This should be the nail-in-the-coffin for anyone that thinks that Fox is a ‘credible’ news source. To my knowledge, this type of blatant fabrication has not been evident on other news channels and puts Fox in a league by itself.  It’s sickening.  What has happened to journalistic ethics?! What has happened to integrity?  On to the clip:

news.videosift.com…

- via Daily Show | via ATS

Fox news did get caught red-handed. And sadly, they got caught by the only legitimate news program still on television (which, even more sadly, is on Comedy Central). – ats

“Sean Hannity uses footage of Glenn Beck’s bigger protest to make the GOP’s health care rally appear more heavily attended.” – videosift

… if TDS were lying or fabricating this story, Fox would sue them into oblivion, and Jon Stewart’s staff knows this. By that fact alone, TDS, Comedy Central, and their parent companies have to be 100% sure that what they are presenting is ironclad fact.  This isn’t about Fox vs. CNN, repub vs. dem or any of that crap. It’s about pointing out the absurdity of thinking that some people have regarding the sanctity of Fox. What’s it going to take?  I don’t care what part of the spectrum you come down on – that clip above destroys any credibility that Fox News has. – ats

CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, who is reporting this? Right. Just Comedy Central…so far. Why? What holds the others back? I have no idea.

For real news read a variety of foreign and small local news sources where real reporters still do their jobs every day: Who, what, where, why, when… no spin.

Color-coded images from NASA’s three Great Observatories —
the Hubble, Spitzer and Chandra space telescopes — are combined to produce this  spectacular view of the Milky Way galaxy’s central region.

NASA has blended three views of our home galaxy’s turbulent core to produce a picture filled with scientifically significant snap, crackle and pop. And the deeper you go into the image, the more you learn.

The composite picture of the Milky Way’s center draws upon near-infrared data from the Hubble Space Telescope (shown in yellow), infrared readings from the Spitzer Space Telescope (shown in rich red) and the X-ray vision of the Chandra X-ray Observatory (shown in shades of blue and violet)

The result is an amazingly detailed, and amazingly colorful, multiwavelength view of our galaxy’s core, 26,000 light-years away in the constellation Sagittarius. Among the highlights are Sagittarius A*, the bright knot of material that surrounds the Milky Way’s supermassive black hole, and the “light echo” left behind by black hole blasts that faded away long ago.

“That’s one interesting thing to see – this time history of a supermassive black hole that’s closer to us than any other,” said Chandra press scientist Peter Edmonds. X-ray imagery from the past several years chart how the light echo has changed.

Another bright bluish spot, toward the left side of the picture, marks the location of a mysterious X-ray source known as 1E 1743.1-2843. The emissions might signal the presence of a black hole or a neutron star that is sucking in material from an unseen companion, but astronomers aren’t sure.

The whole region is aglow with a blue haze that represents diffuse X-ray emissions from gas that has been heated to millions of degrees. The heat comes from violent storms of energy that are being whipped up by the central black hole as well as the birth and death of massive stars. Check out Chandra’s multicolored X-ray view of the galactic center for even more detail. …

via Triple delight in the Milky Way – Cosmic Log – msnbc.com.

For most people music is an enjoyable, although momentary, form of entertainment. But for those who seriously practiced a musical instrument when they were young, perhaps when they played in a school orchestra or even a rock band, the musical experience can be something more. Recent research shows that a strong correlation exists between musical training for children and certain other mental abilities.

The research was discussed at a session at a recent gathering of acoustics experts in Austin, Texas.

Laurel Trainor, director of the Institute for Music and the Mind at McMaster University in West Hamilton, Ontario, and colleagues compared preschool children who had taken music lessons with those who did not. Those with some training showed larger brain responses on a number of sound recognition tests given to the children. Her research indicated that musical training appears to modify the brain’s auditory cortex.

Can larger claims be made for the influence on the brain of musical training? Does training change thinking or cognition in general?

Trainor again says yes. Even a year or two of music training leads to enhanced levels of memory and attention when measured by the same type of tests that monitor electrical and magnetic impulses in the brain.

“We therefore hypothesize that musical training (but not necessarily passive listening to music) affects attention and memory, which provides a mechanism whereby musical training might lead to better learning across a number of domains,” Trainor said.

