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  • Astronomers Predict Titanic Collision: Milky Way vs. Andromeda

    Astronomers Predict Titanic Collision: Milky Way vs. Andromeda

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    NASA Science News noreply@nasascience.org
    1:06 PM (4 hours ago)

    to NASA

    NASA Science News for May 31, 2012

    NASA astronomers announced today they can now predict with certainty the next major cosmic event to affect our galaxy, sun, and solar system: the titanic collision of our Milky Way galaxy with neighboring Andromeda.

    FULL STORY: http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2012/31may_andromeda/

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  • Earth-Observing Satellites in Jeopardy

    Alert Name: CLIMATE CHANGE NEWS
    June 1, 2012 Compiled: 1:09 AM

    By LUIS UBIÑAS (NYT)

    The people who live in threatened forests should have the ownership rights.

    By HEIDI CULLEN (NYT)

    What’s the weather going to be like? It’s going to get harder to predict, which could well spell disaster for us all.

    About This E-mail

    You received this e-mail because you signed up for NYTimes.com’s My Alerts tool. As a member of the TRUSTe privacy program, we are committed to protecting your privacy.

  • Enrichment ‘not step towards bomb’: Ahmadinejad

    Enrichment ‘not step towards bomb’: Ahmadinejad
    The West Australian
    TEHRAN (AFP) – Iran’s president has insisted enriching uranium to 20 percent “is our right” and not a step towards a bomb, as a US envoy warned the window for dialogue over Tehran’s nuclear programme was closing. The enrichment activity, which world
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  • Scores of guns stolen from NSW homes

    According to talkback radio this morning , guns can be purchased over the internet. Registered rural owners and gun club members go to  extraordinary lengths to safely store their guns. Yet we are still seeing weapons being stolen. After the amnesty following the Port Phillip massacre many guns were handed in and destroyed. Now we are back to square one with possession of guns.

    Scores of guns stolen from NSW homes

    By police reporter Sean Rubinsztein-Dunlop, ABCUpdated June 1, 2012, 9:37 am

    There are calls for stricter controls on weapons in homes after a wave of gun thefts across New South Wales.

    In just over a fortnight, at least 50 guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition have been stolen from registered gun owners across the state.

    In some cases, entire gun safes have been taken.

    All firearms used by permit holders in the state must be registered with the Commissioner of Police, but police insist the information is secure.

    The Commander of the Firearms and Organised Crime Squad, Ken Finch, says there is no evidence the registry has been compromised.

    “I’m quite confident that the processes and systems that are in place at the firearms registry are robust and their audit systems are transparent,” he said.

    Detective Superintendent Finch, says the robbers knew what they were looking for.

    “In these cases there have been a number of thefts from rural areas,” he said.

    “Very often in rural areas, the local population know who own guns within communities and very often, people who have multiple firearms are in fact members of gun clubs.

    “So the fact is, information about who actually possesses firearms in communities can come from a variety of sources.”

    The Greens’ David Shoebridge is calling for urgent laws to limit the number of weapons people can own.

    “While there are private arsenals around New South Wales, criminals will target that,” he said.

    “The average number of guns per licence owner is now five. That’s a honey pot that criminals are targeting.”

    The Opposition leader John Robertson says the thefts are fuelling Sydney’s wave of shootings.

    “While we continue to see illegal firearms on the streets and our police numbers down, people in western and south-western Sydney are being failed by this Government,” he said.

    The state’s Police Minister is holding talks with the Federal Government and counterparts across the country to try to nationalise gun laws

  • Fukushima in Peril

    Fukushima in Peril

    Its official! A building can be leaning and have bulging walls supporting a massive tank of liquid on the top floor, and still be secure from any earthquake! This means the world is safe!

    The Wall Street Journal just reported that TEPCO doesn’t have a plan to deal with the collapse of Spent Fuel Pool 4 at the Fukushima nuclear reactor in Japan. Yet a host of scientists, nuclear experts and researchers, say we facing a situation right now that is so serious that it literally threatened our very existence, for the entire Northern Hemisphere is at risk of becoming largely uninhabitable if the building collapses.

