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December 27, 2007
Death of Benazir Bhutto: Pakistan's Hope For Democratic Leadership
By Risa D'Angeles
Dear Readers, we have all heard by now about the death of Benazir Bhutto (political woman dedicated to bringing democracy to Pakistan) this morning. Bhutto's birth data is June 21, 1953, (no time), Karachi, Pakistan. From her beauty it looks like she has Libra rising (Vedic words for Libra rising are Tula for Libra and Lagna for Rising). She had Gemini Sun 29 degrees; Mars, Uranus & Mercury in Cancer - she loved her people; Moon, Saturn, Neptune in Libra; north node 3 Aquarius. the planets in the sky today (at her death) are Mars opposite Jupiter & Pluto - it is a very dangerous time. Also, the transits (planets in sky) were very difficult for her at this time. Had she consulted an astrologer, Bhutto would have been warned not to go out into the public. Transiting (in the sky) Pluto is opposite her Sun, she's having a Mars return, and Mars is opposite her Sun (again).
Mars and Pluto, are the two rulers of Scorpio which in this case meant death (physical) for the first Pakistani woman to rule an Islamic country.
Let us pray for her as she journeys through the Bardo, praying that she is not afraid of the shadows and that she swiftly moves toward the Light...and we hope she has a penny to pay Charon the boatkeeper to take her over the River Styx..Ohm Mani Padme Hum. — Risa
Reporter's Remembrance
Bhutto inspired South Asian women
By Moni Basu
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 12/28/07
At a small evening gathering more than five years ago in Atlanta, Benazir Bhutto sat among fellow Pakistanis, savoring the rich cuisine of her homeland and chatting as though she were just another friend come to dinner.
The glitz and glamour that usually whirred about her was absent, though it was hard for anyone in that room to get past who she was.
'She was so brave fighting all those obstacles placed in her way. She was brave to go back' to Pakistan, said Maryam Khwaja a 53-year-old Montessori teacher.
She was the kind of woman who had command presence. All those qualities befitting a queen, really: striking, intelligent, articulate, charming, powerful and, yes, beautiful.
Maryam Khwaja came that night, curious to hear what Bhutto had to say. She wanted to go beyond the persona and know her better.
Khwaja, a 53-year-old Montessori teacher, was born in Pakistan just a year after Bhutto. Khwaja is of a generation of South Asian women who, as little girls, idolized Indira Gandhi, the first woman to became prime minister of India.
I know because I was one of them.
In Gandhi and later in Bhutto, South Asian women saw hope. They looked in their eyes and saw stereotypes of their homelands wiped away. Gandhi and Bhutto were like iconic shields worn into daily battles. They were the souls in which women found courage.
On that 2002 trip to Atlanta, Bhutto received a thundering standing ovation at a women's leadership conference at the World Congress Center. I recall feeling pride filling me up so fast and strong that I could hardly speak.
Bhutto, like Gandhi, was the daughter of a prime minister. Bhutto, like Gandhi, perhaps more than once disappointed the women who admired her in her days as a national leader.
Khwaja was angry at Bhutto. The prime minister's reputation was tarnished after she was ousted from power twice ˜ in 1990 and again in 1996 ˜ on corruption charges.
Somehow it was more difficult to forgive in a woman who had to work so hard to overcome obstacles that aren't there for male counterparts. In Bhutto's case, it was even more unforgivable that the questions dogging her centered around her husband. Why would she let a man control her after everything she accomplished in a conservative Muslim country?
How could she have been so weak, Khwaja thought. That night at dinner, she finally mustered the courage to ask the former leader why Pakistanis should trust her.
"Benazir, how can I give you my vote again?" Khwaja asked the then-exiled prime minister.
Bhutto explained that she had been judged unfairly and that she needed more time in power to make things right in Pakistan. "Give me another chance," she said.
Khwaja came away willing to put her skepticism on hold. She wanted constitutional democracy to return to Pakistan. That was what the Bhutto family had always stood for. And what was the alternative? Military rule?
In the end, Khwaja was perhaps ready to overlook Bhutto's ills because of who she was and what she symbolized.
"Everything comes down to one thing," Khwaja told me Thursday, still reeling from the news of Bhutto's assassination.
"And that is that as a woman she did a really big thing."
