Malachi Smith's List: SCIENCE

• Genetic Variations In European Americans
• by Staff Writers
   Troy NY (SPX) Aug 11, 2008
• An international team of researchers has identified just 200 positions within the curves of the DNA helix that they believe capture much of the genetic diversity in European Americans,
• a population with one of the most diverse and complex historic origins on Earth.
• Their findings narrow the search for the elusive ancestral clues known as single nucleotide polymorphisms, or SNPs, that cause disease and account for the minute variations in the European American population.
• "With this study, we looked at a very large population to determine how each individual could be stratified based on his or her DNA," said Petros Drineas, assistant professor of computer science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and one of the two lead authors of the study.
• The researchers can now begin to analyze each SNP to understand the possible biological significance of those genetic, ancestral differences.
• The research, which was published in the July 2008 edition of PLoS Genetics, is the first to isolate genetic ancestral clues based on a method that is purely computational, requiring no previous personal history.
• The other lead author of the study is Peristera Paschou of the Democritus University of Thrace in Greece.
• The researchers plan to use the data to determine if any of the approximately 200 ancestry informative SNPs that they have identified change the way the body develops.
• "We want to see if the SNPs tied to a specific ancestry hold any biological significance to populations of different origins.
• We want to see if the SNPs that we isolated are related to natural selection and adaptation, for example to the weather conditions of different regions," Drineas said.
• To help do so, the research team will move from the computer lab to the biology lab for further study.
• In addition, the researchers hope that their findings will help narrow down the search for those SNPs that cause disease, according to Drineas.
• Our genes are being increasingly linked to our susceptibility to certain diseases.
• Today, scientists are on the prowl to isolate and understand these "weakest links" in our DNA.
• With the discovery of each tiny SNP that is linked to specific diseases, researchers come closer to understanding our predisposition to certain diseases, as well as to developing cures.

  • Or if militarized as weapons of war or genocide, to eradicate specific ethnic groups...
• However, SNPs linked to disease account for only a minuscule fraction of the estimated 10 million SNPs found in the human genome.
• Scientists have made great strides to narrow down the genetic playfield to just the genetic variations that cause disease, but other minor genetic variations like ancestry are only recently being accounted for.
• With this study, researchers will be able to quickly and inexpensively identify the genes linked to ancestry and unrelated to disease, and remove many of them from contention as causes of disease, thus greatly narrowing the search.
• With this method, the researchers did not need prior information from the participants regarding their ancestry, which is required for most current genetic population studies.
• "Because this method is purely computational and leverages linear algebraic methods such as Principal Components Analysis, without the use of information on self-reported ancestry, we were able to treat the data as a black box," Drineas said.
• Drineas does note that such self-reporting in genetics studies remains a fairly accurate and important way to trace ancestry, but is often difficult in populations as varied as European Americans.
• The European American population was chosen because its genetic background, reflecting its historic origins, is among the most complex on the planet, requiring fine resolution characterization of the genetic code in order to define genetic structure, according to Drineas.
• The researchers analyzed 1,521 individuals for more than 300,000 SNPs across the entire genome.
• The data were made available by the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NINDS) as well as the CAP (Cholesterol and Pharmacogenetics) and PRINCE (Pravastatin Inflammation/CRP Evaluation) studies.
• The team used linear algebra to find patterns in the highly diverse data. When the data sets were analyzed using the proposed algorithms, these patterns pointed to SNPs shared between groups from the same ancestral background.
• "Much of the genetic variation was found to stretch between two 'points' - what we speculate is the Northern European to Southern European ancestry axis," according to Drineas and Paschou.
• Importantly, their study removes any redundant SNPs uncovered during the modeling process, better targeting the most informative SNPs and reducing genotyping cost.

27 more annotations...

• Monday, 25 August 2008
• Cattle shown to align north-south
• By Elizabeth Mitchell
    Science reporter, BBC News
• Have you ever noticed that herds of grazing animals all face the same way?
• Images from Google Earth have confirmed that cattle tend to align their bodies in a north-south direction.
• Wild deer also display this behaviour - a phenomenon that has apparently gone unnoticed by herdsmen and hunters for thousands of years.
• In the Proceedings for the National Academy of Sciences, scientists say the Earth's magnetic fields may influence the behaviour of these animals.
• The Earth can be viewed as a huge magnet, with magnetic north and south situated close to the geographical poles.

• Many species - including birds and salmon - are known to use the Earth's magnetic fields in migration, rather like a natural GPS. 

   A few studies have shown that some mammals - including bats - also use a "magnetic compass" to help their sense of direction. 

• Dr Sabine Begall, from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, has mainly studied the magnetic sense of mole rats - African animals that live in underground tunnels. 

   "We were wondering if larger animals also have this magnetic sense," she told BBC News. 
• Dr Begall and colleagues first decided to study the natural behaviour of domestic cattle.

• The researchers surveyed Google Earth images of 8,510 grazing and resting cattle in 308 pasture plains across the globe. 

