Category Archives: Science

“Tired Mountain Syndrome” – North Korea’s Nuclear Test Site Is Headed For A Deadly Collapse

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UN Security Council sanctions aside, one of the reasons China has closed much of its border with North Korea and imposed emergency measures to monitor radiation flowing across the mountainous terrain is because the country’s scientists worry that the mountain under which North Korea has held five of its six nuclear tests is in danger of collapsing and unleashing a devastating cloud of radiation on the surrounding terrain.
And just in case anybody doubted the veracity of China’s warnings, a slew of independent analysts have confirmed what Beijing has long feared: North Korea’s Mount Mantap, a 7,200-foot-peak under which North Korea has carried out most of its recent nuclear tests, is suffering from ‘tired mountain syndrome,’ according to the Washington Post.
Satellite images captured during the North’s Sept. 3 test of a purported hydrogen bomb, Mt Mantap could be seen visibly shifting during the enormous detonation which triggered a 6.3 magnitude earthquake in North Korea’s northeast.
And since that test, the region – which is not known for seismic activity – has experienced several landslides and no fewer than three more earthquakes.’

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 20, 2017.

Discovery Of Cave On Moon Raises Hope For Lunar Human Habitation

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Japan’s space agency said it has discovered an enormous cave beneath the lunar surface that could be turned into an exploration base for astronauts. It appears to be the perfect spot for humans to colonize the moon.
The discovery, made by Japan’s Selenological and Engineering Explorer (Selene) probe, comes as several countries compete to follow the United States in sending manned missions to the moon. Using a radar sounder system that can examine underground structures, the orbiter initially found an opening 50 meters wide and 50 meters deep, prompting speculation that there could be a larger hollow. Scientists at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (Jaxa) confirmed the presence of the cave after examining the hole using radio waves.

This post was published at shtfplan on October 19th, 2017.

Ecological Armageddon Warning As Insect Population Numbers Plummet: ‘Everything Is Going To Collapse’

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The vanishing of insects around the globe is causing scientists to issue and ‘ecological armageddon’ warning. The abundance of insects has plunged by three quarters and scientists feel now is the time to sound the alarm.
Three-quarters of flying insects in nature reserves across Germany have vanished in 25 years, with serious implications for all life on Earth, scientists say. According to The Guardian, insects are an integral part of life on Earth as both pollinators and prey for other wildlife. It was known that some species, such as butterflies, were declining. But the newly revealed scale of the losses to all insects has prompted warnings that the world is ‘on course for ecological Armageddon’, with profound impacts on human society.
‘The fact that the number of flying insects is decreasing at such a high rate in such a large area is an alarming discovery,’ said Hans de Kroon, at Radboud University in the Netherlands and who led the new research which discovered the plummeting insect population. The research, published in the journal Plos One, is based on the work of dozens of amateur entomologists across Germany who began using strictly standardized ways of collecting insects in 1989.

This post was published at shtfplan on October 19th, 2017.

Get Ready For A New Chernobyl In Ukraine

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With the onset of winter and the increasing strain on Ukraine’s energy system, the threat of a new nuclear disaster in Central Europe is becoming more than just a theoretical danger.
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According to analysts from Energy Research & Social Science (ERSS), there is an 80% probability of a ‘serious accident’ at one of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants before the year 2020. This is due both to the increased burden on the nuclear plants caused by the widespread shutdowns of Ukraine’s thermal power plants (the raw material they consumed – coal from the Donbass – is in critically short supply) and also because of the severe physical deterioration of their Soviet-era nuclear equipment and the catastrophic underfunding of this industry.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 17, 2017.

Yellowstone Super Volcano: We May Have Far Less Advance Warning Time Than We Thought

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A new study done on ancient volcanic ash revealed that we may experience an eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano even sooner than previously warned. Scientists are also concerned that we will probably have much less advance warning time than we had thought before.
According to National Geographic, we may have mere decades before Yellowstone erupts. If the supervolcano underneath Yellowstone national park erupts again, we could also have far less time to prepare than originally thought. After analyzing minerals in fossilized ash from the most recent mega-eruption, researchers at Arizona State University think the supervolcano last woke up after two influxes of fresh magma flowed into the reservoir below the caldera. The new paper adds to the lengthening list of surprises scientists have uncovered over the last few years as they have continued to study and closely monitor the supervolcano.
A 2013 study, for instance, showed that the magma reservoir that feeds the supervolcano is about two and a half times larger than previous estimates. Scientists also think the reservoir is drained after every monster blast, so they thought it should take a long time to refill. Based on the new study, it seems the magma can rapidly refresh – making the volcano potentially explosive in the geologic blink of an eye. -National Geographic

This post was published at shtfplan on October 16th, 2017.

