Researchers discover new clues to determining the solar cycle

Written by Karen C. Fox, phys.org

Approximately every 11 years, the sun undergoes a complete personality change from quiet and calm to violently active. The height of the sun’s activity, known as solar maximum, is a time of numerous sunspots, punctuated with profound eruptions that send radiation and solar particles out into the far reaches of space. solar migration

However, the timing of the solar cycle is far from precise. Since humans began regularly recording sunspots in the 17th century, the time between successive solar maxima has been as short as nine years, but as long as 14, making it hard to determine its cause. Now, researchers have discovered a new marker to track the course of the solar cycle—brightpoints, little bright spots in the solar atmosphere that allow us to observe the constant roiling of material inside the sun. These markers provide a new way to watch the way the magnetic fields evolve and move through our closest star. They also show that a substantial adjustment to established theories about what drives this mysterious cycle may be needed.

Historically, theories about what’s going on inside the sun to drive the solar cycle have relied on only one set of observations: the detection of sunspots, a data record that goes back centuries. Over the past few decades, realizing that sunspots are areas of intense magnetic fields, researchers have also been able to include observations of magnetic measurements of the sun from more than 90 million miles away.

“Sunspots have been the perennial marker for understanding the mechanisms that rule the sun’s interior,” said Scott McIntosh, a space scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, and first author of a paper on these results that appears in the September 1, 2014, issue of the Astrophysical Journal. “But the processes that make sunspots are not well understood, and far less, those that govern their migration and what drives their movement. Now we can see there are bright points in the solar atmosphere, which act like buoys anchored to what’s going on much deeper down. They help us develop a different picture of the interior of the sun.”

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NEW DATA BACKS ‘ICE AGE’ PREDICTION

Written by Jerome R Corsi, wnd.com

NEW YORK – As the United Nations prepares for its 2014 Climate Summit in New York this month with an agenda to advance a new carbon-emissions regulatory agreement to supersede the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, the Russian scientist who correctly predicted the lack of global warming over the past 19 years has gained new scientific support for his belief that Earth is in the beginning of a prolonged ice age. new ice age

A new study from Lund University in Sweden, published Aug. 17 in Nature Geoscience, has reconstructed solar activity during the last ice age, the last so-called “global maximum” extending from 20,000 to 10,000 years ago. Analysis of trace elements in ice cores in Greenland and from cave formations in China indicates the growth and melting of a thick ice sheet stretching from the Arctic to northern Germany were related to variations in the sun’s UV radiation output.

“The study shows an unexpected link between solar activity and climate change. It shows both that changes in solar activity are nothing new and that solar activity influences the climate, especially on a regional level. Understanding these processes helps us to better forecast the climate in certain regions,” said Raimund Muscheler, lecturer in quaternary geology at Lund University and co-author of the study, in a widely cited interview published by LaboratoryEquipment.com.

The recently published Lund University solar research lends support to the research of Russian scientist Habibullo Abdussamatov, the head of the prestigious Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory in St. Petersburg. Abdussamatov has compiled scientific data supporting the theory “sun heats earth,” refuting global warming theorists that insist greenhouse gases are the culprit in a phenomenon of anthropogenic global warming

Using data analyzing sunspot activity going back to the 19th century, Abdussamatov argues that total sun irradiance is the primary factor responsible for climate variations on Earth, citing evidence for his theory the earth is about to enter a prolonged cooling phase because sunspot activity has been in a weak “mini-max” in the current Solar Cycle 24 after hitting a “solar minimum” in 2009.

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Deep Ice Canyon Found Far Below Greenland Surface

Written by newswire.com

GREENBELT, Maryland, August 29, 2013 (ENS) – Using ice-penetrating radar, scientists have discovered a long, deep canyon that exists a mile beneath the Greenland ice sheet, data from a NASA airborne science mission and an international research team reveals. Greenland canyon

The scientific team identified a continuous bedrock canyon that extends from almost the center of the island and ends at its northern extremity in a deep fjord connecting to the Arctic ocean.

The canyon looks like a winding river channel at least 460 miles (750 kilometers) long, making it longer than the Grand Canyon of the Colorado River in the United States. In some places, it is half a mile deep, on the same scale as parts of the Grand Canyon.

Scientists say this immense feature beneath the Petermann Glacier fjord is even older than the ice sheet that has covered Greenland for the last few million years.

“One might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped,” said Jonathan Bamber, professor of physical geography at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom, and lead author of the study.