   "Sometimes it took hours and hours to find some pictures with good resolution," said Dr Begall. 

• The scientists were unable to distinguish between the head and rear of the cattle, but could tell that the animals tended to face either north or south. 

   Their study ruled out the possibility that the Sun position or wind direction were major influences on the orientation of the cattle. 
• Dr Begall said: "In Africa and South America, the cattle (were) shifted slightly to a more north-eastern-south-western direction.
• "But it is known that the Earth's magnetic field is much weaker there," she explained.

• The researchers also recorded the body positions of 2,974 wild deer in 277 locations across the Czech Republic. 

   Their fieldwork revealed that the majority of grazing and resting deer face northward. About one-third of the deer faced southward. 
• "That might be some kind of anti-predatory behaviour," speculated Dr Begall.
• Willy Miller - a Scottish cattle farmer - remarked: "I've never noticed that my cows all face the same way."
• Cows are social animals: "[They] all sit down before it rains [and] huddle together in a circle formation during blizzards. But from a cow's point of view, that's just sensible," he told BBC News.

• Professor John Phillips, a sensory biologist from Virginia Tech University, US, commented that this sixth magnetic sense might be "virtually ubiquitous in the animal kingdom". 

   He added: "We need to think about some really fundamental things that this sensory ability provides in animals." 
• The challenge remains for scientists to explain how the animals behave in this way - and if Scottish cattle are the exception to the rule!

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• Tuesday, 26 August 2008
• 'Complexity' of Neanderthal tools
• Early stone tools developed by our species Homo sapiens were no more sophisticated than those used by our extinct relatives the Neanderthals.
• That is the conclusion of researchers who recreated and compared tools used by these ancient human groups.
• The findings cast doubt on suggestions that more advanced stone technologies gave modern humans a competitive edge over the Neanderthals.
•  

  Neanderthal tools were just as efficient as those made by our ancestors
• The work by a US-British team appears in the Journal of Human Evolution.
• The researchers recreated wide stone tools called "flakes", which were used by both Neanderthals and early modern humans.
• They also reconstructed "blades" - a narrower stone tool later adopted by Homo sapiens.
•   We know that the Neanderthals were very capable technicians 
  

           

       

   

  Prof Chris Stringer, NHM
• Some archaeologists often use the development of stone blades and their assumed efficiency as evidence for the superior intellect of our species.

• The team analysed the data to compare the number of tools produced, how much cutting edge was created, the efficiency in consuming raw material and how long tools lasted.  

   They found no statistical difference in the efficiency of the two stone technologies.  
• In some respects, the flakes favoured by Neanderthals were even more efficient than the blades adopted by modern humans.
• Pros and cons
• The result casts doubt on the idea that blades were a significant technological advance, helping our ancestors out-compete, and eventually eradicate, their evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals.
• The Neanderthals (Homo neanderthalensis) appear in the fossil record about 400,000 years ago.
• At their peak, these squat, physically powerful hunters dominated a wide area spanning Britain and Iberia in the west, Israel in the south and Siberia in the east.

  • Why, except for Israel, are their remains found in the fartherest frontiers; the fringes of geography? As far as Israel is concerned: may it be Genesis 6 gives the answer as well as the campaigns of the Hebrews under Moses and Joshua?
• Meanwhile, Homo sapiens evolved in Africa, and displaced the Neanderthals after spreading into Europe about 40,000 years ago.
• The last known evidence of Neanderthals comes from Gibraltar and is dated to between 28,000 and 24,000 years ago.
• Lead author Metin Eren, from the University of Exeter, UK, said: "Technologically speaking, there is no clear advantage of one tool over the other.
•  

  Neanderthals (l) were different from our species (r), but not inferior
• "When we think of Neanderthals, we need to stop thinking in terms of 'stupid' or 'less advanced' and more in terms of 'different'."
• He added: "Our research disputes a major pillar holding up the long-held assumption that Homo sapiens was more advanced than Neanderthals.
• "It is time for archaeologists to start searching for other reasons why Neanderthals became extinct while our ancestors survived."

  • I agree but for far different reasons
• Greater variety
• Professor Chris Stringer, head of human origins at London's Natural History Museum, said: "There are now very few palaeoanthropologists who consider the Neanderthals to have been 'stupid', or who consider that they died out because they made flake rather than blade tools."
• Professor Stringer, who was not connected with the study, added: "We know that the Neanderthals were very capable technicians, and that their tools would have been excellent for activities such as butchery, working skins or wood.
• "However, the blade tools manufactured by early modern humans in Europe were often modified for specialisation as piercers, chisels or engravers, and as parts of composite tools, such as harpoons.
• "With modern humans we not only find a greater variety of tools, but also much greater working of difficult materials like bone, antler and ivory."
• The authors of the paper in Journal of Human Evolution suggest that, since they conferred no technological advantage, modern humans may have used blades because they had cultural meaning.
• "For early Homo sapiens colonizing Ice Age Europe, a new shared and flashy-looking technology might serve as one form of social glue by which larger social networks were bonded," said Mr Eren.<!-- E BO -->

  • Silly and shallow hypothesis..

