The recently published tabloid article by Emma Cox leads off proclaiming: “A FEARSOME mutant fish has started killing people after feeding on human corpses, scientists fear,” under a headline of “Humans scoffed by mutant fish.” (Scoff being British/Canadian slang for gobble.)

Tracking the Goonch for the show ”Nature Shock,” biologist Jeremy Wade presents ichthyological scare story, complete with needle-toothed monsters from the deep that may have risen from bottom scavengers to apex predators.

Folk Theory

Along the Great Kali River, flowing between India and Nepal, some villagers told Wade that they believe a “monster” dwells in their midst. Their theory is that it has evolved from eating prawns to a killer with an acquired taste for humans.

According to Wade’s interview in the SUN: “The locals have told me of a theory that this monster has grown extra large on a diet of partially burnt corpses. It has perhaps got this taste for flesh by feasting on remains of funeral pyres. There will be a few freak individuals that grow bigger than the other ones and if you throw in extra food, they will grow even bigger.”

While there are also crocodiles in these waters, Jeremy lays the blame of attacks on humans to the toothy Goonch lurking offshore. As part of the television exploration, his team caught a claimed world-record Goonch weighing in at 161 lbs. (73 kg). “If that got hold of you, there’d be no getting away,” he quipped.

Facts

Poorly documented reports of people being grabbed by mysterious aquatic creatures date back to 1988, when a 17-year-old Nepalese youth bathing in shallow water was attacked and pulled underwater by an unseen animal. The scene was repeated a few months later, when a small boy was taken to an unknown fate by an aquatic predator.

The latest fatality occurred last year, when an 18-year-old Nepali was hit from beneath and carried down by a creature one witnessed said looked like “an elongated pig.”

Biologists are skeptical of some of these yarns, and there is unanimity in their disclaiming that the goonch has somehow “mutated” into a maneating monster. Whether one or more renegade individuals have developed an aberrant taste for humans is not beyond the boundaries of plausibility. Nature is full of surprises, but these require research and proof before being swallowed hook-line-and-sinker. For a reality check, Fishbase experts classify the Goonch as “harmless” and “sluggish.”

This is a fish with the size, strength, and teeth to be a frightful threat in the water, but it is a leap to believe that the species has moved from feeding on relatively small river crustaceans to full-scale humans.

The British Channel 5 program ”Nature Shock” may be viewed online at http://demand.five.tv.

Watch your local aquarium shop for the rare but sometimes seen baby Goonch, which sometimes arrives among “assorted Asian catfishes.”

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About the Author:
James Lawrence is the editor of Microcosm Aquarium Explorer, an educational resource for conscientious aquarium keepers, offering thousands of species profiles and identifying images. For more Goonch facts and images: http://MicrocosmAquariumExplorer.com.

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The European Union was unable to agree to a timetable to manage climate change because they could not agree on costs and the type of acceptable alternative fuels. McCain is promising 40 new nuclear power plants by 2030, while Barack Obama has concluded that they can not achieve their climate change goals, unless they include nuclear power. The French are already committed to nuclear power.

But where is all the uranium ore going to come from to fuel these power stations?

Geologists think that only 5.5 million metric tones can be mined economically. While the International Atomic Energy Agency argues that the nuclear power stations in use today use 70,000 metric tons a year. That is without any increase in the number of nuclear power plants.

If we really wanted to use nuclear powered electricity for all of our energy needs, could it really be done quickly? Not only would we have to build plants to replace the existing nuclear plants, we would also have to replace all existing fossil fuel plants, as well as build extra nuclear power plants to allow us independence from oil.

Figures for the amount of plants we will need vary, but we are looking at increasing energy production by at least 17 times its present output! That could account for at least 1,000,000 tons of uranium ore each year! All our known reserves would be used up within 5 years. Geologists think there is about 35 million tons of uranium ore, much of it uneconomical to mine. That would last only about 30 years.

If the aim is to replace all fossil fuels with nuclear energy, how would this be possible after the uranium has run out?

If nuclear power was to be introduced on a step by step basis, there would still be a problem. The G8 countries have agreed to cut carbon emissions by 50% and this is to be achieved by 2050. Nuclear power will take up the slack. If they are to produce the energy needed the uranium would run out by 2050. All this will do is buy use 42 years!

Mining is usually done on an ad hoc basis. We don’t try to mine everything, we feed it into the system as and when we need it. While large areas of the planet have yet to be explored for uranium. So there might be some large stocks out there. Often we find that there are more mineral stocks than we expect to find. Look at how many new gas fields we have discovered.

