Clipmarks | pokkets's 'water' clips

Ancient mineral reveals watery past.

Fri, 20 Jun 2008 05:08:43 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: They also reason, that life may have been able to develop earlier, with liquid water being available.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Jessica Marshall

An analysis of elements in ancient mineral crystals suggests liquid water existed on earth as long as 4.3 billion years ago, 100 million years earlier than previously thought.

No rocks have been found on earth older than 4 billion years, which has led many geologists to believe that for the first 550 million years of earth's existence, the world was literally hellish - preventing solid rock from forming.

But 25 years ago in a remote part of Western Australia, researchers found a few grains of zircon - a mineral that's extremely resistant to chemical changes - that were older than 4 billion years old.

In 2001, Professor John Valley from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and colleagues reported finding zircon that was 4.4 billion years old.

In subsequent experiments they analysed oxygen isotopes in zircons that suggested that by 4.2 billion years ago, the Earth was no longer hellishly hot, but at a low enough temperature that liquid water would have been present.

Ocean review finds warming on the rise.

Thu, 19 Jun 2008 09:49:11 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: It isn't just that ice is melting that is making the sea level rise, it is also the fact that water expands as it heats. With the volume of water in the ocean - 2/3 of the Earth's surface is covered with water, even a small temperature increase can have a dramatic effect. The way the expansion, and melting are factored into the research reports can make them a lot clearer, and more accurate.
While there are the best of intentions, regarding some kind of remedy, I don't remember anyone being able to literally turn back the tide, which seems like the bottom line.
King Canute had a go, but he was trying to prove that point to some knucklehead courtiers, who'd flattered him. He knew they were full of hot air, but figured it was worth getting wet to see the look on their faces.
Don't you hate it when a King calls your bluff.
Still you can look at the bright side. The world is getting more like Venice every day.
All you have to do is buy shares in a Gondola Company.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Thursday, 19 June 2008 Darren Osborne
ABC

A long-standing difference between climate models and observations has been resolved with researchers finding that the world's oceans have been warming faster than previously thought.

The paper, published today in Nature, shows ocean warming and thermal expansion trends for the past five decades are 50% larger than earlier previously estimated.

"For the first time, we can provide a reasonable account of the processes causing the rate of global sea-level rise over the past four decades - a puzzle that has led to a lot of scientific discussion since the 2001 IPCC report but with no significant advances until now," says CSIRO scientist, Dr Catia Domingues, from the Centre for Australian Weather and Climate Research.

Understanding how ocean warming and the resulting thermal expansion contributes to rising sea levels is critically important to understanding climate change, and forecasting future temperature rises, scientists say.

Fast fish fly through the ocean

Tue, 17 Jun 2008 10:15:39 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: It's just the Air is thick down there.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Tuesday, 17 June 2008 Darren Osborne
ABC

A team of researchers has found how some reef fish use their fins to fly underwater, allowing them to survive in the sometimes cyclonic currents surrounding coral reefs.

Reef fish such as blue parrotfish have developed wings to swim with greater force (Source: iStockphoto)

The research, led by Dr Chris Fulton, from The Australian National University, appears in the journal Coral Reef.

Fulton says he first noticed the wing-like fins during surveys of coral reefs in Australia.

The wing shape allows fish such as parrotfish, wrasse and surgeonfish to fly through the water using a figure-of-eight pattern.

He says fish with wing-shaped fins keep them spread at all times and sweep in a figure-of-eight pattern that constantly generates thrust.

"They do this by inclining their fins at just the right angle to create lift from the water flowing over the fin, similar to the way air moves over the wing of a bird to propel them through their air," Fulton says.

Water Affecting Lives (17 pictures)

Wed, 11 Jun 2008 21:00:27 GMT

clipped by: constantskeptic
clipper's remarks: What a great post. Captions for each photo provided on the original website.