    According to U.S. Army General Albert Stubblebine of the Natural Solutions Foundation, the situation is extremely serious and poses a significant danger to our entire civilization. Since TEPCO and the Japanese government have refused the entombment option (as the Russians did with Chernobyl) the world is at the mercy of nature. A mistake here would cause the deaths of tens of millions of people across the globe. Read report here.

    When the highly radioactive Spent Fuel Rods are exposed to air, there will be massive explosions releasing many times the amount or radiation released thus far. Bizarrely, they are stored three stories above ground in open concrete storage pools. Whether through evaporation of the water in the pools, or due to the inevitable further collapse of the structure, there is a severe risk. United States public health authorities agree that tens of thousands of North Americans have already died from the Fukushima calamity. When the final cataclysm occurs, sooner rather than later, the whole Northern Hemisphere is at risk of becoming largely uninhabitable.

    The Japanese ambassador Murata writes to UN Secretary General: ‘It is no exaggeration to say that the fate of Japan and the whole world depends on No. 4 reactor’. Before the Committee, Ambassador Murata strongly stated that if the crippled building of reactor unit 4 (with 1,535 fuel rods in the spent fuel pool 100 feet (30 meters) above the ground) collapses, not only will it cause a shutdown of all six reactors but will also affect the common spent fuel pool containing 6,375 fuel rods, located some 50 meters from reactor 4. In both cases the radioactive rods are not protected by a containment vessel; dangerously, they are open to the air. This would certainly cause a global catastrophe like we have never before experienced. He stressed that the responsibility of Japan to the rest of the world is immeasurable. Such a catastrophe would affect us all for centuries. Ambassador Murata informed us that the total numbers of the spent fuel rods at the Fukushima Daiichi site excluding the rods in the pressure vessel is 11,421.”

    And this is what Mr. Robert Alvarez, US reactor pools expert, had to say: “In recent times, more information about the spent fuel situation at the Fukushima-Dai-Ichi site has become known. It is my understanding that of the 1,532 spent fuel assemblies in reactor No. 304 assemblies are fresh and unirradiated. This then leaves 1,231 irradiated spent fuel rods in pool No. 4, which contain roughly 37 million curies (~1.4E+18 Becquerel) of long-lived radioactivity. The No. 4 pool is about 100 feet above ground, is structurally damaged and is exposed to the open elements. If an earthquake or other event were to cause this pool to drain this could result in a catastrophic radiological fire involving nearly 10 times the amount of Cs-137 released by the Chernobyl accident.

    The infrastructure to safely remove this material was destroyed as it was at the other three reactors. Spent reactor fuel cannot be simply lifted into the air by a crane as if it were routine cargo. In order to prevent severe radiation exposures, fires and possible explosions, it must be transferred at all times in water and heavily shielded structures into dry casks.. As this has never been done before, the removal of the spent fuel from the pools at the damaged Fukushima-Dai-Ichi reactors will require a major and time-consuming re-construction effort and will be charting in unknown waters. Despite the enormous destruction cased at the Da–Ichi site, dry casks holding a smaller amount of spent fuel appear to be unscathed.

    You may also read Dr. Michio Kaku who stated “People don’t realize that the Fukushima reactor is on a knife’s edge; it’s near the tipping point. A small earthquake, another pipe break, another explosion could tip it over and we could have a disaster much worse, many times worse than Chernobyl. It’s like a sleeping dragon.” Full text here.

    He also said on the 28th that, “Radiation levels are 1,000 milliseverts/hour. This means that workers will come down with radiation sickness with only 15 minutes of exposure. Some workers will die after 6 hours of exposure. The meaning of all this is: if radiation levels continue to rise, and workers are forced to evacuate, the accident will be in free fall.” Dr. Kaku called for an immediate entombment of the plant after the disaster began.  Now it might be too late for that and will take too long to do it.

    Also an independent report from Fairwinds.


  • The Peak Oil Crisis: The Edisonian Approach

    The Peak Oil Crisis: The Edisonian Approach
    Falls Church News Press
    By Tom Whipple While waiting to see if Greece leaves the Eurozone, Spain collapses, and the Iranians can get their act together, it is a good time to discuss some of the recent developments on the Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR) front.
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