I listened to Khwaja speak and remembered thinking the same way on Oct. 31, 1984. That was the day that Sikh militants gunned down Indira Gandhi in New Delhi.
I was disappointed in Gandhi for the allegations of election fraud and for her authoritarian practices. But I cried the night she was killed.
I felt the same emotions bubble up Thursday as I spoke with Khwaja about Bhutto.
"She was so brave fighting all those obstacles placed in her way," she said. "She was brave to go back."
It occurred to me then that I had asked Bhutto in an October interview whether she feared being thrown in jail if she returned to Pakistan. She had lived in exile since 1999 and was then still planning a return home to stand for elections.
She said her decision to go back was "final and irrevocable." She said she was determined to wrest her nation from military rule; to return it to the democracy it deserved. She believed her mission was essential.
I never imagined then that jail would be nothing compared to the fate she suffered Thursday.
For Khwaja, the flickers of hope she had for her homeland went out with Benazir Bhutto's last breath.
She recalled how after that April dinner in 2002, the prime minister had kissed her goodbye on the cheek. Every year since then, Bhutto sent the Khwajas a card for Eid, the holiday that marks the end of Ramadan, the Muslim month of fasting.
Khwaja thought of those things as she watched the shocking images from Pakistan on her television set. And she thought what I did as my phone starting ringing Thursday with calls from Indian, Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Sri Lankan friends.
Benazir Bhutto, like Indira Gandhi before her, left women from South Asia with inner strength. No assassin can ever take that away.
Cosmic 'DNA':
Double Helix Spotted in Space
By Bjorn Carey
SPACE.com Staff Writer
Posted: 15 March 2006
Source: http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/060315_dna_nebula.html
Magnetic forces at
the center of the galaxy have twisted a nebula into the
shape of DNA, a new study reveals.
The double helix
shape is commonly seen inside living organisms, but this
is the first time it has been observed in the
cosmos.
"Nobody has ever
seen anything like that before in the cosmic realm," said
the study's lead author Mark Morris of UCLA. "Most
nebulae are either spiral galaxies full of stars or
formless amorphous conglomerations of dust and gas--space
weather. What we see indicates a high degree of
order."
These observations, made with
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, are detailed in the March
16 issue of the journal Nature.
Atoms in a New State of
Matter
Source:
University of Chicago
Posted: March 15, 2006
Atoms
In New State Of Matter Behave Like Three Musketeers: All
For One, One For All
An
international team of physicists has converted three
normal atoms into a special new state of matter whose
existence was proposed by Russian scientist Vitaly Efimov
in 1970.
In
this new state of matter, any two of the three atoms--in
this case cesium atoms--repel one another in close
proximity. "But when you put three of them together, it
turns out that they attract and form a new state," said
Cheng Chin, an Assistant Professor in Physics at the
University of Chicago.
Chin,
along with 10 scientists led by Rudolf Grimm at the
University of Innsbruck in Austria, report this
development in the March 16 issue of the journal Nature.
The paper describes the experiment in Grimm's laboratory
where for the first time physicists were able to observe
the Efimov state in a vacuum chamber at the ultracold
temperature of a billionth of a degree above absolute
zero (minus 459.6 degrees Fahrenheit).
This
new state behaves like the Borromean ring, a symbol of
three interlocking circles that has historical
significance in Italy. The Borromean concept also exists
in physics, chemistry and mathematics.
"This
ring means that three objects are entangled. If you pick
up any one of them, the other two will follow. However,
if you cut one of them off, the other two will fall
apart," Chin said. "There is something magic about this
number of three."
The
Innsbruck experiment involved three cesium atoms, a soft
metal used in atomic clocks, formed into a molecule that
manifested the Efimov state. But in theory the Efimov
state should apply universally to other sets of three
particles at ultracold temperatures. "If you can create
this kind of state out of any other type of particle,
it'll have exactly the same behavior," Chin
said.
The
finding may lead to the establishment of a new research
specialty devoted to understanding the quantum mechanical
behavior of just a few interacting particles, Grimm said.
Quantum mechanics governs the interactions of atoms and
subatomic particles, but is best understood when applied
to systems consisting of two particles or of many
particles.
