi Ali, according to the BBC.
The 25-year-old British citizen, who is the son of a former Somali government official according to Reuters, stabbed Amess multiple times during a Friday open meeting with constituents.
One local councillor who spoke to the two assistants present at the time of the attack relayed that one of them had screamed when the attacker entered the meeting hall and brought out a knife.
Early investigations have suggested Islamic extremism as a possible motivation for the horrific attack, according to police, cited by the BBC, with The Daily Telegraph reporting that after the stabbing Amess, his attacker simply sat down next to his body, and made no effort to evade police.
SOURCES: The Guardian, BBC, BBC, CNN, The Telegraph, Reuters
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-58943184
https...
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- La Palma Eruption Could Make Mega-Tsunami Hit U.S.
- Runtime
- 6:38
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- LA PALMA, CANARY ISLANDS — As the La Palma volcano shows no sign of stopping its eruption, there is a possibility it could cause a mega-tsunami, according to a 2001 study in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.
The study outlined how cracks below the surface of the volcano exacerbated by an eruption could cause between 150 to 500 cubic kilometers of rock to slide into the ocean at 100 meters per second.
The New Zealand Herald outlines how the huge force that landslide generated could create massive waves, up to 900 meters high, that could eventually hit the coast of the Americas at heights of up to 25 meters, with a tsunami reaching Florida around nine hours after the initial collapse.
Subsequent studies have played down the risk of this kind of disaster occuring for a number of reasons, informed by new models created after the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
It has been argued that any collapse of the ridge would not occur with the f...
- Title
- Massive 'Tree' Could Split Africa
- Runtime
- 8:09
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- REUNION ISLAND — A massive subterranean ‘tree’ moving lava up to the Earth’s surface could, in millions of years, cause the disintegration of Africa, according to a study in the Nature Geoscience journal .
Quanta Magazine explains that most often volcanoes’ existences are explained by tectonic plate boundaries interacting with each other in a variety of different directions.
However, mantle plumes, defined by Science Daily as ‘upwellings of abnormally hot rock within the Earth's mantle,’ can also form volcanoes as tectonic plates pass over them like marshmallows over a campfire, and the new study fills in previously simplistic ideas about plumes, via the aforementioned subterranean ‘tree,' which extends 3,000 kilometers between East Africa and Reunion, a French island in the western Indian Ocean.
This plume may have already spent 120 million years dragging Australia away from India and Antarctica, Madagascar from Africa, and the S...
- Title
- Disaster Looms as Abandoned Tanker Drifts off Yemen’s Coast
- Runtime
- 7:19
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- AL JAZIRAH, YEMEN — Yemen’s civil war has generated the perfect conditions for a massive oil spill to happen. Here are the details:
The Guardian reports that an abandoned and rusting oil tanker with 1.1 million barrels of oil on board is like a ticking time bomb that can easily break up and cover the Yemen coastline under tons of crude oil.
The FSO Safer is a single-hulled tanker that carries four times more oil than was spilled during the massive Exxon Valdez disaster in 1989.
The ship was abandoned in 2017 and keeps on deteriorating while Yemen’s Houthi rebels fight a civil war against a Saudi-led coalition on the land next to it.
In May 2020, water entered the ship’s engine room through a leaking pipe, and the vessel's fire extinguishing system is now non-operational, according to a study published in the journal Nature Sustainability.
Researchers say a hull breach would cover important coral reefs in oil,...
- Title
- How Airpods Can Clog Your Ears
- Runtime
- 8:09
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ROBINA, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA — Scientists say wireless earphones that fit inside the ear are more convenient to use and therefore get left in the ear for longer, which can cause damage to the ear. Here are the details:
Scientists writing in the Conversation explained how prolonged use of wireless earphones can harm your ears. The article refers to research that shows it’s very important to let your ears breathe.
The reason for this is that ear wax is more important than most people think, and it needs ventilation to dry out and slowly push contaminants out of the ear canal, like a slow escalator system.
Wearing in-ear earphones for a long time could compress ear wax, making it less fluid and harder for the body to expel. This compaction could also cause the body to induce inflammation, causing painful boils in the ear.
By blocking the airflow it also stops the ear wax from drying out, making it sticky and encouraging buildup. ...
- Title
- Five Dead in Norway After Bow and Arrow Attack
- Runtime
- 1:38
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- KONGSBERG, NORWAY — A 37-year-old Danish man has been arrested in the Norwegian town of Kongsberg after killing five people and injuring two more using a bow and arrow, according to the BBC.
The man is said to have begun the series of attacks inside a small supermarket on the town’s west side.