Trainor suggested that the reason for this is that the motor and listening skills needed to play an instrument in concert with other people appears to heavily involve attention, memory and the ability to inhibit actions. Merely listening passively to music to Mozart — or any other composer — does not produce the same changes in attention and memory.

via Music Improves Brain Function | LiveScience.

Drawn half a millennium ago and then swiftly forgotten, one map made us see the world as we know it today… and helped name America. But, as Toby Lester has discovered, the most powerful nation on earth also owes its name to a pun.

Almost exactly 500 years ago, in 1507, Martin Waldseemuller and Matthias Ringmann, two obscure Germanic scholars based in the mountains of eastern France, made one of the boldest leaps in the history of geographical thought – and indeed in the larger history of ideas.

Near the end of an otherwise plodding treatise titled Introduction to Cosmography, they announced to their readers the astonishing news that the world did not just consist of Asia, Africa, and Europe, the three parts of the world known since antiquity. A previously unknown fourth part of the world had recently been discovered, they declared, by the Italian merchant Amerigo Vespucci, and in his honour they had decided to give it a name: America.

 

What is coming into focus is a document that is far richer, far stranger, and much more historically valuable than had previously been imagined

Toby Lester

But that was just the beginning. Waldseemuller and Ringman in fact had written the Introduction to Cosmography merely as a companion volume to their magnum opus: a giant and revolutionary new map of the world. It’s known today as the Waldseemuller map of 1507.

The Waldseemuller map was – and still is – an astonishing sight to behold. Drawn 15 years after Columbus first sailed across the Atlantic, and measuring a remarkable 8ft wide by 4½ft high, it introduced Europeans to a fundamentally new understanding of the make-up of the earth.

The map represented a remarkable number of historical firsts. In addition to giving America its name, it was also the first map to portray the New World as a separate continent – even though Columbus, Vespucci, and other early explorers would all insist until their dying day that they had reached the far-eastern limits of Asia.

The map was the first to suggest the existence of what explorer Ferdinand Magellan would later call the Pacific Ocean, a mysterious decision, in that Europeans, according to the standard history of New World discovery, aren’t supposed to have learned about the Pacific until several years later.

via BBC NEWS | UK | Magazine | The map that changed the world.

The collision of a large extraterrestrial object with Earth almost 2 billion years ago may have stirred the seas worldwide and delivered a huge serving of oxygen to the deep ocean.

The Sudbury impact, named after the Canadian city located near the center of what remains of the ancient crater, happened around 1.85 billion years ago (SN: 6/15/02, p. 378). Despite erosion since then, the impact structure —at least 200 kilometers across — is recognized to be the second-largest on the face of the planet, says William Cannon, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey in Reston, Va., and coauthor on a paper in the November Geology. The event fundamentally affected the concentrations of dissolved oxygen in the deep sea — enough to almost instantly shut down the accumulation of marine sediments known as banded iron formations, report Cannon and coauthor John F. Slack, also of the USGS in Reston.

Banded iron formations, massive deposits rich in iron oxides, have accumulated at several periods in Earth’s long-distant geological past, mostly when atmospheric concentrations of oxygen were low (SN: 6/20/09, p. 24).

One extended episode of banded iron formation (or BIF) buildup suddenly — and without an obvious explanation — ended about 1.85 billion years ago, says Cannon. Over a very short interval, he notes, “the environment shifted from one happily making banded iron to one that wasn’t.”

In northern Minnesota and other areas nearby, the formations lie directly underneath a thick layer of material only recently recognized as ejecta from the Sudbury impact. Mark Jirsa, a geologist with the Minnesota Geological Survey in St. Paul, was a member of the team that identified the ejecta layer. “We intuitively connected the Sudbury impact with the shutdown of BIF accumulation,” he says. “But now [Cannon and Slack] have come up with a model for how that might have happened.”

About 1.85 billion years ago, Earth’s now separate landmasses were joined in a single supercontinent. That also means there was one large ocean, says Cannon. Many scientists suggest that the object that slammed into Earth then — probably an asteroid abut 10 kilometers across — splashed down in that ocean, in waters about 1 kilometer deep on the shallow shelf surrounding the supercontinent. Models hint that the tsunami spawned by the event would have been 1 kilometer tall at the impact site and remained at least 100 meters tall about 3,000 kilometers away, Cannon adds.