A
good understanding of systems that contain just a handful
of particles still eludes scientists. That may change as
scientists begin to produce laboratory experiments that
simulate systems made of just three or four particles,
like those found in the nucleus of an atom.
Now
that the Efimov state has been achieved, scientists can
aspire to engineer the very properties of matter, Chin
said. The Innsbruck-Chicago team exerted total control
over the atoms in the experiment, converting them into
the Efimov state and back into normal atoms at
will.
"This
so-called quantum control over the fundamental properties
of matter now seems feasible. We're not limited to the
properties of, say, aluminum, or the properties of the
copper of these particles. We are really creating a new
state in which we can control their
properties."
Today,
nanotechnology researchers can combine atoms in novel
ways to form materials with interesting new properties,
"but you are not changing the fundamental interactions of
these atoms," Chin said. That can only be done at
temperatures near absolute zero. "At the moment, I don't
see how this can be done at much higher temperatures," he
said.
Chin
began working with Grimm's group as a visiting scientist
at the University of Innsbruck from 2003 until 2005. He
continued the collaboration after joining the University
of Chicago faculty last year.
"Cheng
was very excited about the prospects of observing Efimov
physics in cesium already as a Ph.D. student at
Stanford," Grimm said. The 1999 Stanford experiment, led
by physicists Vladan Vuletic and Steven Chu, was
conducted at one millionth of a degree above absolute
zero. "Now we know that their sample was too hot" to
observe the Efimov state, Grimm said.
Added
Chin: "After working on cesium for many years, this is a
dream come true for me."
Bird
flu updates
1.
Migratory flight patterns of birds:
http://www.fws.gov/southeast/birds/migratorymap.html
2.
Bird Flu Could Reach Americas in 6
Months
March
9, 2006
By
EDITH M. LEDERER
Associated
Press Writer
UNITED
NATIONS (AP) -- The virulent H5N1 strain of bird flu
could reach the Americas in six to 12 months or even
sooner as infected wild birds migrate toward the Arctic
and Alaska, the U.N. bird flu chief said.
Graphic:
map migratory pattern of birds shown. With the rapid
spreading of this disease, experts fears avian flu could
reach the Americas in 6 months.
Migratory
patterns will probably take birds carrying the virus from
West Africa to the Arctic and Alaska this spring, Dr.
David Nabarro said Wednesday. Some infected birds will
then likely move south in the fall on a migratory route
to the Americas.
"I
think it's within the next six to 12 months," Nabarro
told a news conference, "And who knows - we've been wrong
on other things, it may be earlier."
The
H5N1 strain has spread rapidly through Asia and Europe
and recently reached Africa, devastating poultry stocks.
Virtually all people who have gotten bird flu have had
close contact with infected poultry.
Human
cases are uncommon, but scientists worry that the virus
may mutate into a form that can pass easily between
people and lead to a worldwide flu epidemic.
Nabarro
reiterated the World Health Organization's warning that
"there will be a pandemic sooner or later" in humans,
perhaps due to H5N1, or perhaps another influenza virus,
and it could start any time.
"Because
it is moving and because we believe wild birds are
implicated, predicting where it's going to flare up next
is a very tricky thing to do, and being able to know the
scale of the flare-up is also quite tricky," Nabarro
said.
Nabarro
said the United Nations was focusing on controlling the
H5N1 strain in domestic poultry through slaughters and
vaccinations. The focus at the moment is on Africa,
especially West Africa, where 50 percent of people live
on less than $1 a day and many families rely on chickens
for their livelihoods, he said.
"There
is a regional crisis in West Africa," with outbreaks in
Nigeria and Niger, Nabarro said. "But we are frankly
anticipating that we will find the virus in other West
African countries and there is a lot of preparatory work
under way."
In
Western Europe, several countries have detected H5N1 in
dead wild birds, but there have been few cases in
domestic and commercial poultry populations, he
said.
One
or two cats are also reported to have H5N1, and the WHO
says more research is needed on transmission to other
mammals, he said.
The
U.S. government hopes to test 75,000 to 100,000 live or
dead birds this year, a significant increase over past
years, with the effort focused on Alaska, according to
U.S. Department of Agriculture officials.
"Some
of the challenges we face now are really quite dramatic
and call for a lot of technical expertise," Nabarro
said.