But until we know how much is out there, how can we base an alternative energy plan around nuclear power? Building nuclear power stations are very expensive, and just consider how many we will have to build. Can we really depend upon a nuclear powered solution based upon the stocks of uranium that we know about?

What if those new uranium stocks are in countries we have blacklisted? What if it is to be found in Syria, North Korea or Iran? There is also the possibility that those stocks are in areas we can not mine.

We are going to have to depend upon our ability to recover uranium from the spent uranium fuels themselves. However, a report by the International Atomic Energy found that in 2004 two thirds of all uranium used was being mined, and not recycled. A large part of the remainder came from army stock piles. We are going to have recycle about a million tons a year if we really want to convert to nuclear energy. This is going to be a huge task and at what financial cost?

One solution put forward is to use breeder reactors. They tend to create more nuclear fuel than they use. In America some breeder reactors were introduced but they stopped in the 1990s. Only a few are in use in the world today. The real technology to make these breeder reactors is simply not in existence yet. We still have to get it up and running. Also they can be used to make nuclear weapons and they would be controversial.

At best nuclear power could only be used as part of the solution, and even then as part of a short term solution. Unless we find more uranium it can not be the solution to our energy needs. Unless we stop and think this through we are going to be facing the same energy shortages we face now. All we are doing is putting it off for another few decades at best.

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About the Author:
Colin Stafford writes on environmental issues, which include the ecology, alternative energy, climate change and nature. You can find many more articles on his blog, A Better Quality of Life.

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The American space program, from its earliest days through the present, has lead to thousands of technological advancements that are used everyday by our citizens. These new technologies have increased our national security, safety, lead to medical advancements, increased energy efficiency (which makes for a cleaner environment), saves lives, and increases our overall quality of life. Some of the technological benefits we have seen from the space program are:

Items used around the average American household

• Better Insulation. Aluminum heat shields from the Apollo program are used in homes to drastically reduce home heating and cooling costs, making homes more energy efficient which leads to lower power consumption.
• Smoke Detectors. These devices are standard in every home now, and were created for the Skylab space station in the early 1970’s.
• Better satellite technology for worldwide communication and television broadcasts.
• Small in home water purification systems were originally invented to purify water on early space missions.
• Cordless power Tools. NASA asked Black and Decker to develop a cordless power tool for use by the Apollo astronauts to collect deeper core samples on the moon. This invention lead to the wide range of cordless power tools in use today, including the first dust busters.

Items leading to a cleaner environment

• Satellite mapping used for forest management and weather.
• Hydroponic systems for the growing of food sources.
• Pollution measuring/smokestack monitor devices used in factories.
• Advances in solar energy technology.

Items used by the medical field

• Advancements in laser technology, now adapted to conduct laser heart and eye surgeries.
• Better technologies used for conducting mammograms.
• A spin-off from the Hubble Space Telescope has lead to a less intrusive and more method for conducting breast biopsies through digital imaging.
• NASA developed technologies were adapted for use in CAT scan and MRI machines.
• Infrared Thermometers. NASA technology used for measuring the heat of stars and distant planets was adapted for use in infrared thermometers common in every home and hospital today.

Advancements to aid in Firefighting and public safety

• Lighter weight Respiration systems developed for Apollo astronauts were adapted for use in fire fighting.
• Rescue jaws used by firefighters to quickly cut through doors and roofs in order to get to trapped accident victims inside.
• Newer light weight and portable radiation detectors.
• Personal alarm systems used by firemen, prison guards, the elderly, etc.
• Self righting life rafts.
• Doppler radar used for storm warning and tracking, to include wind shear detection used at major airports in the U.S.

The above list in not all inclusive; it is only a fraction of the items which were developed as a result of the U.S. space program. The total number of technological achievements gleaned from NASA space programs numbers in the thousands. Future missions planned for the moon and Mars will only aid in pushing technology further and serve as a catalyst for the next generation of technological advances that future generations will undoubtedly take for granted.

Check out the following sources for more information on this topic:

1. http://www.nasa.gov/missions/science/f_apollo_11_spinoff.html
2. http://www.thespaceplace.com/nasa/spinoffs.html
3. http://www.lunarproperties.com/page/28
4. http://techtran.msfc.nasa.gov/at_home.html
5. http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2005-10-04-questions-answers-griffin_x.htm

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About the Author:
Sally Reynolds is a Liberal Arts student from Palm Beach, Florida, who loves shopping, space and writing.