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• Blurred Out: 51 Things You Aren't Allowed to See on Google Maps
• IT Security Editors on July 15, 2008
• Depending on which feature you use, Google Maps offers a satellite view or a street-level view of tons of locations around the world. You can look up landmarks like the Pyramids of Egypt or the Great Wall of China, as well as more personal places, like your ex’s house.
• But for all of the places that Google Maps allows you to see, there are plenty of places that are off-limits. Whether it’s due to government restrictions, personal-privacy lawsuits or mistakes, Google Maps has slapped a "Prohibited" sign on the following 51 places.
• Government and Military Sites
• • The White House: Google Maps' images of the White House show a digitally erased version of the roof in order to obscure the air-defense and security assets that are in place.
• The U.S. Capitol: The U.S. Capitol has been fuzzy ever since Google Maps launched. Current versions of Google Maps and Google Earth show these sites uncensored, though with old pictures.
• Dick Cheney's House: The Vice President's digs at Number One Observatory Circle are obscured through pixelation in Google Earth and Google Maps at the behest of the U.S. government. However, high-resolution photos and aerial surveys of the property are readily available on other Web sites.
• Soesterberg Air Base, in the Netherlands: This Dutch air-force base and former F-15 base for the U.S. Air Force during the Cold War can't be seen via Google Maps.
• PAVE PAWS in Cape Cod, Mass.: PAVE PAWS is the U.S. Air Force Space Command’s radar system for missile warning and space surveillance. There are two other installations besides the one in Cape Cod.
• Shatt-Al-Arab Hotel in Basra, Iraq: This site was possibly censored after it was reported that terrorists who attacked the British at the hotel used aerial footage displayed by Google Earth to target their attacks.
• Leeuwarden, Netherlands: This Dutch city is one of the main operating bases of the Royal Netherlands Air Force, part of NATO's Joint Command Centre and one of three Joint Sub-Regional Commands of Allied Forces Northern Europe. Leeuwarden is also one of two regional headquarters of Allied Command Europe, headed by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe.
• Reims Air Base in France: This lone building on Reims Air Base in France is blurred out.
• Novi Sad: This military base in Serbia is off-limits.
• Kamp van Zeist: Kamp van Zeist is a former U.S. Air Force base that was temporarily declared sovereign territory of the U.K. in 2000 in order to allow the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing trial to take place.
• NATO C3 Agency: Located in Brussels, Belgium, the C3 Agency supports NATO through scientific support and funded acquisition of C4ISR (Consultation, Command, Control, Communications, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) capabilities.
• New American Embassy Location: This site is under construction.
• NATO Air Base Geilenkirchen : This is the site of the main operating of NATO's Airborne Early Warning Control Force's E-3A Component, which provides an early-warning radar system to enhance NATO's air- defense capabilities. The base includes 17 E-3A aircraft used for air surveillance and air-operations-communications support. Crews from 14 nations, including Spain, Turkey and the U.S., power the aircraft.
• Ramstein Air Base in Germany: Ramstein Air Base figures prominently in Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. It's the home of the 86th Airlift Wing and headquarters of U.S. Air Forces in Europe. It is also a NATO installation. Americans, Canadians, Germans, British, French and other nationalities comprise the base's population.
• The Royal Stables in The Hague, Netherlands: A division of the Civil Household, the Royal Stables arranges transport for the members of the Royal House and the Royal Household.
• Huis Ten Bosch Palace: This address is one of the four official residences of the Dutch Royal Family, also located in The Hague, Netherlands. Queen Beatrix has lived here since 1981.
• Political Pushback on Google Earth and Google Maps' Street View
• North Oaks, Minn.: In late June 2008, the St. Paul, Minn. suburb of North Oaks successfully petitioned that street images be removed from Google Maps’ Street View feature. The argument put forth collectively by North Oaks' 4,500 residents involves the fact that the town has private roads that are protected by a trespassing ordinance. Google spokeswoman Elaine Filadelfo said that she didn't know of any other city in the country that has made a similar request.
• The Boring Home: Aaron and Christine Boring of Franklin Park Pa. claimed that Google Maps' Street View feature violated their privacy, devalued their property and caused them mental suffering by posting images of a private road in front of their house. The Borings said that the images of their home must have been taken from their long driveway, which is labeled "Private Road."
• Bahrain: In August 2006, Bahrain's Ministry of Information instructed the country's Internet exchange to block access to Google Earth servers. The ban lasted three days. Internet rumors claimed that the ban's goal was to keep poorer citizens from viewing the elaborate residences and private jets of the country's rich, in order to keep secret the inequity of wealth distribution in Bahrain. Cyberactivists circulated an email that contained a PDF file with annotated Google Earth screenshots of the supposed Bahrain sites.
• Europe: In May 2008, the EU's (European Union) data-protection agency railed against Google Maps' Street View feature, which shows ground-level, 360-degree views of streets in 30 U.S. cities. Officials claimed that the feature may break EU privacy laws if launched in Europe.
• Singapore: In April 2008, the country's government claimed that the ban stemmed from a dispute between SLA (Singapore Land Authority) and Google over copyright issues. SLA alleged that the satellite images on Google Earth are direct copies of real geographic features in Singapore and infringe upon the organization's copyrights.
