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sycodon writes:
Astronomers said Thursday that they had felt space-time vibrations known as gravitational waves from the merger of a pair of mammoth black holes resulting in a pit of infinitely deep darkness weighing as much as 49 suns, some 3 billion light-years from here.
This is the third black-hole smashup that astronomers have detected since they started keeping watch on the cosmos back in September 2015, with LIGO, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.
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sycodon writes:
Turmoil in South Australia's heavily wind-reliant electricity market has forced the state government to plead with the owner of a mothballed gas-fired power station to turn it back on.
"National Electricity Market (NEM) prices in the state have frequently surged above $1000 a megawatt hour this month and at one point on Tuesday hit the $14,000MWh maximum price."
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sycodon writes:
A new model of the Sun's solar cycle is producing unprecedentedly accurate predictions of irregularities within the Sun's 11-year heartbeat. The model draws on dynamo effects in two layers of the Sun, one close to the surface and one deep within its convection zone. Predictions from the model suggest that solar activity will fall by 60 per cent during the 2030s to conditions last seen during the 'mini ice age' that began in 1645.
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sycodon writes:
A long-awaited EPA report on hydraulic fracturing concludes that the extraction process has “not led to widespread, systemic impacts on drinking water resources.”
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sycodon writes:
Nakoula Basseley Nakoula, the man behind the film Innocence of Muslims,has been arrested and jailed in Los Angeles for probation violations.
The situation is a win-win for the Obama administration who can now appear to be punishing the man who's film caused millions of Muslims around the world to go apeshit, but at the same time to be simply enforcing the law as all evidence indeed suggests Nakoula violated the terms of his probation.
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sycodon writes:
Today the Royal Astronomical Society in London publishes (online) Henrik Svensmark’s latest paper entitled “Evidence of nearby supernovae affecting life on Earth”. After years of effort Svensmark shows how the variable frequency of stellar explosions not far from our planet has ruled over the changing fortunes of living things throughout the past half billion years.
It has profound implications on all manner of flagship theories, including AGW.
The paper is available here.
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sycodon writes:
Politico reports that student loan debt now exceeds one trillion dollars, an amount that should impress even Dr. Evil.
Politico further reports that this is one of the more concrete issues driving the OWS protests and provides some enlightening examples of their particular gripes.