Clip Source: www.boston.com

Water is having a significant impact on many people's lives around the world right now. From droughts to quake lakes, floods to monsoons, people and animals are dealing with water in many ways. In these recent photos, we can see people play, wash, mourn, survive, escape, celebrate and marvel with something so basic as water. (17 photos total)

Department of Water and Power workers are emptying out bales of plastic balls in the Ivanhoe reservoir in Los Angeles on Monday, June 9, 2008. Department of Water and Power released about 400,000 black plastic 4-inch balls as the first installment of approximately 3 million to form a floating cover over 7 acres of the reservoir to protect the water from sunlight. When sunlight mixes with the bromide and chlorine in Ivanhoe's water, the carcinogen bromate can form. (Irfan Khan/AP)

Nanopaper soaks up oily spills

Mon, 02 Jun 2008 05:12:53 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: Makes you wonder what else there is that can do a good or better job than ordinary paper. If it's a matter of cost, technological advances are reducing prices all of the time.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Eric Bland

A mat of nanowires with the touch and feel of paper could be used to clean-up oil spills or as a low cost water filter, according to US researchers.

Oil and water may not mix, but they can be difficult to separate

The water-resistant nanopaper, which has the ability to soak up to 20 times its weight in oil, appears in this month's issue of Nature Nanotechnology.

Assistant Professor Jing Kong, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and co-author of the paper, says the nanopaper is very similar to traditional writing paper.

"You can even print on it and cut it just like paper," he says.

Unlike normal writing paper, which is made from cellulose, nanopaper is made from solid potassium manganese oxide nanowires. Each nanowire is about 20 nanometers in diameter, and together they naturally clump together to form strands several centimeters long.

The process of making the nanopaper is the same one you would use to make [normal] paper

Mars rover eyes hot spring-like deposits

Fri, 23 May 2008 03:56:43 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Deposits of near pure silica on Mars were formed by volcanic vapours or hot-spring-type events crossing through soil and could contain traces of past life, scientists say.

Mars may have once had hot springs similar to those found at Yellowstone National Park in the US

The silica, detected in 2007 by the NASA rover Spirit is fully described in today's issue of the journal Science.

"On Earth, hydrothermal deposits teem with life and the associated silica deposits typically contain fossil remains of microbes," says study team member astrobiologist Professor Jack Farmer of the Arizona State University (ASU) in Tempe.

"But we don't know if that's the case here," Farmer says, "because the rovers don't carry instruments that can detect microscopic life."

"What we can say is that this was once a habitable environment where liquid water and the energy needed for life were present," he says.

Making such pure silica requires a lot of water, says co-author Dr Steven Ruff also of ASU.

Scientists find marine metropolis

Mon, 19 May 2008 05:32:45 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: We know more about the Dark side of the Moon, than we know about the ocean floor

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Alister Doyle

Millions of starfish-like creatures have been found in a novel colony on a sub-sea mountaintop south of New Zealand, aiding knowledge of mysterious seamounts that dot the oceans

A dense aggregation of brittlestars on a seamount rock with arms feeding in the water current taken during the recent month-long survey of the Macquarie Ridge

Fewer than 200 seamounts, which are mountains that rise from the ocean floor without piercing the surface, have been surveyed out of an estimated 100,000 around the world.

Tens of millions of tiny brittlestars living arm tip to arm tip were found on a peak 90 metres below the sea surface on the sub-sea Macquarie Ridge, which stretches 1400 kilometres south of New Zealand towards Antarctica

"As far as we know, such aggregations (of brittlestars) have not been observed before on the top of a seamount," says Ashley Rowden of New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research

Usually, corals and sponges are found on the peaks

he says.

Why honey sticks to the spoon

Fri, 09 May 2008 06:43:07 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: I'm sure the bees are relieved by the findings

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Anna Salleh

The argument over why honey is so sticky has been settled, and it seems both sides were right all along.