TSA: US Residents from 9 States Will Need Passports for Domestic Flight

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This latest move by America’s notorious Transportation Security Authority (TSA) seems to be step one in a move towards a national ID Card, complete with biometrics and embedded RFID technology.
By forcing residents of nine states to get passports in order to board domestic flights, the TSA is de facto pushing those states towards the implementation of a new state-of-the-art ID card system.
This will help to give real teeth to the ‘The Real ID Act’
It’s just the next phase in the further militarization of US society.

This post was published at 21st Century Wire on OCTOBER 16, 2017.

Too Good For Too Long

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I’m writing this from my home in Sonoma County at the end of an intense week of witnessing firsthand the devastation caused by the many current fires burning in northern California. While it’s hard to focus on anything other than the moment-to-moment developments of this still-unfolding disaster (which I’ve been chronicling here), it’s already clear that the implications for my part of the state will last for many, many years to come.
It’s amazing how instantly the status quo where I live has changed. The world my neighbors and I lived in when we all went to bed on Sunday night simply no longer existed by the time we woke up on Monday morning. Lives have been lost. Entire neighborhoods — thousands of homes — have burned to the ground. Businesses, hospitals and schools are now shuttered.
Having now experienced this personally — on top of watching news reports over the previous weeks of similarly abrupt “before/after” transitions in Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico, Mexico City, Las Vegas and Catalonia — I have a new-found appreciation for the maxim that when it arrives, change happens quickly — usually much more quickly than folks ever imagined, catching the general public off-guard and unprepared.
We humans tend to think linearly and comparatively. In other words, we usually assume the near future will look a lot like the recent past. And it does much of the time.
But other times it doesn’t. And that’s where the danger lies.
The Cruel Math
In 1987 a Danish physicist named Per Bak released a landmark paper introducing the concept of self-organized criticality. Bak observed that complex systems draw stability through an ongoing cycle of corrective collapses that keep the overall system from becoming too over-extended.

This post was published at PeakProsperity on Friday, October 13, 2017,.

Weinstein Company Exploring Sale Or Shutdown

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Update (4:55 pm ET): The Weinstein Co. has denied the WSJ’s report that it’s exploring a sale or shutdown.
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Hollywood film studio The Weinstein Company promptly jettisoned disgraced producer Harvey Weinstein following last week’s New York Times bombshell, which documented the mogul’s 30-year history of sexual harassment and assault abetted by the silence of his peers and colleagues. But given the shocking scope of Weinstein’s alleged crimes (more than 30 victims have come forward to accuse him of harassment, groping or rape) and the pervasive speculation that everyone at his company was well-aware of Harvey’s transgressions, the Weinstein name has been irreparably tarnished.
Therefore, rather than risk an embarrassing bankruptcy – one where stakeholders can demand discovery and expose even more dirty laundry – Weinstein Co.’s board is reportedly exploring a sale or shutdown, the WSJ reports. In any case, the studio is almost certainly not going to continue as an independent entity.
The board previously had been considering appointing co-chairman Bob Weinstein, Harvey Weinstein’s brother, and President David Glasser to continue operating Weinstein Co. with a new name, but that plan is no longer on the table.
However, the board could face resistence if Harvey Weinstein has his way. TMZ is reporting that Weinstein plans to challenge his firing at the company’s upcoming Oct. 17 board meeting. The topic of his firing is reportedly on the agenda for that meeting, which Weinstein – who is presently staying at a live-in rehab center in Arizona – will attend via call-in. Weinstein’s civil lawyer, Patty Glaser, will be present at the meeting as well to make her client’s case.
Weinstein plans to argue that he did not violate his current contract, which he signed in October 2015. He maintains no sexual harassment complaints were lodged filed after he signed said contract. Glaser will argue Weinstein could only be terminated after mediation and arbitration. The company has argued that it had a right to fire Weinstein immediately and he has a right to challenge the decision in mediation and arbitration.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 13, 2017.