As people were seen running for their lives, according to one witness cited by The Guardian, it is known that one of those injured in the supermarket was an off-duty police officer.
Police were informed of the attacks at 6:13 p.m. local time, according to a statement by the southeastern police district cited by CNN, and the man was apprehended at 6:47 p.m., after what the BBC reports as a “confrontation.”
However, the police chief in Kongsberg told a press conference that the attacks had taken place over a ‘large area,’ according to The Guardian, with various outlets reporting evidence of several different incidents throughout the to...
- Title
- China Made an Artificial Star
- Runtime
- 8:27
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- HEFEI, CHINA — China is creating an artificial star that burns at temperatures eight times hotter than our sun by replicating its energy-generating, hydrogen fusion process on Earth, according to Science Alert.
The sun’s heat ensures hydrogen nuclei move at high speeds and its mass and gravity limit the space available, inducing collisions which generate massive amounts of energy, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak in Hefei, China, works by recreating these conditions, using magnetic coils to hold superheated streams of hydrogen plasma in place, according to Science Alert.
One Zero explains that once the hydrogen is floating inside the magnetized chamber, it’s showered with an electromagnetic current that strips the atoms from their electrons, forms a ‘plasma,’ and then heats that plasma up.
As China’s ‘star’ can’t compress the resulting plasma to th...
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- La Nina Emerging, Set to Worsen Extreme Drought in the U.S.
- Runtime
- 9:26
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BOULDER CITY, NEVADA — The severe drought in the western part of the U.S. is about to get even worse. Here are the details:
CNN reports that scientists say the climate crisis is behind the increase in droughts globally, and this increase is currently hitting the U.S. in the form of the historic multi-year drought that is parching the western U.S. More than 90 percent of this region has been in drought since June and the Colorado River’s Lake Mead and Lake Powell are draining at alarming rates.
The unrelenting drought there is about to get worse with La Nina on the horizon, according to David DeWitt, director at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's Climate Prediction Center. "As we move into fall, from October on, the southwest U.S. is going to see persistent intensification and development of drought," DeWitt told CNN.
La Nina is marked by cooler sea surface temperatures across the central and eastern Pacific near the equato...
- Title
- Plane Crashes Into Houses in California, Kills at Least Two
- Runtime
- 6:25
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- SANTEE, CALIFORNIA — At least two people died when a private, twin-engine C340 Cessna plane crashed in southern California on Monday afternoon, according to CNN.
The plane came down in the city of Santee in San Diego County at about 12:14 p.m., according to the Federal Aviation Administration, with NBC 7 San Diego explaining that the pilot had failed in an attempt to land in a nearby field after “some sort of issue.”
As the plane went down toward the intersection of Greencastle and Jeremy streets, witnesses said its wing made contact with a UPS truck that was nearing a stop sign, which killed its driver.
The plane’s fuselage then slid toward two homes and exploded, with Santee Fire Department Battalion Chief Justin Matsushita telling reporters two or three other houses had also sustained damage, according to Fox 5 San Diego.
Two residents were rescued by a group of neighbors.
SOURCES: 10News, KFMB Channel 8, Fox ...
- Title
- Emirates Spacecraft to Study Venus, Grab Sample From Asteroid
- Runtime
- 7:01
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- DUBAI, UNITED ARAB EMIRATES — After studying Mars’ atmosphere with its first space probe, the United Arab Emirates now plans to send a second probe to study one hot planet and seven asteroids before landing on an asteroid. Here are the details:
CNBC reports that the United Arab Emirates has announced it will send another probe into space, this time to study Venus and the solar system’s main asteroid belt.
The announcement comes as the Emirates’ Hope Probe is studying Mars’ atmosphere from orbit, after arriving in Mars orbit in February 2021.
According to the UAE, the new probe will launch in 2028 and head to Venus, where it will use a heat shield to orbit close to the hot planet and study it.
After studying Venus, the probe will return to Earth, circling the mother planet a few times to pick up enough speed to slingshot out to the solar system’s main asteroid belt, situated between Mars and Jupiter.
When ...
- Title
- Melting Ice Is Warping Earth’s Crust
- Runtime
- 6:55
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — The melting of Earth's polar ice is incrementally warping the planet’s crust both vertically and horizontally, according to a new study in the Geophysical Research Letters journal.
Scientists already knew about a process called isostatic rebound, whereby when a glacier melts, the crust below it is released from the weight previously on top of it, and so very gradually rises up, in some cases over thousands of years.
However, the new study, cited by Sci Tech Daily, adds to this concept, noting that the deformation of the crust is actually three-dimensional, and thus includes horizontal movements as well as vertical ones.