• Sudan: The Google Earth ban in Sudan is reportedly due to U.S. export restrictions and economic-sanctions regulations. Knowledge of the ban spread after Google Earth added info about the humanitarian crisis in Sudan's Darfur region.
• Iran: Late in 2007, an Iranian businessman tried to download Google Earth and got a message that said, "Thanks for your interest, but the product that you're trying to download is not available in your country."
• India: Google censors certain sensitive sites in India. Former Indian President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam expressed concern over the availability of high-resolution pictures of sensitive locations within the country.
• Sydney, Australia: Much of inner Sydney still remains blurred. Google says that it removed the high-resolution photos due to a problem with one of the image providers, but Internet publications pointed to fears that the maps could be used as a terrorist tool. Some of the blocked areas include (or have included at some point) The Garden Island Naval Depot, the Lucas Heights Reactor, Parliament House and the Australian Defence Force headquarters in Canberra.
• Areas of Southeast Asia: Areas blurred by Google Earth include sensitive political areas like Tibet/Xinjiang Province, northern areas of Pakistan and royal palaces.
• Central/Eastern village of Yona, on the Pacific Island Territory of Guam: It’s unknown why this location is censored.
• The city of Utrecht in the Netherlands: Some sites say that the ban on this Dutch city was an apparent mistake, but it does hold relevance as an ancient city and has served as the religious center of the Netherlands since the eighth century.
• Fortress on Castell de Montjuïc in Barcelona, Spain: This hill no longer houses a military presence, but it’s unavailable in Google Maps' high-resolution satellite images. However it did become accessible on Google Earth in April 2008.
• Nuclear Stations, Energy-Generation Sites and Reserves
• Seabrook Station: This nuclear-power station is located in New Hampshire and is one of two originally planned units.
• UMass Lowell Nuclear Research Reactor: This lab's primary focus is on reactor physics, operations and modeling. It houses 1 MW pool-type nuclear research reactor that has been operating since 1974.
• Indian Point Energy Center in Westchester, N.Y.: Indian Point Energy Center is a three-unit nuclear power plant station.
• Hydroelectric Dams and Supporting Waterways Near Niagara Falls, N.Y.: Niagara Falls function as a good source of hydroelectric power, which is probably why Google keeps these dams and waterways blurred.
• McGuire Nuclear Station: With two Westinghouse pressurized water reactors and an ability to produce 2,200 megawatts of power, McGuire Nuclear Station generates almost half of North Carolina's nuclear power.
• Perry Nuclear Generating Station: The San Francisco Chronicle reported in May 2007 that a spokeswoman for FirstEnergy, the electricity company that owns this Ohio nuclear plant, had no idea why the facility was blurred on Google.
• Oconee Nuclear Station in Seneca, S.C.: Oconee Nuclear Station, which has three pressurized water reactors manufactured by The Babcock & Wilcox Company, is the second nuclear power plant in the country to have its license extended by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
• Oil-Tank Farm in Braintree, Mass.: An oil-tank farm is a storage facility for liquid chemicals.
• Shoreham Nuclear Power Plant: Though closed since 1989 due to protests, this General Electric Co. nuclear boiling-water reactor in New York is still fuzzy on Google Maps.
• Liquid Natural Gas Terminal in Chelsea, Mass. and a Large Portion of an Industrial Port Area in Boston: Both of these areas are blurry on Google Maps.
• Marshall Steam Station in Terrell, N.C.: Marshall Steam Station is a four-unit, coal-fired generating facility located in Catawba County, North Carolina.
• Colleges and Research Labs
• Massachusetts Institute of Technology Lincoln Laboratory: Lincoln Laboratory is a federally funded research-and-development center working to use advanced technology to help solve problems of national security.
• General Electric World Research Laboratories and General Electric Main Plant in Schenectady, N.Y.: According to General Electric's Web site, the research component boasts more than 3,000 of "the best and brightest researchers spread out at four multi-disciplinary facilities around the world."
• Knolls Atomic Power Laboratory: This research-and-development facility supports the Naval Nuclear Propulsion Program, which researches, designs, constructs, operates and maintains U.S. nuclear-powered warships.
• Stony Brook University: Stony Brook University is blurred because it houses Brookhaven National Laboratory.
• Manhattanville College's Dammann and Tenney Dormitories: Manhattanville College, located in Purchase N.Y., is probably blurred because it’s near several corporate headquarters, including PepsiCo Inc., Texaco and MasterCard.
• Noordwijk Aan Zee: The headquarters for ESTEC (European Space Research and Technology Centre and part of ESA (European Space Agency) are located in this Dutch community.
• HAARP (High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program) Antenna Array on the Alaska/Yukon Border: This is part of the site for HAARP, which studies ionospheric-radio science.Miscellaneous
• White Plains Train Station: The Wikipedia page for this New York train station states that "due to security reasons, overhead images of the station cannot be viewed in Google Maps or Google Earth."
• William Hurt's Home: This actor’s home outside of Paris is hazy.
• Playland Amusement Park in Rye, N.Y.: Google will not let you in on the fun at this amusement park, which boasts arcade games and 45 major rides.
• Saint Louis School in Honolulu: Only the football field, the field house, the gym and ellipse are available on Google.
• Comments

