Keep Austin Weird – Page 14 – Museum of the Weird

Posted on August 13, 2012 by MOTW Admin

20,000 MILLION YEAR OLD ANTARCTIC LAKE 12,000FT BELOW ICE HAS BEEN REACHED

The Russian research team made contact with the lake 12,366 feet (3,769 meters) below the ice on Sunday, 05/02/12.

What this looks like to me is the opening scene of a sci-fi horror movie, where the scientists out in the ice deserts of Antarctica break through ancient ice to an underground lake of freshwater that’s been cutoff from the outside world for 20 million years except, nothing scary happened when these guys actually did just that. Bummer?

Msnbc.msn.com writes:

MOSCOW — Opening a scientific frontier miles under the Antarctic ice, Russian experts drilled down and finally reached the surface of a gigantic freshwater lake, an achievement the mission chief likened to placing a man on the moon.

Lake Vostok could hold living organisms that have been locked in icy darkness for some 20 million years, as well as clues to the search for life elsewhere in the solar system.

Touching the surface of the lake, the largest of nearly 400 subglacial lakes in Antarctica, came after more than two decades of drilling. It was a major achievement avidly anticipated by scientists around the world.

“In the simplest sense, it can transform the way we think about life,” NASA’s chief scientist, Waleed Abdalati, told The Associated Press in an email Wednesday.

The Russian team made contact with the lake water Sunday at a depth of 12,366 feet (3,769 meters), about 800 miles (1,300 kilometers) east of the South Pole in the central part of the continent.

Scientists hope the lake might allow a glimpse into microbial life forms that existed before the Ice Age and are not visible to the naked eye. Scientists believe that microbial life may exist in the dark depths of the lake despite its high pressure and constant cold — conditions similar to those believed to be found under the ice crust on Mars, Jupiter’s moon Europa and Saturn’s moon Enceladus.

Akin to the space race
Valery Lukin, the head of Russia’s Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, said reaching the lake was akin to the Americans winning the space race in 1969.

“I think it’s fair to compare this project to flying to the moon,” said Lukin, who oversaw the mission and announced its success.

American and British teams are drilling to reach their own subglacial Antarctic lakes, but Columbia University glaciologist Robin Bell said those are smaller and younger than Vostok, which is the big scientific prize.

“It’s like exploring another planet, except this one is ours,” she said.

1ST EVER PANORAMIC VIEW OF MARS, FROM MARS!

A panoramic view from the Curiosity Rover inside Gale Crater on mars.

No signs of life, yet.

Here’s a cool video NASA has released of Curiosty’s actual decent on the red planet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=UcGMDXy-Y1I

NASA writes:

PASADENA, Calif. – The first images from Curiosity’s color Mast Camera, or Mastcam, have been received by scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. The 130 low-resolution thumbnails, which were received Thursday morning, provide scientists and engineers of NASA’s newest Mars rover their first color, horizon-to-horizon glimpse of Gale Crater.

“After a year in cold storage, where it endured the rigors of launch, the deep space cruise to Mars and everything that went on during landing, it is great to see our camera is working as planned,” said Mike Malin, principal investigator of the Mastcam instrument from Malin Space Science Systems in San Diego. “As engaging as this color panorama is, it is important to note this is only one-eighth the potential resolution of images from this camera.”

The Curiosity team also continued to downlink high-resolution black-and-white images from its Navigation Camera, or Navcam. These individual images have been stitched together to provide a high-resolution Navcam panorama, including a glimpse of the rover’s deck. Evident on some portions of the deck are some small Martian pebbles.

“The latest Navcam images show us that the rocket engines on our descent stage kicked up some material from the surface of Mars, several pieces which ended up on our rover’s deck,” said Mike Watkins, mission manager for Curiosity from JPL. “These small pebbles we currently see are up to about 1 centimeter [0.4 inch] in size and should pose no problems for mission operations. It will be interesting to see how long our hitchhikers stick around.”

Curiosity’s color panorama of Gale Crater is online at: http://1.usa.gov/P7VsUw . Additional images from Curiosity are available at: http://1.usa.gov/MfiyD0 .

LOST PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT FOUND USING GOOGLE EARTH?

Are these geographical anomalies actual ancient egyptian pyramids?

Certainly you hadn’t thought we found all of Earth’s hidden wonders and ruins of ancient civilizations. In the Amazon Rainforest alone there are at least 60 that we know of and can’t get to, and assuredly hundreds more we haven’t even found yet.

Scouring the extensive imagery available via Google Earth has led to quite few discoveries about our own planet. The most recent being this set of what could possibly be ancient egyptian pyramids.

I09 writes:

Satellite archaeologist Angela Micol believes she may have stumbled upon two previously unidentified pyramid structures by using Google Earth. Located in Egypt, the sites contain distinct features and orientations that definitely suggest the potential presence of pyramids — a prospect that has local archaeologists eager to check it out. The Archaeology News Network reports:

“One of the complex sites contains a distinct, four-sided, truncated, pyramidal shape that is approximately 140 feet in width. This site contains three smaller mounds in a very clear formation, similar to the diagonal alignment of the Giza Plateau pyramids.

The second possible site contains four mounds with a larger, triangular-shaped plateau. The two larger mounds at this site are approximately 250 feet in width, with two smaller mounds approximately 100 feet in width. This site complex is arranged in a very clear formation with the large plateau, or butte, nearby in a triangular shape with a width of approximately 600 feet.”

According to Egyptologist and pyramid expert Nabil Selim, these structures have never been identified — and he notes that one of the proposed sites is similar in size to 13th Dynasty Egyptian pyramids. It’s anticipated that archaeologists will visit the site to conduct what’s called “ground truthing.”

Micol, who is based in Maiden, North Carolina, has been conducting satellite archaeological research for over a decade — and she has made Google Earth her primary tool. The program has helped her document a number of potential archaeological sites, including a potential underwater city off the Yucatan Peninsula.

NEW PARTICLES LET YOU LIVE W/OUT BREATHING

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.

MAN CRUSHES 6 POLICE CRUISERS WITH TRACTOR

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.

BRITISH EXPLORER SET TO FIND PIRATES LOST GOLD ON ‘TREASURE ISLAND’

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.

AUSTRALIAN X-FILES RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC

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’.”

MAN LANDS CURIOSITY ROVER ON MARS

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.”

MEET THE ‘ROYAL FAMILY OF STRANGE PEOPLE’

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.

This smorgasbord of strange is on display at the Southbank Centre until September.

NEW PHOTO OF THE LOCH NESS MONSTER SURFACES

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.