The study adds that rather than simply affecting the areas directly below the ice loss, deformation was also found to have global impacts, with Greenland ice sheet and Arctic glacier melting causing deformation that extends over much of the Northern Hemisphere, for instance.
Case studies ...
- Title
- They Found Hell — And It’s Hotter Than We Thought
- Runtime
- 8:39
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ITHACA, NEW YORK — About 640 light-years from Earth, an ultra-hot Jupiter — a gas giant with an orbital period less than 10 days — may be even hotter than scientists realized, according to a new study in the Astrophysical Journal Letters, cited by Space.com.
Previous studies have noted that WASP-76 b sits close to enough to its star to complete an orbit every 1.8 Earth days, and is tidally locked, meaning its nightside temperature could be around 1,300 degrees Celsius, and its dayside may be around 2,400 degrees.
One effect of the extreme proximity is that the huge amounts of stellar radiation that WASP-76 b absorbs has blown it up to 1.85 times wider than Jupiter despite the fact it carries just 85 percent of Jupiter’s mass.
However, famously, a second effect is that temperatures on the ‘day side’ of the planet are hot enough to vaporize iron and this iron condenses once it reaches the cooler ‘night side,’ falling as molten iron ...
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- Whistleblower Shows How China Is Torturing Uyghur People
- Runtime
- 10:19
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- XINJIANG, CHINA — A former Chinese police detective has fled to Europe, where he told reporters he struggles to sleep at night because of his role in the horrific torturing of millions of Uyghur minorities in China. Here are the details:
CNN reports that a Chinese police detective turned whistleblower has given shocking details about how Chinese guards torture Uyghur Muslims in prison camps in China.
Speaking from exile in Europe, the former detective said police officers armed with rifles would go to Uyghur communities in China’s Xinjiang region and pull people from their homes.
The people would be handcuffed, hooded and told they’d be shot if they resisted.
Men, women and children as young as 14 would then be taken to interrogation centers where they would all be kicked and beaten until they were bruised and swollen, kneeling on the floor and crying.
The former detective, called Jiang, told CNN some guards wou...
- Title
- Asteroid Smasher Launching This Month
- Runtime
- 7:59
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — Scientists are ready to launch a spacecraft that will smash into a big asteroid to make it change its course away from Earth. Here are the details:
NASA reports that it’s ready to launch the first part of its planetary defense strategy on November 24, when it plans to launch the DART spacecraft.
The spacecraft will be launched on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California.
Once it gets into space, it will head for a pair of asteroids called the Didymos binary.
The spacecraft is expected to be in position to approach and smash into the smallest of the pair of asteroids by October 2, in 2022.
DART will impact the 160-meter-wide rock at around 21,700 kilometers per hour, nudging it very slightly, but enough to change its orbit slightly.
NASA will then measure the change in orbit and use it as very important data for future missions designed to protect Earth from...
- Title
- Huge International Fleet Exercises Around Taiwan as Tensions Rise With China
- Runtime
- 6:55
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- OKINAWA, JAPAN — Three aircraft carriers from the U.S. and U.K. combined with a helicopter carrier from Japan to conduct exercises north of Taiwan in the same weekend that China made a record number of incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone.
“Citing the Japanese defense ministry, USNI reports that the carriers, operating off the southwest coast of the Japanese prefecture of Okinawa, were supported by ships from the Netherlands, Canada and New Zealand, in a fleet totalling 17 that was also pictured with British and American fighter jets overhead.”
The exercises were characterized by Japan's nationalist paper Sankei Shimbun as an effort to ‘contain China’ and that rhetoric may be in response to China’s increasingly threatening incursions into Taiwan’s air defense zone, with 93 such incidents occurring between Friday and Saturday, plus an additional 56 on Monday, which took the single day record for most incursions, according to Reuters.
...
- Title
- Antarctica’s ‘Glue’ Is Coming Unstuck
- Runtime
- 7:43
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ANTARCTICA — The 2017 calving of the A68 iceberg from Antarctica’s Larsen C ice shelf was likely caused by thinning ice melange, the mix of windblown snow, iceberg debris and frozen seawater that normally acts to glue rifts together with larger blocks.
That’s according to a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which found the circulation of ocean water beneath ice shelves and radiative warming from above gradually deteriorates the ice melange.
Counterintuitively, if the ice shelves themselves thin, rifts tend to heal, with average annual widening rates dropping from 79 to 22 meters, or 259 to 72 feet. Additionally, if both the shelves and the melange thinned, this also slowed rift widening.
Only when the melange thinned separately to the ice shelf was rift widening found to increase, from an average annual rate of 76 to 112 meters, or 249 to 367 feet.