• the site of nikols tesla's wardenclyffe tower has also been obscured by google, i found it with no problem on terraserver, the question is WHY?

   

  Posted by: almon, 21:40:09 on 2008-09-03

• You forgot to mention Barbra Streisand's house in Malibu!

   

  Posted by: Fed Up, 21:33:53 on 2008-09-03

• Ramstein Air Base in Germany is where wounded soldiers from Iraq are taken. If they should die there they are not listed as casualties of the war, so double the number of dead US soldiers that is reported and that is probably a more accurate number.

   

  Posted by: Phlegm, 19:45:33 on 2008-09-03

• A small correction to the Singapore item: your news item was published on *April 1st*, 2008 by a blog, not the SLA. It's a hoax. 

   

  Posted by: Jpatokal, 04:17:31 on 2008-08-29
• Blurring pictures admits the security apparatus of the given installation is defective or there is activity which offends human rights. If a facility can be breached merely by seeing it in plain view, the facility is effectively unsecured. One of the many "first rules" of security is that the enemy knows the system and blurring of any facility essentially admits the security apparatus is so bad that it can't survive obvious inspection.
• Any good security system's nature should be able to be fully publicized without any functional impairment to that system. It seems we have lousy or false security in many places.
• Also, blurring of regions (Tibet, for example) is an admission that activity is occurring which would offend the moral senses of any reasonable person observing.
• So we know by omission that there activities within which are admittedly inhumane or morally repugnant. In a situational way, the blurring is actually more circumstantially revealing than the actual clean image as it admits defects in the subjects being imaged, then blurred.
• Posted by: esmith512, 18:35:27 on 2008-08-27

• Earthquake areas -- Yingxiu, Wenchuan, Ngawa in Sichuan Province. Big blur.

   

  Posted by: mlazzzz, 09:55:59 on 2008-08-12

• Over a year ago, and confirmed recently, I noticed that Beaufort Castle, in Southern Lebanon, is blurred out. It sits prominently on a high ridgeline, above the Litanni River as it flows South, overlooking both most of the Bekaa Valley, and much of Northern Israel. Since it is occupied by Hezboallah, they may be rebuilding the bunkers underground there, and not want people to the South, or anyone, to estimate just how much they are doing.

   

  Posted by: Tom Billings, 02:36:08 on 2008-07-28

• that bay in cuba where there is a jail.. you know the one..   i can see that for the most part only cities and places of interest are mapped.. but then go to peru and yu have high res all over the andes.  most of ireland is a blur (in reality too!). the hill of tara is strange one as south and north of it are high res.  no doubt some areas have requested not to be seen, but for the most part i reckon it just hasnt been photoed

   

  Posted by: cara, 20:39:59 on 2008-07-27

• Most of the New York State imagery was obtained from the State of NY. Someone went nuts with the censorship there and everything with an oil tank is blurred out. As the images are updated this will go away.

   

  Posted by: Mike B, 05:04:02 on 2008-07-27

• Please add the North Pole to the list.

   

  Posted by: Eileen, 23:58:20 on 2008-07-21

• The whole ARGENTINA is out of planet Earth, if you try to use Google Maps. Check it!

   

  Posted by: Lizandro, 11:29:31 on 2008-07-19

• Argentina is not on Google Maps either... But anyway... Who cares! :p

   

  Posted by: Rafa Borges, 04:46:37 on 2008-07-19

• I am still wondering why Parkersburg W.V. (26101)& Marietta Ohio (45750)are blurred out ? Those 2 cities, along with surrounding communities, have over 250,000 people yet most everything is fuzzy. I know the government has alot of top secret stuff (+chemical plants)around there but geesh, at least try not to be obvious.

   

  Posted by: John, 18:56:57 on 2008-07-18

• Utrecht - it's not the city that is blurred, but just one spot - and that was indeed a mistake: http://www.ad.nl/utrecht/zuid/article718727.ece  There are many more cities in teh Netherlads that are ancient, and Utrecht may be "a" religious center, it certainly isn't "the" religious center, since we don't have any "the" religion.

