When it comes to car insurance, there is a handful of traps it is possible to get into. The contracts are complex and very tough to recognize, and that?s should you have even the time you just read them. The truth is most people do not read insurance contracts and there is a important data shortage with regards to shoppers along with the items in their unique insurance contracts.
One of many difficulties with these records gap is it can bring about wasted income. Every time you are renting a motor vehicle you are required what kind of insurance you need. The alternatives are generally to look at none, that amounted to absolutely nothing, or you might cover insurance, that ought to expense about $10 per day. Then you?ve various choices to cover the rental cat itself, rates that differ from one company to another while stating to mention. The entire coverage alternative, which includes liability, passengers, along with the car rental ordinarily, involves about $25 to $30 every day. Most of the people genuinely have no idea of what alternative they should be taking.
Liability
Insurance is the only insurance you happen to be necessary for law to obtain. All of the other people are optional. Which is the initial and quite a few important thing to remember if you are at the rental desk, along with the sum total on your two-week vacation car is rapidly including and up. One other thing to know is in many cases, you may be covered, at some level by your existing car insurance. You will need to look at your insurance policies to make sure, but also for the vast majority of drivers, they will have insurance due to their unique car insurance, as well as continue to the car rental.
It is having said that, unlikely that full or comprehensive coverage will continue from your own car insurance. Car Insurance Illinois The reason being comprehensive insurance coverage is calculated depending on the price of your vehicle. Insurers shouldn?t have a position where they set your policy according to your say, $15,000 automobile, and then have to pay out when you crash a $40,000 rental. So your policy will suggest that only insurance is provided when you rent.
Plastic card Cover
Might even need no insurance through the rental firm having said that. The reason being quite a few credit card companies, such as both visa and MasterCard, provide this insurance should you spend on the rental and among their cards. It is a key benefit for using a charge card Virginia cheap car insurance and should not be squandered. Once more you can examine along with your charge card provider the things they cover, but the point is, if the own insurance covers liability, along with your charge card covers the car rental, why pay several hundred dollars for extra insurance if you are already covered?
If you?re doubtful regarding your insurance, it is prudent having said that to accept rental company?s policy, particularly liability.
Joseph Kenny is the webmaster in the insurance site exactly where you?ll find data, news and links to Michigan Car Insurance the leading providers of car insurance in britain.
Tagged as: auto insurance, car insurance, insurance
At the 2012 SAG Awards in Los Angeles Sunday, Emily Blunt stood out in a sea of dramatic black gowns -- not for showing a lot of leg a la Lea Michele, but for the bold, eye-popping color of her dress.
PHOTOS: 2012 SAG Awards - what the stars wore!
The Adjustment Bureau actress, 28, who stepped out at The Shrine Auditorium with her hubby John Krasinski from The Office, rocked a jade chiffon, one-shoulder Oscar de la Renta gown from the designer's Resort 2012 collection that features a high slit up the left side.
PHOTOS: Get your fave looks from awards season for less
While bright green hasn't been a go-to dress color for awards season thus far, it has been the choice shade for dazzling statement jewelry.
PHOTOS: What all the stars wore at the 2012 Golden Globes
At the 2012 Golden Globes in Beverly Hills January 15, stars like Julianne Moore, Debra Messing and Julianna Marguiles stunned in eye-catching emerald earrings.
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The ABC Family hit show The Lying Game is all new tonight and I have a brand new look at the show, which is appropriately titled Dead Man Talking. I am such a huge fan of The Lying Game that I seriously cannot wait for new episodes, especially for tonight?s show. If you recall it was quite the dramatic ending with Sutton and Emma finding out Annie is not their mother and Rebecca paying Annie a not so nice visit at the hospital. So much good stuff last week. Thankfully the folks at ABC Family are so good at giving me a fix in between shows and have given me a little sneak peek video to share with you our faithful readers. After watching the below clip all I can say is this shiz is devilishly good. In the clip as you will see, Sutton is none too thrilled when she sees Laurel and Justin kissing. Being the evil little biotch that Sutton is, which I love by the way, she treats her little sis like crap. Yep quite the change from Emma and it appears to be leaving Laurel slightly confused and pissed at her sister. This kind of [...]
If the price is right, would your town want a nuclear waste site?
A panel of experts said today that finding a volunteer community is the best way to pick a place for a waste repository that could outlast human civilization. The site would store spent nuclear fuel that has been piling up at the nation's 104 nuclear reactors.
The President's Blue Ribbon Commission on America's Nuclear Future released its final report Thursday with eight key recommendations about how to kick-start a federal waste disposal policy that it says "has been troubled for decades and has now all but completely broken down."
Congress picked Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a permanent repository in 2002, but the Obama administration nixed the plan in 2010 after disputes with state officials. Even with the closure, the Department of Energy will have spent $10 billion on Yucca Mountain by 2020, according to estimates by the General Accountability Office.
The nuclear waste panel said that it's better to convince a local town or tribe to take the facility, rather than selecting a site and then trying to convince local residents afterward.
"I don't have a secret recipe," said Allison Macfarlane, a panel member and environmental science professor at George Mason University. "But the community should get what they want, jobs, university scholarships, the options are endless."
Macfarlane cited two successful examples. In the 1970s, residents of Carlsbad, N.M., agreed to host a disposal site for waste generated by the nearby nuclear weapons labs. After decades of delays, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) began taking shipments in 1998.
The town got 1,300 jobs, several factories and a youth sports complex ? as well as $300 million in highway funds.
In Sweden, federal officials tried several times to site a long-term waste disposal site until they asked for volunteers. Two communities vied for the project, which is now under way.
Macfarlane said that state governments have to be on board before moving forward. Opposition from state officials in both Nevada and Utah killed previous plans for nuclear waste sites.
ANALYSIS: Is Nuclear Energy Safe?
