If you thought science wasn’t as “futuristic” as you thought it’d be after watching all the crazy movies and tv shows we have now-a-days, looks like something pretty incredible is coming down the pipeline!
Gizmodo writes:
This may seem like something out of a science fiction movie: researchers have designed microparticles that can be injected directly into the bloodstream to quickly oxygenate your body, even if you can’t breathe anymore. It’s one of the best medical breakthroughs in recent years, and one that could save millions of lives every year.
The invention, developed by a team at Boston Children’s Hospital, will allow medical teams to keep patients alive and well for 15 to 30 minutes despite major respiratory failure. This is enough time for doctors and emergency personnel to act without risking a heart attack or permanent brain injuries in the patient.
The solution has already been successfully tested on animals under critical lung failure. When the doctors injected this liquid into the patient’s veins, it restored oxygen in their blood to near-normal levels, granting them those precious additional minutes of life.
Police officers with 2 of the 6 totaled police cars that were the victim of one mans tractor.
Here’s one way NOT to retaliate when you feel you’ve been wrongly harassed by the local police force. A man in Vermont , Roger Pion, decided driving his tractor of a couple, well more like 6 or 7, police cruisers while they were parked in front of the station was a good way to spend an afternoon.
Huffington Post writes:
When an angry Roger Pion allegedly took a tractor and crushed six police cars and a van last week an unlikely anti-establishment hero was born.
The 34-year-old Vermont man, who pleaded not guilty on Tuesday, has been lionized on Facebook pages, tribute songs and a t-shirt.
The Orleans Sheriff’s Department alleges that Pion, smarting over an earlier arrest for marijuana possession and resisting arrest, destroyed much of their fleet in Newport last Thursday.
Two officers jumped from a cruiser as Pion headed towards them. He was arrested at gunpoint two miles away, the Burlington Free Press reported.
On Facebook, there’s a page called “Roger Pion, the magnificent,” with more than 2,300 fans. Supporters are asked to donate to his defense fund. The page is filled with snarky posts riffing on popular advertising campaigns.
In a parody of the famous milk ads, there’s a photo of Pion’s vehicle and the caption “Got Tractor?” Another shows demolished patrol cars with a tag line lifted from Verizon Wireless, “Can you hear me now?”
A t-shirt with the words “Free Roger Pion” and a picture of a tractor has been created, according to the Associated Press.
An archaeological expedition is heading to Cocos Island in search of the “Treasure of Lima”, a true life “treasure island” if there ever was one.
The Telegraph writes:
It eluded Franklin Roosevelt, Sir Malcolm Campbell and Errol Flynn, but now an explorer from Melton Mowbray could be on the trail of a multi-million-pound hoard of gold, silver and jewellery stolen by pirates and buried on a treasure island.
Shaun Whitehead is leading an archaeological expedition to Cocos Island, the supposed hiding place of the “Treasure of Lima” – one of the world’s most fabled missing treasures.
The haul – said to be worth £160 million – was stolen by a British trader, Captain William Thompson, in 1820 after he was entrusted to transport it from Peru to Mexico.
He is said to have been stashed his plunder on the Pacific island, from where it has never been recovered.
An original inventory showed 113 gold religious statues, one a life-size Virgin Mary, 200 chests of jewels, 273 swords with jewelled hilts, 1,000 diamonds, solid gold crowns, 150 chalices and hundreds of gold and silver bars.
The site, credited by some as the inspiration for Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island, is uninhabited and around 350 miles off the coast of Costa Rica, of which it is a part.
It has also been designated a Unesco World Heritage Site for its unspoilt environment and variety of wildlife and it has taken around 18 months of negotiations with the authorities to secure permission to go there on an exploratory mission.
Although there have been no official expeditions to the island for more than a quarter of a century, Mr Whitehead will join an impressive a line of notable adventurers and explorers who been attracted by the lure of the “Lima loot”.
They include Roosevelt, the American president from 1933 to 1945, who travelled there with friends in 1910, Campbell, the racing driver, who went there in the 1920s, and Flynn in the 1940s.