   

  Posted by: Marjolein Katsma, 17:50:40 on 2008-07-18

• Area 51 isn't blurred out because most of Area 51 is UNDERGROUND. If you look carefully you can see the tunnel entrances.

   

  Posted by: Rick Cain, 17:39:28 on 2008-07-18

• The Greenbriar resort is also blurred out. It's in White Sulfur Springs, WV. It's where congress had evacuation bunkers setup for themselves if DC were ever attacked.    

   

  Posted by: JLT, 17:33:03 on 2008-07-18

• I can see the white house, the pentagon, the capitol, the air force base in netherlands, in fact all the locations mentioned except Dick Cheney's house. All are in high res too. Maybe Americans are all potential terrorists so can't be trusted with this kind of knowledge

   

  Posted by: netean, 08:32:07 on 2008-07-18

• You can't see any detail on the University of Illinois campus, either. Sure it's got the NCSA, but I wonder what other interesting things are going on ...

   

  Posted by: Deebee, 22:23:14 on 2008-07-17

• This is a very poorly researched article. As many have said above, a lot of the places mentioned (Those that are actually places, and not anecdotal stories) aren't in any way censored.

   

  Posted by: Ben Smith, 11:52:22 on 2008-07-17

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• Fear of black hole machine triggers threats to researchers
• Posted: September 06, 2008
  1:00 am Eastern
• By Drew Zahn
   <!--- copywrite only show on NON commentary pages as per joseph meeting 8/23/06 ------>   <!-- copyright --> © 2008 WorldNetDaily 
• Scientists preparing to fire up the world's largest atom smasher are being flooded with phone calls and emails – even death threats – from people worried that the Large Hadron Collider, when activated, will obliterate planet Earth.
• James Gillies, head of public relations at the European scientific consortium called CERN that is building the Collider near Geneva, Switzerland, told the London Telegraph that he gets tearful phone calls from people pleading with the organization not to turn on the machine.
• 
  The Large Hadron Collider
• "They phone me and say, 'I am seriously worried. Please tell me that my children are safe,'" said Gillies.
• Some scientists have reported receiving death threats.
• "There are a number who say, 'You are evil and dangerous and you are going to destroy the world," reports Gillies.
• Currently, the world's largest operational supercollider has a circumference of about four miles and is housed at Fermilab near Batavia, Ill.
• The new particle accelerator CERN is building, however, is 17 miles around and will have seven times the energy of Fermilab's Tevatron accelerator.
• As WND reported earlier, some scientists have expressed concern that the Collider's capability of slamming protons together at an unprecedented peak energy of 14 trillion electron volts could create black holes on earth or hypothetical super-atoms called strangelets, either of which, according to some theories, could expand in massive reactions to completely destroy the planet
• WND also reported some of those scientists are suing to delay CERN's plan to fire up the Collider on Sept. 10, hoping more safety studies will be done before unleashing the Collider's power.
• CERN, an acronym for the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is no stranger to doomsday predictions about its research.
• Author Dan Brown, famous for writing "The Da Vinci Code," wrote another novel called "Angels & Demons," about antimatter stolen from CERN to build a bomb.
• The book's popularity prompted CERN to create a webpage devoted to debunking the rumors stirred by the novel.
• Internet conspirators have also pointed out the organization's logo, constructed from the drawn paths of three supercolliders, resembles the organization's name surrounded by the numerals 666, a number Bible prophecy assigns to the end-times Antichrist.

  • CERN logo and "666"
• Others have whispered that a statue of "the Indian god of destruction" Lord Shiva, given to CERN by Indian dignitaries four years ago and displayed outside the building, is proof that the organization is destined to destroy the world.
• 
  Official CERN logo
• CERN officials and scientists, however, assert that fears of dark conspiracies and cataclysmic events following the startup of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) are unfounded.
• "The LHC will enable us to study in detail what nature is doing all around us," said CERN Director General Robert Aymar in a press release. "The LHC is safe, and any suggestion that it might present a risk is pure fiction."

• In 2003, a safety review of the project was completed and reviewed by 20 independent external scientists, then updated again last year.

   

  "The LHC safety review has shown that the LHC is perfectly safe," said Jos Engelen, CERN’s Chief Scientific Officer, "it points out that nature has already conducted the equivalent of about a hundred thousand LHC experimental programs on Earth – and the planet still exists."