The reason for that is that the ice melange start...
- Title
- Massive California Oil Spill Is Spreading
- Runtime
- 8:31
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- HUNTINGTON BEACH, CALIFORNIA — A major oil spill has struck the surfer’s paradise of Huntington Beach in California.
Reuters reports that a leak in an oil pipeline dumped more than half a million liters of crude oil on the famous beaches of Huntington Beach in California.
Disaster reaction units kicked into gear early Saturday, October 2, when boaters reported seeing an oily sheen on the water.
The oil spill was caused by a suspected leak in an underwater pipeline that takes oil from an oil production facility to shore.
The leaking pipeline is 28 kilometers long and runs 24 to 30 meters under the surface of the ocean.
It connects to an oil production platform named Elly, which in turn is connected by a walkway to a drilling platform named Ellen.
The facility began operating in 1980 in an area called the Beta Field.
Oil pulled from beneath the ocean and processed by Elly is taken by the ...
- Title
- China Threatens Taiwan With Record Incursions Into Air Defense Zone
- Runtime
- 7:03
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TAIPEI, TAIWAN — The U.S. has expressed concern over China's ‘provocative’ actions after Taiwan reported a record 93 Chinese incursions into its air defence zone over the weekend, according to the BBC, citing Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense.
The spike in incursions began Friday daytime, with 18 J-16 twinjet, multirole fighters; four SU-30 twin-engine, supermaneuverable fighters; two H-6 twin-engine bombers and one Y-8 anti-submarine plane entering Taiwan’s southwest air defense zone.
A separate round of flights occurred on Friday night, involving 10 J-16s, two H-6s and one KJ-500 airborne early warning and control plane, which took the total to 38, a record timed to coincide with celebrations of China’s national day.
Taiwan scrambled jets, issued radio warnings and deployed air defense missile systems to monitor the activity, according to its Ministry of National Defense. However, the following day the incursions increased again,...
- Title
- Teotihuacan Structures Found in Mayan City Tikal
- Runtime
- 8:01
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TIKAL, GUATEMALA — Researchers used laser technology to scan a hill next to an ancient Mayan city and were shocked to find the hill was actually ruins of structures from a different civilization.
Gizmodo reports that archaeologists working in Guatemala’s ancient Mayan city of Tikal have stumbled on a very surprising discovery.
After using laser-based sensing technology called Lidar, the team found that the hills next to Tikal are actually not hills at all, but the ruins of foreign buildings that look very different from those of Tikal.
After studying the hidden neighborhood, researchers found that the architecture of its buildings is alien to that of Tikal, and looks exactly like the architecture of Teotihuacan, an ancient city near modern-day Mexico City.
Situated 1,200 kilometers from Tikal, Teotihuacan was the most powerful city in the ancient Americas, the capital of a culture that was very different from the Mayans and als...
- Title
- ‘Horned Crocodile-Faced Hell Heron’ Dinosaur Discovered
- Runtime
- 8:42
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- ISLE OF WIGHT, U.K. — Dinosaur bones found on the Isle of Wight belong to two different species of spinosaurids that have never been discovered before, according to a study by palaeontologists at the University of Southampton.
Both species are closely related to the giant Spinosaurus, and it’s believed their crocodile-like skulls allowed them to hunt for prey on both land and in water 125 million years ago.
One of the two species has been named Riparovenator milnerae, while the other has been named Ceratosuchops inferodios, which translates to “horned crocodile-faced hell heron.”
That nod towards herons reflects the manner in which these dinosaurs would, like herons, have caught aquatic prey from around the edges of waterways and had a diet that would also have included terrestrial prey.
The researchers estimate that both Ceratosuchops and Riparovenator were about nine meters in length, with their skulls alone a meter long.
- Title
- Antarctica Could Be Hit by ‘Chain Reaction’ Collapse
- Runtime
- 12:44
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- As melting ice in Antarctica exposes land beneath it, the chain of processes set off may be capable of causing the sheet to collapse, according to a study in Nature Geoscience.
Researchers looked at Earth 13 to 17 million years ago when carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and global temperatures reached levels similar to those expected by the end of this century, and said when ice sheets melt, the exposed land beneath is less reflective, so local temperatures become warmer.
This can drastically alter weather patterns because Antarctic winds usually blow from the continent out to the sea, but if the continent warms up that could be reversed, with winds blowing from the cooler sea to the warmer land.
That would bring additional rainfall to the Antarctic, which in turn would cause more freshwater to run into the sea, according to a University of Exeter news release on Eurekalert.
Finally, because freshwater is less dense than saltwater, it...