Those immense waves and large underwater landslides triggered by the impact stirred the ocean, bringing oxygenated waters from the surface down to the ocean floor, the researchers propose.

via Giant Asteroid Impact Could Have Stirred Entire Ocean | Wired Science | Wired.com.

Four hundred years after it locked up Galileo for challenging the view that the Earth was the center of the universe, the Vatican has called in experts to study the possibility of extraterrestrial alien life and its implication for the Catholic Church.

“The questions of life’s origins and of whether life exists elsewhere in the universe are very suitable and deserve serious consideration,” said the Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, an astronomer and director of the Vatican Observatory.

Funes, a Jesuit priest, presented the results Tuesday of a five-day conference that gathered astronomers, physicists, biologists and other experts to discuss the budding field of astrobiology — the study of the origin of life and its existence elsewhere in the cosmos.

Funes said the possibility of alien life raises “many philosophical and theological implications” but added that the gathering was mainly focused on the scientific perspective and how different disciplines can be used to explore the issue.

Chris Impey, an astronomy professor at the University of Arizona, said it was appropriate that the Vatican would host such a meeting.

“Both science and religion posit life as a special outcome of a vast and mostly inhospitable universe,” he told a news conference Tuesday. “There is a rich middle ground for dialogue between the practitioners of astrobiology and those who seek to understand the meaning of our existence in a biological universe.”

Thirty scientists, including non-Catholics, from the U.S., France, Britain, Switzerland, Italy and Chile attended the conference, called to explore among other issues “whether sentient life forms exist on other worlds.”

Funes set the stage for the conference a year ago when he discussed the possibility of alien life in an interview given prominence in the Vatican’s daily newspaper.

The Church of Rome’s views have shifted radically through the centuries since Italian philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake as a heretic in 1600 for speculating, among other ideas, that other worlds could be inhabited.

Scientists have discovered hundreds of planets outside our solar system — including 32 new ones announced recently by the European Space Agency. Impey said the discovery of alien life may be only a few years away.

“If biology is not unique to the Earth, or life elsewhere differs bio-chemically from our version, or we ever make contact with an intelligent species in the vastness of space, the implications for our self-image will be profound,” he said.

This is not the first time the Vatican has explored the issue of extraterrestrials: In 2005, its observatory brought together top researchers in the field for similar discussions

via Vatican looks to heavens for signs of alien life – Yahoo! News.

Is the discovery of alien life being suppressed because religious leaders are afraid people would freak out?

A ‘Rasta’, a ‘Wee Scots’, and a ‘Squat Lobster’: three new and unusual discoveries revealed by a NIWA deep-sea marine biodiversity survey.

The finds include a coral genus Narella and nicknamed ‘Rasta’ because of its long white dreadlock-like branches; a tiny ‘Squat Lobster’ measuring 1 cm across; and some specimens of sea urchin which are commonly known as Tam O’Shanters due to their similarity to the Scottish hat.

A recent deepsea survey of seamounts on the Chatham Rise found species some of which have never been recorded in the region and some of which may be new to science. This has increased the total number of species known to exist in the New Zealand region.

“There are three new corals that we are confident are new species from the area” says National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) Deepwater Scientist, Di Tracey.

In an eighteen day voyage in June this year, NIWA’s research vessel Tangaroa explored several groups of seamounts (underwater hills and mountains) on the Chatham Rise. This area stretches for 1000 kilometres from near the South Island eastwards to the Chatham Islands.

It is estimated that there are over 100,000 seamounts worldwide. They can be ecologically valuable as hotspots of biodiversity and economically valuable and they are often the target of commercial fishing.

via New species discovered on Chatham Rise expedition.

Squat Lobster! A great new insult appears around the world for babysitters everywhere: “Give me back my iPod you little Squat Lobster, or I’m going to tell your mother that you …”  Or perhaps a band name.

Although no one noticed at the time, the Earth was almost hit by an asteroid last Friday.

The previously undiscovered asteroid came within 8,700miles of Earth but astronomers noticed it only 15 hours before it made its closest approach.

Its orbit brought it 30 times nearer than the Moon, which is 250,000 miles away.

But before you head for the nuclear bunkers you will be relieved to learn the tumbling rock was only 23ft across. Similar sized objects pass by this close to Earth about twice a year and impact on the planet about once every five years.Astronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up whi

stronomers believe the object, called 2009 VA, would have almost completely burned up while entering Earth’s atmosphere, causing a brilliant fireball in the sky but no major damage to the surface.