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High energy particle colliders are nothing new. The first ones were developed in the 1930s and called cyclotrons. This type of device used large magnets to guide and accelerate particles ever faster through a spiral configuration. By the early 1940s, such a device was used to enrich uranium for the Manhattan Project. The cyclotrons were eventually developed into extreme high-energy particle colliders which were the biggest machines ever conceived and can only be seen in their entirety from the air because, instead of spiral tracks, they use full circles that are miles wide. They are often referred to as “atom smashers” because they send two particles at high speed around a circle in opposite directions and then document their collision. There are currently seventy-five particle colliders located on six continents around the world. Of the largest, one is the International Linear Collider located at Fermilab. The other is the Large Hadron Collider built for CERN, which is the European Organization for Nuclear Research.

The expanded use of so many colliders opened the door for multiple research projects revealing the existence of one new particle after another. Of course, with every new particle came its anti-particle twin. The cornucopia of new particle discovery was so plentiful that it eventually became known as “the particle zoo.” It’s important to realize that few, if any, of these anti-particles have actually been recorded. They are merely theorized to keep the mathematical equations balanced. This same sort of theoretical balancing act is also applied to the existence of many fields and forces. For every force, there must be a particle to carry it. Conversely, every new particle found by the colliders must be associated with a force.

The most elusive of these particles, and one that the LHC was specifically designed to find, is the Higgs Boson, which is associated with the Higgs Field. It is commonly referenced in science circles as the “God particle” and is thought to be the reason why things have mass. The force of gravity is associated with mass. In Einstein’s pursuit of a single Theory of Everything (TOE), he simply could not get gravity to play well with relativity theory. And neither could anyone else. Mass and gravity have successfully provided a monkey wrench to thwart all attempts by physicists to establish a Grand Unified Theory (GUT).

Considering the fact that much of the science behind the experiments that will be conducted at the LHC are, at best, theoretical, is it any wonder so many folks are nervous about what might happen? Let’s get a historical perspective. Even though theories of the world being round instead of flat were recorded as early as fourth century B.C., many still thought that Columbus would certainly fall of the edge of the Earth if he sailed west into the unknown. Many people, scientists among them, thought that a plane would simply explode if it attempted to break the sound barrier. When the U.S. was ready to send a living being into orbit, they chose a chimp rather than a human because they were concerned about unknown contaminations from space. It’s often overlooked that Einstein did not win his Nobel Prize in Physics for E=mc2. At the time, relativity theory was looked upon with a raised eyebrow and the scientific community withheld its laurels until the theory could be substantiated. History shows us that new theories are usually not embraced immediately. More often than not, they are fully accepted only after they are proven.

Will the LHC create an uncontrollable Big Bang or a black hole big enough to swallow the Earth and all its surrounding space, as sensationalized by the popular media? Not likely. It’s more likely that the quantum leap of faith taken by a few contemporary physicists will demonstrate a lack of fear based on an understanding that transcends the science and the math. In doing so, they just might give us a small glimpse from a unique perspective into the nature of reality.

__________
About the Author:
MaAnna Stephenson - Formally trained in electronics, acoustics and music and initiated as a shamanka, MaAnna Stephenson has lived immersed in the relationship between science and intuitive wisdom. Her exemplary work spans the music industry, wood carving, and authoring The Sage Age, a book illuminating new models for new thought. Visit www.SageAge.net for more. Some content excerpted from The Sage Age - Blending Science with Intuitive Wisdom © 2008 MaAnna Stephenson.

Photo Credit: The Large Hadron Collider/ATLAS at CERN by Image Editor

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A reflector telescope is one that uses a mirror rather than lenses to bend light and magnify images. Reflector telescopes, because they are easier to make and can be made in sizes much larger than refractors, are an invention that changed astronomy and our understanding of the universe. The largest refractor telescope in the world is forty inches in diameter and reflector telescopes dwarf this in comparison. There are currently several reflector type scopes that are over four hundred inches in diameter.

Why a reflector is better than a refractor

If you are familiar with a prism or a rainbow you can understand why reflectors are superior to refractors. When light passes through glass the different bands (or colors) pass through at different angles and this causes aberrations or problems in the images. This is called chromatic aberration and it gives us distorted views of what we see through a lens. In the time of Newton glass making and lens making was very primitive and the problems of chromatic aberration were not yet overcome. Today we can make lenses that have almost no chromatic aberration but we can’t make them very large. When a lens gets to be really large it gets very heavy and its own weight will distort the lens and ruin the image.