“With Google Streetview available for many cities around the world and digital maps for everything from population density to happiness one might assume that the landscape of the Earth has been fully explored and mapped,” said Bamber. “Our research shows there’s still a lot left to discover.”

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Digital Revolution to Fix Scientific Publishing & Speed Up Discoveries

Written by Daniel Marovitz, techcrunch.com

Scientific, Technical, and Medical (STM) publishing is big business. It generates $19 billion in revenue per year, the majority of which is earned by a few powerful publishers that enjoy profit margins of up to 40 percent. science publishing Inflated subscriptions sold to academic libraries keep them moving ahead because the librarians feel they have no choice but to buy. These companies add little value to the actual publishing product but they are entrenched.

Many forces are now at work to change the status quo which has existed for more than 100 years.

The primitive publishing model employed by these publishers is actually a detriment to science. Research paid for by taxpayers is often restricted behind pay walls, major breakthroughs that could potentially save lives languish in articles whose publication is delayed for no reason. In some cases, published findings that have passed a traditional peer review process are subsequently found to be fraudulent.

Performed behind a smokescreen of anonymity, these publishers are the master puppeteers pulling the strings of scientific research to no one’s benefit but their own. The issue is that science publishing is not an esoteric academic silo with no impact on the world. Scientific findings ultimately affect every human being on the planet. Something has to change.

Until now, despite moving from paper to pixels, the publication of scientific research had not harnessed the full potential of the internet. Most journals still use a system that’s rooted in the pre-web era of print and its associated rhythms and rules. Although solving some of these problems requires a significant cultural shift in academia, many of them are solvable using existing technologies that are already standard in other industries and in the culture of the web at large.

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Nail Polish and Date Rape

Written by Dr Klaus L.E. Kaiser

The Hindustan Times reports a new use for women’s nail polish: as an indicator for the chemical rohypnol, commonly known as the “date rape drug.” The idea, said to be an invention of four students at North Carolina State University, is still in the development stage.

Interestingly though, the news does not appear to have made it into the common media outlets in North America. Perhaps they think that “date rape” is not a problem on this continent

The Drug

Flunitrazepam or rohypnol, CAS number 1622-62-4, and its close chemical relative alprazolam or xanax, CAS number 28981-97-7, are two of many compounds in the family of benzodiazepines. First developed over 50 years ago in Switzerland, both are psychotropic substances controlled under applicable laws in many western countries. Nevertheless, they appear to be readily available without much problem to people who intend to use them in despicable and illegal ways such as “date rape drugs.”

Of course, the drug’s relatively simple structures, shown below for flunitrazepam, would enable any skilled chemist to prepare it in short order. Presumably that’s what makes the drugs widely available on the black market. (Fig right. Chemical structure of flunitrazepam). flunitrazepam

The Effect

The drugs cause strong amnesia and were used several decades ago in hospitals when deep sedation was needed and they are still widely used for the treatment of sleep and anxiety disorders.

Combined with alcohol their amnesic effect is even more pronounced. Unfortunately, that also makes them so liked by people with bad intentions.

The Idea

The idea of using finger nail polish laced with an indicator that specifically detects these drugs is certainly elegant. Practically speaking though, I doubt the idea will lead to fewer rapes. The problem, as I see it is kinetics. In order to see an effect (such as, for example, a change in color of the nail polish) specificity, sensitivity, and reactivity to these drugs is required. Even if the first two conditions can be met, the third one requires a fast reaction that would not be available with a solid film of nail polish.

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CDC whistleblower is just the tip of the iceberg

Written by Jon Rappoport

William Thompson, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) whistleblower, has yet to step into the light and make a full and definitive statement about the CDC concealing MMR-vaccine dangers. 

mmr

Mothers of autistic children are now preparing a class-action suit against the CDC for covering up the MMR vaccine-autism connection. They will undoubtedly want Thompson as a witness.

He can talk now or talk later.

The public at large still has blind faith in “medical experts” and the truth of published studies.

Fraud at the CDC? A study that was intentionally distorted to give a pass to a toxic and highly dangerous vaccine? What? How could that be?

Well, here’s a medical expert. For 20 years, she had a front-row seat that very few doctors or researchers ever occupy. Thousands of medical studies arrived at her desk. She was a “queen of judgment.”

She is Dr. Marcia Angell. She was the editor of the most prestigious medical journal in the world, The New England Journal of Medicine.