Another explorer, August Gissler, a German, spent 19 years living on the island hunting the treasure but returned with just six gold coins.
However, Mr Whitehead’s team is equipped with technology that has never before been used on the island. He has also established the most likely spots around the island on which to focus his efforts.
Australia has released documents 30 years that describe many encounters with UFOs.
Here comes some interesting info out of the land down-under!
By law in Australia, any government documents 30 years old must be released to the public and there are a few folks scouring those documents for anything interesting, and boy have they found something good!
The Age over in Australia writes:
It is probably the closest Australia has come to scrambling fighter jets to intercept a UFO.
Documents that have just become available under the 30-year rule at the National Archives of Australia reveal how two RAAF Mirage jets were placed on the second highest level of alert to determine the cause of unidentified radar contacts seen on screens at Mascot.
The ”X Files” viewed in Canberra also give details of other unexplained sightings, some of which are supported by witness statements to police.
In the Sydney alert, the papers stamped ”restricted” tell how operation ”Close Encounter” was launched by No.3 Control and Reporting Unit at RAAF Base Williamtown near Newcastle on June 30, 1983, after the phenomenon was first noticed earlier in the month.
Senior air controllers at Mascot said the contacts were mostly located between 70 and 150 nautical miles north of Sydney at ”alleged speeds of 1100-6500 km/h that suggested high altitude”.
The papers state that no scramble was to occur in the round-the-clock operation unless confirmation of any reported tracks was made on the radar screens at RAAF Williamtown or any radar other than Sydney.
At the same time, three senior air defence controllers were dispatched to Sydney to investigate and plot every contact and ”control interceptors against these contacts if a reasonable chance of interception presented itself”. But then one of the defence controllers, a squadron leader, asked whether a comparison had been made of the contacts on the screens of Mascot’s Area Approach Radar Centre and those in a ”workshop across the corridor”. Soon after, tests showed that the ”unidentified objects reported by Sydney were generated entirely by radar interference known colloquially as ‘running rabbits’ ”.
Squadron leader K. Keenan, in his six-page report, said operation Close Encounter cost 66½ days of overtime, 1000 kilometres was travelled by a staff car and a C130 Hercules transport aircraft ”may have been diverted to Sydney airport” to deliver one of the defence controllers.
He wrote: ”The lines of communication, extending as they did across the width of an entire corridor, seem to have been insufficient for the purpose.”
He added rather dryly: ”Fortunately there was no temptation to launch aircraft and add to the fuel bill occasioned by use of the RAAF Datsun.” A cautiously worded statement was released as a result ”in a manner that would not embarrass departmental personnel” which blamed ”random atmospheric conditions”. Other reports in the X Files give details of an ”unidentified physical feature” of circles on Milo Station at Adavale, Queensland, in 1982. The file refers to photographs that apparently were taken, but they were not among the papers.
Constable Geoffrey Russell, from the local police station, visited the site and wrote a report for RAAF Base Amberley near Ipswich. The officer saw depressions in the ground and thought they were caused by a motorcyclist doing donuts but then dismissed the idea.
He wrote: ”I strongly feel this [is] no hoax even though I do not know the cause of this ‘feature’.”
The Curiosty Rover has transmitted its' first images of itself on the Mars surface. A place truly alien.
Science and world history was made today when the ‘Curiosity” rover built by NASA finally landed on the rocky red surface of Mars. The scientists and helmsman of the rover went through, what they call ‘7 minutes of Hell’ while it was out of communication during its’ actual descent and landing procedure.
NASA writes:
PASADENA, Calif. — NASA’s most advanced Mars rover Curiosity has landed on the Red Planet. The one-ton rover, hanging by ropes from a rocket backpack, touched down onto Mars Sunday to end a 36-week flight and begin a two-year investigation.
The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) spacecraft that carried Curiosity succeeded in every step of the most complex landing ever attempted on Mars, including the final severing of the bridle cords and flyaway maneuver of the rocket backpack.