For
example, the FAO reported in September that wild birds
are able to carry the H5N1 strain while remaining
asymptomatic, yet swans in Western Europe are dying from
the strain and nobody knows why, he said.
Nabarro
said an international conference on wild birds will be
held in June and will hopefully include the results of
research now under way. The next major international
review of global bird flu efforts will also be in June,
he said.
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/UN_BIRD_FLU?SITE=7219&SECTION=H
OME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-03-09-05-29-23
3.
http://en.rian.ru/russia/2006030http://en.rian.ru/russia/20060307/4398
9397.html7/43989397.html
Russia:
Bird flu pandemic one step away
March
7, 2006
MOSCOW,
March 7 (RIA Novosti) - The world is one step away from a
bird flu pandemic that cannot be averted by quarantine or
vaccination, a Russian expert said Tuesday.
"One
amino-acid replacement in the genome remains to make the
virus transferable from human to human," said Dmitry
Lvov, the director of a virology research institute at
the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences.
Lvov
said the pandemic virus could strike at any moment, and
would most likely come from China, leading to tens of
millions of human deaths, or one third of the global
population. He added quarantine measures could delay the
pandemic for a few days but not prevent it, and that
vaccination would not stop people getting
sick.
"A
good vaccine will only save [people] from death
and complications, but not from the illness itself," he
said.
Lvov
said any pandemic was based on a hybridization of the
bird and human viruses.
Pigs
are the most vulnerable animals in the face of both human
and bird viruses, which makes them "an intermediary link
between human and bird flu," he said.
Lvov
said the bird flu pandemic was irreversible like any
other natural cataclysm, and would not stop until the
highly pathogenic strain mutates into a less dangerous
one.
"When
will it stop? When highly pathogenic strains localized in
wild birds are once again transformed into a
low-pathogenic one according to the law of nature," Lvov
said.
He
said all that could be done to deal with the pandemic was
large amounts of vaccination, hundreds of thousands of
beds in intensive care, and the necessary instruments and
medicines.
Lvov
also said that the bird flu virus would shortly sweep the
south of central Russia, specifically the Astrakhan,
Rostov-on-Don, and Volgograd Regions.
The
Agriculture Ministry said Monday that bird flu had been
registered in eight regions in the south of the country,
a major stopover area for migrating birds.
The
ministry said over 1.3 million birds had died or been
slaughtered in three outbreaks of bird flu since July
2005.
Uranus
in Pisces News
An
article about light (Uranus) from jellyfish (in
Pisces):
Students
create plant that glows when thirsty
Tue
Mar 7, 2006 5:09 AM ET
SINGAPORE
(Reuters) - Some people like to talk to their plants.
Now, students at Singapore Polytechnic say they have
created a plant that can communicate with people -- by
glowing when it needs water.
The
students said on Tuesday that they have genetically
modified a plant using a green fluorescent marker gene
from jellyfish, so that it "lights up" when it is
stressed as a result of dehydration.
The
light is hard to detect with the naked eye but can be
seen using an optical sensor developed in collaboration
with students at Singapore's Nanyang Technological
University.
The
development of such plants could help farmers to develop
more efficient irrigation of crops.
Sun
Cycle News
Sun's
Next 11-year Cycle Could Be 50 Percent
Stronger
Mon
Mar 6, 2006pm ET
From
Science News
By
Deborah Zabarenko
WASHINGTON
(Reuters) - Sun-spawned cosmic storms that can play havoc
with earthly power grids and orbiting satellites could be
50 percent stronger in the next 11-year solar cycle than
in the last one, scientists said on Monday.
Using
a new model that takes into account what happens under
the sun's surface and data about previous solar cycles,
astronomers offered a long-range forecast for solar
activity that could start as soon as this year or as late
as 2008.
They
offered no specific predictions of solar storms, but they
hope to formulate early warnings that will give power
companies, satellite operators and others on and around
Earth a few days to prepare.
"This
prediction of an active solar cycle suggests we're
potentially looking at more communications disruptions,
more satellite failures, possible disruptions of
electrical grids and blackouts, more dangerous conditions
for astronauts," said Richard Behnke of the Upper
Atmosphere Research Section at the National Science
Foundation.
"Predicting
and understanding space weather will soon be even more
vital than ever before," Behnke said at a telephone news
briefing.
