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2,500-year-old solar observatory in Peru reveals advanced culture
The wonderful archaeological discovery of recent years at Chankillo, Peru, is described by physicist Dr. Brian Cox in the BBC video linked below. As he describes and waits for the sun rising over the top of the hill, to be seen through the niches in the 2,500-year-old monument, Cox has a big grin, like this is the greatest thing he’s ever seen.
We astrotheologians and archaeoastronomy afficionados agree! That’s why we work so hard to bring attention to the world’s great astrotheological traditions that go hand in hand with these fantastic monuments, proving that ancient man was far more advanced than is commonly perceived.
We also maintain that these astronomically aligned archaeological ruins found globally, along with the myths symbolizing the knowledge encased therein, represent very important artifacts that need to be preserved.
Prof Brian Cox visits Chankillo solar calendar in Peru
Professor Brian Cox has visited a giant desert solar calendar in Peru in his quest to understand the nature of time in creating and ending the universe.
The 2,500-year-old solar calendar in Chankillo was built by a civilization of which very little is known.
Regarding Chankillo, Wikipedia states: Read more…
Human Achievement of the Day: Nanospiders in Your Blood
In his writings, noted futurist and inventor Ray Kurzweil has said that he believes human technology will one day reach a point where the human life expectancy will be radically extended, resulting in near immortality. In a 2009 interview with Computerworld, Kurzweil put the date at which immortality could be achieved somewhere around 2040 or 2050 thanks to the ever-quickening pace of technological development and the rise of nanotechnology that will repair or even replace parts of the human body. Kurzweil may have overshot that date by a few decades, as today’s human achievement is the invention of nanospiders that can crawl along human DNA and change it.
DNA nanospiders, created by Columbia University scientists, are small Read more…
Impact of space weather threat examined
Professor Hapgood examines the linkage between the science of space weather and its impact on technological systems, potential impact of Solar weather on orbital and ground based systems including power, energy and communications – as well as atmospheric physics.
Space weather is concerned with disturbances in Earth’s upper atmosphere and in near-Earth space that can disrupt the advanced technologies on which our society now relies. A proper understanding of space weather requires us to bring together a range of scientific, engineering and economic expertise, emphasizing the role of the electromagnetic force in many of the physical processes that cause space weather.
One example is the crucial role of plasma physics within the sources of space weather on the Sun, in the transmission of energy from the Sun to the Earth via the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere.
Another is the role of the electric currents that naturally flow with Read more…
5 Ways DHS Violates the Constitution with Website Domain Seizures
Last week, Bryan McCarthy, the 32 year old operator of ChannelSurfing.net, was arrested on charges of criminal copyright infringement. ChannelSurfing.net was one of the streaming sports sites that had its domain seized by federal authorities shortly before the Super Bowl as part of the “In Our Sites” program, run by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Prior to the seizure, McCarthy reportedly made more than $90,000 from advertisements on his site.
This arrest has once again raised questions about the In Our Sites program, in which the Government has seized thousands of domains accused, but not convicted, of copyright infringement, illegal streaming of sporting events, selling black market goods and distributing child pornography. Critics ranging from bloggers to individual Read more…
Avian influenza continues to spread across Asian countries
Across Japan a total of 22 cases of avian flu have been reported as the infection continues to spread. On Sunday, 33,000 more chickens were culled in the Miyazaki Prefecture, bringing the total chickens culled to around 990,000 birds since the first infection was reported on Jan 22, 2011.
In India, further cases have been confirmed on a Tripura farm where the culling process has started to take place. This is the second time bird flu has been detected in the state following an outbreak in February this year. Health and veterinary workers had then culled more than 4,000 chickens.
South Korea has also had 12,400 birds test positive for avian flu last week, marking the 49th outbreak since December 29. The latest outbreak is a poultry farm in Cheonan, 92 km south of Seoul, the National Veterinary Research and Quarantine Service (NVRQS) said. All ducks on the farm will be culled with quarantine authorities asking nearby farms to be vigilant and protect their birds.
This is the second case of the highly pathogenic avian influenza reported in the country this month although the number of AI cases has started to fall off in recent weeks. The government has culled more than 6.04 million birds in six provinces across the country.
U.S. might be giving away sensitive military technology, report finds
Sensitive military technology might be slipping into enemy hands, in part because of a dramatic decline in the number of foreign workers that the Commerce Department screens, federal auditors have found.
For national security purposes, the United States controls the export of so-called dual-use technologies — items that have both civilian and military uses, including computer security tools — to countries of concern, including Iran and North Korea.
One way to restrict the transfer of such technology is for Commerce to screen visa applications from foreign nationals who wish to work in U.S. high-tech companies.
But the Commerce Department, the agency responsible for checking visa applications to identify potential unlicensed exports, is not screening thousands of those forms, according to a Government Accountability Office report released on Monday.
Reduced visa application vetting is one of several factors that “may indicate the continuing risk that foreign nationals could gain unauthorized access to controlled technology,” the auditors wrote.
Commerce checked only 150 visa forms in fiscal 2009, a dramatic drop from Read more…
Mathematical Model shows Volcanoes Re-awaken in Mere Months
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Until now, it was thought that, once a volcano’s magma chamber had cooled down, it remained dormant for centuries before it could be remobilized by fresh magma. A theoretical model developed by Alain Burgisser of the Orléans Institute of Earth Sciences (Institut des Sciences de la Terre d’Orléans – CNRS/Universités d’Orléans et de Tours) together with a U.S. researcher, was tested on two major eruptions and completely overturned this hypothesis: the reawakening of a chamber could take place in just a few months. This research should lead to a reassessment of the dangerousness of some dormant volcanoes. It is published in the journal Nature dated March, 3 2011.