On January 15, 2009, the NY Review of Books published Dr. Angell’s devastating assessment of medical literature:

“It is simply no longer possible to believe much of the clinical research that is published, or to rely on the judgment of trusted physicians or authoritative medical guidelines. I take no pleasure in this conclusion, which I reached slowly and reluctantly over my two decades as an editor of The New England Journal of Medicine.” —(Marcia Angell, MD, “Drug Companies and Doctors: A story of Corruption.” NY Review of Books, Jan. 15, 2009.)

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The Four Known Scientific Ways Carbon Dioxide Cools Earth’s Climate

Written by Dr Pierre Latour PE

co2

Experts from the ‘hard’ sciences are again revealing how climate ‘scientists’ have gotten it wrong about the role of carbon dioxide (CO2) in climate.

 

Dr Pierre R Latour, a renowned American Chemical Engineer, shows how four known mechanisms and three laws of nature prove why CO2 cools, not warms, our atmosphere. Moreover, it may be shown that the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the supposed world authority deferred to by governments, lacks a rigorous mathematical description for their so-called ‘greenhouse gas theory.’

CO2 Affects Several Temperatures in Different Ways

Here we develop the physics, chemistry and biology to quantify the effect of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) on Earth’s temperature. There are five mechanisms and three different temperatures involved.

Four show a small cooling effect, one warms surface and cools upper atmosphere with no net bulk effect. I am unaware of a rigorous mathematical description of the greenhouse gas theory that purports to do this and show a warming affect. After decades of research attempts, promoters cannot reduce greenhouse gas theory (GHGT) to mathematics of science and engineering.

Stefan-Boltzmann Law of Radiation

If non-radiating O2 is exchanged for absorbing/emitting CO2, the emissivity, e, of a planet to space must increase. While emissivity of CO2 is less that global emissivity, it is greater than the O2 it replaced by “fossil fuel” combustion. The Stefan-Boltzmann Law of Radiation is

I = σ e (T/100)4

If e increases with CO2 at constant I, T goes down. Therefore, CO2 causes global cooling.

This is true for all bodies of matter, no matter the composition, rotation speed or weather.

I = radiating intensity, irradiance, power of any radiating body, w/m2, of its spherical surface, measured by Earth satellite spectrophotometers to be about 239. It is only a transfer rate when surroundings do not radiate, at 0K. Outer space at 3.7K radiate with very low intensity.

T = temperature of radiating body, K, estimated for Earth to be 4.60C + 273.15 = 277.75

σ = Stefan-Boltzmann radiation law constant, 5.67

e = emissivity of radiating body, fraction 0 < e < 1. e varies with composition. Perfect radiator black body e = 1, radiates a given intensity at lowest possible temperature. Colorful Earth radiator e = 0.70827 emits given intensity at temperature higher than black body.

I = 5.67*0.70827(277.750/100)4 = 5.67*0.70827*59.51 = 5.67*42.152 = 239.0

If doubling CO2 from 400 to 800 ppmv increases emissivity 0.001 from 0.70827 to 0.70927, T would drop -0.098C from 4.600C to 4.502C.

I = 5.67*0.70927(277.652/100)4 = 5.67*0.70927*59.43 = 5.67*42.152 = 239.0

Conservation of Energy of Atmosphere

1st Law Thermodynamics: Input Rate = Output Rate + Accumulation rate. At steady-state, Accumulation Rate = 0 and this ordinary differential equation becomes an algebraic one.

Absorption of solar + absorption of thermals and evaporation from surface + absorption from surface radiation = radiation to space

79 + 97 + 23 = 199 w/m2

Since CO2 absorption spectrum overlaps solar spectrum tail a small amount at two wavelengths, the 79 value would increase a small amount with CO2; a cooling effect on surface neglected by greenhouse gas theory. Some climatologists say CO2 affects the rate of heat transfer from surface by thermals and evaporation, 17 + 80 = 97, but I shall neglect that controversial effect here. However, once quantified, this model structure can assess the effect on global temperatures. An additional 161 is transmitted through atmosphere from sun to surface, 1 is retained by surface. 160 is transferred from surface up: 40 is transmitted through atmosphere as radiation from surface directly to space, 97 is transferred to atmosphere by convection and evaporation and 23 is absorbed from surface radiation.

