Rapidly Inflating Volcano Creates Growing Mystery
Uturuncu
How long has this been going on? Uturuncu, a Bolivian volcano that is inflating at an incredible rate.

Should anyone ever decide to make a show called "CSI: Geology," a group of scientists studying a mysterious and rapidly inflating South American volcano have got the perfect storyline.

Researchers from several universities are essentially working as geological detectives, using a suite of tools to piece together the restive peak's past in order to understand what it is doing now, and better diagnose what may lie ahead.

It's a mystery they've yet to solve.

Uturuncu is a nearly 20,000-foot-high (6,000 meters) volcano in southwest Bolivia. Scientists recently discovered the volcano is inflating with astonishing speed.

"I call this 'volcano forensics,' because we're using so many different techniques to understand this phenomenon," said Oregon State University professor Shan de Silva, a volcanologist on the research team.
Underwater Volcanic Eruption
Whitecaps churn in the Atlantic off West Africa as an underwater volcano erupts off Spain's Canary Islands on Monday.


Whitecaps churn in the Atlantic off West Africa as an underwater volcano erupts off Spain's Canary Islands on Monday.
Since last week, the volcano has been spewing gas and fragments of smoking lava, staining the ocean surface green and brown, as seen above.

Spanish authorities have closed a port on Hierro island, ordered ships away from the island's village of La Restinga, and banned aircraft from flying over the island's southern tip, according to the AFP news service.

Six hundred residents living at the port were evacuated Tuesday.
Deepest and Most Explosive Underwater Eruption Ever Seen Happening Near Samoa Hotspot
Double magma bubble

Double magma bubble forms at Hades Vent at West Mata submarine volcano. An underwater volcano bursting with glowing lava bubbles - the deepest active submarine eruption seen to date - is shedding light on how volcanism can impact deep-sea life and reshape the face of the planet.

Submarine eruptions account for about three-quarters of all of Earth's volcanism, but the overlying ocean and the sheer vastness of the seafloor makes detecting and observing them difficult. The only active submarine eruptions that scientists had seen and analyzed until now were at the volcano NW Rota-1, near the island of Guam in the western Pacific.

Now researchers have witnessed the deepest active submarine eruption yet. The volcano in question, West Mata, lies near the islands of Fiji in the southwestern Pacific in the Lau Basin. Here, the rate of subduction - the process in which one massive tectonic plate dives under another, typically forming chains of volcanoes - is the highest on Earth, and the region hosts ample signs of recent submarine volcanism.

The End of the World as We Know It? An Internal or External Shift?

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The Quickening

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Occupy Wall Street: 20,000 To Gather On September 17th

Huffington Post
September 15, 2011
Occupy Wall Street

On Saturday, September 17th, organizers for the event Occupy Wall Street are calling for 20,000 individuals to join their cause for government and corporate change by way of peaceful, non-violent protests.

The large-scale event, originally published back in July by Adbusters, a not-for-profit magazine aimed to "topple existing power structures," was inspired by the revolutionary events that swept through the Middle East earlier this year. The group's site reveals their hopes to transform Lower Manhattan into an "American Tahrir Square."

How exactly will the group invoke such radical change? Details have yet to be revealed but Occupy Wall Street organizer, Will Russell, a grad student at Hunter College, explains to the Village Voice, that yoga, pitched tents, and dancing to 'Thriller' will be sure to take place.

The hacker group, Anonymous, also announced their participation in a video released below.



Saturday's events have garnered traction through various social media outlets, including Twitter, which has seen the use of the hasthtag, #OccupyWallStreet. The group's Facebook event directs protestors to meet at Bowling Green Park at noon and then at 3pm to move to One Chase Manhattan Plaza for a people's assembly.

Earthquake Magnitude 3.2 Strikes Long Beach and Los Angeles


A Southern California earthquake today August 18, 2011 struck moments ago centered in Long Beach; the earthquake was felt over sections of Los Angeles and Orange Counties.

Today's earthquake was of a marginal magnitude.

But because it struck at a narrow depth, it was felt over a wide section of the South Bay and Southern California.