The way molecules move in honey is like how cars move in a traffic jam. Molecules can change lane but not move forward very far (

Sugar molecules do and don't slow down the water molecules in this viscous fluid, according to an international team of researchers. It just depends on who you ask.

Australian researcher Associate Professor Glenn Hefter of Murdoch University in Perth and colleagues report how in the Journal of Chemical Physics.

Larson says the contradictory findings in previous research are not contradictory at all.

He says they are a result of different researchers measuring different kinds of water molecule movement.

Some researchers say that such fluids are sticky because sugar molecules slow down the water molecules, says chemist Dr Ian Larson of Monash University in Melbourne.

"Depending on what type of experiment you do,

he says. "Everybody's right."

Colossal squid's true size revealed

Fri, 02 May 2008 07:22:46 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Jennifer Viegas

The exact size of a frozen colossal squid that was thawed this week has been revealed by New Zealand officials.

The Museum of New Zealand Te Papa Tongarewa says the squid shrank drastically due to water and temperature changes since it was caught accidentally by fisherman in 2007.

After waiting for the tentacles to defrost so the squid could be fully extended, the researchers measured its weight at nearly 495 kilograms and its length at over 4 metres.

The squid's heft and large beak "confirm that it was almost certainly longer and is still the largest invertebrate specimen in the world," says Te Papa spokesperson Jane Keig.

She adds that it also has the largest eye of any animal at about nearly 27 centimetres in diameter.

Colossal squids exemplify a phenomenon known as deep-sea gigantism, which is the tendency for

creatures of the deep to grow much larger than their shallower water counterparts.

Some squid, in contrast to the colossal, are just several centimetres long.

Next decade may be cooler, not warmer.

Thu, 01 May 2008 10:26:03 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Global warming could take a break in the next decade thanks to a natural shift in ocean circulation, scientists say.

But earth's temperature will rise as previously expected over the longer term, according to a study published today in the journal Nature.

Climate scientists in Germany base the prediction on what they believe is an impending change in the Gulf Stream, the conveyor belt that transports warm surface water from the tropical Atlantic to the northern Atlantic and returns cold water southwards at depth.

The Gulf Stream will temporarily weaken over the next decade, in line with what has happened regularly in the past

This will lead to slightly cooler temperatures in the North Atlantic and in North America and Europe, and also help the temperatures in the tropical Pacific to remain stable

warming is unlikely to be a gradual trend, but a movement in stops and starts.

The main reason for this is that the oceans, the biggest store of heat, go through natural cycles of circulation.

Glacier Lake vanishes into 'Niagra Falls'

Fri, 18 Apr 2008 07:26:18 GMT

clipped by: pokkets
clipper's remarks: What used to be a glacier, will just be ice floating down the river.

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

Glaciologists have documented for the first time the sudden disappearance of a lake on the top of the Greenland ice sheet, which they say drained away with the force of Niagara Falls.

Like bathwater rushing down a plug-hole, the vast lake of meltwater vanished in a day through a crack in the ice, say researchers

A lake of meltwater on the surface of a glacier connects to a channel that will eventually take the water to the glacier bed

A large opening in the drained lake bed

The research documents a natural plumbing system on the glacier which enabled meltwater to gush through a kilometre-thick ice mass and reach its base, a phenomenon that scientists believe can help speed up summer ice movement.

Das and colleagues say the maximum drainage rate of the 5.6 square kilometre lake was faster than the average flow rate over Niagara Falls.

Like a draining bathtub, the entire lake emptied from the bottom in 24 hours, with the majority of the water flowing out in a 90-minute span, they say.

Water Policy in Israel and Palestine - There's Enough Water for Both

Wed, 16 Apr 2008 05:02:36 GMT

clipped by: Johanna_G
clipper's remarks:

The increasing difficulties with water availability, concludes the hydrogeologist, result from Israel using the majority of water resources for agricultural purposes, although this sector today represents a very small portion of the Israeli economy.
Despite this, the Israeli state remains unswervingly committed to the Zionist foundation myth, which regards the promotion of agriculture as a central tenet in the Jewish settlement of Palestine.