Consumers have been paying a tax on their utility bills from nuclear-generated electric power to build such a long-term storage site for several decades. Katrina McMurrian is executive director of the Nuclear Waste Strategy Coalition, a group of utilities, state officials and advocacy groups pushing for a disposal location. She says now it's time for the government to step up and get the job done.
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"Rate-payers across the country have been paying to have this taken care of in return for a resting place established for used nuclear fuel," McMurrian said. "We simply want the government to make good on its promise."
The new report said deep geologic disposal is the best way to safely store spent nuclear fuel, material that will remain radioactive for tens of thousands of years. Big metal canisters made of either stainless steel (France), copper-steel (Sweden) or a nickel-chromium-molybdenum alloy (planned for Yucca Mountain) would be lowered into a mine 900 feet to 2500 feet below ground.
The canisters could be put into granite, clay or salt, as long as the surrounding formations are geologically stable, Macfarlane said. That means below potable groundwater, away from heat sources and fissures.
Ideas for putting nuclear waste under the seabed or in orbit were rejected as either in violation of international treaties (sea) or too risky (space).
"We can't send up every single rocket with a 100 percent guarantee that it won't blow up," Macfarlane said.
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talk during a commercial break at the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participate in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Republican presidential candidates, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney participate in the Republican presidential candidates debate in Jacksonville, Fla., Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) ? Mitt Romney's ties to the Northeast gave him a boost on the way to winning the New Hampshire primary. Newt Gingrich's roots in the South probably had at least a little to do with his South Carolina triumph.
Neither presidential candidate is expected to benefit from such geographic ties in next week's Republican primary in Florida, a diverse state suffering through a world of economic hurt.
"Geography will not play any role in my decision," said Rich Cole, sounding like many voters across the state.
Cole, 68, lives in Florida's largest retirement community, The Villages, and hails from Pennsylvania, which candidate Rick Santorum represented in the Senate. Cole said he likes Santorum but plans to back Romney, for whom he voted four years ago. He thinks Romney gives Republicans the best chance of beating President Barack Obama in November.
A self-described "God-fearing conservative," Larry Dos Santos, of Venice, was leaning toward backing Gingrich. Dos Santos, a 65-year-old retiree from New York who lived nearly all his life on Long Island, noted that the former House speaker has some qualities that remind him of home.
"Telling it like it is is definitely like a New Yorker," he said of the former Georgia congressman. "Nobody pulls punches in New York."
While a candidate's roots may earn them kinship in Florida, hometown ties are unlikely to earn them a vote in a year when many Republicans here tell pollsters that electability and the economy are the two factors that rank above all else as they decide who to support in Tuesday's primary.
Geography seemed to make a difference in previous contests this year.
Romney, the former governor of neighboring Massachusetts, led comfortably in polls ahead of the New Hampshire primary and played up his New England ties often. He won by roughly 17 percentage points. In South Carolina, Gingrich spent more than a week emphasizing his Southern ties even though he had spent the better part of a decade living near Washington. Gingrich ended up winning the state by about 12 percentage points.
But Florida is different, and in no way homogeneous.
Although it is home to the southern-most tip of the U.S., Florida's overall culture is hardly Southern. It's filled with transplants from the Northeast and Midwest who settled along the Gold and Gulf coasts, as well as so-called snowbirds who spend part of the year here only to keep their voter registrations in other states.
Florida's southern region has huge Hispanic and Caribbean influences. The northwestern Panhandle has some communities that strongly identify with parts of the Deep South. Add in the huge, transient military presence around Jacksonville and elsewhere, and just about everybody can call themselves a Floridian.
All things being equal, Romney might be able to count on benefiting from the support of New Yorkers, who constitute one of the largest populations of non-native Floridians now living in the state, and other New Englanders. And Gingrich could seemingly count on the support of those in the conservative Panhandle, which borders Georgia.
"In a different kind of year, geographical roots could have an impact in Florida, but not this year," said Jennifer Donahue, a public policy fellow at Gettysburg College in Pennsylvania. "Florida has been hit so hard by the housing crisis that perhaps the only thing that will help a candidate reach voters is by articulating a vision that will help Florida's economy."
There's no guarantee that candidates can count on geographic ties. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani hoped the love of transplanted New Yorkers would carry him to victory here four years ago. He ended up falling flat.
This year, Sean Foreman, a political science professor at Barry University in Miami Shores, said ideology trumps regional appeal.
"The moderate versus conservative battle is more important than where someone cut their political teeth," he said.
John Bowker, an 81-year-old retiree in Sun City Center, was born in Vermont and lived most of his life in New Jersey. He said he wanted to watch Thursday's debate and read the Sunday papers before making up his mind, but had ruled out at least one criterion: "Geography? That has not played a role in my thinking."
"I'm listening to what they are saying and how they are saying it," Bowker said.
Still, having a state in common with a candidate doesn't hurt.
Ellen Hoffman, a 73-year-old retired teacher living in The Villages, hails from Michigan, where Romney grew up.
"The Michigan connection first drew me to him," Hoffman said. But that wasn't enough, she said. His positions and electability are what made up her mind.
BERLIN (Reuters) ? The 62nd Berlin film festival opens on Thursday February 9. and ends on February 19., with the awards ceremony taking place on February 18.
Following are the 22 films in the main competition line-up, along with the production countries, the name of the director and the names of major stars. Five are not in the running for awards. Another film will be announced on January 31.
- Aujourdhui (France/Senegal) by Alain Gomis.
- Coming Home (France) by Fr?d?ric Videau.
- Barbara (Germany) by Christian Petzold.
- Bel Ami (Britain) by Declan Donnellan, Nick Ormerod and starring Robert Pattinson, Uma Thurman, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Christina Ricci.*
- Captive (France/Philippines/Germany/Britain) by Brillante Mendoza.