Ten minutes ago, at roughly 2:43 PM PST, a 3.2 earthquake struck Los Angeles County. Its epicenter was south east of Long Beach. Unlike previous earthquakes this year in the region, today's quake was not centered out in the Pacific Ocean.

Rather initial statements by USGS issued to news indicate that the quake was centered just a few blocks west of Pacific Coast Highway. Initial reports put the quake centered closest to the intersection of E7th Street and Park Avenue. It was centered apparently just north of the American Golf Pro Shops on the 9th Hole of the local Recreation Park Golf Course, near the East 7th street corridor.

Earth Opening Up? Strange Chemical-Like Odor in San Diego, California, US Area: Navy, Coast Guard Investigating


10 News
Wed, 17 Aug 2011
 
Authorities are investigating reports from around San Diego County of a strong, chemical-like odor.

People began making emergency calls about 2 p.m. to report a pervasive and pungent smell variously described as akin to kerosene, diesel fuel, bus exhaust, lighter fluid and other petroleum-based substances, according to Maurice Luque, a spokesman for the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department.

On Wednesday afternoon, 10News received dozens of calls from residents who said they smelled what they believed was jet fuel in the air.



Residents from areas such as Encinitas, Solana Beach, Pacific Beach, Mira Mesa and La Jolla all reported the odor. Residents living in inland areas such as North Park, Hillcrest and Rancho Bernardo told 10News they smelled the odor in their area

Smoking Steaming Hillside Phenomenon - Southern California

3 ABC
Sun, 14 Aug 2011

smoke,hillsideHope Ranch - An unsolved mystery is smoldering on a dirt hillside below Hope Ranch. Smoke and steam are coming out of the soil, very similar to an event in October of 2006. Geologists have said a landslide five years ago may have opened up a crack in the bluff. That may have added oxygen to an underground super heated tar site.

The hot zone is being controlled with sprinklers spraying waters in all directions.

A fence is up in the area to keep inquisitive beach walkers away.

Santa Barbara County Fire officials say there is no immediate threat to the area or risk to the public.

     

Pesticides Damaging Australia's Great Barrier Reef: Government Study

International Business Times
Mon, 15 Aug 2011



Agricultural pesticides are damaging Great Barrier Reef - one of the world's great natural wonders - according to a report by the Australian government on water quality.

The report stated that farmers are using to many toxic chemicals that are seeping into the water - in fact, almost 25 percent of horticulture producers and 12 percent of pastoral farmers are believed to using pesticides regarded as unacceptable.

Pesticides of toxic concentrations have been detected 38 miles inside the reef.

The severe flooding as well as cyclone Yasi that hit the region earlier this year are believed to have worsened the problem by sending pollutants into the ocean.

The report particularly blamed pesticides used by the sugar cane industry in northern Queensland province.

Australia: Dugong deaths 'ecological disaster'



Environmentalists have again warned of an ecological disaster at the southern end of Queensland's Great Barrier Reef, following the discovery of a dead dugong.

It was found washed up on a beach in Gladstone Harbour, the fourth dugong, along with three dolphins and 40 turtles that have been found washed up around the harbour since May.

Friends of the Earth spokesman Drew Hutton said he had seen first-hand the destruction around the harbour since construction of the LNG facilities had started.

Worst Drought in 60 Years: 12 Million Africans Face 'Fight for Survival'

The carcass of a giraffe 
 
Wajir, Kenya - At first glance, the massive drought which has swept across Kenya, Somalia and Ethiopia appears to be a crisis caused entirely by nature.

As we traveled north through Kenya into one of the worst-hit areas, the lush green of the Nairobi suburbs disappeared into gray sand and dry earth. In three hours, I counted the carcasses of 27 cattle by the roadside, and one giraffe - apparently killed because the land could not sustain them. The striking images of the landscape seem to represent a deceptively simple assessment of the drought: the dirty work of Mother Nature.

"The only reason for all the suffering in this region is the lack of rain," one desperate doctor told me as he lifted up yet another severely malnourished baby so that he could be weighed. The doctor is wrong.