- Title
- Why COVID Shipping Bottlenecks Could Take Years to Untangle
- Runtime
- 13:08
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — The world’s product supply chain is facing serious challenges as demand for products increase while the cogs of the system are stuck in severe COVID-created bottlenecks that might take years to untangle. Here are the details:
Forbes magazine reports that there seems to be no end in sight to the global supply chain crisis that has led to an increase in prices and a shortage of products and components.
In February 2020, demand for most goods fell sharply as the world’s economies went into lockdown. Cargo ships stopped sailing, manufacturing capacity was cut, and workers everywhere were displaced.
But only a few months later, imports to the U.S. surged and the global economy was turned back on. This sudden restart created massive bottlenecks.
A shortage of shipping containers emerged, and shipping rates for certain routes skyrocketed. International ports became congested and this congestion spread to railroads and i...
- Title
- Climate Change Is Turning Earth Into an Alien Planet
- Runtime
- 10:30
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- MONTREAL, QUEBEC — Scientists have modeled what Earth would look like in 500 years if our planet keeps warming up at the present rate. What they found would surprise you.
A group of environmental scientists have combined to model the impact of climate change all the way up to the year 2500.
After publishing their findings in Global Change Biology, the researchers wrote in The Conversation that Earth will gradually become uninhabitable if governments across the globe do not act more strongly to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The study’s results show that the Amazon will change into a place that is too hot and dry for plants to grow in, leaving a barren wasteland with no vegetation and little human activity.
In the American midwest, the model predicts that today’s cornfield prairies will be replaced by a hot and humid subtropical climate, where AI drones tend to strange plants engineered from oil palms.
In the Ind...
- Title
- Five Asteroids We Ignored Should Worry Us — Study
- Runtime
- 8:49
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEIJING — Between 100,000 and a million small-scale asteroids have a possibility of hitting Earth over the next century, and five in particular have a collision risk of one in 1,000, according to Chinese astronomers cited by The South China Morning Post.
Although these asteroids are under 100 meters wide, much smaller than the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs, they remain a serious threat as they carry more kinetic energy than atom bombs.
In 2013 a 19-meter-wide asteroid exploded over the Russian city of Chelyabinsk, an explosion around 30 times as powerful as the nuclear blast over Hiroshima.
The damage to around 7,500 buildings and 1,500 people that one caused has been used by astronomers writing in the Acta Astronomica Sinica journal as an example of why we should be wary of these smaller space rocks.
Data in one existing database showed orbiting behaviors of more than 700 asteroids could propel them towards Earth in the next c...
- Title
- Massive Ice Age Structures Found Under the North Sea
- Runtime
- 7:23
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- CAMBRIDGE, U.K. — Scientists using cutting-edge technology found hundreds of massive channels cut into the bedrock under the North Sea. Here are the details:
In a new study published in the journal Geology, scientists show in detail the massive size and great number of huge undersea channels created by ice sheets when they melted at the end of the last ice age.
The study shows detailed 3D images of hundreds of channels carved into the bedrock under the North Sea.
The area where these channels occur perfectly match the area that was covered by the ice sheet during the last ice age, which ended only 20,000 years ago.
Scientists say the channels were cut by powerful rivers of meltwater that formed under the huge ice sheet when the Earth started to warm up.
The researchers used boats with sonic equipment that pulse sound waves to the bottom of the North Sea.
These sound waves penetrate the water and sedime...
- Title
- Amtrak Train Derailment: Animated Explainer of the Accident
- Runtime
- 8:06
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- JOPLIN, MONTANA — At least three people were killed and 50 were injured after Amtrak’s westbound Empire Builder train derailed in Montana at 4 p.m. Saturday, September 25, but the cause is still unknown.
The Associated Press spoke to David Clarke, director of the Center for Transportation Research at the University of Tennessee, who noted that the derailment occurred at or near a switch, where the railway goes from a single to a double track.
The two locomotives and two cars at the front of the train reached the split and continued onwards, though one passenger reported being thrown around inside.
However, the eight cars behind those cars all derailed, and Clarke suggests “it might have been that the front of the train hit the switch and it started fish-tailing and that flipped the back part of the train.” The New York Times spoke to one expert who summarized the general direction any investigation might take, explaining that right now the...
- Title
- Mars-Sized Planet Smashed Into Earth Twice to Form Moon: Study
- Runtime
- 7:54
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TUCSON, ARIZONA — Scientists have revised an earlier theory about how the moon was formed via a single, slow collision between Earth and Mars-sized planet Theia, with broken-off parts of Theia forming the moon.
According to a new study in The Planetary Science Journal, the problem with the previous theory was that the moon shares much of its chemistry with Earth, not Theia, and that it requires improbably low initial velocity.