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EMERGING SOLAR PLANTS SCORCH BIRDS IN MID-AIR

Written by Ellen Nickmeyer & John Locher, (Big Story)

IVANPAH DRY LAKE, Calif. (AP) — Workers at a state-of-the-art solar plant in the Mojave Desert have a name for birds that fly through the plant’s concentrated sun rays — “streamers,” for the smoke plume that comes from birds that ignite in midair. solar bird killers

Federal wildlife investigators who visited the BrightSource Energy plant last year and watched as birds burned and fell, reporting an average of one “streamer” every two minutes, are urging California officials to halt the operator’s application to build a still-bigger version.

The investigators want the halt until the full extent of the deaths can be assessed. Estimates per year now range from a low of about a thousand by BrightSource to 28,000 by an expert for the Center for Biological Diversity environmental group.

The deaths are “alarming. It’s hard to say whether that’s the location or the technology,” said Garry George, renewable-energy director for the California chapter of the Audubon Society. “There needs to be some caution.”

The bird kills mark the latest instance in which the quest for clean energy sometimes has inadvertent environmental harm. Solar farms have been criticized for their impacts on desert tortoises, and wind farms have killed birds, including numerous raptors.

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Flurry of solar flare-ups sets off Cosmic Plasma Explosion

Written by Brid-Aine Parnell, the Register

The Sun had a flurry of flare activity at the end of August, releasing over half a dozen solar flares in a day, some of which were accompanied by coronal mass ejections. cme

NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spotted the activity in images captured at extreme ultraviolet wavelengths, which can only be done from the vacuum of space.

The EUV channels span a range of extremely hot temperatures – up to ten million degrees Celsius – making it a good way to have a peek at such a dynamic active region of our nearest star.

The two larger flares from the Sun were M-class, which stands for moderate, while all the others were just small flares. However, the activity also set off some coronal mass ejections – massive bursts of solar wind and plasma that erupt into space.

CMEs are usually caused by large flares and can release up to a hundred billion kilos of super-heated electrons, protons and heavy nuclei at speeds of up to two million miles per hour. They are the biggest explosions in our solar system, according to NASA, roughly approaching the power of a billion hydrogen bombs.

Read more at www.theregister.co.uk

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‘About Face!’ New Book Promotes Increasing Atmospheric CO2

Written by PSI Staff

As ever-more scientists denounce misguided attempts to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, the evidence grows that more CO2 in the atmosphere, not less, is best. About Face

 A new book ‘About Face!’ by two respected scientists and an economist makes the case for adding more CO2 to earth’s atmosphere. 

The scientists are Madhav Khandekar in Canada and Cliff Ollier in Australia, plus economist Arthur Middleton Hughes in the USA. They show us why CO2 is essential to all life on earth. It is plant food. 

The authors say, “We believe that the more CO2 there is in the atmosphere the bigger and better plants will grow all over the world. Three million people die each year because the prices of food are too high for them. We want to increase CO2 in the atmosphere and reduce world malnutrition.”

The Authors’ Synopsis

This book is highly controversial as billions of dollars are involved in ethanol and climate control. The Obama Administration is planning to shut down all coal fired electric plants because they emit CO2 in amounts more than the EPA permits. This will cost more than $300 billion dollars and result in more than 100,000 unemployed. We say that such actions are unnecessary and wrong.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issues periodic reports that predict the warming of the earth and that the warming will raise the level of the oceans, and bring on wild weather such as hurricanes, droughts, floods, tornadoes, etc. None of this is true. It has no scientific basis.

Today, more than one million people die from malaria in Africa and other less developed areas. None die from malaria in the US, Europe, Australia or other developed countries where the mosquitos that spread malaria have been wiped out using DDT.

The US and UN have forbidden these less developed areas to use DDT. This must be changed. More than three million people die from malnutrition because of the high price of food partly due to 14{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} of the world corn crop being converted to ethanol.  We cite studies that show that increasing CO2 in the atmosphere by 300 ppm will increase food production by 36{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} in every country in the world on all continents.

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Climate for the Layman

Written by PSI Staff

New ebook exposes so-called “greenhouse gases” as not the cause of global warming. Author, Anthony Bright-Paul demonstrates how science and the observable facts prove precisely the opposite – such gases encourage our planet to cool. 

Climate for the Layman

Guided by years of private correspondence gleaned from eminent scientists not invested in the cause of human-caused climate change, Bright-Paul demonstrates for lay readers that such “greenhouse gases” scatter, deflect and reflect the incoming solar radiation. “This is not only obvious to scientists but also to any normal sentient observant being,” insists the author.