India’s Aadhaar Program and the Future of Biometrics

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India’s biometric identification program, known as Aadhaar, has gone from an optional program to a mandatory one and is collecting more data than ever expected. In light of private information being published by government sources and lack of clarity on a number of fundamental issues, many are concerned about the security of the program and associated loss of privacy.
The World’s Largest Biometric Database
Over the last seven years, India has been building up the world’s largest biometric database. 1.17 billion people, nearly 90% of India’s population, have been registered in the Aadhaar database. By linking individuals to their biometric details, India has provided a form of identification for rural Indians, making it easier for them to register for bank accounts, get a driver’s license, or receive government subsidies. Registered users need only scan a fingerprint or retina to confirm their identity and access government or even private services. That is at least how the scheme was supposed to work – a voluntary system which would improve the livelihood of rural Indians.
Since its inception the scope of Aadhaar has expanded massively – it has become a de facto requirement for participating in even the simplest aspects of daily life. It began as a facilitating tool for certain activities, such as setting up a bank account and is now mandatory as a form of identification. In June, the government made it mandatory for banks to link their customers’ Aadhaar information with their bank accounts. Any accounts not linked by the 31st December 2017 will be shut down until the account has been linked. SIM cards will also have to be linkedto Aadhar by February 2018 or else be deactivated.

This post was published at FinancialSense on 10/11/2017.

Unsealed CIA Memos Provide Shocking ‘Salt Pit’ Black Site Details

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A new batch of 274 CIA documents connected with Bush era torture have just been made public as a result of a lawsuit brought by families of victims. Contained in the documents are newly unearthed details on the CIA’s “black site” program which reached its peak under Bush’s ‘war on terror’ as well as shocking details revealing how the agency integrated its contract psychologists into its ‘enhanced interrogation’ program in order to give torture a veneer of legality. While much of this story of CIA torture has already slowly come to light over the past few years, especially with the 2014 Senate Intelligence Committee report, the just released documents capture internal high level agency discussions revealing a cover-up in action.
Many of the memos focus on the CIA’s infamous ‘Cobalt’ site in Afghanistan (also code named The Salt Pit), routinely described in headlines as the “sadistic dungeon” and “dark prison” for its full sensory deprivation darkness which detainees experienced round the clock, sometimes for years, as well as the two psychologists credited with designing the program of brutal interrogation techniques: John “Bruce” Jessen and James Mitchell.
Two surviving prisoners and the family of a detainee who died at the Colbalt site reached an out-of-court settlement with the CIA psychologists in August after a lawsuit was brought for their role in the torture. As was hoped, the CIA and Pentagon were forced to declassify the documents related to the case in pretrial discovery.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Oct 10, 2017.

PROFESSOR BRIAN COX: IMMORTALITY IS IN HUMANITY’S NEAR FUTURE

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Although it sounds like vampiric science fiction, Professor Brian Cox, the British physicist, astronomer and ex-pop star say that humanity is approaching immortality. Cox went on to say that human brains may be uploaded into computers much sooner than most of us would think.
Humanity’s quest to cure our own mortality is ongoing. In medieval times, there were the alchemists who searched for a universal elixir or philosopher’s stone. In the 20th century, people paid to be cryogenically frozen and now we have companies, like Humaii and Carboncopies, using artificial intelligence (AI) and nanotechnology to enable our consciousness to outlive our bodies. Brian Cox believes we are on the verge of witnessing immortality.

This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on OCTOBER 9, 2017.

