June 7, 2012 |
WASHINGTON: Rising populations are driving the Earth towards a catastrophic breakdown where species we depend on would die out, an international team of scientists has claimed, blaming the crisis on over use of water, forests and land for agriculutre. Writing in the journal Nature, the team warned that the world is headed toward a tipping point marked by extinctions and unpredictable changes on a scale not seen since the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago. "There is a very high possibility that by the end of the century, the Earth is going to be a very different place," study author Anthony Barnosky of the University of California , Berkeley, told LiveScience.
October 8, 2008 |
LONDON: Unconfirmed reports of UFOs or unidentified flying objects - the popular term for any aerial phenomenon that cannot immediately be identified - date back to ancient times. Now, a British expert has claimed that UFOs do exist and have been on Earth since 1947. Philip Mantle, the Editor of UFO Data Magazine, came to the conclusion after investigating the site in Roswell, New Mexico, where many people believe that there was actually an alien crash in the 1940s.
October 10, 2006 |
SAN FRANCISCO: Yahoo has set out to capture life on Earth in digital formats for a "time capsule" to be buried in Silicon Valley as well as beamed from Mexico into the cosmos. The Internet giant invited people worldwide to contribute pictures, videos, songs, ideas, drawings or anything else they could digitize for a "first-ever electronic anthropology project" to document human life in 2006. Submissions could be uploaded via the Internet to regionalised "Yahoo Time Capsule" websites.
August 11, 2006 |
India's economy is performing impressively. GDP is growing fast; inflation is moderate; and Indian stock markets have done better than most. Yet, according to a recent survey, Indians are not happy with the performance of their prime minister, an internationally respected economist. They are concerned about terrorism, poverty, and inequity. Along with environmental degradation, these problems are creating tensions all over the world. The theme of the Tallberg Forum in Sweden, where people from 70 countries met in July this year was, "How on earth can we live together?
March 7, 2014 |
WASHINGTON: Scientists at NASA and MIT have identified a plasma plume that naturally protects the Earth against solar storms . Earth's magnetic field, or magnetosphere, stretches from the planet's core out into space, where it meets the solar wind, a stream of charged particles emitted by the Sun. For the most part, the magnetosphere acts as a shield to protect Earth from this high-energy solar activity. But when this field comes into contact with the Sun's magnetic field - a process called "magnetic reconnection" - powerful electrical currents from the Sun can stream into Earth's atmosphere, whipping up geomagnetic storms and space weather phenomena that can affect high-altitude aircraft, as well as astronauts on the International Space Station.
March 24, 2014 |
WASHINGTON: NASA has designed a new spacecraft that looks like a giant sunflower to hunt for alien planets that resemble Earth in size, composition and temperature. The spacecraft might one day be used to acquire images of Earth-like rocky planets around nearby stars, NASA said. The prototype deployable structure , called a starshade, is being developed by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. The search is on for planets that resemble Earth in size, composition and temperature, NASA said.
February 28, 2014 |
KATHMANDU: UNESCO has praised an Indian diplomat's idea of an Earth anthem but does not seem ready to take up the proposal, citing lack of resources. Abhay Kumar's proposal for an official Earth anthem, selected from the best entries received during a global online competition, was recommended for UNESCO's consideration in January by the Permanent Delegation of India to the Paris-based world body. UNESCO recognised that an Earth anthem would contribute to bringing the world together, said Kumar, who is the First Secretary (Press)
March 19, 2014 |
WASHINGTON: Earth dodged a massive magnetic eruption from the Sun in 2012 that could have wreaked havoc with the electrical grid, disabling satellites and GPS had it come nine days earlier, scientists say. A rapid succession of coronal mass ejections - the most intense eruptions on the Sun - sent a pulse of magnetised plasma barrelling into space and through Earth's orbit, said researchers. Had the eruption come nine days earlier, when the ignition spot on the solar surface was aimed at Earth, it would have hit the planet, potentially wreaking havoc with the electrical grid, disabling satellites and Global Positioning System, and disrupting our increasingly electronic lives.
February 8, 2014 |
NEW YORK: NASA's Curiosity rover on red planet has snapped its first view of Earth - with the Moon shining nearby - from the surface of Mars. The image makes Earth look minuscule if seen from other planets! Earlier, the most famous photograph of Earth from space was 'Pale Blue Dot' view captured by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft in 1990. The Curiosity rover used the left-eye camera to get this striking image. It first watched the Martian sunset then photographed Earth, said a NASA press release.