The book ‘Climate for the Layman’ thereby builds a seemingly irrefutable case that the Sun warms the Earth and Oceans, and they in turn warm the atmosphere from the bottom upwards.

The book argues that far from cutting down on Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions, this gas, which every human being and member of the animal kingdom exhales night and day, could (and should) naturally increase from the current supposedly “dangerous” 350 parts per million (ppm) to 1,000 ppm in order to make Earth a truly green planet.

A veritable thumb in the eye to alarmist propaganda, this books demonstrates that plants love Carbon Dioxide and produce Oxygen as a by-product; an inescapable and well-known Biological fact.

As Bright-Paul and other informed skeptics (Natural News) are telling us:

“Practically everything you have been told by the mainstream scientific community and the media about the alleged detriments of greenhouse gases, and particularly carbon dioxide, appears to be false, according to new data compiled by NASA’s Langley Research Center. As it turns out, all those atmospheric greenhouse gases that Al Gore and all the other global warming hoaxers have long claimed are overheating and destroying our planet are actually cooling it, based on the latest evidence.”

 http://www.naturalnews.com/040448_solar_radiation_global_warming_debunked.html#ixzz3C9iiNxZm

This has long been the assessment of independent climate analyst, Hans Schreuder and his associates. Schreuder, a key figure in Principia Scientific International (PSI) has his essay, Greenhouse Gases cool the atmosphere made a central feature in this book.

Bright-Paul espouses a core theme of Schreuder and PSI scientists – that the atmosphere is warmed from the bottom upwards and the principal heat exchange mechanism is conduction and convection (not radiation, as per current climate science orthodoxy). This heat exchange is taking place simultaneously over the whole surface of the Planet. It warms and cools the atmosphere – everywhere and all at once.

As respected Canadian Geophysicist, Norm Kalmanovitch, explains:

“Virtually all the heat uptake of the atmosphere is from conduction and latent heat transfer from water vapour condensing into clouds with the majority of this coming from latent heat transfer. By comparison gases like water vapour with a permanent dipole moment or gases like CO2 which can have a dipole moment induced at wavelengths resonant with particular internal molecular vibrations have the capability of absorbing and re-emitting photons in random directions but since this process only redirects energy without permanent absorption there is no net transfer of energy to these molecules and therefore no net heat uptake.”

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CDC Autism/Vaccine Coverup Extends to Media and Journals

Written by Sayer Ji, greenmedinfo.com

America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the mainstream media and scientific journals are participating in what may be the most heinous and far-reaching medical cover up of our time. 

cdc cover up

The long running controversy over the role of vaccines in the steadily expanding autism epidemic – which the CDC says affects 1 in every 68 U.S. children – continues to bubble to the surface.  With the recent publication of a study revealing African-American boys receiving their first MMR vaccine before 36 months of age are 3.4 times more likely to develop autism vs. after 36 months, and the confessions of William Thompson, a senior CDC scientist turned whistleblower, who revealedthat his own agency covered up the autism-vaccine link in African-American boys over at least the past decade, we may be witnessing the long suppressed emergence of the truth about vaccine-induced brain damage.

But powerful forces are at play here, and only hours ago, it was was revealed that the journal that published the highly concerning MMR/autism study — Translational Neurodegeneration — removed it suddenly from their website, with the following explanation:

“This article has been removed from the public domain because of serious concerns about the validity of its conclusions. The journal and publisher believe that its continued availability may not be in the public interest. Definitive editorial action will be pending further investigation.”

One would assume stories of this magnitude — with direct health implications to millions of U.S. children — would make national headlines, or that there would at least be critical responses and/or denials in major news outlets or by public and private health organizations whose responsibility it is to respond to these concerns and/or allegations. To the contrary, what we are witnessing is an eerie and highly conspicuous silence surrounding Thompson’s revelations, who has been called a “medical Edward Snowden,” in acknowledgment of how devastating and unrecoverable these charges are to the CDC’s credibility, and by implication, it’s entire ever-expanding one-size-fits-all immunization schedule.

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The Silver Fix

Written by Dr Klaus L.E. Kaiser

The old-time daily “Silver Fix” of the London Metal Exchange is gone. Established in 1897 to facilitate the exchange of metal between buyers and sellers, it had received some bad press in recent years. Hues of undue manipulations surfaced, rightly or wrongly and the old-time system finally gave way to a new electronic system of matching supply and demand.

Time will tell if the new system is any better or not. If it is sound, the new method will be applied to other commodities as well.

