The California Oroville Dam spillway was overflowing and the surrounding towns had to be evacuated. 188,000 residents were evacuated due to the menacing floodwaters. The dam was built in the 1960's when the temperatures were cooler and less water filled the rivers/dams. A massive crater was created in the dam due to high pressure water running down the spillway. They ended up using the paved emergency spillway in order to avoid letting the crater get bigger. There was erosion on the side of the emergency spillway creating costly problems for the dam. This resulted in using the spillway (with the crater) and just letting the dam release the water down to the safe limit line. To avoid other incidents like this happening other areas should update their scientific data to avoid these crises.
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Donald Trump is going out of his way to abolish the EPA as a whole. Even though the EPA website will remain, climate change material has been threatened to be withdrawn or even changed. It is Trump's goal to abolish the EPA. The EPA was created in 1970 to protect human health and the environment. Trump supposedly wants to cut 10% of funding for the EPA which could eventually be detrimental to jobs in the field.
I think that this is a bunch of bogus and that Trump should not have the power to abolish something that is highly important to our country and our health. The man is a businessman and is not educated on the subject, nor should he have the right to put our lives in jeopardy. As citizens it is our right to know the problems around us and that information should not be withheld from us. As you know, our Earth is in a constant state of heating up- also known as climate change, and we need to put a halt on the amount of CO2 emissions that we put out into the atmosphere. Building the Keystone XL (which Trump wants to do) would release 27.4 million metric tons of carbon pollution into our atmosphere ANNUALLY. This is not the only problem of the Keystone XL. Implanting the Keystone XL would potentially (high risk of) threatening America's water, in particular the Ogallala aquifer. Clean up of the accidents that happen ( such as pipeline spills) could cost billions of dollars in repair. Not only does Trump want to give the Keystone XL a go, he also wants to advance the Dakota Access Pipeline.
In the article from livescience.com it talks about the Earth's oldest rocks on the planet.The oldest rock is 4 billion years old, however, fossils from Australia might be remains of microbial mat that extracted energy from the sun only 3.5 billion years ago.In Greenland some of the rock fossils might have had cyanobacteria generated from about 3.7 billion years ago. Elizabeth Bell from the University of California, Los Angeles questions if there was life even before this whose remnants disappeared with the planet's oldest rocks. DIfferent approaches to find Earth's earliest life suggests that oceanic hydrothermal vents might have hosted the first living things.
In this article it states that, observations of the dense remnant of an exploded star have provided the first sign of a quantum effect on light passing through empty space. Light from the stellar remnant is polarized, meaning that its electromagnetic waves are oriented preferentially in a particular direction like light that reflects off the surface of water. That polarization is evidence of "Vacuum birefringence," a quantum effect first predicted 80 years ago caused by light interacting with the vacuum of space in a strong magnetic field. According to quantum electrodynamics, empty space isn't really empty. Under strong magnetic fields, light waves that wiggle along the direction of the magnetic field will travel slightly slower than light oscillating perpendicular to the direction of the magnetic field, which rotates the overall polarization of light coming from the star. Horizontally polarized light, for example, is sent to each pixel, but a filter lets only vertically polarized light escape. Using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, the scientists found that visible light from the neutron star was about 16 percent polarized, a result consistent with scientists' theories of vacuum birefringence.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/vacuum-quantum-effect-light-detected Another crystal has been found inside a Russian meteorite. This crystal is called a quasicrystal and is only the third quasicrystal ever found. All three of the quasicrystals came from the same meteroite and were discovered in a eastern region of Russia. The quasicrystal is composed of aluminum, copper and iron atoms arranged in a pemtagon shaped pattern. The crystals had formed before they hit down in Earth's atmoshpere. Although this crystal is highly rare, companies have tinkered with using lab-made versions in everything from electronics to frying pan coatings.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/third-kind-quasicrystal-found-russian-meteorite?mode=topic&context=60 Ancient cultures from nothern America gave full moons in each month names bases on the behaviors of their surroundings in that month.
January: Wolf Moon Named after the wolves that would come and feast on the villages food furing the month of January. February: Snow Moon The other names for this month are storm moon and hunger moon. The reason it is called the snow moon is due to the weather during the time of Feburary. March: Worm Moon Named after the worms that would apear on the freshly thawed ground after the month of February's snow. April: Pink Moon Named after the wildflower that began to bloom in April. May: Flower Moon Abundant blooms of flowers resulted in the naming of this moon. During the spring time is when the flowers bloom. April showers bring May flowers. June: Strawberry Moon In North America, June is the harvesting season for the strawberry, hence the name of the moon this month. July: Buck Moon Native male deer begin to regrow their antlers that they had shed in June. Another name for July is the thunder moon for the summer storms. August: Sturgeon Moon Due to the abundance of the sturgeon species in August, native American fishing tribes names the moon after the species. Also, called the red moon due to the color from the summer haze. September: Harvest Moon This is the most commonly known moon name due to the fact that it goes along with the auntumn equinox after the crops are gathered. October: Hunters Moon Due to anicent native American hunters, they named the october moon after the best time to hunt summer- fattened aminals such as, deer and fox. November: Beaver Moon There is no certain answer on how this month got it's name. The debate is between the season of beavers building their damns and the season of Native Americans heavily settign up beaver traps during November. Another name is the Frost Moon. Personally, I think the Frost Moon fits November better. December: Cold Moon Nothing fits December better, the coming of winter tops off the last month of the years full moon. The Cold Moon suits december nicely, not only because it is a cold month but because it is the ending of another year. The Blue Moon Last but not least, the blue moon. There is no known reason as to why it is called BLUE moon. However, the reason that there is an additional moon name is for the time that you see two full moons in one month. These moon happen every two and a half years or so and they typically are not constantly with in the same month. http://science.nationalgeographic.com/science/space/solar-system/full-moon-article/ Research has shown that a genetic mutation caused the eye color (blue) around 6-10,000 years ago. Blue eyed people only have a small degree of variation in the amount of melanin in their eyes. From this knowledge, researchers have noted that people with blue eyes have to be linked to a similar ancestor. All people with blue eyes would have had to inherited the same switch at exactly the same spot in their DNA. Professor Elberg first implicated the OCA2 gene as being responsible for eye colours. The mutation of blue eyes is neither considered good nor bad- it is a mutation such as hair or freckles. This post is from: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/01/080130170343.htm
I found this interesting because I have always wondered why our eye colours are different. I mean it is just like our hair and our features, but it is amazing how we have kind of evolved into a mass of different looking people. Just like the species, we as human beings are each our own! Previously, there had only been one species of giraffe. Scientists have recently found that there are actually four different species of giraffes. The unexpected findings highlight the urgent need for further study of the four genetically isolated species and for greater conservation efforts for the world's tallest mammal, the researchers say.
It is interesting that the giraffe has more than one species. Since, they all look pretty much the same. The four species are the Southern Giraffe, the Masai Giraffe, the Reticulated Giraffe, and the Northern Giraffe. I think it is super cool that there are more than one species and wonder if that is the same for other animals that are, as of now, deemed only as one species animals. Humans occupied South America earlier than previously thought, according to the recent discovery of ancient artifacts found at an archeological site in Argentina. Approximately 13,000 years ago, a prehistoric group of hunter-gathers known as the Clovis people lived in Northern America. The bones of some mammal species were concentrated in a specific part of the site, which could indicate designated areas for butchering activities. Microscopic examination also revealed that some bones contained fractures most likely caused by stone tools.The remains were dated between 14,064 and 13,068 years ago, and the authors hypothesize that Arroyo Seco 2 may have been occupied by humans during that time.
This was interesting. |
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