Newton’s telescope solved these problems. A mirror doesn’t pass light through it. It simply bounces all the light off the surface. There is no chromatic aberration at all. And because you only need to bounce light off the surface you can place the whole mirror on a supporting structure or base which takes a lot of the weight off the mirror. This way you can build much larger mirrors without any distortion.

It is commonly thought that Newton invented the first reflector telescope but it isn’t true. Credit for making the first reflector goes to and Italian Monk, Physicist, and Astronomer named Niccolo Zucchi. He published a book on Optics in the 1650’s and it is this book that inspired Sir Isaac Newton to build his own telescope. Zucchi created his first reflector around 1616 while Newton completed his first (and famous) telescope in 1670. But while Zucchi did make some new discoveries with his telescope it didn’t work well and was difficult to make and to use. It was Newton’s telescope that worked really well and that brought the art and science of reflectors into the world of science.

The real genius of Newton’s Telescope

All of that stuff is remarkable but there is something much more important in Newton’s Astronomy and in his telescope. He didn’t after all, discover moons around Jupiter like Galileo did, or plot the return of a comet like Halley did. But what he did do was tie in Mathematics, Astronomy, and our understanding of the universe using his telescope and his theory of universal gravitation. He proved mathematically that gravitation was a two way operation and that while the earth pulled on a falling apple so the apple too pulled on the earth. This was clearly seen, calculated, and confirmed in the motions of heavenly bodies which was refined and made possible by the new science of reflector telescopes which we can credit to Newton.

Sir Isaac and his telescope carried on with the work of Copernicus and Galileo by furthering our understanding of the universe we live in and helping us to realize there are laws that govern the whole of the universe. And this rule holds true for falling apples and for planets revolving around stars.

The actual telescope that Newton built still survives today and is in the care of the Royal Society of London. They keep it on display in London and sometimes it travels the world as part of an exhibit.

__________
About the Author:
Will Kalif - Want to learn more about telescopes? Visit the Telescope Nerd: TelescopeNerd.com.

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Have a great weekend!

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When we plan each day, it is around the sun. The sun determines our scheduled activities in the daylight and during the dark of each night. The changing seasons are a function of the number of hours of sunlight. So, if the sun is such a factor in our lives each day, why do we not even consider the sun as a catalyst for future global climate change?

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been looking in the wrong place for the cause of global climate change. It’s global climate change projections do not include the influence of the sun. As a result, it’s computer-generated model, which predicts a one-degree Fahrenheit increase in global temperature in each decade of this century due to human-emitted carbon dioxide gas, is in need of drastic repair.

The truth is that it is becoming clearer with each passing day that global climate change is a function of the sun and not a function of an increase in man-made CO2 emissions. The fact is that global temperatures have not increased in the last ten years, since 1998, even with a significant global increase in CO2. Also, consider that the first half of this year (2008) was actually the coolest of the last five years, according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

So, the current trend of global temperature is becoming colder, not warmer, despite the continued increase in CO2. Of course, the reality for the United Nations is that, in all probability, the extent of their error is about to soon get much worse. Since they are looking at the wrong catalyst of global climate change, they really have no idea what is about to happen next. To more adequately predict global temperature in the next few decades, the IPCC should be looking at the activity of the sun.

Indeed, studying the sun is exactly what astrophysicist Dr. Willie Soon, a researcher at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, has been doing for years. Dr. Soon has identified a clear link between the sun’s activity as indicated by it’s magnetic activity and temperature variations in the Arctic and Greenland over a period of time of about 130 years.

Dr. Soon chose this area for study since it has good temperature records and is an area sensitive to climate change, so that the signal from any one climatic influence should be easier to spot. He also says he can point to a physical mechanism in the circulation of the ocean linking the sun’s influence on temperature in the region.

Dr. Soon discussed the conclusions of his research work recently as follows: “Global temperature change can be attributed to slight variations in the sun’s energy output, not man-made carbon dioxide emissions.”

He continues, “When the sun is slightly brighter, meaning giving more light to Earth’s system, the temperature warms in the Arctic. With the cooling that we observed in the Arctic from the 1940s to the 1970s, guess what the sun is doing? It’s actually dimming slightly, ever so slightly. And then, guess what happened after the late 1970s? The sun brightens again.”