To explain both phenomena, the new theory suggests an alternative version of events. Rather than hitting the Earth once, at low speed, merging then and there and forming the moon, Theia initially hit Earth at higher speeds in a ‘hit and run’ collision, and then, between 100,000 and 1 million years later, the two struck each other again, resulting in a collision that more fully merged the two.
Using computer simulations of the massive impacts, scientists concluded that this version of the moon’s history is a better fi...
- Title
- Methane Plumes on Saturn’s Moon Enceladus May Be Sign of Life
- Runtime
- 8:45
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — Saturn's moon Enceladus is an icy globe that blows strange geysers of ice particles into space. Scientists found that these geysers contain unexpected amounts of methane, and methane is usually produced by living organisms.
Salon reports that researchers believe the surprising amount of methane blowing out of Saturn’s moon Enceladus indicates that living organisms might be active inside the icy globe.
The researchers looked at data recorded in 2005 by the Cassini space probe when it flew through huge geysers of ice particles blowing out of cracks in the moon’s icy shell. They published their research in the journal Nature Astronomy in July.
That study shows the geysers consist of dihydrogen, water ice and a surprising amount of methane.
Methane is common on Earth and is usually produced by bacteria, but can also be created by geological processes.
The study used mathematical models to calculate how...
- Title
- China Opens Thorium Reactor That Doesn't Use Uranium Fuel
- Runtime
- 8:41
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- GOBI DESERT, CHINA — Having completed its construction in the Gobi Desert, China will test a thorium-powered nuclear reactor in the next two weeks, according to France 24.
While in conventional nuclear plants the fuel is stored inside the fuel rods, in plants with molten salt reactors it is dissolved directly into the molten salt liquid core. Science journal Nature’s website explains that these reactors may reduce the risk of explosive meltdowns because they operate at lower pressures.
They also operate at higher temperatures, meaning they can produce electricity more efficiently, according to one nuclear engineer at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The use of thorium as the fuel is considered ‘greener’ than the use of uranium because it does not create plutonium, which is highly toxic, and because its radioactivity drops off to safe levels in a few hundred, rather than tens of thousands of years, according to NPR.
...
- Title
- Is Tall el-Hammam Sodom? New Study Backs Up Genesis Story
- Runtime
- 8:12
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TALL EL-HAMMAM, JORDAN — Scientists discovered that an ancient city near where the Biblical city of Sodom would have been was destroyed centuries ago by a meteor that exploded above the city and burned it to a cinder.
In a study published in the journal Scientific Reports, researchers showed that the ancient city of Tall el-Hammam was struck by a massive airborne explosion with the power of 1,000 atom bombs.
The city was completely destroyed by the resulting firestorm and pressure waves. Its remains are located in Jordan, near Israel’s Dead Sea.
Researchers believe the fiery explosion from up high struck around 3,600 years ago and might have given rise to the story of Sodom, which according to Biblical text was destroyed as punishment for immorality.
The scientists say evidence strongly suggests that the city was struck from above by a meteorite mostly composed of ice, which exploded in the air because of very high temperatures...
- Title
- French Drones, Jets, Commandos, Neutralize Terror Mastermind Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi
- Runtime
- 6:08
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TONGO TONGO, NIGER — French special forces tracked down and killed the ISIS terrorist who masterminded the 2017 ambush in Niger that killed four American Green Berets.
The Washington Post reports that the French government claimed on Thursday September 16 that it had killed the top Islamist terrorist who orchestrated the 2017 ambush that killed four American soldiers in Niger.
Adnan Abu Walid al-Sahrawi was the leader of an affiliate of ISIS called the Islamic State in Greater Sahara. He is also believed to have ordered the murder of six French aid workers in 2020.
The French military says it managed to kill Al-Sahrawi in August in a drone strike but had to wait to make sure it really was him.
The operation followed months of commando assaults and drone strikes in the lawless area between Niger and Mali.
Eventually, with information gleaned from two captured colleagues of Al-Sahrawi, French special forces attacked...
- Title
- Gabby Petito Body Found, Search On for Missing Boyfriend Brian Laundrie
- Runtime
- 10:30
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- #GabbyPetito
CARLTON RESERVE, FLORIDA — Remains found in Wyoming's Bridger-Teton National Forest have been confirmed as those of 22-year-old Gabby Petito, with the Teton County Coroner’s initial determination for the cause of death being homicide, according to the FBI.
Petito was reported missing on September 11 according to CNN, and the remains were discovered on Sunday, September 19, in the Spread Creek Dispersed Camping Area of the Bridger-Teton National Forest, according to The New York Times.