- Caesar Must Die (Italy) by Paolo and Vittorio Taviani.
- Just The Wind (Hungary/Germany/ France) by Bence Fliegauf.
- Childish Games (Spain) by Antonio Chavarr?as.
- A Royal Affair (Denmark/Czech Republic/Germany/Sweden) by Nikolaj Arcel.
- Extremely Loud And Incredibly Close (USA) by Stephen Daldry and starring Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock.*
- Flying Swords Of Dragon Gate (Hong Kong, China) by Hark Tsui.*
- Mercy (Germany/Norway) by Matthias Glasner.
- Jayne Mansfield's Car (Russian Federation/USA) by Billy Bob Thornton and starring Billy Bob Thornton, Robert Duvall, John Hurt, and Kevin Bacon.
- Postcards From The Zoo (Indonesia/Germany/Hong Kong, China) by Edwin.
- Sister (Switzerland/France) by Ursula Meier.
- Farewell My Queen (France/Spain) by Beno?t Jacquot, starring Diane Kruger.
- Meteora (Germany/Greece) by Spiros Stathoulopoulos.
- Rebelle (Canada) by Kim Nguyen.
- Shadow Dancer (Britain/Ireland) by James Marsh and starring Clive Owen.*
- The Flowers Of War (People's Republic of China) by Zhang Yimou and starring Christian Bale.*
- Tabu (Portugal/Germany/Brazil/France) by Miguel Gomes.
- Home For The Weekend (Germany) by Hans-Christian Schmid.
NOTE: * denotes films not competing for prizes.
(Reporting by Alice Baghdjian, editing by Paul Casciato)
If fracking operations are managed properly the risk of accidents will be small
Read more: "Fracking health risks: Drilling into the unknown"
THE US has led the world in extracting gas from shale but interest is now spreading elsewhere. The British Geological Survey (BGS) recently estimated that the UK has 150 billion cubic metres of shale gas, about half of its more conventional reserves. World shale gas reserves are 450,000 billion cubic metres.
Shale gas has been a success story in the US. But fracking has had some bad press, with the main concerns being earthquakes and the contamination of groundwater with gas and chemicals. In the documentary film Gasland, for example, a man is shown igniting water from his kitchen tap.
Some of the worries are justified. Badly managed fracking has recently been shown to have contaminated water wells in Wyoming, though this involved a shallow sandstone reservoir rather than much deeper shale. But with so many vested interests, getting reliable information is difficult. So peer-reviewed science must play a big role in deciding what the risks are.
Most geologists see contamination of aquifers as unlikely because of the great difference between the depths at which fracking is carried out and the shallow aquifers from which we get our water. Put simply, there is a lot of hard, impermeable rock between the two.
However, there is little peer-reviewed research. A US study from 2011 showed high levels of methane in water wells close to shale gas wells, but has been criticised for lacking data on levels of background natural methane in the water. In fact there are very few such baseline studies.
It is a little known fact that many aquifers naturally contain methane. So its presence in tap water is not proof of contamination.
How can we tell if fracking has contaminated an aquifer? Shale gas is generally thermogenic - generated by heat acting on organic matter - while methane in water is usually biogenic, or generated by bacteria. Showing that methane in a water well is thermogenic might be a clue that a fracking operation is leaking, although thermogenic methane is sometimes found naturally in aquifers so you have to know the baseline levels. This is why the BGS is working on a baseline survey.
Meanwhile, there is no peer-reviewed evidence that frack fluid can leak into groundwater.
As for earthquakes, it is undeniable that fracking causes them because they are used by geologists to track the progress of fracking operations. The quakes are usually infinitesimally small, but not always.
On 1 April 2011, Blackpool, UK, was struck by a magnitude 2.3 earthquake that was clearly the result of fracking. Some areas of the UK are used to quakes of this size but it came as a surprise to the people of Blackpool, as well as the gas company Cuadrilla. Even so, the energy released was inconsistent with the claimed damage, including a crack in a road and a toppled traffic signal.
One suggestion to guard against future quakes is to implement a traffic light system. Operators would have to monitor tremors and if they started to get bigger fracking would have to stop. They would also have to avoid fracking near known active faults.
If fracking operations are managed properly the risk of accidents will be small. Diligent monitoring should ensure that companies are doing their job properly and allow us to safely tap a useful source of energy.
Mike Stephenson, head of energy science at the British Geological Survey in Keyworth
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Who knows why tech tinkerers do what they do. We're just happy to see those idle hands try the untested. Like this latest Arduino hack from modder Michael of Nootropic Design, who's seen fit to rig a 16 x 32 LED matrix up to an Android phone for use as a secondary display. The outputted video, downscaled via OpenCV software to an appropriate resolution and 12-bit color, is admittedly unimpressive, as it chugs along at a paltry four frames per second. But that's not the point of this can-do experiment -- it's all about the possibilities, however blurry and pointless they may be (although, we're sure Barbara Walters would beg to differ). Ready to see this modjob in motion? Then head on past the break for a brief video demo.
There comes a time when you must clear out the old and make way for the new, and that's exactly what Nikon has in store for its D300s and D700 shooters. According to Electronista, the Japanese camera giant added both of its aforementioned DSLRs to the "old products" section on its motherland site. Given how often we see products get refreshed, it shouldn't come as a huge surprise -- especially when we've seen the D700's expected successor hanging out in the wild many times before. Keep in mind that Nikon recently took the wraps off its D4, so perhaps it's just a good ol' sign the new more-compact flavors are looming just around the corner. Needless to say, we'll let you know as soon as it happens.
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. ? Michael Phelps. Missy Franklin. Jordyn Wieber. Ryan Lochte.
Any of those athletes could be the defining face of the U.S. Olympic team in the run-up to the London Games. So far, though, none stands alone as "The One To Watch" ? at least not according to people who make a living out of watching the Olympics.
