Armageddon

A new analysis has revealed that microbes living deep underground could have survived the massive bombardment of impacts that blasted the Earth"s surface over 3.9 billion years ago. This find indicates that today"s life could have descended from microbes far older than thought, over 4.4 billion years ago."Microbes living deep underground could have survived the massive barrage of impacts that blasted the Earth 3.9 billion years ago, according to a new analysis.

That means that today"s life might be descended from microbes that arose as far back as 4.4 billion years ago, when the oceans formed."

View: Full Article | Source: NewScientist

It has been a really bad week for the climate. Each day brought depressing news as scientists meeting in Copenhagen told us global warming is taking place more rapidly than expected. The seas are rising faster than predicted; the polar ice caps are melting more quickly; and the Amazon rainforest is doomed unless urgent action is taken.The main solutions are widely agreed. The world needs to forge a much tougher treaty this year to replace the failed Kyoto Protocol. Global emissions of carbon dioxide must be cut by at least half by the middle of the century, much more in industrialised countries. Using energy more efficiently is essential, as is rapidly increasing it fromrenewable sources.Nuclear power and biofuels are much more controversial, but are likely to be used to some extent.

But new, much less familiar solutions are also emerging.

Here are 10 of them:

Sweep away soot Cutting soot emissions from car exhausts, factories and open fires is probably the fastest way to tackle global warming, and there are calls for a treaty to achieve this. Scientists say the pollutant is the second biggest culprit in climate change after carbon dioxide. Black carbon, which gives soot its colour, has two main effects. It heats the atmosphere by absorbing radiation from the sun and releasing it into the air. And it darkens snow and ice when it falls on them, causing them to reflect less sunlight, heat up and melt – in turnexposing land or water, which also warms rapidly. Reducing emissions is fairly easy, using tried and tested technology. And it has a rapid effect as soot stays only days or weeks in the atmosphere, compared with centuries for carbon dioxide.

Save the ozone Measures to save the ozone layer have so far been the most effective steps to combat climate change, as many of the chemicals that attack the protective layer in the atmosphere are also global warming gases. A 20-year-old treaty, the Montreal Protocol, has almost phased out their production, coincidentally eliminating the equivalent of 11 billion tons of carbon dioxide a year. This puts to shame the Kyoto Protocol, which aimed to cut emissions by 2 billion tons. Experts want measures to remove the chemicals from equipment such as old fridges, where they acted as coolants,when t......

A respected pastor, best-selling author and founder of a major ministry to teens predicts an imminent "earth-shattering calamity" centered in New York City that will spread to major urban areas across the country and around the world – part of what he sees as a judgment from God.

David Wilkerson, author of "The Cross and the Switchblade," a book about his ministry to troubled New York street kids that was later made into a movie starring Pat Boone, tells readers of his blog this weekend that he is "compelled by the Holy Spirit to send out an urgent message" about his prediction.

"An earth-shattering calamity is about to happen," he writes. "It is going to be so frightening, we are all going to tremble – even the godliest among us."

Wilkerson's vision is of fires raging through New York City.

"It will engulf the whole megaplex, including areas of New Jersey and Connecticut. Major cities all across America will experience riots and blazing fires – such as we saw in Watts, Los Angeles, years ago," he explains. "There will be riots and fires in cities worldwide. There will be looting – including Times Square, New York City. What we are experiencing now is not a recession, not even a depression. We are under God’s wrath. In Psalm 11 it is written, "If the foundations are destroyed, what can the righteous do?"

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If this were some 1950s sci-fi thriller, the Doomsday Cloud would loom dark and ominous in the evening sky. Each night more stars would wink out along its edges. The cloud would sweep past Jupiter, swallowing it whole, and race on toward Earth. There would be an inky darknessat noon.

And so on.No, nothing is going to blot out the sun. But recent observations and numerical simulations suggest that eventually—in a few millennia, maybe—the solar system may plow into a cloud of gas and dust a thousand times denser than the space we travel through now. This interstellar fog could reduce the sun’s sphere of influence until most of the outer planets aresitting naked in space.

View: Full Article | Source: Discover Magazine