Witness the outbreak of famine or drought and you'll usually see that there has been an outbreak of war nearby. In this case, the lawlessless of war-torn Somalia is driving people into neighboring Kenya. In Ethiopia, high inflation and fast-rising food prices have also forced people out. Many of those refugees have been competing with the recently killed animals that we saw on our journey for water and food. Consider that and the deadly cocktail behind this current crisis doesn't look so basic. Human hands are all over this.

Getting Ready for the Next Big Solar Storm

Dr. Tony Phillips
SPX / Science@NASA
Sun, 26 Jun 2011
 
In Sept. 1859, on the eve of a below-average solar cycle, the sun unleashed one of the most powerful storms in centuries. The underlying flare was so unusual, researchers still aren't sure how to categorize it. The blast peppered Earth with the most energetic protons in half-a-millennium, induced electrical currents that set telegraph offices on fire, and sparked Northern Lights over Cuba and Hawaii.

This week, officials have gathered at the National Press Club in Washington DC to ask themselves a simple question: What if it happens again?

"A similar storm today might knock us for a loop," says Lika Guhathakurta, a solar physicist at NASA headquarters. "Modern society depends on high-tech systems such as smart power grids, GPS, and satellite communications--all of which are vulnerable to solar storms."

She and more than a hundred others are attending the fifth annual Space Weather Enterprise Forum-"SWEF" for short. The purpose of SWEF is to raise awareness of space weather and its effects on society especially among policy makers and emergency responders. Attendees come from the US Congress, FEMA, power companies, the United Nations, NASA, NOAA and more.

As 2011 unfolds, the sun is once again on the eve of a below-average solar cycle-at least that's what forecasters are saying. The "Carrington event" of 1859 (named after astronomer Richard Carrington, who witnessed the instigating flare) reminds us that strong storms can occur even when the underlying cycle is nominally weak.

In 1859 the worst-case scenario was a day or two without telegraph messages and a lot of puzzled sky watchers on tropical islands.

In 2011 the situation would be more serious. An avalanche of blackouts carried across continents by long-distance power lines could last for weeks to months as engineers struggle to repair damaged transformers. Planes and ships couldn't trust GPS units for navigation. Banking and financial networks might go offline, disrupting commerce in a way unique to the Information Age. According to a 2008 report from the National Academy of Sciences, a century-class solar storm could have the economic impact of 20 hurricane Katrinas.

As policy makers meet to learn about this menace, NASA researchers a few miles away are actually doing something about it:

"We can now track the progress of solar storms in 3 dimensions as the storms bear down on Earth," says Michael Hesse, chief of the GSFC Space Weather Lab and a speaker at the forum. "This sets the stage for actionable space weather alerts that could preserve power grids and other high-tech assets during extreme periods of solar activity."

They do it using data from a fleet of NASA spacecraft surrounding the sun. Analysts at the lab feed the information into a bank of supercomputers for processing. Within hours of a major eruption, the computers spit out a 3D movie showing where the storm will go, which planets and spacecraft it will hit, and predicting when the impacts will occur. This kind of "interplanetary forecast" is unprecedented in the short history of space weather forecasting.

"This is a really exciting time to work as a space weather forecaster," says Antti Pulkkinen, a researcher at the Space Weather Lab. "The emergence of serious physics-based space weather models is putting us in a position to predict if something major will happen."

Some of the computer models are so sophisticated, they can even predict electrical currents flowing in the soil of Earth when a solar storm strikes. These currents are what do the most damage to power transformers. An experimental project named "Solar Shield" led by Pulkkinen aims to pinpoint transformers in greatest danger of failure during any particular storm.

"Disconnecting a specific transformer for a few hours could forestall weeks of regional blackouts," says Pulkkinen.

Another SWEF speaker, John Allen of NASA's Space Operations Mission Directorate, pointed out that while people from all walks of life can be affected by space weather, no one is out on the front lines quite like astronauts.

"Astronauts are routinely exposed to four times as much radiation as industrial radiation workers on Earth," he says. "It's a serious occupational hazard."