The asteroid was discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey on November 6, 2009. It was then identified by the Minor Planet Centre in Cambridge, Massachusetts as a near Earth object.

Nasa’s Near Earth Object Programme plotted the orbit of the object and determined that although it would fly extremely close to our planet it wouldn’t hit us.

It was the third-closest known (non-impacting) Earth approach on record for a cataloged asteroid.

The Nasa NEO programme aims to detect and track at least 90 per cent of the 1,000 asteroids and comets that approach Earth and are larger than 0.6miles in diameter, by 2020.

They monitored a 100ft asteroid that whizzed 45,000 miles above the Earth’s surface on March 2 this year. A similar sized object slammed into Tunguska, Siberia in 1908. The impact created a blast so powerful it levelled 1,200 square miles of forest.

via Asteroid scrapes past Earth just 8,700miles away – with only 15 hours warning | Mail Online.

We are sitting ducks, really. A space rock could smash through your roof in the next few minutes and kill you.  We have no shield, no interceptors.

An anti-toxin that protects against ricin poisoning is to move into production for the first time.

It is the result of eight years of work by researchers at the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory based at Porton Down in Wiltshire.

The antidote can protect against death up to 24 hours after exposure, according to Dr Jane Holley from DSTL.

Security experts say ricin – roughly 1,000 times more toxic than cyanide – could be used in a bio-terror attack.

Dr Holley told BBC News: “In the past there has been lots of research carried out using different methods. But this is the first [anti-toxin] that has been moved into production.

The principal scientist in biomedical sciences at DSTL added: “It is anticipated that a product will be available for use in the next couple of years.”

Ricin is extracted from castor beans, which are processed throughout the world to make castor oil. The toxin is part of the waste “mash” produced when castor oil is made.

It can cause harm if injected, swallowed or inhaled. A tiny amount can be lethal, but the amount needed to kill depends on the route of administration.

A combination of pulmonary, liver, renal and immunological failure can lead to death, though people can recover from exposure. …

Although the anti-toxin developed at Porton Down was initially intended for use by the military, DSTL scientists are investigating its potential use in a civilian environment.

Production of the anti-toxin involves immunising sheep with an inactive form of ricin, which results in the production of antibodies. These are proteins used by the immune system to neutralise harmful substances.

The antibodies are then harvested from the sheep to produce a freeze-dried product. This is reconstituted with water for injection into the body.

Dr Holley said that although the anti-toxin is ready to be manufactured, full licensing is likely to take about five years. ….

via BBC NEWS | Science & Environment | Ricin ‘antidote’ to be produced.

It is one of the rarest giants of the ocean, and it has been caught on film for the first time.

An underwater camera crew filming for the BBC has recorded a smalleye stingray swimming off the coast of Mozambique.

The smalleye stingray is the largest of all 70 species of stingray, attaining widths of more than 2m.

The elusive creature, first discovered in 1908, has only ever been seen alive off Tofo in southern Mozambique.

Rare sight

Stingrays are cartilaginous fish that are related to sharks.

They occur is marine, freshwater and estuarine habitats and vary in size from the dwarf whipray (Himantura walga), which measures just 24cm wide, to the smooth or short-tail stingray (Dasyatis brevicaudata) which can grow over 2m wide.

However, the smalleye stingray (D. microps) is the largest of all, able to grow to a width of 2.2m.

Specimens have been caught in waters around Australia, Thailand, Malaysia and The Philippines, as well as in various places in the Indian Ocean, including with the Ganges River estuary.

But live smalleye stingrays have only been recorded off Tofo, a beach in southern Mozambique that lies 425km north of South Africa and 820km west of the southern tip of Madagascar.

Several live sightings have been made by resident biologists Dr Andrea Marshall and Dr Simon Pierce of the Manta Ray and Whale Shark Research Centre based at Tofo Beach.

Film of a live specimen was recorded by an underwater film crew working for independent production company Big Wave productions, which was making a documentary about manta rays with Dr Marshall.

The footage was shot as part of the programme “Andrea: Queen of the Mantas” for the BBC documentary series Natural World, which will be broadcast on BBC Two at 2000GMT on Wednesday 11 November.

via BBC – Earth News – First film of a ‘giant’ stingray.