The
prediction, roughly analogous to the early prediction of
a severe hurricane season on Earth, involves the number
of sunspots on the solar surface, phenomena that have
been monitored for more than a century.
November 15, 2003
More Solar Fireworks Possible by
Thanksgiving
Contributing: Chris Cappella,
USATODAY.com
Source:
http://www.usatoday.com/weather/news/2003-11-15-space-weather_x.htm
DENVER (AP) - Glowing steadily for
more than 4 billion years and rising unfailingly every
morning, the sun is something even astronomers can take
for granted. Among the 100 billion stars in the Milky
Way, ours is rather lackluster.
But the sun certainly is demanding
everyone's attention now, three weeks into perhaps the
most dramatic and unexpected chain of eruptions ever
observed venting from its seething, bubbling surface.
There have been as many as 11
salvos since Oct. 19. And the fireworks could reach a new
crescendo by Thanksgiving, the nation's busiest holiday
for air travel, just one of the things that can be
disrupted.
"There's been nothing quite like
this," said Bill Murtagh, a space weather forecaster for
the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's
Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colo. "Another big
blow is not what anyone needs."
NASA scientists compare it to a
blizzard in July - in California.
It sounds incredible, but
"something like that just happened on the sun," says
David Hathaway, a solar physicist at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Alabama.
The biggest solar storm to affect
Earth in the recent cycle was Oct. 28. It caused little
damage, largely because it was forecast, and electric
utilities and satellite companies took precautions.
Even so, it caused a blackout in
Sweden, damaged two Japanese satellites and upset radio
communications and navigation systems for jets and ships.
Airlines in the northern latitudes flew lower to protect
passengers from extra doses of radiation.
It is a startling reminder of who's
really in charge of the solar system. Scientists worry
that a new round of eruptions could do more of the same
or worse.
Each solar burst hurls into space
huge clouds of superheated, charged particle clouds that
are 13 times the size of Earth. One explosion on Nov. 4
ranks as the most powerful solar flare to be recorded by
orbiting instruments - although it was pointed away from
Earth.
"This period will go into the
history books as one of the most dramatic," said Paal
Brekke, deputy project scientist for SOHO, a joint
U.S.-European observatory between Earth and the sun. SOHO
is the acronym for the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory
spacecraft, which is packed full of sun-monitoring
instruments and acts as the primary lookout for fiery
solar salvos.
What will the sun do next?
Astronomers can only watch and wait.
Early civilizations from the
Sumerians to the Aztecs worshipped the sun for its
life-nourishing properties. Its furious dynamics weren't
discovered until Galileo and others in the 17th century
began to directly observe the sun through the first
telescopes, sacrificing their eyesight for their
discoveries.
In 1613, Galileo published three
letters on sunspots, the cooler, dark, irregular spots
that resemble cancerous moles on the sun's fiery face. By
recording the sunspots' disappearance around the far
side, Galileo was the first to demonstrate that the sun
rotates.
But how do sunspots form and how do
they trigger solar explosions? How do they affect Earth?
Researchers still aren't entirely sure.
The sun is not solid, but a dense
and torrid ball of gas. It rotates in sections at
different latitudes as if the layers of a cake were
turning at different speeds, with the equator's layer
moving faster than the poles.
This phenomenon tangles and twists
the sun's magnetic field. The migration of hot plasma
from the sun's interior dynamo up to the surface is
somehow inhibited in these distortions, producing
sunspots.
Sunspots erupt and fade in 11-year
cycles. But that's just an average; some cycles last 15
years.
New studies suggest sunspots also
work in longer patterns of 100 and 1,000 years. The sun's
luminosity can change slightly during those cycles,
possibly affecting Earth's climate and, some argue,
contributing to global warming. If true, those details
will take years to work out.
The current 11-year solar cycle,
No. 23, peaked quietly in 2000. By late 2003 it was
supposed to be on its downside. Researchers were labeling
it a dud.
Until now.
Sunspots' magnetic distortions
intensify until something explodes. Some sunspots reload
and fire again. And again. That is what's happening now
with the current sunspot clusters, 484 and 486.
From 93 million miles away, they
look like tiny smudges on the sun's chin. Yet each rival
Jupiter in size.
