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Strongest solar storm in years, bombarding Earth w/ radiation... aurora borealis that swept across the night sky
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Jan. 22, 2012 - Solar storm sparks dazzling northern lights
NASA observed a flare Sunday night at 11 p.m. EST Jan. 22, 2012, shows a solar flare erupting on the Sun's northeastern hemisphere, the strongest solar storm in more than six years, bombarding Earth with radiation with more to come. The biggest concern from the speedy eruption is the radiation, which arrived on Earth an hour later and will likely continue through Wednesday. It's mostly an issue for astronauts' health and satellite disruptions. It can cause communication problems for airplanes that go over the poles. Scientists have been expecting solar eruptions to become more intense as the sun enters a more active phase of its 11-year cycle, with an expected peak in 2013. 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 »
Youngest Planet: newborn gas giant may be up to six times the mass of Jupiter, orbiting a sunlike star 450 light-years away
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Youngest Planet Picture: Gas Giant Seen in Throes of Creation... Baby world likely "deep red" to human eyes due to heat of formation.
A new picture of a Jupiter-like world swaddled in gas and dust is a direct image of what may be the youngest planet yet seen, astronomers report.
The newborn gas giant, dubbed LkCa 15b, orbits a sunlike star 450 light-years away in the northern constellation Taurus. The planet orbits inside a disk of material around the star that's no more than two million years old. By contrast, astronomers estimate our solar system is 4.6 billion years old.
The big baby planet may be up to six times the mass of Jupiter, according to theory-based calculations, and it appears to orbit 11 times farther from its parent star than Earth does from our sun.
The new picture was made in near-infrared light, but "the planet would probably appear a deep red to our eye, since it's still glowing from the heat of being formed," said Adam Kraus, lead study author and an astronomer at the University of Hawaii.
Separating Light From Light
Kraus and colleagues zeroed in on the young star based on previous observations that showed a conspicuous gap in the star's surrounding debris disk.
Such gaps are thought to be telltale signs that massive, newly formed planets are circling inside the disks—a protoplanet's gravity would clear away a wide swath of gas and dust as it accumulates matter. read more »
Visionary, innovator, inventor, business giant Steve Jobs: "think different".. "There is no reason not to follow your heart."
*update* 22 August 2014
Jobs prefaced his Stanford remarks by saying: "I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation."
Steve Jobs in his Los Angeles office in 1981, five years after he co-founded Apple.
Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, when they founded Apple. Jobs sold his Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak his two Hewlett-Packard calculators to raise the money they needed.
On the cover of Macworld, a sister publication of Computerworld, in 1984.
During happier times with John Sculley. Jobs lost the helm at Apple in 1985 after a power struggle with Sculley, who was CEO of Apple at the time, and Jobs left to found NEXT.
In 1986, Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for less than $10 million. The company later was renamed to Pixar Animation Studios. This photo is from the 2003 opening of 'Finding Nemo'. Pixar was ultimately sold to Walt Disney in 2006. read more »
Oceans give life, cover 72% of Earth, but less than 1% of Ocean protected. Depletion & pollution. Man puts Nature in distress
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Every second breath we take comes from the ocean. Every drop of water we drink connects us to Nature, especially the ocean.
The ocean is not just water, it’s alive, and it’s our life support system. Oceans provide more than half of the oxygen we breathe. Yet we do harm to our host; 90% of big fish are gone, 20% of coral reefs are gone...
Oceans cover 72% of earth and land covers 28% of earth -
12% of land is protected while less than 1% of oceans are protected...
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Scottish scientists develop whisky biofuel: more environmentally sustainable & 30% more power output than ethanol
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It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase "one for the road". Whisky, the spirit that powers the Scottish economy, is being used to develop a new biofuel which could be available at petrol pumps in a few years.
Using samples from the Glenkinchie Distillery in East Lothian, researchers at Edinburgh Napier University have developed a method of producing biofuel from two main by-products of the whisky distilling process – "pot ale", the liquid from the copper stills, and "draff", the spent grains.
Copious quantities of both waste products are produced by the £4bn whisky industry each year, and the scientists say there is real potential for the biofuel, to be available at local garage forecourts alongside traditional fuels. It can be used in conventional cars without adapting their engines. The team also said it could be used to fuel planes and as the basis for chemicals such as acetone, an important solvent.
The new method developed by the team produces butanol, which gives 30% more power output than the traditional biofuel ethanol. It is based on a 100-year-old process that was originally developed to produce butanol and acetone by fermenting sugar. The team has adapted this to use whiskey by-products as a starting point and has filed for a patent to cover the new method. It plans to create a spin-out company to commercialise the invention. read more »
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