A magma chamber is a large reservoir of molten rock (magma) located several kilometers beneath a volcano, which it feeds with magma. But what happens to the magma chamber when the volcano is not erupting? According to volcanologists, it cools down to an extremely viscous mush until fresh magma from deep inside the Earth ‘reawakens’ it — in other words, fluidizes it by heating it through thermal contact. The large size of magma chambers (ranging from a few tenths to a few hundred cubic kilometers) explains why, according to this theory, it takes several hundred or even thousand years for the heat to spread to the whole reservoir, awakening the volcano from its dormant state.
However, according to the mathematical model developed by Burgisser and his U.S. colleague, George Bergantz, of the Earth and Space Science Department, Seattle, reheating takes place in three stages. When fresh hot Read more…
North Korea Nears Completion of Electromagnetic Pulse Bomb
abcnews
N. Korea Disrupts Current Military Maneuvers With Russian Device To Jam GPS
North Korea appears to be protesting the joint U.S. and South Korean military maneuvers by jamming Global Positioning Devices in the south, which is a nuisance for cell phone and computers users — but is a hint of the looming menace for the military.
The scope of the damage has been minimal, putting some mobile phones and certain military equipment that use GPS signals on the fritz.
Large metropolitan areas including parts of Seoul, Incheon and Paju have been affected by the jamming, but “the situation is getting wrapped up, no severe damage has been reported for the last two days,” Kyoungwoo Lee, deputy director of Korea Communications Commission, said.
The jamming, however, has raised questions about whether the Korean peninsula is bracing for new electronic warfare.
The North is believed to be nearing completion of an electromagnetic pulse bomb that, if exploded 25 miles above ground would cause irreversible damage to electrical and electronic devices such as mobile phones, computers, radio and radar, experts say.
“We assume they are at a considerably substantial level of development,” Park Chang-kyu of the Agency for Defense Development said at a briefing to the parliament Monday.
Park confirmed that South Korea has also developed an advanced Read more…
Earthquake in SW China destroys scores of homes, causes casualties
KUNMING, CHINA (BNO NEWS) — A strong earthquake struck the Chinese – Myanmar (Burma) border region on late Thursday morning, seismologists said, destroying scores of homes and a supermarket and causing an unknown number of casualties.
The 5.8-magnitude earthquake at 11.28 a.m. local time (0458 GMT) was centered in the Dehong Dai and Jingpo Autonomous Prefecture in China’s Yunnan Province, close to the border with Burma. It struck about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) deep, making it a shallow earthquake, according to the China Earthquake Networks Center (CENC).
Several minutes after the initial earthquake, CENC said two aftershocks with magnitudes of 4.5 and 4.7 rattled the area. Reports of damage and casualties were coming in, the state-run Xinhua news agency said.
Xinhua cited county officials as saying that “many houses” in the region had collapsed, causing an unknown number of casualties. A supermarket also collapsed, it added, without giving other details.
In October 2010, a light 4.7-magnitude earthquake destroyed a school in Taikang County in the country’s Hennan Province, injuring 12 students. The quake also destroyed dozens of other homes in the region.
And in August 2010, more than 300 homes were damaged and 12 people were injured when a moderate 5.0-magnitude earthquake rattled Sichuan province. Before that, on April 14, nearly 3,000 people were killed and more than 12,000 others sustained injuries when a powerful 7.1-magnitude earthquake rocked northwest China’s Qinghai Province.
Pentagon fears Anonymous attack, re: WikiLeaks, Bradley Manning
Tuesday the Pentagon acknowledged fears of an attack by the Internet activist group Anonymous. The Pentagon is worried about what has been dubbed “Operation Bradical” – threats made in the name of the hactivist group Anonymous against the Quantico Virgina base where suspected Wikileaks whistle-blower Private Bradley Manning is currently being held.
The Pentagon fears the loose Internet collective known as Anonymous will stage some sort of cyber attack (Operation Bradical) against those responsible for detaining Manning in a Quantico military brig, keeping him in solitary confinement and forcing him to strip nightly and stand at attention naked each morning.
Private Bradley Manning is a US soldier suspected of giving documents to WikiLeaks. Manning is charged with stealing classified files and is suspected as the source for numerous secret documents published on the WikiLeaks website in recent months.
The WikiLeaks incident has infuriated and embarrassed US officials. Many feel Manning is being treated in a cruel and inhumane way by U.S. authorities because of the embarrassing and damning revelations made possible by Manning’s alleged contributions to WikiLeaks
Andy Greenberg at Forbes reports:
In a crowdsourced document used to coordinate the group’s actions, Anonymous hackers name Department of Defense Press Secretary Geoff Morell and chief warrant officer Denise Barnes as targets and call on members to dig up personal information on both, including phone numbers, personal histories and home addresses. The goal of the operation, for now, is to “dox” the two officials, the typical Anonymous method of publishing personal information of victims and using it for mass harassment.
“Targets established,” reads the document, before naming Morell and Barnes. “We’re in the ruining business. And business is good.”
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