With 2012 under way and only six months left before the flame is ignited at opening ceremonies, The Associated Press sent emails to sports agents and executives, public-relations people and others with strong Olympic ties, asking them who America's so-called face of the Olympics would be as the games approach.
Unlike past Olympic cycles, when Phelps or Marion Jones or Bode Miller or Lindsey Vonn were the clear-cut Americans to watch, there was no consensus this time around.
Phelps got the most votes with four, followed by Franklin with three, then Wieber (gymnastics) and Lochte (swimming) with two apiece. The rest of the 16 responses were spread among five athletes: gymnast Nastia Liukin, sprinter Allyson Felix, swimmer Dara Torres and soccer players Abby Wambach and Hope Solo.
That the question produced such a scattered list makes clear that generating buzz for the Olympics will take more this year than simply plastering a single person's face on a 50-foot billboard in Times Square.
"I think we have 10 or 20 athletes who could be that face," said Scott Blackmun, CEO of the U.S. Olympic Committee. "As I sit here today, I don't know who that face is going to be."
The people who received the AP questionnaire were assured their names would be kept confidential, in an attempt to get the most candid answers possible.
They were asked for American athletes only, which precluded them from naming Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter who owns world records in the 100 and 200 and could have come close to sweeping the survey if nationality were no factor.
"Clearly, the world will be watching Usain Bolt, for obvious reasons and deserved reasons," said Olympic historian David Wallechinsky, author of "The Complete Book of the Olympics." "Clearly, people will be keeping their eye on Michael Phelps, as a record setter, even if he's not as dominant as he was before."
Phelps already owns more Olympic gold than anyone and needs three more medals of any color to become the most decorated athlete in history. His quest will, of course, be compelling, but it will also be mixed in with his competition against Lochte, who won five gold medals at the 2011 world championships and beat Phelps in their two head-to-head matchups.
If viewing patterns stay similar to what they were in 2008, Phelps vs. anybody in the pool will draw the best ratings. All of NBC's prime time telecasts that drew more than 30 million viewers in 2008 came on nights when swimming was featured. (Track and field didn't fare as well, though most of that coverage was shown on tape delay while most swimming coverage was live.)
"It's an intriguing story," Wallechinsky said of the Phelps-Lochte drama that could develop. "But trying to sell a U.S. versus U.S. rivalry, where the characters don't really hate each other, sometimes that's a little rough. It pains me when, sometimes, you see media pitching a rivalry between two athletes who are actually friends, just for the sake of creating a rivalry."
That's very much the way the 2008 gymnastics competition was fed to the public ? Nastia Liukin vs. Shawn Johnson. They battled back and forth in the years leading up to Beijing, and their head-to-head in the Olympic all-around was high theater, barely won by Liukin.
Both are trying to make the 2012 team, but unlike 2008, this year's star isn't permanently affixed to anyone just yet.
Wieber, the 16-year-old world champion is the front-runner to become America's top all-around gymnast, and she already has an appearance on "Ellen" and a deal with Kellogg's as signs of what some people think of her potential. But the health of Rebecca Bross, who was touted as the "next big thing" before injuries derailed her, could still factor into the big picture.
Of course, the U.S. team can't depend on any single athlete to make the Olympics an overall success, though Phelps' eight golds in 2008 certainly helped matters.
Americans have won the most medals at the past four Summer Olympics, but with China and Russia improving and with smaller countries, such as Brazil, Great Britain and Australia, chipping away from the other side, there's a sense that the United States is under more pressure this time.
"The medal count is going to be the medal count," said Alan Ashley, going into his first Olympics as the USOC chief of sport performance. "To us, it's all about how we support the athletes and coaches and help them put their best foot forward when they get to London. If we do our job, then the medal count will take care of itself."
Key to that medal count will be the fate of the track and field team, which won a disappointing 23 medals in Beijing, but improved to 25 at last year's world championships ? an upward trend team leaders hope will continue.
Yet finding a singular star from that sport has become difficult, in large part because of the numerous drug scandals that have tainted track over the decades and more or less tagged its top sprinters with a "buyer beware" sign, regardless of their history.
Tyson Gay, possibly America's best sprinter, has no doping issues in his past, but has been hampered with injuries and missed both the finals at the Beijing Games and all of last year's world championships; he didn't garner a single vote in the AP survey. Neither did decathlete Bryan Clay, the defending Olympic champion ? a sign of how the clout of the so-called "World's Greatest Athlete" has diminished since the days of Bruce Jenner.
On the women's side, Felix is well-spoken and looks good in magazine shoots, but has been a big factor in her sport for almost a decade now and hasn't connected viscerally with the casual sports fan that makes up a big chunk of the Olympic audience.
"I don't have an explanation for that," Wallechinsky said. "It is a bit odd. There might be some Marion Jones backlash, where they don't want to get burned again, don't want to back a sprinter then have that person test positive at the Olympics. It's one of those things where you can be completely innocent and still be under the shadow of other people's transgressions."
With billions of dollars invested in televising the Olympics, NBC will shape the way most American take in the games. The network, with everything from local affiliates to the web at its disposal, can tell numerous stories on numerous platforms.
Chief Marketing Officer John Miller ? the guy who created the catchphrase "Must See TV" ? said the network learned a lot when it loaded its pre-Games hype into Bode Miller before the 2006 Olympics, only to watch him turn into a bust on the mountain and a source of controversy off of it.
"We put a significant amount of eggs in that basket," Miller said. "As a result of that, instead of going with one athlete, we decided we had to spread it around a little more. Fortunately, in the Summer Games, we have compelling stories to go after. A lot of them."
In addition to track, gymnastics and swimming, NBC also focuses a lot on beach volleyball, where Kerri Walsh and Misty May-Treanor will go for their third Olympic gold.