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• Geomagnetic field: when will compass fail?
• 05/ 09/ 2008
• MOSCOW. (RIA Novosti political commentator Andrei Kislyakov) - The recent trouble with the ISS, caused by simple computer virus capable of stealing logins and passwords for computer games only, was minor compared to possible environmental changes that could make space flights impossible.
• This could also cripple aviation and television, and even put terrestrial life at risk.
• Scientists from the Institute for Geomagnetism at the Russian Academy of Sciences say the Earth's magnet poles are gradually drifting towards the Equator, with the field intensity falling slowly, but steadily.
• It's about the Earth's geomagnetic field, changing rapidly and frequently.
• The latter was considered to reach zero point in about 2,000 years, which would be a disaster for living organisms.
• The rate of changes happening to the planet's liquid core (movement of the liquid and the solid parts of the Earth's core generate an electric potential, making the planet a sort of an electric generator - A.K.), however, could mean that the polarity shift is going to happen much sooner.
• If a hundred years ago somebody said that the South and the North could switch places, he would be definitely taken to a mental hospital.
• Nevertheless, as early as 1906, it was revealed that in the past magnetisation of some rocks was opposite to that of the present day, making it clear that some time ago it was different from the modern time.

  • It is my belief this pole reversal from the former to the present locations happened at the time of the Genesis Flood of Noah. If the poles are switching back now....does this bear significance for the End Time scenario?
• In 2001, an international polar expedition revealed that in the recent seven years the North magnetic pole shifted around 300 km (186.4 miles).
• Currently, it is drifting 40 km (24.85 miles) a year from the Canadian Arctic shelf towards Russia's Severnaya Zemlya islands.

  • Northern pole shifting toward Russia?
  Add Sticky Note
• Scientists predict the North Pole could eventually be found in South Atlantic.
• An extensive anomaly area with the magnetic field intensity at around 60% of the predicted value shows the forecast is likely to score.
• In the recent 20 years, the planet's magnetic field intensity has decreased by 1.7%, and in South Atlantic by 10%.
• In the last two hundred years, the Earth's magnetic field has seen a 10% decrease in intensity.
• Russian scientists say changes in the magnetic field would lead to the anti-radiation protection falling, with space flights becoming impossible and energy-dependent systems, including mobile phones and satellites, failing.
• What is the danger, after all?
• Then, solar and space radiation would affect the genome of the organisms inhabiting the Earth, causing some of them to become extinct, and others to have a much larger per cent of mutations.
• Taking into account the solar flares, accompanied by extremely powerful electrojet currents, life is likely to become impossible on Earth before the full magnetic field collapses.
• Sounds terrible. But may be there's no need to dramatise and we will not face giant blood-thirsty killer ants from Hollywood horror movies? May be.
• Recent reports say that in the last 90 million years, the magnetic poles changed around every 500,000 years, with no total extinction of mass genetical mutations of living organisms taking place and the atmosphere remaining a reliable guarantor of security of the Earth's biosphere.
• Equipment, created by the human genius and becoming his incorruptible prison ward, would have it harder.
• The above mentioned processes are especially hazardous for computer systems, which are vital for the modern economy.
• Even today, magnetic storms caused by solar activity inflict huge losses to mankind. A decrease in the Earth's magnetic field intensity would boost the power of magnetic storms and therefore cripple flight connection, with avionics failing.
• Today, in the low-pressure upper atmosphere, the effect of radiation is becoming more marked.
• Besides that, any flight by plane would be dangerous to man.
• In 2000, a Euro Commission directive relegated pilots and flight attendants to high risk jobs. The geomagnetic field keeps protecting us during flights so far, but what lies ahead?
• On the other hand, scientists haven't established so far, if the changes happening to the geomagnetic field are reversible.
• Nobody has ever found out why the Earth's history has seen times when the magnet poles remained unshifted as long as 50 million years. May be, things will turn out well anyway?

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• Earth's Core, Magnetic Field Changing Fast, Study Says
• Kimberly Johnson
  for National Geographic News

   

  June 30, 2008
• Rapid changes in the churning movement of Earth's liquid outer core are weakening the magnetic field in some regions of the planet's surface, a new study says.
• "What is so surprising is that rapid, almost sudden, changes take place in the Earth's magnetic field," said study co-author Nils Olsen, a geophysicist at the Danish National Space Center in Copenhagen.
• The findings suggest similarly quick changes are simultaneously occurring in the liquid metal, 1,900 miles (3,000 kilometers) below the surface, he said.

  • "Hell enlarging itself"????
  Add Sticky Note
• The swirling flow of molten iron and nickel around Earth's solid center triggers an electrical current, which generates the planet's magnetic field.
• The study, published recently in Nature Geoscience, modeled Earth's magnetic field using nine years of highly accurate satellite data.
• Flip-Flop
• Fluctuations in the magnetic field have occurred in several far-flung regions of Earth, the researchers found.
• In 2003 scientists found pronounced changes in the magnetic field in the Australasian region. In 2004, however, the changes were focused on Southern Africa.
• The changes "may suggest the possibility of an upcoming reversal of the geomagnetic field," said study co-author Mioara Mandea, a scientist at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam.
• Earth's magnetic field has reversed hundreds of times over the past billion years, and the process could take thousands of years to complete.