NASA keeps careful track of each astronaut's accumulated dosage throughout their careers. Every launch, every space walk, every solar flare is carefully accounted for. If an astronaut gets too close to the limits ... he or she might not be allowed out of the space station! Accurate space weather alerts can help keep these exposures under control by, e.g., postponing spacewalks when flares are likely.

Speaking at the forum, Allen called for a new kind of forecast: "We could use All Clear alerts. In addition to knowing when it's dangerous to go outside, we'd also like to know when it's safe. This is another frontier for forecasters--not only telling us when a sunspot will erupt, but also when it won't."

The educational mission of SWEF is key to storm preparedness. As Lika Guhathakurta and colleague Dan Baker of the University of Colorado asked in a June 17, 2011 New York Times op-ed: "What good are space weather alerts if people don't understand them and won't react to them?"
By spreading the word, SWEF will help.

12 Things That The Mainstream Media Is Being Strangely Quiet About Right Now

Mon, 20 Jun 2011
 
As the mainstream media continues to be obsessed with Anthony Weiner and his bizarre adventures on Twitter, much more serious events are happening around the world that are getting very little attention. In America today, if the mainstream media does not cover something it is almost as if it never happened. Right now, the worst nuclear disaster in human history continues to unfold in Japan, U.S. nuclear facilities are being threatened by flood waters, the U.S. military is bombing Yemen, gigantic cracks in the earth are appearing all over the globe and the largest wildfire in Arizona history is causing immense devastation. But Anthony Weiner, Bristol Palin and Miss USA are what the mainstream media want to tell us about and most Americans are buying it.

In times like these, it is more important than ever to think for ourselves. The corporate-owned mainstream media is not interested in looking out for us. Rather, they are going to tell us whatever fits with the agenda that their owners are pushing.

That is why more Americans than ever are turning to the alternative media. Americans are hungry for the truth, and they know that the amount of truth that they get from the mainstream media continues to decline.

The following are 12 things that the mainstream media is being strangely quiet about right now....

#1 The crisis at the Fort Calhoun nuclear facility in Nebraska has received almost no attention in the national mainstream media.

Back on June 7th, there was a fire at Fort Calhoun. The official story is that the fire was in an electrical switchgear room at the plant. The facility lost power to a pump that cools the spent fuel pool for approximately 90 minutes. According to the Omaha Public Power District, the fire was quickly extinguished and no radioactive material was released.

The following sequence of events is directly from the Omaha Public Power District website....
*There was no such imminent danger with the Fort Calhoun Station spent-fuel pool.
*Due to a fire in an electrical switchgear room at FCS on the morning of June 7, the plant temporarily lost power to a pump that cools the spent-fuel pool.
*The fire-suppression system in that switchgear room operated as designed, extinguishing the fire quickly.
*FCS plant operators switched the spent-fuel pool cooling system to an installed backup pump about 90 minutes after the loss of power.
*During the interruption of cooling, temperature of the pool increased a few degrees, but the pool was never in danger of boiling.
*Due to this situation, FCS declared an Alert at about 9:40 a.m. on June 7.
* An alert is the second-least-serious of four emergency classifications established by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
*At about 1:15 p.m. on June 7, FCS operators declared they had taken all appropriate measures to safely return to the previously declared Notification of Unusual Event emergency classification. (See first item above.)
But the crisis at Fort Calhoun is not over. Right now, the nuclear facility at Fort Calhoun is essentially an island. It is surrounded by rising flood waters from the Missouri River.

Officials claim that there is no danger and that they are prepared for the river to rise another ten feet.

The Cooper Nuclear Station in Brownville, Nebraska is also being threatened by rising flood waters. A "Notification of Unusual Event" was declared at Cooper Nuclear Station this morning at 4:02. This notification was issued because the Missouri River's water level reached 42.5 feet.

Right now the facility is operating normally and officials don't expect a crisis.

But considering what has been going on at Fukushima, it would be nice if we could have gotten a lot more coverage of these events by the mainstream media.