"We have enough bandwidth to go after four or five sports in a big way and cover a lot of angles," Miller said.
NBC, he said, has no need to go with one athlete in the lead up. The network invited about 100 athletes out to its pre-Olympic TV shoot in West Hollywood, "because you never know who's going to come out and turn into something big."
In this case, there's no real consensus on who's big before the games, either. The USOC is accepting that fact ? trying to embrace the idea of promoting an Olympics with no clear-cut star instead of forcing a single story line.
"It's different from other years because there's not one story there that's bubbled to the top yet," Ashley said. "That's one of the things I love about the Olympics, is that you never really know the answer to that question."
Waiting for Death Valley's Big BangPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kevin Krajick kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
A volcanic explosion crater may have future potential
In California's Death Valley, death is looking just a bit closer. Geologists have determined that the half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater, formed by a prehistoric volcanic explosion, was created far more recently than previously thoughtand that conditions for a sequel may exist today.
Up to now, geologists were vague on the age of the 600-foot deep crater, which formed when a rising plume of magma hit a pocket of underground water, creating an explosion. The most common estimate was about 6,000 years, based partly on Native American artifacts found under debris. Now, a team based at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has used isotopes in rocks blown out of the crater to show that it formed just 800 years ago, around the year 1200. That geologic youth means it probably still has some vigor; moreover, the scientists think there is still enough groundwater and magma around for another eventual reaction. The study appears in the current issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Ubehebe (YOU-bee-HEE-bee) is the largest of a dozen such craters, or maars, clustered over about 3 square kilometers of Death Valley National Park. The violent mixing of magma and water, resulting in a so-called phreatomagmatic explosion, blew a hole in the overlying sedimentary rock, sending out superheated steam, volcanic ash and deadly gases such as sulfur dioxide. Study coauthor Brent Goehring, (now at Purdue University) says this would have created an atom-bomb-like mushroom cloud that collapsed on itself in a donut shape, then rushed outward along the ground at some 200 miles an hour, while rocks hailed down. Any creature within two miles or more would be fatally thrown, suffocated, burned and bombarded, though not necessarily in that order. "It would be fun to witnessbut I'd want to be 10 miles away," said Goehring of the explosion.
The team began its work after Goehring and Lamont-Doherty professor Nicholas Christie-Blick led students on a field trip to Death Valley. Noting that Ubehebe remained poorly studied, they got permission from the park to gather some 3- to 6-inch fragments of sandstone and quartzite, part of the sedimentary conglomerate rock that the explosion had torn out. In the lab, Goehring and Lamont-Doherty geochemist Joerg Schaefer applied recent advances in the analysis of beryllium isotopes, which change their weight when exposed to cosmic rays. The isotopes change at a predictable rate when exposed to the rays, so they could pinpoint when the stones were unearthed. An intern at Lamont-Doherty, Columbia College undergraduate Peri Sasnett, took a leading role in the analysis, and ended up as first author on the paper.
The dates clustered from 2,100 to 800 years ago; the scientists interpreted this as signaling a series of smaller explosions, culminating in the big one that created the main crater around 1200. A few other dates went back 3,000 to 5,000 years; these are thought to have come from earlier explosions at smaller nearby maars. Christie-Blick said the dates make it likely that magma is still lurking somewhere below. He pointed out that recent geophysical studies by other researchers have spotted what look like magma bodies under other parts of Death Valley. "Additional small bodies may exist in the region, even if they are sufficiently small not to show up geophysically," he said. He added that the dates give a rough idea of eruption frequency: about every thousand years or less, which puts the current day within the realm of possibility. "There is no basis for thinking that Ubehebe is done," he said.
Hydrological data points the same way. Phreatomagmatic explosions are thought to take place mainly in wet places, which would seem to exclude Death Valley--the hottest, driest place on the continent. Yet, as the researchers point out, Lamont-Doherty tree-ring researchers have already shown that the region was even hotter and drier during Medieval times, when the blowup took place. If there was sufficient water then, there is certainly enough now, they say. Observations of springs and modeling of groundwater levels suggests the modern water table starts about 500 feet below the crater floor. The researchers' calculations suggest that it would take a spherical magma chamber as small as 300 feet across and an even smaller pocket of water to produce a Ubehebe-size incident.
Park officials are taking the study in stride. "We've typically viewed Ubehebe as a static feature, but of course we're aware it could come back," said geologist Stephanie Kyriazis, a park education specialist. "This certainly adds another dimension to what we tell the public." (About a million people visit the park each year.) The scientists note that any reactivation of the crater would almost certainly be presaged by warning signs such as shallow earthquakes and opening of steam vents; this could go on for years before anything bigger happened.
For perspective, Yellowstone National Park, further east, is loaded with explosion craters made by related processes, plus the world's largest concentration of volcanically driven hot springs, geysers and fumaroles. The U.S. Geological Survey expects an explosion big enough to create a 300-foot-wide crater in Yellowstone about every 200 years; there have already been at least 20 smaller blowouts in the past 130 years. Visitors sometimes are boiled alive in springs, but no one has yet been blown up. Death Valley's own fatal dangers are mainly non-geological: single-vehicle car accidents, heat exhaustion and flash floods. Rock falls, rattlesnakes and scorpions provide extra hazards, said Kyriazis. The crater is not currently on the list. "Right now, we're not planning to issue an orange alert or anything like that," she said.
###
The paper, "Do Phreatomagmatic Eruptions at Ubehebe Crater (Death Valley California) Relate to a Wetter Than Present Hydro-Climate?" is available from the authors, or The Earth Institute.