Throughout July and August, the Florida woman had been travelling across the U.S. with her fiance, Brian Laundrie, sharing social media posts of their trip, and now police search efforts are being directed towards finding him.
On August 29 in Wyoming 23-year-old Laundrie received a lift from a passer-by and claimed he'd been camping by himself for several days while his fiance was at their van working on social media posts, according to ...
- Title
- Radical ‘Green’ Alternative to Burial or Cremation Made Legal in Colorado
- Runtime
- 9:29
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- LAFAYETTE, COLORADO — Body composting could become a ‘green’ alternative to burial or cremation after Colorado became the second state after Washington to allow the process last week, according to The Associated Press.
One beneficiary of the new law, the Natural Funeral company, uses boxes lined with waterproof roofing material and packed with wood chips and straw, but relies mostly on billions of microbial organisms already inside the body to initiate decomposition.
This method has two advantages over conventional methods: First, it takes up less space, and second, it doesn’t burn fossil fuels that can contribute to climate change,or release mercury-based fumes into the atmosphere.
SOURCES: The Associated Press, BBC
https://apnews.com/article/technology-lifestyle-religion-environment-and-nature-health-014a5d0bc4f4039181d9863527334ebe
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-47031816
- Title
- Jet Stream Reaching Dangerous Tipping Point
- Runtime
- 8:35
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- TUCSON, ARIZONA — Scientists found that Earth’s northernmost jet stream is in trouble. They say that if this weather-controlling air current migrates northward, the U.S. and Europe are in for centuries of nasty weather. Here are the details:
In a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, scientists warn that the planet’s northernmost wind channel, called the North Atlantic jet stream, will start migrating northward if the Earth keeps warming up.
This would impact North America and Europe in the form of more severe flooding, droughts and heatwaves.
The jet stream is a band of fast-moving air that is created by the difference in pressure between cold Arctic air and warmer air to the south. It is also known for giving airliner jets a time-saving boost when they travel from the U.S. to Europe.
The study’s researchers bored deep holes in the Greenland ice sheet and looked at the way snow layers ...
- Title
- U.S. Sets Dangerous New Nuclear Precedent in Attempting to Confront China
- Runtime
- 7:41
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — The U.K., U.S. and Australia have announced a security pact aimed at confronting China, whereby Australia will be provided with the technology to build nuclear-powered submarines for the first time, according to the BBC.
Australia says it will abide by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in not pursuing nuclear weapons, but the move could still ‘indirectly spur the proliferation of nuclear weapons’ because of the technology it involves and the precedents it sets, according to The Guardian.
The pact, known as AUKUS, which also covers artificial intelligence, quantum technologies and cyberwarfare, is designed as a response to China's military buildup in the Indo-Pacific, according to the BBC.
SOURCES: Stars and Stripes, Newsweek, Commander U.S. Pacific Fleet, The Global Times, Commander U.S. 7th Fleet, The Guardian, CNN, BBC, The Financial Times, ABC.net, Hawaii News Now
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/sep/1...
- Title
- North Korea Fires First ‘Nuclear-Capable’ Ballistic Missiles
- Runtime
- 7:17
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- PYONGYANG, NORTH KOREA — North Korea has successfully tested a new long range, ground-launched cruise missile which may be its first of this kind to have nuclear capabilities, according to the country’s state media outlet KCNA, cited by The Drive.
Described as ‘a strategic weapon of great significance,’ the use of the word ‘strategic’ is often interpreted as a euphemism for nuclear capabilities, according to a senior fellow at the U.S.-based Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who spoke to Reuters.
The missile flew 930 miles or 1,500 kilometers with a flying time of 126 minutes, according to the KCNA. However, it flew in oval and figure-of-eight flight orbits, so it actually came down inside North Korean territorial waters.
The Drives notes that in any conflict scenario cruise missiles could be used to saturate an enemy’s defenses, with large numbers of attacking from different directions and their flatter trajectories makin...
- Title
- ‘The Flying Bum’ Airship Gets a Cool Job
- Runtime
- 7:11
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BEDFORD, U.K. — Futurism reports that a giant airship called the Airlander has been selected to take tourists on luxury air cruises over the North Pole.
The tour company that plans to operate the cruises, OceanSky Cruises, recently announced that the Airlander 10, built by Hybrid Air Vehicles, will be the aircraft serving the route.
The tour company says the Airlander 10 is unlike any other aircraft, being the world’s largest flying vehicle and using innovative technology to combine the best characteristics of fixed-wing airplanes, helicopters and static lift by helium.