#2 Most Americans are aware that the U.S. is involved in wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. However, the truth is that the U.S. military is also regularly bombing Yemen and parts of Pakistan. If you count the countries where the U.S. has special forces and/or covert operatives on the ground, the U.S. is probably "active" in more countries in the Middle East than it is not. Now there are even persistent rumors that U.S. ground units are being prepared to go into Libya. Are we watching the early stages of World War 3 unfold before our eyes in slow motion?

#3 The crisis at Fukushima continues to get worse. Arnold Gundersen, a former nuclear industry senior vice president, recently made the following statement about the Fukushima disaster....
"Fukushima is the biggest industrial catastrophe in the history of mankind"
TEPCO has finally admitted that this disaster has released more radioactive material into the environment than Chernobyl did. That makes Fukushima the worst nuclear disaster of all time, and it is far from over.

Massive amounts of water is being poured into the spent fuel pools in order to keep them cool. This is creating "hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive sea water" that has got to go somewhere. Inevitably much of it will get into the ground and into the sea.

Arnold Gundersen says that the scope of this problem is almost unimaginable....
"TEPCO announced they had a melt through. A melt down is when the fuel collapses to the bottom of the reactor, and a melt through means it has melted through some layers. That blob is incredibly radioactive, and now you have water on top of it. The water picks up enormous amounts of radiation, so you add more water and you are generating hundreds of thousands of tons of highly radioactive water."
The mainstream media is not paying as much attention to Fukushima these days, but that doesn't mean that it is not a major league nightmare.

Elevated levels of radiation are being reported by Japanese bloggers all over eastern Japan. There are reports of sick children all over the region. One adviser to the government of Japan says that an area approximately 17 times the size of Manhattan is probably going to be uninhabitable.

Of course the mainstream media has been telling us all along that Fukushima is nothing to be too concerned about and that authorities in Japan have everything under control.

If the mainstream media is not going to tell us the truth, how are they going to continue to have credibility?

#4 Members of Congress continue to mention Christians as a threat to national security. For example, during a recent Congressional hearing U.S. Representative Sheila Jackson Lee warned that "Christian militants" might try to "bring down the country" and that such groups need to be investigated.

#5 China's eastern province of Zhejiang has experienced that worst flooding that it has seen in 55 years. 2 million people have already been forced to leave their homes. China has already been having huge problems with their crops over the past few years and this is only going to make things worse.

#6 Thanks to the Dodd-Frank Act, over the counter trading of gold and silver is going to be illegal starting on July 15th. Or at least that is what some companies apparently now believe. The following is an excerpt from an email that Forex.com recently sent out to their customers....
Important Account Notice Re: Metals Trading

We wanted to make you aware of some upcoming changes to FOREX.com's product offering. As a result of the Dodd-Frank Act enacted by US Congress, a new regulation prohibiting US residents from trading over the counter precious metals, including gold and silver, will go into effect on Friday, July 15, 2011.

In conjunction with this new regulation, FOREX.com must discontinue metals trading for US residents on Friday, July 15, 2011 at the close of trading at 5pm ET. As a result, all open metals positions must be closed by July 15, 2011 at 5pm ET.

We encourage you to wind down your trading activity in these products over the next month in anticipation of the new rule, as any open XAU or XAG positions that remain open prior to July 15, 2011 at approximately 5:00 pm ET will be automatically liquidated.

We sincerely regret any inconvenience complying with the new U.S. regulation may cause you. Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact our customer service team.

Sincerely,
The Team at FOREX.com
Apparently, Section 742(a) of the Dodd-Frank Act prohibits anyone "from entering into, or offering to enter into, a transaction in any commodity with a person that is not an eligible contract participant or an eligible commercial entity, on a leveraged or margined basis."

So what impact is this going to have on the gold and silver markets?

Nobody is quite sure yet.

#7 All over the world, huge cracks are appearing for no discernible reason. For example, a massive crack that is approximately 3 kilometers long recent appeared in southern Peru. Also, a 500 foot long crack suddenly appeared recently in the state of Michigan. When you also throw in all of the gigantic sinkholes that have been opening all over the world, it is easy to conclude that the planet is becoming very unstable.