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• Earth's Core, Magnetic Field Changing Fast, Study Says
• Page 2 of 2
• (Related story: "Magnetic Field Weakening in Stages, Old Ships' Logs Suggest" [May 11, 2006])
• Upper Atmosphere Radiation
• The decline in the magnetic field also is opening Earth's upper atmosphere to intense charged particle radiation, scientists say.
• Satellite data show the geomagnetic field decreasing in the South Atlantic region, Mandea said,
• adding that an oval-shaped area east of Brazil is significantly weaker than similar latitudes in other parts of the world.
• "It is in this region that the shielding effect of the magnetic field is severely reduced, thus allowing high energy particles of the hard radiation belt to penetrate deep into the upper atmosphere to altitudes below a hundred kilometers (62 miles)," Mandea said.
• This radiation does not influence temperatures on Earth. The particles, however, do affect technical and radio equipment and can damage electronic equipment on satellites and airplanes, Olsen of the Danish space center said.
• Keep Watching
• The study documents just how rapidly the flow in Earth's core is changing, said Peter Olson, a geophysics professor at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who was not involved with the research.

• By using satellite imagery, researchers have a nearly continuous measurement of changes, he said.  

    "They provide a good rationale to continue this monitoring longer," Olson said.  

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• Strange Fish Has See-Through Head
• A bizarre deep-water fish called the barreleye has a transparent head and tubular eyes.
• (Feb. 23) -
• Since the fish's discovery in 1939, biologists have known the eyes were very good at collecting light. But their shape seemed to leave the fish with tunnel vision.
• Now scientists say the eyes rotate, allowing the barreleye to see directly forward or look upward through its transparent head.
• Animals in the News

  
• The barreleye (Macropinna microstoma) is adapted for life in a pitch-black environment of the deep sea, where sunlight does not reach. They use their ultra-sensitive tubular eyes to search for the faint silhouettes of prey overhead.
• Scientists had thought the eyes were fixed in an upward gaze, however. This would make it impossible for the fish to see what was directly in front of them, and very difficult for them to capture prey with their small, pointed mouths.
• Bruce Robison and Kim Reisenbichler of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute use videos from the institute's remotely operated vehicles (ROVs) to study barreleyes off Central California.
• At depths of 2,000 to 2,600 feet (600 to 800 meters), the ROV cameras typically showed these fish hanging motionless in the water, their eyes glowing a vivid green in the ROV's bright lights.
• The video also revealed a previously undescribed feature of these fish — its eyes are surrounded by a transparent, fluid-filled shield that covers the top of the fish's head.
• Most existing descriptions and illustrations of this fish do not show its fluid-filled shield, probably because this fragile structure was destroyed when the fish were brought up from the deep in nets.
• Robison and Reisenbichler were fortunate to bring a net-caught barreleye to the surface alive.
• Over several hours in an aquarium on the ship, they were able to confirm that the fish rotated its tubular eyes as it turned its body from a horizontal to a vertical position.
• Barreleyes, just a few inches long, are thought to eat small fishes and jellyfish.
• The green pigments in their eyes may filter out sunlight coming directly from the sea surface, helping the barreleye spot the bioluminescent glow of jellies or other animals directly overhead.
• When it spots prey (such as a drifting jelly), a barreleye rotates its eyes forward and swims upward, in feeding mode.

   

  The findings were detailed recently in the journal Copeia.

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• New mysteries of the Shroud unveiled
• Body inside ancient linen 'levitated' while leaving image
• Posted: November 15, 2009
  7:39 pm Eastern
  
    <!--- copywrite only show on NON commentary pages as per joseph meeting 8/23/06 ------>   <!-- copyright --> © 2009 WorldNetDaily 
• A new video documentary about the Shroud of Turin makes a startling new claim about what some believe to be the burial cloth of Jesus –
• the body was weightless or levitating when it left the remarkable image.
• In the DVD video "The Fabric of Time," scientific experts using the latest technology are able to produce a three-dimensional holographic image from photographs of the shroud.
• What they reveal is nothing short of spectacular.
• They show the image on the shroud is one produced not from a body laying on a stone slab, but rather an image of a weightless body, perhaps levitating above its resting place.
• The documentary also calls into questions earlier findings about carbon dating tests that claimed the shroud dated back only to the Middle Ages.
• In addition, forensics experts testify bloodstains on the Sudarium of Oviedo, reputed to be the piece of linen that covered Jesus' face, perfectly match those on the shroud.
• The blood types on both cloths were found to be AB. The pollen grains found on the Sudarium also match those found on the shroud.
• The history of the Sudarium date back to the 7th century in Spain.
• Last June, Pope Benedict XVI announced that the next public exhibition of the Shroud of Turin will take place April, 19, 2010, through May 23, 2010.
• The Vatican announced on October 27, 2009 the pope will visit the Shroud May 2.
• Visitors to Turin, where the Shroud has permanently resided since 1578, will view the cloth in the Cathedral of St. John the Baptist.
• To conserve and protect the Shroud, it is permanently stored in a custom built, temperature and humidity controlled, lightight case, which can be moved, raised and opened to display the cloth for public exhibitions.

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