The company says this combination creates a new breed of hyper-efficient aircraft with abilities to explore the Arctic in a completely new way.
The Airlander 10 had previously gone viral on social media when it was nick-named “The Flying Bum” because of how it looks.
However, it looks like “The Flying Bum” will have the last laugh, as its ...
- Title
- James Webb Space Telescope Most Powerful Telescope Ever Placed in Space
- Runtime
- 8:13
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- WASHINGTON — NASA will finally launch the $10 billion James Webb telescope on December 18, the Guardian reports. This will be the largest, most powerful and most complex telescope ever placed in space.
After many years of postponements, the telescope is now finally cleared for take-off on a European Space Agency Ariane rocket from Kourou in French Guiana.
Once in space, the telescope will take around a month to get to its final position, where it will orbit the sun at around 1,5 kilometers from Earth.
The launch of this very expensive telescope had been postponed quite a few times. Work on it began back in 1996 and the plan was to launch it in 2007.
The original price estimate was only $500 million, which is only 5 percent of the current price tag of $10 billion.
The telescope will feature a 6.5-meter mirror and a sun shield that will unfurl to the size of a tennis court once in space.
This massive su...
- Title
- Woolly Mammoths To Be Resurrected Within Six Years to Fight Climate Change.
- Runtime
- 6:41
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — Geneticists led by Harvard Medical School's George Church are seeking to bring the woolly mammoth back to life 4,000 years after its extinction, and have secured $15 million of investment, according to CNN.
Supporters of the idea believe their return to the Arctic could help recreate a grazing ecosystem, trampling down and compacting snow, which makes it less likely to melt and release methane and carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to the BBC.
Supporters also speculate that because ‘mammoths are like walking bulldozers’ they could be used to level forests and shrublands that have sprung up in the Arctic, which would mean sunlight-reflecting snow remains in those areas longer.
SOURCES: CNN, Berkeley News, BBC, Smithsonian, National Geographic, Popular Mechanics, The Guardian, Cell, Salk News, Cell Press, Science Alert
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/apr/15/human-cells-grown-monkey-embryos-...
- Title
- Earth’s Core Growing Lopsided, and Cooling Process Behind It Will Eventually Destroy the Planet
- Runtime
- 9:37
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- BERKELEY, CALIFORNIA — Earth's core is growing lopsided.
Earth’s inner core grows 1 millimeter in radius per year, but its east side, beneath Indonesia, is growing faster than its west, beneath Brazil, because it is cooling at a faster rate, causing more iron crystals to form, according to a study in Nature Geoscience.
Because of lower temperatures around the east side, iron crystals form more quickly. However, Earth’s spherical shape is maintained by constant spinning and the force of gravity, which redistribute the extra mass evenly, according to Popular Mechanics.
- Title
- World's Largest Carbon-Sucking Machine Turned On.
- Runtime
- 5:24
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- HELLISHEIDI, ICELAND — The world’s largest carbon capture plant has opened in Iceland and its manufacturers say it will capture 4,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the air per year.
Its fans draw air towards a filter which carbon dioxide particles stick to. Once enough particles are captured, the temperature inside is raised, which releases the carbon dioxide from the filter, so the now highly concentrated gas can be collected.
The carbon dioxide is then mixed with water and injected deep into the ground, where it can be stored safely, without affecting the Earth’s climate.
U.N., E&E News, Reuters, CBC, Science Advances, Earth’s Future, Science Alert, Climeworks, The Guardian
https://www.eenews.net/stories/1060753571
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-antarctic/artificial-snow-could-save-stricken-antarctic-ice-sheet-study-idUSKCN1UC2E7
https://www.cbc.ca/radio/asithappens/as-it-happens-the-tuesday-edition-1.5...
- Title
- The Top Five Most Insane Scientific Studies of the Year
- Runtime
- 3:48
- Date posted
- 5 years ago
- Description
- CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS — The 2021 Ig Nobel awards, rewarding "research that first makes people laugh and then makes them think," has seen 10 Ig Nobel prizes handed out, including one to a study suggesting men evolved beards to protect their faces in fist fights.
According to The Guardian, other notable winners were a study that emphasized the benefits of transporting rhinoceroses upside down, and a study that detailed the array of bacteria living on chewing gum stuck to pavements.
The Ig Nobel for chemistry went to a group who studied the smells released by cinema audiences and found that they change depending on the type of movie, with isoprene levels varying massively during scary movies.
SOURCES: The Guardian, Al Jazeera
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/sep/09/upside-down-rhinos-and-nose-clearing-orgasm-studies-win-ig-nobel-prize
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/9/10/just-for-laughs-upside-down-flying-rhino-gets-ig-no...