Scientist contacts:
Peri Sasnett peri.sasnett@gmail.com
Brent Goehring bgoehrin@purdue.edu 765-496-2790
Nicholas Christie-Blick ncb@ldeo.columbia.edu
Joerg Schaefer Schaefer@ldeo.columbia.edu
More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior Science Writer, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729
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The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory seeks fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world. Its scientists study the planet from its deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu
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Waiting for Death Valley's Big BangPublic release date: 23-Jan-2012 [ | E-mail | Share ]
Contact: Kevin Krajick kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729 The Earth Institute at Columbia University
A volcanic explosion crater may have future potential
In California's Death Valley, death is looking just a bit closer. Geologists have determined that the half-mile-wide Ubehebe Crater, formed by a prehistoric volcanic explosion, was created far more recently than previously thoughtand that conditions for a sequel may exist today.
Up to now, geologists were vague on the age of the 600-foot deep crater, which formed when a rising plume of magma hit a pocket of underground water, creating an explosion. The most common estimate was about 6,000 years, based partly on Native American artifacts found under debris. Now, a team based at Columbia University's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory has used isotopes in rocks blown out of the crater to show that it formed just 800 years ago, around the year 1200. That geologic youth means it probably still has some vigor; moreover, the scientists think there is still enough groundwater and magma around for another eventual reaction. The study appears in the current issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
Ubehebe (YOU-bee-HEE-bee) is the largest of a dozen such craters, or maars, clustered over about 3 square kilometers of Death Valley National Park. The violent mixing of magma and water, resulting in a so-called phreatomagmatic explosion, blew a hole in the overlying sedimentary rock, sending out superheated steam, volcanic ash and deadly gases such as sulfur dioxide. Study coauthor Brent Goehring, (now at Purdue University) says this would have created an atom-bomb-like mushroom cloud that collapsed on itself in a donut shape, then rushed outward along the ground at some 200 miles an hour, while rocks hailed down. Any creature within two miles or more would be fatally thrown, suffocated, burned and bombarded, though not necessarily in that order. "It would be fun to witnessbut I'd want to be 10 miles away," said Goehring of the explosion.
The team began its work after Goehring and Lamont-Doherty professor Nicholas Christie-Blick led students on a field trip to Death Valley. Noting that Ubehebe remained poorly studied, they got permission from the park to gather some 3- to 6-inch fragments of sandstone and quartzite, part of the sedimentary conglomerate rock that the explosion had torn out. In the lab, Goehring and Lamont-Doherty geochemist Joerg Schaefer applied recent advances in the analysis of beryllium isotopes, which change their weight when exposed to cosmic rays. The isotopes change at a predictable rate when exposed to the rays, so they could pinpoint when the stones were unearthed. An intern at Lamont-Doherty, Columbia College undergraduate Peri Sasnett, took a leading role in the analysis, and ended up as first author on the paper.
The dates clustered from 2,100 to 800 years ago; the scientists interpreted this as signaling a series of smaller explosions, culminating in the big one that created the main crater around 1200. A few other dates went back 3,000 to 5,000 years; these are thought to have come from earlier explosions at smaller nearby maars. Christie-Blick said the dates make it likely that magma is still lurking somewhere below. He pointed out that recent geophysical studies by other researchers have spotted what look like magma bodies under other parts of Death Valley. "Additional small bodies may exist in the region, even if they are sufficiently small not to show up geophysically," he said. He added that the dates give a rough idea of eruption frequency: about every thousand years or less, which puts the current day within the realm of possibility. "There is no basis for thinking that Ubehebe is done," he said.
Hydrological data points the same way. Phreatomagmatic explosions are thought to take place mainly in wet places, which would seem to exclude Death Valley--the hottest, driest place on the continent. Yet, as the researchers point out, Lamont-Doherty tree-ring researchers have already shown that the region was even hotter and drier during Medieval times, when the blowup took place. If there was sufficient water then, there is certainly enough now, they say. Observations of springs and modeling of groundwater levels suggests the modern water table starts about 500 feet below the crater floor. The researchers' calculations suggest that it would take a spherical magma chamber as small as 300 feet across and an even smaller pocket of water to produce a Ubehebe-size incident.
Park officials are taking the study in stride. "We've typically viewed Ubehebe as a static feature, but of course we're aware it could come back," said geologist Stephanie Kyriazis, a park education specialist. "This certainly adds another dimension to what we tell the public." (About a million people visit the park each year.) The scientists note that any reactivation of the crater would almost certainly be presaged by warning signs such as shallow earthquakes and opening of steam vents; this could go on for years before anything bigger happened.
For perspective, Yellowstone National Park, further east, is loaded with explosion craters made by related processes, plus the world's largest concentration of volcanically driven hot springs, geysers and fumaroles. The U.S. Geological Survey expects an explosion big enough to create a 300-foot-wide crater in Yellowstone about every 200 years; there have already been at least 20 smaller blowouts in the past 130 years. Visitors sometimes are boiled alive in springs, but no one has yet been blown up. Death Valley's own fatal dangers are mainly non-geological: single-vehicle car accidents, heat exhaustion and flash floods. Rock falls, rattlesnakes and scorpions provide extra hazards, said Kyriazis. The crater is not currently on the list. "Right now, we're not planning to issue an orange alert or anything like that," she said.
###
The paper, "Do Phreatomagmatic Eruptions at Ubehebe Crater (Death Valley California) Relate to a Wetter Than Present Hydro-Climate?" is available from the authors, or The Earth Institute.
Scientist contacts:
Peri Sasnett peri.sasnett@gmail.com
Brent Goehring bgoehrin@purdue.edu 765-496-2790
Nicholas Christie-Blick ncb@ldeo.columbia.edu
Joerg Schaefer Schaefer@ldeo.columbia.edu
More information: Kevin Krajick, Senior Science Writer, The Earth Institute
kkrajick@ei.columbia.edu 212-854-9729
Receive our Press Releases via RSS Feed
Receive our State of the Planet blog via RSS
Follow us on Twitter
The Earth Institute, Columbia University mobilizes the sciences, education and public policy to achieve a sustainable earth. http://www.earth.columbia.edu
Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory seeks fundamental knowledge about the origin, evolution and future of the natural world. Its scientists study the planet from its deepest interior to the outer reaches of its atmosphere, on every continent and in every ocean, providing a rational basis for the difficult choices facing humanity. http://www.ldeo.columbia.edu
[ | E-mail | Share ]
?
AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert! system.
Stem cell research has held the hope for future cures and treatments. Now, two blind patients have regained some of their sight thanks to implants of the cells, taken from embryos. ITN?s Lawrence McGinty reports.?
Health benefits of exercise may depend on cellular degradation, UT Southwestern researchers report
Monday, January 23, 2012
The health benefits of exercise on blood sugar metabolism may come from the body's ability to devour itself, UT Southwestern Medical Center researchers report in the journal Nature.
Autophagy is a process by which a cell responds to starvation and other stresses by degrading damaged or unneeded parts of itself to produce energy. It is sometimes called the cell's housekeeping pathway.
"Exercise is known to have many health benefits but the mechanisms have been unclear. Autophagy is also known to have several health benefits, and these benefits correspond closely to the effects of exercise. We hypothesized that some of the health benefits of exercise might be explained through autophagy," said senior author Dr. Beth Levine, professor of internal medicine and microbiology who leads the Center for Autophagy Research at UT Southwestern.
Dr. Levine, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) investigator at the medical center, decided to focus on one specific health effect of exercise ? the ability of exercise to prevent blood sugar abnormalities in the face of a high-fat diet. Her mouse study provides the first evidence that exercise stimulates autophagy.
The researchers found that mice genetically unable to increase autophagy in response to short-term exercise have decreased endurance and fail to experience the normal benefits of exercise on blood sugar metabolism.
This discovery led the team to investigate whether autophagy is important in the protective effects of chronic exercise on diabetes. A high-fat diet induced diabetes-like changes in blood sugar metabolism in both control mice and in test mice that were genetically unable to increase autophagy above baseline levels, said Dr. Congcong He, lead author and a postdoctoral researcher in Dr. Levine's lab. However, the researchers found that exercise reversed these blood sugar abnormalities in control mice but not in the autophagy-deficient mice.
"Our finding that exercise fails to improve glucose metabolism in autophagy-deficient mice strongly suggests that autophagy is an important mechanism by which exercise protects against diabetes," said Dr. Levine. "It also raises the possibility that activation of autophagy may contribute to other health benefits of exercise, including protection against cancer, neurodegenerative diseases and aging.
Dr. Levine has made fundamental discoveries previously that are in large part credited for expanding the field of autophagy research. In 1999, she identified the first mammalian autophagy gene, beclin 1, and its link to the suppression of breast cancer, which marked the first discovery of an association between defects in an autophagy gene and a human disease.
She similarly is credited with demonstrating that autophagy functions in innate immunity ? protecting against lethal viral encephalitis ? as well as initially reporting that autophagy plays a role in lifespan extension, shown in a study of C. elegans worms.
###
UT Southwestern Medical Center: http://www.swmed.edu
Thanks to UT Southwestern Medical Center for this article.
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Diamond-laden magmas apparently rapidly rise from deep within the Earth to the planet's surface by jettisoning weight, scientists now find.
Magmas known as kimberlites have the deepest origins of all magmas on Earth. Although kimberlites are dense in crystals ? sometimes holding diamonds ? they nevertheless rise upward fairly rapidly.
To solve the mystery of the speedy ascent of these dense, crystal-rich magmas, researchers carried out a series of high-temperature experiments. This involved melting powders matching the minerals that they suspected gave rise to kimberlites at temperatures of up to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit (1,100 degrees Celsius).
Their work suggests that the minerals that give rise to kimberlites are originally laden with dissolved compounds such as carbon dioxide. However, these magmas then take on silica-loaded minerals in the mantle that reduce how well they hang on to the carbon dioxide, forcing it out. This reduces the magma's density, resulting in kimberlites that are buoyant enough for rapid ascent.
"The most surprising thing about these results is how rapidly and vigorously the reactions took place," said researcher Kelly Russell, a volcanologist at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver.
Russell and his colleagues Lucy Porritt, Yan Lavallee and Donald Dingwell will detail their findings in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
? 2012 OurAmazingPlanet. All rights reserved. More from OurAmazingPlanet.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) ? The Internet website Megaupload.com, shut down by authorities over allegations that it illegally peddled copyrighted material, is trying to recover its servers and get back online, a lawyer for the company said on Friday.
The company and seven of its executives were charged in a 5-count, 72-page indictment unsealed on Thursday accusing them of engaging in a wide-ranging and lucrative scheme to offer material online without compensating the copyright holders.
Authorities in New Zealand arrested four of those charged, including one of its founders, who legally changed his name to Kim Dotcom. Assets were also seized money, servers, domain names and other assets in the United States and several countries.
"The company is looking at its legal options for getting back its servers and its domain and getting its servers back up online," Megaupload's lawyer Ira Rothken told Reuters. "Megaupload will vigorously defend itself."
He said the company simply offered online storage. "It is really offensive to say that just because people can upload bad things, therefore Megaupload is automatically responsible," he said.
No decision has been made yet about whether they will fight extradition from New Zealand to the United States, Rothken said.
U.S. authorities have painted a much darker picture of the company's operations, saying that Megaupload readily made available copyrighted material including music, television shows, movies, pornography and even terrorism propaganda videos.
Users could upload material to the company's sites, which then would create a link that could be distributed so others could download it, according to the indictment. Some paid subscription fees for faster upload and download speeds.