#8 According to U.S. Forest Service officials, the largest wildfire in Arizona state history has now covered more than 500,000 acres. But based on the coverage it is being given by the mainstream media you would think that it is a non-event.

#9 There are reports that North Korea has tested a "super EMP weapon" which would be capable of taking out most of the U.S. power grid in a single shot. The North Koreans are apparently about to conduct another nuclear test and that has some Obama administration officials very concerned.

#10 All over the United States, "active shooter drills" are being conducted in our public schools. Often, most of the students are not told that these drills are fake. Instead, students often go through hours of terror as they think a hostage situation or a shooting spree is really taking place.

#11 NASA has just launched a "major" preparedness initiative for all NASA personnel. The following is an excerpt about this plan from NASA's own website....
A major initiative has been placed on Family/Personal Preparedness for all NASA personnel. The NASA Family/Personal Preparedness Program is designed to provide awareness, resources, and tools to the NASA Family (civil servants and contractors) to prepare for an emergency situation. The most important assets in the successful completion of NASA's mission are our employees' and their families. We are taking the steps to prepare our workforce, but it is your personal obligation to prepare yourself and your families for emergencies.
#12 Over the past week over 40 temporary "no fly zones" have been declared by the FAA. This is very highly unusual. Nobody seems to know exactly why this is happening.

So what do all of these things mean?

It would be nice if the mainstream media would examine some of these important issues more closely and do some honest reporting on them.

More Than 800 Tons of Fish Die and Rot on Fish Farms South of Philippine Capital

The Associated Press
Sun, 29 May 2011
 
A fish pond worker scoops up dead milkfish locally known as Bangus after thousands of them were found floating on Taal Lake in Batangas province, south of Manila, Philippines, Sunday May 29, 2011.
 
The Government Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources are still investigating the cause of the fish kill. The damage of the fish, the most in-demand fishes in the country, is estimated at least 50 tons.
 
More than 800 tons of fish have died and rotted on fish farms in a lake near Taal volcano south of Manila, with authorities blaming it on a sudden temperature drop.

The massive fish deaths started late last week but have eased. Officials have banned the sale of the rotting fish, which are being buried by the truckload in Talisay and four other towns in Batangas province, Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources official Rose del Mundo said Sunday.

The deaths are unrelated to recent signs of restiveness in Taal volcano, which is surrounded by the lake where many villagers have grown milkfish and tilapia - staple food for many Filipinos, officials said. The volcano and lake are a popular tourist draw.

Talisay agricultural officer Zenaida Mendoza said an initial investigation showed the deaths may have been caused by the temperature change as the rainy season set in last week after a scorching summer, which also depleted the lake's oxygen levels.

Sinkholes Have Residents Fleeing QC Neighborhood

CBC News, Canada
Fri, 27 May 2011

Quebec City officials said experts will be on this Charlesbourg district site Friday to find out what's causing sinkholes.

Officials in Quebec City are trying to figure out what's caused dozens of sinkholes to appear in a north-end neighbourhood.

They served evacuation papers on Wednesday to about 15 homes and one business in the city's Charlesbourg district.

Almost 40 holes between five and eight metres wide appeared in the last week. The holes were mostly found in a field, but another was in a resident's driveway. One is big enough to fit a car.

"The field is is like, there is nothing, no trees or anything and you see everywhere some holes, some deeper than others, like 30 or 40 holes everywhere on the field. You can see this is not normal. You can see this is a problem on this land," said city spokesperson François Moisan.

420 Whale Sharks Swarm Mexican Coastline


Up to 420 whale sharks gathered off the coast of the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico, forming the world's largest known assembly of this species, according to a press release issued by the Smithsonian National Zoological Park.

The discovery counters the widely held belief that whale sharks, which can weigh more than 79,000 pounds, are solitary filter feeders that prefer to be alone in the open ocean. The impressive shark assembly proves they will gather for the right reasons. Food now appears to be the draw.