Meanwhile, a new research paper from the Astronomical Society of Australia also identifies the sun as the catalyst for global climate change. The paper contends that the level of activity on the Sun will significantly diminish sometime in the next decade and remain low for about 20 to 30 years. On each occasion that the Sun has done this in the past the World’s mean temperature has dropped by 1 - 2 degrees C.

Of course, all this recent research just confirms earlier findings about the sun’s role in global climate change. Consider that the sun’s influence in the long term cooling and warming of the planet was discovered by the Danish Meteorological Institute in 1991. The Institute released a study using data that went back centuries which showed that global temperatures closely tracked solar cycles.

Then, several years later, a Hoover Institution Study examined the same historical data and came to a similar conclusion. “The effects of solar activity and volcanoes are impossible to miss. Temperatures fluctuated exactly as expected, and the pattern was so clear that, statistically, the odds of the correlation existing by chance were one in 100,” according to Hoover fellow Bruce Berkowitz.

As world politicians and the United Nations continue a misguided global warming focus on man-made CO2 emissions, evidence of the sun ’s role in global climate change continues to grow.

So, it should not be surprising that to predict global climate change in the decades ahead we should look to the sun, just like we do in preparation for each calendar day.

__________
About the Author:
James William Smith has worked in Senior management positions for some of the largest Financial Services firms in the United States for the last twenty five years. He has also provided business consulting support for insurance organizations and start up businesses. Visit his website at http://www.eWorldvu.com or his daily blog at http://www.eworldvublog.blogspot.com

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What is even more appalling is man’s desire for wider land areas, so they cut off more trees in order to convert the area into a housing community or subdivision; and an agricultural land or worse, a dump site,this perhaps can be the answer to what is deforestation.

By Definition
By definition, deforestation means the cutting or removal of trees from woodlands or forests in order to convert the land into commercial or logging reasons or for whatever purpose it may serve them. Generally, deforestation denotes the extraction of trees without sufficient reforestation or effort to replant a tree elsewhere to replace the one that has been cut.

Since time immemorial, man has been making the environment adapt to the civilizations’ growing needs. First it was cutting trees down to use for kindling, next it was for shelter, and then for paper and other products. Thousands of forests have been cleared all over the world to pave way for man’s innovations and spatial requirements. It seems that forests are present to cater to man’s needs and whims.

Raising Consciousness
It is human nature to be moved into action when our sense of well being becomes endangered. This is undoubtedly the reason why most people are becoming concerned over deforestation.

The easiest way to make people care is to emphasize the benefits of forests and woodland, and to show how its depletion will radically change our lives for the worst. First off, deforestation revolves around a number of issues but none as totally important as the two key subjects that we must be aware of: the primary concern is global warming or green house effect, the secondary matter is the question of whether the trees are utilized properly and if reforestation efforts are being made.

Trees absorb carbon dioxide, helping reduce the amount of carbon released into our atmosphere. Deforestation kills the trees that help prevent greenhouse effect. Green house effect accounts for the Earth’s over all temperature rises, thus causing bizarre weather patterns. That is why the frequency of droughts, floods, tidal waves, and other natural disasters have risen.

The second concern is that the trees being cleared to pave way for metropolis are simply slashed and burned. Aside from the excessive emission of carbon dioxide brought about by burning wood, there is the apprehension that the trees would have been put to better use providing shelter for the homeless, building materials or other useful undertakings. The subsequent effects are truly devastating. Who knew that deforestation can cause so much head ache?

Yes, who knew? If only people have taken the time to inform themselves then they would have been able to make informed decisions and fight for what is right.

What Can You Do To Help?
Since you are now knowledgeable of what is deforestation, it would be of much help to lead in the initial steps to change. Are you thinking what a lowly individual can do to help? Well, small steps make a huge difference especially when everyone is working at the same goal. Armed with the knowledge of the disasters that deforestation can bring about will definitely make a person regulate his or her actions.

Start by conserving the most basic of household materials like paper towels, napkins and tissue papers. Recycling and knowing how to recycle materials will greatly help find a solution to green house emissions. Next is to be pro active and help educate other people by joining campaign groups who fight against deforestation.

Generally you don’t have to be like a crazy person shouting at the streets and joining rallies, begin by changing your attitude and outlook and then you will see that little things do make a difference.

__________
About the Author:
Paul Hata is active in various community and social programs. Get the latest Environment, Ecology and Gardening information here - WorldEnvironmentPages.com, WorldEcologyPages.com, and WorldGardenPages.com.

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