Despite complaints from copyright holders, the Megaupload did not remove all of the material when requested to do so, prosecutors said. The company's executives earned more than $175 million from subscription fees and advertising, they said.
POSSIBLE NEW MEGAUPLOAD SITE
Less than a day after U.S. authorities shut down the Megaupload.com site and several of its sister sites, there appeared to be an attempt to resurrect the site.
Twitter was flooded with messages circulating a new Internet Protocol address, but the site offered no substantive content immediately and it did not appear that it was sanctioned by Megaupload.
The new website, which is being hosted in the Netherlands, looked similar to the original Megaupload.com website. The company's lawyer said that he was not directly familiar with the new site.
"We're not familiar with any official effort at this point to get the site back up in light of the fact that its major servers are in the possession of the United States government and other governments," Rothken said.
One of those arrested on Thursday was Bram van der Kolk, who has citizenship in the Netherlands and New Zealand. He oversaw programming and the network structure for Megaupload's websites, according to court papers.
U.S. officials were asked on Thursday about the risk of the site reappearing elsewhere in the future, a key issue that has confronted authorities in the past when they've tried to shut down Internet sites selling counterfeit goods.
"Right now we're in the process of executing search and seizure warrants and certainly it's not going to pop up again today. But I couldn't speculate as to what may or may not happen in the future," one Justice Department official said on Thursday.
Another official said "maintaining and running and assembling a site like this is very expensive. And obviously the seizure of financial assets is critical in this type of investigation and prosecution in preventing it from going forward."
The case, which started as an investigation in March 2010, emerged just as lawmakers in Congress have been battling over new legislation sought by the television, movie and music industries that was aimed at making it harder for such material to be so easily peddled over the Internet.
Some major technology companies, including Google and Facebook, have sought to derail the current versions of the legislation because they were concerned they would lead to censorship and lengthy litigation.
Earlier on Friday, Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid postponed a vote on one bill that was set for Tuesday until several issues are resolved.
(Additional reporting by Jim Finkle in Boston; Editing by Howard Goller, Gary Hill)
Tennis anyone? You have to love this. Realtime event coverage startup Livestream recently brought commercial-free, streaming coverage of New Year's Eve in Times Square to the Web. If you caught more than a few minutes of network TV coverage of NYE, you would have been subjected to the ungodly number (and frequency) of ads. Livestream's commercial-free coverage was a welcome respite. This morning, Ooyala, one of the biggest web video and analytics providers, is volleying back with some live coverage of its own. The startup has partnered with Tennis Australia (the governing body of tennis within Australia) to bring free live coverage of the first major tennis tournament of the year to people around the globe.
? Uri Misgav, Without Minimal Clarification |
Main
January 16, 2012
Ministry of Finance Highlights Israel's Economic Success and Fiscal Discipline
Israel's problems, real and imagined, are the focus of persistent media attention. The New York Times, for example, regularly chastises the Israeli government and finds fault with Israeli society wherever it looks. A recent Times op-ed on the treatment of gays chose to excoriate Israel, the region's most tolerant society. Relentless criticism and condemnation of Israel obscures the extraordinary recent accomplishments of the Jewish state. These accomplishments, laid out in a summary report for 2011 published by Israel's Finance Ministry, reveal a remarkable story of fiscal discipline and economic expansion.
Over the past year, while the world's developed economies continue to falter and their fiscal situations grow ever more serious, Israel's economy grew by nearly 5 percent. Its per capita gross domestic product increased by 3 percent. All of its major economic indicators were positive:
Unemployment declined to 5.6 percent.
Inflation was kept low at 2.6 percent.
The Israeli economy's current picture of stability and growth is the culmination of years of fiscal discipline that pulled Israel back from the brink of fiscal collapse just 27 years ago, when it experienced runaway inflation of 445 percent in one year.
A detailed report published by the Ministry of Finance delves further into Israel's economic transformation. This success was in large part due to reducing the burdensome presence of government in the economy coupled with increased emphasis on developing homegrown technologies. Page 12 of the report contains a graph showing the rapid growth of high technology exports since 1990. The destination of Israeli export trade has broadened as well; Asia now ranks alongside the United States and Europe as a major export market.
Despite Israel's continuing need to invest heavily in its military and the continuing legacy of an overwhelming government presence in economic activities, government expenditure has declined from 56 percent of the GDP in 1988 to less than 43 percent today.
A chart on page 14 reveals that Israel has experienced a recurring cycle of increased government borrowing followed by a return to fiscal stability. Yet in sharp contrast to the experiences of many developed economies, the most recent Israeli borrowing cycle that began in 2008 has been marked by a less severe debt load than previous cycles. As a result of responsible fiscal policy, Israel's government debt has declined from 100 percent of GDP in 1987 to 75 percent in 2010. Most of the developed world is heading in the opposite direction of increased debt load.
Page 16 of the report illuminates the most extraordinary achievement. In 1984, Israel experienced a crisis in runaway inflation of 445 percent. The government implemented severe measures, making significant budget cuts and taking away its own authority to print money. Since then Israel has managed to maintain a low single digit rate of inflation usually between 1-3 percent per year.
This extraordinary achievement of economic growth and fiscal discipline receives little notice in the media. It is all the more remarkable when considering the persistent efforts by anti-Israel activists in Europe and the United States to damage the Jewish state's economy through the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) and the longstanding Arab boycott.
One might argue that the BDS movement has unwittingly benefitted Israel by forcing it to emphasize technology exports that are less sensitive to boycotts. While this transition would have happened regardless, the impetus of the boycotters may have sped up the process. Israel's economic success in the face of unrelenting blacklisting and boycotts recalls the famous Arab proverb: Dogs may bark, but the caravan moves on.
Posted by SS at January 16, 2012 05:28 PM
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Public release date: 23-Jan-2012
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Tennis anyone? You have to love this. Realtime event coverage startup Livestream 