“Today, the wheels of Curiosity have begun to blaze the trail for human footprints on Mars. Curiosity, the most sophisticated rover ever built, is now on the surface of the Red Planet, where it will seek to answer age-old questions about whether life ever existed on Mars — or if the planet can sustain life in the future,” said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “This is an amazing achievement, made possible by a team of scientists and engineers from around the world and led by the extraordinary men and women of NASA and our Jet Propulsion Laboratory. President Obama has laid out a bold vision for sending humans to Mars in the mid-2030’s, and today’s landing marks a significant step toward achieving this goal.”
Curiosity landed at 10:32 p.m. Aug. 5, PDT, (1:32 a.m. EDT Aug. 6) near the foot of a mountain three miles tall and 96 miles in diameter inside Gale Crater. During a nearly two-year prime mission, the rover will investigate whether the region ever offered conditions favorable for microbial life.
“The Seven Minutes of Terror has turned into the Seven Minutes of Triumph,” said NASA Associate Administrator for Science John Grunsfeld. “My immense joy in the success of this mission is matched only by overwhelming pride I feel for the women and men of the mission’s team.”
Curiosity returned its first view of Mars, a wide-angle scene of rocky ground near the front of the rover. More images are anticipated in the next several days as the mission blends observations of the landing site with activities to configure the rover for work and check the performance of its instruments and mechanisms.
“Our Curiosity is talking to us from the surface of Mars,” said MSL Project Manager Peter Theisinger of NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “The landing takes us past the most hazardous moments for this project, and begins a new and exciting mission to pursue its scientific objectives.”
Gary Stretch has the world's stretchiest skin and holds 11 Guinness World Records.
Everyone, including myself, calls their family ‘weird’. Well, this odd family may have you rethink just how weird yours really is!
The Huffinton Post writes:
Swallowing swords, stretching their skins until you’re forced to turn away, this is the world’s most stupendous collection of human oddities.
This eclectic sideshow cabaret, hailed ‘the Coney Island Freak Show for the 21st century’, has been specially commissioned for Priceless London Wonderground and pushes the boundaries of what the human body can achieve.
Marvel at Gary Stretch – owner of the world’s stretchiest skin (above), or wince at the Space Cowboy, the holder of 11 Guinness World Records, the most recent of which saw him swallow 18 swords in one go.
Some say this is one of the best photos of the Loch Ness monster ever.
Has Skipper George Edwards finally captured the fabled Nessie on film after 21 years of searching?
The Huffington Post writes:
A sailor who has spent 26 years searching for the Loch Ness Monster has what he believes is the best ever picture taken of the elusive beast.
George Edwards spends around 60 hours a week patrolling the famous loch, taking tourists out on his boat Nessie Hunter IV, and has led numerous hunts for the fabled created over the years.
But this image is the one that’s convinced him that there really is a monster or evenmonsters – out there.
It shows a mysterious dark hump moving in the water towards Urquhart Castle.
“I was just about to return to Temple Pier (in Drumnadrochit) and I went to the back of the boat which was facing the pier and that’s when I saw it,” said Edwards.
The 60-year-old added: “It was slowly moving up the loch towards Urquhart Castle and it was a dark grey colour. It was quite a fair way from the boat, probably about half a mile away but it’s difficult to tell in water.”
After watching the object for five to ten minutes, Edwards said it slowly sank below the surface and never resurfaced.
“I’m convinced I was seeing Nessie as I believe in these creatures. Far too many people have being seeing them for far too long,” he said.
About 52 million years ago there wasn't any ice on Antarctica, for the temperatures were about 68 degrees Farenhiet
An ancient rain forest has been discovered under the very thick ice of Anartctica.
While drilling to gather core samples of the ice, researchers and scientist found a large section of pollen that indicates a once large and vast tropical-style rain forest that once covered the entire continent and, if things keep going the way of global-warming, it might just happen again… soon!
Discovery News writes:
Drilling of the seabed off Antarctica has revealed that rainforest grew on the frozen continent 52 million years ago, scientists said Thursday, warning it could be ice-free again within decades.
The study of sediment cores drilled from the ocean floor off Antarctica’s east coast revealed fossil pollens that had come from a “near-tropical” forest covering the continent in the Eocene period, 34-56 million years ago.