Messerschmid, in turn, sees the priorities of Israeli water policies as fundamentally flawed, leading to a wasteful use of the precious resource. Large areas of land, for instance, are still intensively watered even during conditions of very high temperatures, although most of the water immediately evaporates.
The Palestinians, by contrast, do not even have the amount of water at their disposal that was promised in the Israeli-Palestinian peace treaty.

Deutsche Fassung

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

Water, a resource essential for life, is becoming increasingly scarce in many areas of the world. In terms of the Middle East conflict, it is well known that the diversion of a river or even the additional pumping out of water can quickly turn into grounds for war.

The distribution of existing water reserves between Israel and its Arab neighbors is not only a result of the Middle East wars, but also due to various points of view on how water can be obtained in the region. The German hydro-geologist Clemens Messerschmid, who has lived and worked in Ramallah for a number of years, regards these viewpoints as out-dated and biased.

It's not true that there's a shortage

Messerschmid's critique, which has recently caused quite a stir in Israel, is directed primarily against the Israelis. They remain in control of most of the water resources in a region that the German hydro-geologist regards – contrary to prevailing opinions – as not being all that arid.

Clip Source: www.qantara.de

Tags: palestine, israel, water policy

New nuclear fuel may be too hot to handle

Thu, 10 Apr 2008 12:43:31 GMT

clipped by: pokkets

Clip Source: www.abc.net.au

New high-efficiency nuclear fuel meant to burn longer and stronger may prove unstable in an emergency and hard to dispose of, experts say.

By further enriching the uranium used to power nuclear reactors, operators have been able to extract more electricity from a given amount of fuel, a measure expressed in gigawatt-days per tonne of uranium (GWd/tU).

Ramping up fuel efficiency has worked especially well in the pressurised water and boiling water reactors used in the US and elsewhere.

A new generation of nuclear plants in the US and the UK is poised to use reactors designed for burn-up rates of 60 GWd/tU, according to the magazine New Scientist, which canvassed experts.

But tests conducted by Dr Michael Billone at Argonne National Laboratory in Illinois,

raise safety concerns.

Disposal is also a potential problem because the new, high-efficiency fuel is up to 50% more radioactive than fuel currently in use, thus generating far more heat during storage.

Convert your car to burn water+gasoline

Sun, 30 Mar 2008 15:03:19 GMT

clipped by: supercibor
clipper's remarks: High Conversion, Few Refunds, Due To Huge Demand: Soaring Gas Prices Compel People To Save Gas!!! Popular D.i.y Watercar: Run Your Car Partially On Water, Reduce Emissions/Global Warming! Practical Free Energy Based On 1000s Of Real Cars Worldwide!!!

Clip Source: www.hectorprofits.com

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Convert Your Car To Burn Water + Gasoline = Double
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OPPORTUNITY UPDATE: Opportunity Finds More Evidence of Ancient Water - sol 1463-1470, March 5-13, 20

Sat, 29 Mar 2008 16:23:49 GMT

clipped by: mariana3

Clip Source: marsrovers.jpl.nasa.gov

Opportunity has completed scientific studies of the undisturbed surface of a rock target informally named "Dorsal" in the "Gilbert" rock layer inside "Victoria Crater." Dorsal is a protruding fin of rock created by minerals deposited in cracks that remained in place long after the original rock eroded away because they were more resistant to weathering.

Data collected with the Mössbauer and alpha-particle X-ray spectrometers show that the fins in Gilbert contain large quantities of the mineral hematite. This iron-bearing mineral is also abundant in the frequently occurring, round concretions known as "blueberries" that are believed to have formed in water. Scientists have been looking for such pristine fins ever since Opportunity first noticed them back in "Eagle Crater," where the rover landed more than four years ago.

Tags: astronomy, mars, geology, science, solarsystem