You may wonder though, why is the price of silver so important?

Use of Silver

Historically the major silver use was mostly for jewelry and coinage. Artisans like silver smiths created bowls, baskets, chalices, cutlery and numerous other objects from silver. In medieval times many guilds were established throughout Europe (including the UK) that controlled standards of craftsmanship and material quality. Most such items were not made from pure metal but an alloy with copper containing 60-80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} silver. They are preserved in museums, sought after by collectors and still are common heirlooms in the western world like the basket pictured below, made from 80{154653b9ea5f83bbbf00f55de12e21cba2da5b4b158a426ee0e27ae0c1b44117} silver in Germany, approximately 100 years ago. silver basket

(Figure right.  Silver basket with 800 hall-mark, probably early 20th century; photo by author).

In modern times silver has found many industrial uses. The metal and its alloys have a number of unique and desirable properties such as superior electrical conductivity. That is important for electronic devices like your TV or cell phone. Silver also has the highest optical reflectivity and is the metal behind the glass in your mirrors. During most of the 20th century, a large portion of silver went into photographic films, a use that has declined with modern electronic cameras. However there are many other industrial uses for this element; even stainless steel solder is silver-based as it readily binds with that material at a relatively low temperature.

Silver amalgam, a mixture of silver and mercury is the most widely used filler for dental cavities. When the components are freshly mixed they form a paste that is easy to work with. It hardens rapidly into hard and durable fillings. Dental amalgam has been a major use of silver metal for many decades; some records indicate its use well over a thousand years ago in China.

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There is no such thing as a GLOBAL climate

Written by Dr Vincent Gray

The failed hypothesis of dangerous man-made global warming is already discredited not only by the so-called “pause” in the rise of global temperatures. But it is also untenable because the very concept of a global climate is bogus to begin with, according to respected analyst Dr Vincent Gray. 

The Free Dictionary says:

“CLIMATE The meteorological conditions, including temperature, precipitation, and wind, that characteristically prevail in a particular region.”

Dictionary com says:

the composite or generally prevailing weather conditions of a region, as temperature, airpressure, humidity, precipitation, sunshine, cloudiness, and winds, throughout the year,averaged over a series of years.”

The Oxford English dictionary has:

“The weather conditions prevailing in an area in general or over a long period.”

The common feature of all these definitions is that CLIMATE is essentially local and is confined to a particular region or area.melting earth

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Evil Talking Plants Use DNA Communication

Written by Brian Stallard, natureworldnews.com

Scientists have discovered what seems like a new form of plant communication between a “vampire” plant and its prey. vampire plants

As described in a study recently published in the journal Science, weed science expert Jim Westwood of Virginia Tech took a close look at how the parasitic plant called a dodder attacks his host.

Westwood specifically looked at how the dodder interacted with two host plants, Arabidopsis and tomatoes. It has long been known that dodders are “vampire-like” parasitic plants. Like a nightmare from an alien horror film, the dodder wraps itself around its host. It then uses a long probe to literally tap into its victim and drain their fluids.

Researchers had done previous work that found that when the dodder first sinks its “fang” into its victim, it also begins to transport RNA – a sort-of DNA translator – between it and its host. 

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What?! The Universe Appears to Be Missing Some Light

Written by Charles Q. Choi, Space.com

New data from the Hubble Space Telescope and computer simulations have revealed that the universe has much less ultraviolet light than previously thought. missing light

One potential source of this missing light might be the mysterious dark matter that makes up most of the mass in the cosmos. But a simpler explanation could be that ultra violet light escapes from galaxies more easily than is currently thought, according to the new research.

This puzzle begins with hydrogen, the most common element in the universe, which makes up about 75 percent of known matter. High-energy ultraviolet light can convert electrically neutral hydrogen atoms into electrically charged ions. The two known sources for such ionizing rays are hor young stars and quasars, which are supermassive black holes more than a million times the mass of the sun that release extraordinarily large amounts of light as they rip apart stars and gobble matter.

Astronomers previously found that ionizing rays from hot young stars are nearly always absorbed by gas in their home galaxies. As such, they virtually never escape to affect intergalactic hydrogen.

However, when scientists performed supercomputer simulations of the amount of intergalactic hydrogen that should exist and compared their results with observations from the Hubble Space Telescope‘s Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, they found the amount of light from known quasars is five times lower than what is needed to explain the amount of electrically neutral intergalactic hydrogen observed.

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