Forecasters in Boulder are
analyzing past cycles to determine whether powerful
sunspots similarly have appeared late.
"In 1984, we had a bout of activity
four years after the solar max in that cycle," Murtagh
said. "What's different with cycle 23 is today's events
are more intense than what occurred at the cycle's
maximum."
Sunspots are best known for
spawning solar flares, which are huge bursts of
electromagnetic radiation in the form of radio waves.
They last for hours, extend for tens of thousands of
miles from the sun and reach millions of degrees.
In recent years, astronomers have
identified a powerful tempest - the coronal mass ejection
- which often explodes from the sun in the wake of a
solar flare. Like a cosmic Molotov cocktail, it is the
phenomenon that has been bombarding Earth lately.
A CME bursts from the sun's corona,
the wispy, outermost and hottest layer. A CME belch
consists of huge clouds of superheated, electrified
particles roaring away from the sun at speeds exceeding 1
million mph. In direct line with a CME or orbiting into
one, the speeding particles can envelop our planet for
hours.
If these incoming particles have a
southward magnetic orientation, they slice against the
grain of Earth's north-pointing magnetic field, and
travel deep into the atmosphere. This causes electrical
and radio disturbances, as well as colorful aurora
displays in the night sky.
Space forecasters measure the
intensity of CMEs on three scales. Each scale is 1-5.
The G-scale measures the
geomagnetic storm generated when the particle cloud slams
into Earth's magnetic field. A G5 storm can knock out
electrical power grids.
The S-scale measures radiation
pulses. In an S5 storm, airline passengers flying though
the incoming fallout would receive the equivalent dose of
100 chest X-rays.
The R-scale measures radio
blackouts. At R5, the entire sunlit side of Earth would
experience a high-frequency radio blackout.
The CME on Oct. 28 measured
G5-S4-R4.
"It was almost the perfect space
storm," Murtagh said. Yet, because utilities and
satellite companies were ready for it, its damage was
limited.
A fourth scale measures the
intensity of X-ray emissions from solar flares.
During the current sunspot period,
solar flares erupting on Oct. 19 rated X3 and X5. On Oct.
28-29, the major CME triggered a one-two solar flare
punch. The first measured X17.2 - it was the
third-largest flare ever recorded. A day later, the
second flare measured X11.
But Sunspot 486 was just warming
up.
Beginning on Nov. 3, it triggered
three flares over several hours. The final flare on Nov.
4 saturated the X-ray detectors on a NOAA satellite,
which produces a new image of the sun every minute. The
satellite was blinded for 11 minutes.
Luckily for Earth, the sunspot
cluster was rotating off the sun's face and out of view.
Most of its fury was directed harmlessly - from Earth's
perspective - into space.
Officially, it is ranked as X28.
But some researchers believe it might've registered an
astonishing X40.
Previously, the most intense flares
were a pair of X20s.
The X-scale has been in use only
since the 1970s, so historical comparisons are difficult.
But the Nov. 4 flare rivals an event in 1859 that knocked
out telegraph service across the United States.
"What is clear is that the latest
flare is the strongest ever recorded," Brekke said.
Scientists are certain sunspots 484
and 486 will surf back around the sun's face and take aim
at Earth again. Though hidden from view, their
explosiveness can be gauged by researchers much as
seismic waves from earthquakes are measured.
The SOHO spacecraft is also
photographing clouds of gas being thrown over and around
the sun's far side by unseen explosions.
Astronomers are warning satellite
and power grid operators to be ready for more fireworks.
"Society is becoming more dependent
on systems that could fail during these events," Brekke
said. "People should not be afraid, but we should learn
to live with our closest star and how it is varying."
Sunday September 28,
2003
For Atlantis, turn right at
Cyprus
By Helena Smith in
Athens
Source: The Observer
Since time immemorial Cyprus has
thrived by association with Aphrodite - the love goddess
who emerged from its silky waves. The Mediterranean
island may well benefit from its strategic locale again;
although this time through the undoing of a myth that
thanks to the playful mind of Plato is also one of the
world's greatest mysteries: Atlantis.
After nearly a decade of rummaging
through libraries, studying maps, reading ancient works
and pouring over oceanographic data, an American
researcher believes he has discovered the site of the
lost civilisation on the sea floor between Cyprus and
Syria, not far from Greece and Egypt, from where the
legend of Atlantis originated.