Kevin Welsh, an Australian scientist who traveled on the 2010 expedition, said analysis of temperature-sensitive molecules in the cores had showed it was “very warm” 52 million years ago, measuring about 20 degrees Celsius (68 F).
“There were forests existing on the land, there wouldn’t have been any ice, it would have been very warm,” Welsh told AFP of the study, published in the journal Nature.
“It’s quite surprising, because obviously our image of Antarctica is that it’s very cold and full of ice.”
Welsh said higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere were thought to be the major driver of the heat and ice-free conditions on Antarctica, with CO2 estimates of anywhere between 990 to “a couple of thousand” parts per million.
CO2 is presently estimated at about 395ppm, and Welsh said the most extreme predictions by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) would see ice again receding on Antarctica “by the end of the century”.
“It’s difficult to say, because that’s really controlled by people’s and governments’ actions,” said Welsh, a paleoclimatologist from the University of Queensland. “It really depends on how emissions go in the future.”
Welsh described the findings as “very significant” in understanding future climate change, particularly given how important Antarctica and the “very large” volume of water stored on its surface would be for the entire planet.
“It shows that if we go through periods of higher CO2 in the atmosphere it’s very likely that there will be dramatic changes on these very important areas of the globe where ice currently exists,” he said.
“If we were to lose a lot of ice from Antarctica then we’re going to see a dramatic change in sea level all around the planet.”
Even a few meters of sea level rise would inundate “large portions of the habitable land around coasts of many major countries and low-lying regions”, he added.
The ice on east Antarctica is 3-4 kilometers (1.9-25 miles) thick, and is thought to have formed about 34 million years ago.
Is this the UFO visiting the London Olympics as predicted by Nick Pope?
We posted a story a few months back about a man named Nick Pope, claiming to have an expert-level of UFO knowledge predicting that a UFO would visit a large event, like the current 2012 London Olympics, and as it currently seems, he may have been right!
The Huffington Post writes:
Want proof that Danny Boyle and the gang put on the greatest show in the galaxy for the London 2012 Opening Ceremony? Well, even mysterious beings from other planets showed up to catch a glimpse. Possibly.
Yes, it seems a UFO appeared over the Olympic Park in London just as the firework display erupted into full force, reports Examiner.com.
Don’t believe us? Just look at this video, and you’ll clearly – well, sort of clearly – see how a mysterious disc-shaped object makes its first appearance in the top left-hand corner then travels across the sky above the stadium as if hoping to get a better look.
Explanations? Well, it could have been a satellite, we suppose. Or another world monarch preparing to parachute from a blimp. But maybe – just maybe – it was a spaceship full of Mike Oldfield fans from Mars who’d heard their hero was in the area. Yes, the more we think about it, the more we’re convinced that last option is the most likely scenario.
'The Door to Hell' has been burning for over 40 years!
When I think of taking a vacation, I think of beautiful sandy beaches and crystal clear waters in a country far, far away. There’s one place that’s just a little hotter than your usual vacation spot and there’s a bit less water too!
Daily Mail writes:
At first glance, it could be a dramatic scene from a science-fiction movie.
But this giant hole of fire in the heart of the Karakum Desert is not the aftermath of an attack on Earth, launched from outer space.
It is a crater made by geologists more than 40 years ago, and the flames within have been burning ever since.
Welcome to Derweze in Turkmenistan – or, as the locals have called it, ‘The Door to Hell’.
Soviet geologists were drilling at the site in 1971 and tapped into a cavern filled with natural gas.
But the ground beneath the drilling rig collapsed, leaving a hole with a diameter of 70 metres.
Fearing that the hole would lead to the release of poisonous gases, the team decided to burn it off.
It was hoped that the fire would use all the fuel within days, but the gas is still burning today.
The flames generate a golden glow which can be seen for miles around Derweze, a village with a population of about 350.
The site is about 260 kilometres north of Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan.
In April 2010 the country’s president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, visited the site and ordered that the hole should be closed but this is yet to happen.
