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Dolphin & Whale more like people than we thought: Curious, playful, affectionate, sharing things, blowing water jets
Robin Williams with dolphins in the wild
The historical origins of ‘whales as people’. In 1850, an anonymous letter, now known to have been penned by a Nantucket whaling captain, written in the voice of a polar whale pleading for it’s species survival, was published in the Honolulu Friend, stating:
I write in behalf of my butchered and dying species. I appeal to the friends of the whole race of whales. Must we all be murdered? Must our race become extinct? Will no friends and allies arise and revenge our wrongs?"
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Wildlife photographer Dafna Ben Nun braved temperatures of minus 2 degrees to photograph the beautiful creatures in the White Sea, north-west Russia. The white beluga whales - which weigh around 3,000 lbs and measure up to 12 foot long - can be seen amazingly blowing water jets from their mouths. read more »
2011-11-11 remembers end of WWI at 11th hour on 11th day of 11th month of 1918, left 9 million soldiers dead, 21 million wounded
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By the end of autumn 1918, the alliance of the Central Powers was unraveling in its war effort against the better supplied and coordinated Allied powers. Facing exhausted resources on the battlefield, turmoil on the home front and the surrender of its weaker allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice with the Allies in the early days of November 1918. On November 7, the German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sent delegates to Compiegne, France, to negotiate the agreement; it was signed at 5:10 a.m. on the morning of November 11. read more »
First space dockings: US Gemini 8, March 16, 1966; Russia Cosmos 186, Oct. 30, 1967; China Shenzhou 8, Nov. 4, 2011
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[2 November 2011] The unmanned Shenzhou 8 craft, launched earlier this week, made contact with the Tiangong-1 space lab at 1729 GMT. The union occurred over China itself.
Being able to dock two space vehicles together is a necessary capability for China if it wants to start building a space station towards the decade's end.
Although no astronauts were in the Shenzhou craft this time, future missions will carry people.
Tuesday's procedure (Beijing time 0029, Thursday) took place at an altitude of about 340km. It was automated but overseen on the ground at the Beijing Aerospace Flight Control Centre. read more »
Disney World opened 40 yrs ago today: "family amusement park...to walk, sit...relax, stay human, stop swearing, start smiling"
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Disneyland, the original California park, was groundbreaking in every possible way. Prior to Disneyland’s creation, amusement parks were, by and large, dirty, dangerous places aimed almost exclusively at teenagers. Parents didn’t go on rides, they sat on benches while the kids played. As an animator, Walt Disney had already earned a reputation as a maverick, a rebel genius who was able to sell adult audiences on feature-length cartoons, something his peers had claimed would never work. Disneyland was the culmination of many of Walt’s big dreams, a different kind of park, where parents and children could have fun together. Walt Disney told stories, and Disneyland allowed guests to become a part of those stories.
Walt Disney World History Year by Year read more »
Defunct UARS is the largest NASA satellite to make uncontrolled fall back to earth in years; dangers of orbital space debris...
The junk in low Earth orbit: space pollution and rising hazard from debris
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NASA: 'We May Never Know' Whereabouts of Satellite Debris
NASA scientists are still not sure exactly where pieces of a huge, defunct satellite landed after re-entering Earth's atmosphere this morning, but early evidence suggests that the debris landed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, which could complicate recovery efforts.
During a Saturday afternoon conference call with reporters, Nicholas Johnson, chief orbital debris scientist for NASA, acknowledged that "we may never know" the whereabouts of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).
Data from the Department of Defense's Joint Space Operations Center (JSOC) indicate that UARS fell to the Earth sometime between 11:23pm Eastern Friday night and 1:09am Saturday morning. At that point, the satellite passed over Canada, the African continent, and the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The mid-point of that path, and likely point of entry, according to those calculations, is off the West Coast of the U.S., as indicated by the green circle on a map published by NASA. read more »
The space shuttle, icon of US high technology, leading mankind into space age; after 30 years, turns into victim of recession
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Atlantis landing ends 30 years of space shuttle flights
CAPE CANAVERAL - Space shuttle Atlantis touched down before dawn Thursday on Kennedy Space Center's Runway 15, ending 30 years of space shuttle flights.
"Atlantis is home," said NASA's Mission Control moments after its arrival at 5:56 a.m. ET. "Its journey complete. A moment to be savored." In its final act before beginning the long journey home, Atlantis sent a small payload into orbit.
As an era comes to a close, nearly 200 satellites, probes and spacecraft have emerged from the cargo bays of NASA's five space shuttles since the Columbia launched from Florida's Kennedy Space Center on April 12, 1981. "We really wish we could share with everybody this really cool glow," commander Chris Ferguson radioed as he and his crew entered the Earth's atmosphere in a plasma of heated air before touching down. "We're doing fantastic." read more »
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