'This is an area that has not been
charted before,' Robert Sarmast told The Observer from
his Los Angeles office. 'The submerged land mass we have
located off Cyprus's coast matches Plato's famed
description of Atlantis nearly perfectly.'
The Athenian philosopher described
the mythological empire - 'sunk under the water after an
earthquake' - in two of his famous dialogues, Timaeus and
Critias.
Atlantis, he said, was a collection
of islands, one of them huge. Its land was 'the best in
the world... able, in those days, to support a vast army'
before a huge tidal wave flooded it around 10,000BC.
The quest for the lost land is as
undying as the myth itself. In the past decade, Atlantis
has been 'sighted' at the top of volcanos and the bottom
of seas; off the coast of Bolivia, Turkey, Antarctica and
India.
But Sarmast, who made colleagues
working on the project sign secrecy pledges, goes one
step further than other Atlantologists in claiming to
have vindicated Plato's narrative as not just a
philosopher's allegory.
The researcher, author of Discovery
of Atlantis: The Startling Case for the Island of Cyprus
to be published in Britain next month, claims he has
pinpointed the fabled island with 'unprecedented
accuracy'.
Using sonar technology provided by
an oil company, he mapped the seabed to ascertain what he
says is the shape of the island. The watery kingdom has
been 'brought alive' in 3D bathymetric maps and models
that depict a stretch of sunken land off Cyprus.
If Plato is to be believed, there
are colossal buildings, bridges, canals, temples and
artefacts to be found in these waters.
'The Titanic was two miles beneath
the sea surface, this is less than one mile down,' said
Sarmast. 'You don't need to find that much to prove the
case and in the Mediterranean there's little
sedimentation. If they're there it would be fairly easy
to find the remains of an entire city.'
August 14th, 2003
The Northeast
Blackout
by Risa D'Angeles
As I write next week's column, the
North East (5000 square miles) has been plunged into
darkness, due to a blackout, the reasons still unknown.
Tens of thousands of people are stranded in the dark
unable to get home. The major city affected is New York,
reminding everyone of the events of September 11th. The
electric grid in the east (there are three electric grids
in the U.S.) rippled a cascading shut down from northern
Canada down through New York and New Jersey and east to
Ohio. The news stated that the modern era has never
experienced such a massive blackout which began at 4:14
pm (EDT), Thursday, August 14th, minutes after the Stock
Exchange closed. The power outage, called "The Great
Blackout of 2003" and affecting 15 million people, is not
considered as a terrorist act. In looking at the Gemini
rising chart of the United States transiting Mercury is
conjunct Neptune. Mercury is communication and
transportation, Neptune is dissolving. Most cell phone
and major transportation networks (airlines and subways)
are down. Also, transiting Mars retro (back to the past),
quickly approaching Earth, is in the 10th house
(civilization) of the U.S. chart square (challenged to
take a different path) Uranus (unexpected electrical
event) both at 8 degrees. This has made me ponder on the
future transits that will affect the U.S. chart.
Transiting Saturn will be at the same degree as the U.S.
Sun October 2nd. Saturn brings discipline and new
structures but only after the previous structures fall
down. At the beginning of 2004, transiting (in the sky)
Pluto at 20 degrees Sagittarius will be opposing the U.S.
Mars at 20 degrees Gemini. These are transformative
aspects containing much power and will lead to
regeneration. It is possible that the blackout is a
preparatory stage for the coming changes the U.S. will
experience.
Space Weather News for August 6,
2003
http://spaceweather.com
PERSEID METEORS: Although the peak
of the 2003 Perseid meteor shower is still a week away,
sky watchers have already spotted a few bright meteors,
like the exploding fireball that streaked across Texas on
August 4th. A movie of this Perseid, recorded by the
Sandia Meteor Detection Network, is available on
Spaceweather.com now.
RETROGRADE MARS: For months Mars
has been creeping eastward among the stars of Aquarius.
Last week the planet reversed course; now it's moving
westward. This "retrograde motion" is a telltale sign
that Earth and Mars are drawing closer together. Closest
approach won't come until late August, but Mars is
already dazzling. Visit Spaceweather.com for sky maps,
pictures and observing tips.