Connor Stedman: Carbon Farming

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Sequestering atmospheric carbon through natural means
Climate change remains a hotly debated topic. But a scientific fact not up for dispute is the pronounced spike in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth’s atmosphere over the past two centuries.
There’s a building urgency to find solutions that can manage/reverse that spike — a process known as carbon sequestration. But how to do that on a planetary scale? It’s a massive predicament. And most of the ‘solutions’ being proposed are technologically unproven, prohibitively costly and/or completely impractical.
Enter carbon farming. It uses nature-based farming practices to park gigatons of carbon in the soil, rebuild soil health and complexity, and revitalize the nutrient density of the foods that we eat. It is quite likely the only practical — and best — way to sequester carbon at massive scale, as well as reap a multitude of by-product benefits.
In this week’s podcast, field ecologist and agriforestry specialist Connor Stedman explains the science behind the carbon farming process:
For the last few million years of the Earth’s history, when there’s been this cycle of glaciers advancing and receding in the northern hemisphere, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has gone between about 180 parts per million and 280 parts per million. That is the band in which all of human history has happened, up until the last 200 or 300 years.
Now the concentration of carbon dioxide is about 407 parts per million, almost 50% higher than the upper end of that historical normal. Carbon dioxide is one of a number of greenhouse gases that hold heat in the Earth’s atmosphere, rather than it being fully reflected back out into space

This post was published at PeakProsperity on Monday, October 9, 2017,.

Scientists: It Is Possible To ‘Hack’ Your Own Brain And Get High Without Drugs

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Scientists have now revealed that there is a way to hack the human brain in order to experience the feeling of ‘being high’ without the use of drugs. The brain is a super complex organ, but with a few tricks, an incredible feeling of euphoria can be experienced using only the power of the mind.
This experience we all participate in known as ‘reality’ is actually just a trick that our brains play on us by carefully filtering the sensory information that the world presents to us in order to generate a workable perspective on things. So scientists have summarized that the parameters of our consciousness can, therefore, be modified by destabilizing these finely tuned filters, and one way to do this is by altering their electrical signals, or brainwaves to give one the feeling of ‘being high’ on drugs.
Depending on what you want to feel, you’ll need to choose carefully from the menu of different brainwaves and their associated effects. Theta waves, for example, have a frequency of 4 to 8 Hz and are linked to intuition, but can also lead to excessive daydreaming when they are too high in amplitude.
Heather Hargraves studies the therapeutic applications of altered states of consciousness at the University of Western Ontario, and told IFLScience that, when going into trance, ‘shamans enter into theta states, which is dreamy, intuitive, open but focused in an internal way.’ Because of this, it was previously thought that theta waves were the key to psychedelic experiences, yet this all changed when scientists began performing electroencephalography (EEG) studies on people under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs. -IFLScience

This post was published at shtfplan on October 9th, 2017.

Science tells us this is all true

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On April 30, 1934, under pressure from Italian-American lobby groups, the United States Congress passed a law enshrining Columbus Day as a national holiday.
President Franklin Roosevelt quickly signed the bill into law, and the very first Columbus Day was celebrated in October of that year.
Undoubtedly people had a different view of the world back then… and a different set of values.
Few cared about the plight of the indigenous who were wiped out as a result of European conquest.
Even just a few decades ago when I was a kid in elementary school, I remember learning that ‘Columbus discovered America’. There was no discussion of genocide.
It wasn’t until I was a sophomore at West Point that I picked up Howard Zinn’s People’s History of the United States (and then Columbus’s own diaries) and started reading about the mass-extermination of entire tribes.

This post was published at Sovereign Man on October 9, 2017.

TRUMP’S BORDER WALL APPROVED BY HOUSE PANEL, INCLUDES DRONES, DNA COLLECTION, BIOMETRIC SCANS

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Trump’s border wall moved one step closer to becoming reality, but will Americans be forced to give up privacy in the name of security?
The House Homeland Security Committee has approved a border security bill which includes $10 billion for Trump’s proposed border wall. Supporters of The Border Security for America Act say it is necessary to stop illegal immigration and violence along the U. S.-Mexico border. However, opponents of the bill are concerned about provisions for drones, DNA collection, social media monitoring, and license plate scanning along the border.
On Wednesday the committee debated the impact the border wall would have on border communities and the local environment, but ultimately the bill was passed with a vote of 18-12. Originally introduced by committee Chairman Michael McCaul, the bill now heads to the House floor for a full debate. The bill currently has 62 co-sponsors.
McCaul said the bill was necessary to ‘achieve full operational control and situational awareness’ of the border and to help put ‘more boots on the ground.’
‘Now that we have a partner in the White House who has made this a top priority, it’s time to send a bill to President Trump’s desk so we can deliver the American people the security they have long demanded and deserve,’ McCaul said.