"Whale sharks are the largest species of fish in the world, yet they mostly feed on the smallest organisms in the ocean, such as zooplankton," Mike Maslanka, biologist at the Smithsonian Conservation Biology Institute and head of the Department of Nutrition Sciences, says in the press release. "Our research revealed that in this case, the hundreds of whale sharks had gathered to feed on dense patches of fish eggs."

Maslanka and his team identified the whale shark assembly using both surface and aerial surveys. Considering these sharks can grow to more than 40 feet long, the surface-level surveying must have been extraordinary.

Strange He-She Birds Present Gender-Bending Mystery

Livescience
Thu, 26 May 2011

Japan Quake Raises Shaking Risk Elsewhere in Country

OurAmazingPlanet
Wed, 25 May 2011

Map showing the 11 March 2011 magnitude 9.0 off Tohoku mainshock and 166 aftershocks of magnitude 5.5 and greater until May 20. Warmer color indicates more recent events. Larger symbol indicates greater quake magnitude.

The massive 9.0 magnitude earthquake that devastated Japan in March built up stress on other faults in the country, putting some areas, including Tokyo, at risk of aftershocks and even new main shocks over the next few years, scientists have found.

After studying data from Japan's extensive seismic network, researchers from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Kyoto University and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) have identified several areas at risk from the quake, Japan's largest ever, which already has triggered a large number of aftershocks.

Data from the Tohoku earthquake on March 11 has brought scientists a small step closer to a better assessment of future seismic risk in specific regions, said Shinji Toda of Kyoto University, a lead author of the study.

"Even though we cannot forecast precisely, we can explain the mechanisms involved in such quakes to the public," he said. Still, he added, the findings do bring scientists "a little bit closer" to being able to forecast aftershocks.

Sri Lanka: Dengue Epidemic in Colombo

Daily Mirror
Wed, 25 May 2011


The Colombo City is facing the worst dengue epidemic ever Colombo Municipal Council (CMC) said yesterday revealing that there had been 195 cases reported this month. CMC which dropped a bomb shell, said in and round the National Hospital Colombo, Military Hospital and vicinity of the Colombo Port had been identified as the major mosquito breeding grounds in the city.

There had been 885 reported dengue cases in the city this year out of which 50 percent is reported to be school children.

Chief Medical Officer CMC Dr. Pradeep Kariyawasam told a news conference yesterday that few doctors attached to the National Hospital Colombo had fell victim to Dengue while the nurses quarters is also found to be a breeding ground. In addition, several Chinese nationals who were working at development projects in Colombo were also infected.

He also warned that new complication of dengue DEN 3 had also raised its head in the city.

Dr. Kariyawasam claimed that the school principals have turned a deaf ear to the repeated requests made by the CMC to keep the schools clean while lack of public support as a whole had been one of the reasons for the epidemic.

He said all school principals in the city had been called for a meeting by the Special Commissioner, CMC, Omar Kamil on Thursday to brief them on the situation.
However, he said the Colombo City only accounts to 7 percent of the country's total number of cases though there is a school of thought that most reported cases are from the capital city. He said the disease had come from elsewhere though there is an idea that the germs had existed within the city itself.

He said the CMC had conducted dengue prevention campaigns but lack of public support, legal impediments have not brought much results.
  

12-Mile-High Ash Plume Shutters Iceland Airports

 
More than a year after an Icelandic volcano wreaked havoc for millions of air travelers across the globe, a new eruption has spewed an ash plume 12 miles in the air. Iceland's airports have been shut down, and ash could affect Europe later this week.

Ash could reach northern Scotland by Tuesday and parts of Britain, France and Spain by Thursday or Friday if the eruption continues at the same intensity, airlines were warned on Sunday.

The warning is based on the latest 5-day weather forecasts, but is being treated cautiously because of uncertainties over the way the volcano will behave and interact with the weather.

The Grimsvotn (GREEMSH-votn) volcano, which lies beneath the ice of the uninhabited Vatnajokull glacier in southeast Iceland, began erupting Saturday for the first time since 2004, sending ash, smoke and steam 12 miles into the air.