NASA Science News for July 10,
2003
Source: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/10jul_psrplanet.htm?list595292
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has
precisely measured the mass of the farthest and oldest
known planet. The planet is 2.5 times the mass of
Jupiter. Its very existence provides tantalizing evidence
the first planets were formed rapidly, within a billion
years of the Big Bang, leading astronomers to conclude
planets may be very abundant in the universe.
For more information about the
planet formed around 13 billion years ago, see the
following articles:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/10jul_psrplanet.htm?list595292
http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/news/6280113.htm
February 18, 2003
Above: Electric blue
clouds viewed from the ISS. Photo credit: Don Pettit and
NASA TV.
Strange Clouds
Astronauts onboard the
International Space Station have been observing electric
blue "noctilucent" clouds from Earth-orbit.
Source: Science@NASA
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18feb_nlc.htm?list612525
They hover on the edge of space.
Thin, wispy clouds, glowing electric blue. Some
scientists think they're seeded by space dust. Others
suspect they're a telltale signof global
warming.
They're called noctilucent or
"night-shining" clouds (NLCs for short). And whatever
causes them, they're lovely.
"Over the past few weeks we've been
enjoying outstanding views of these clouds above the
southern hemisphere," said space station astronaut Don
Pettit during a NASA TV broadcast lastmonth. "We
routinely see them when we're flying over Australia and
the tip of South America."
Above: Noctilucent clouds
over Finland. The orange hues near the horizon are
ordinary sunset colors, notes Gary Thomas. NLCs, on the
other hand, are usually "luminous blue-white or sometimes
just pale white," he says. Image credit Pekka
Parviainen.
For the entire article see
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18feb_nlc.htm?list612525
NASA Science News for February
11, 2003
Source: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/11feb_map.htm?list595292
A NASA satellite has taken a
picture of the Big Bang's ancient afterglow. Scientists
have analyzed the data and learned that the universe is
13.7 billon years old (plus or minus 1 percent)and that
the first stars appeared only 200 million years after the
Big Bang. These results are a milestone in cosmology,
says the NASA director of astronomy and
physics.
Read the full story at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/11feb_map.htm?list595292
Space Weather News for Feb. 7,
2003
Source: http://www.spaceweather.com
COMET NEAT: Comet NEAT (C/2002 V1)
is plunging toward the Sun. At closest approach on Feb.
18th its distance from our star will be only 0.1 AU--much
closer to the Sun than the planet Mercury. The Sun's
glare will hide the encounter from earthbound observers,
but not from the orbiting Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory (SOHO). Follow the links at spaceweather.com
to see near-live views of the flyby (courtesy of SOHO)
between Feb. 16th and 20th.
Meanwhile, if you live in the
northern hemisphere, you can see the comet yourself. Look
low and to the west after sunset. Comet NEAT is glowing
like a fuzzy 5th magnitude star with a long delicate
tail--an easy target for binoculars and small telescopes.
Don't wait too many days to look, though, because the
comet is fast approaching the glaring Sun.
Visit spaceweather.com for more
information about Comet NEAT, Comet Kudo-Fujikawa, which
developed a curious split tail after it flew past the Sun
last month, and recent geomagnetic activity on
Earth.
Space Weather News for July 16,
2002
Source: http://www.spaceweather.com/
SOLAR BLAST: Twisted magnetic
fields above giant sunspot 30 erupted on Monday, July
15th, at 2005 UT. The explosion sparked a powerful
X3-class solar flare and hurled a coronal mass ejection
(CME, pictured right) into space. Although the CME was
not squarely Earth-directed, it might nevertheless buffet
our planet's magnetic field as early as July 16th
(although the 17th is more likely). NOAA forecasters
estimate a 10% chance of severe geomagnetic activity on
Wednesday; sky watchers should be alert for
auroras.
BIG SUNSPOT: Sunspot group 30 is
still growing and now stretches fifteen Earth-diameters
from end to end. You can see it yourself--but never stare
directly at the Sun. Use safe solar projection methods.
The active region has a twisted "delta-class" magnetic
field that harbors energy for powerful X-class
eruptions.
Above: The Solar and Heliospheric
Observatory captured this image of sunspot 30 on July 16,
2002.
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