This post was published at The Daily Sheeple on OCTOBER 6, 2017.

‘Vaccine Choice’ Mom Gets Jail Time for Not Jabbing Her Kid

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21st Century Wire says…
We’ve been covering the anti-vaccine movement (and the science) for quite some time. The dangers of aluminum and the neurotoxicity of vaccines are well-documented. Now, this debate has turned up in a court of law. Which prompts us to ask this question again:
Should the government force parents to vaccinate their kids?
Rebecca Bredow, a self-proclaimed ‘vaccine choice’ mom from Detroit, has just been sentenced to seven days in jail for contempt, defying a court order that states she agreed with her ex-husband to vaccinate their 9-year-old son.

This post was published at 21st Century Wire on OCTOBER 7, 2017.

Scientists Are Developing A Technique To Control The Weather With Laser-Beams

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In a breakthrough that could permanently ameliorate the threat of thinning water supplies in California and much of the western US, a team of scientists says it will soon be able to induce rainfall and lightning storms by firing high-energy laser beams into the heavens.
Express reports that the breakthrough involves manipulating the static electricity present in clouds – which, after all, are just balls of condensation, triggering rainfall, according to experts at the University of Central Florida and the University of Arizona.
A six year drought in California was finally declared over this year but the threat for the south-western state as well as other locations in the world remains the same.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 29, 2017.

Every Single Cognitive Bias In One Infographic

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The human brain is capable of incredible things, but it’s also extremely flawed at times.
Science has shown that we tend to make all sorts of mental mistakes, called ‘cognitive biases’, that can affect both our thinking and actions. These biases, as Visual Capitalist’s Jeff Desjardins points out, can lead to us extrapolating information from the wrong sources, seeking to confirm existing beliefs, or failing to remember events the way they actually happened!
To be sure, this is all part of being human – but such cognitive biases can also have a profound effect on our endeavors, investments, and life in general. For this reason, today’s infographic from DesignHacks.co is particularly handy. It shows and groups each of the 188 known confirmation biases in existence.

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 29, 2017.

“F**k Your F**king Freedom Of Speech” – Angry Student Steals MAGA Hat, Demands Victim Be Punished

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A Trump-supporting student at the University of California, Riverside had his MAGA hat stolen by a peer who demanded that administrators refuse to allow him to continue to wear it.
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A video of the incident obtained by Campus Reform shows an enraged female student taking the hat to the school’s Student Life Department as Matthew Vitale fruitlessly attempts to explain to the young woman that the hat is his property.
‘So this guy thought it would be a good idea to go into a conference wearing this f***ing hat,’ the student who stole the hat states.
‘Look at the kind of sh*t he’s wearing, You know what this represents? This represents genocide – genocide of a bunch of people.’
Vitale then tries to explain that ‘you do not get to take other people’s property that is legally theirs in this country,’ to which the unidentified thief replies, ‘man, f*** your laws.’
‘Do you have any f***ing conscience?’ she goes on to ask, questioning why Vitale would dare to wear a MAGA hat on campus and telling him that his ‘f***ing freedom of speech is genocide, homeboy.’

This post was published at Zero Hedge on Sep 28, 2017.

Puerto Rico: The Quandary

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The screaming coming from Puerto Rico is deafening…..
SAN JUAN, P. R. – Gov. Ricardo A. Rossell of Puerto Rico said on Monday that the island was on the brink of a ‘humanitarian crisis’ nearly a week after Hurricane Maria knocked out its power and most of its water, and left residents waiting in excruciating lines for fuel. He called on Congress to prevent a deepening disaster.
How does Congress “prevent a deepening disaster”?
It cannot. You cannot change the laws of physics nor magically make things that are broken become not-broken. There is no issue with funding in the current paradigm; the problems are logistical.
Those issues arose because of decades of intentional mismanagement, grift and fraud including by the Governor himself and the rest of the Puerto Rican government, which has taken on debt over and over while squandering it on social programs instead of taking care of critical infrastructure needs — like basicmaintenance to the electrical grid.

This post was published at Market-Ticker on 2017-09-27.