US Considering ASAT Shot

U.S. officials are studying the possibility of shooting down the errant Lockheed Martin intelligence satellite that was launched into space for the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO).

The concern is that the spacecraft carries a full tank of hydrazine - a toxic propellant - that would have been used to reposition the satellite in orbit. Government analysts say the odds are that the tank will crack open during re-entry or than it will land in the ocean, which makes up 70% of the area where the breaking up satellite might land. There also is concern in some quarters that debris could reveal U.S. national security secrets if recovered by other nations. It is expected to re-enter the atmosphere late this month or in early March.

Analysts at the Missile Defense Agency and NRO have put hundreds of hours into analysis and have studied closely the accuracy of surveillance capabilities of U.S. radars in Japan, Alaska and possibly elsewhere to give more targeting options to those assessing the danger of the satellite falling to Earth.

A senior official with insight into the planning says that a rumor that the satellite carried a small, nuclear generator is "absolutely and totally incorrect." However, government agencies including MDA and NRO "are studying options that include" hitting the satellite with a weapon so that it breaks up in space - and ruptures the hydrazine tank -- before beginning its descent.

If the hydrazine tank did hit a populated area intact, and depending on winds and the dynamics of "plumeology," the impact could affect humans - perhaps kill some - out to a distance of "20-30 yards," the official says.

Hoo boy. If MIRACL is still around, it might be able to do the job. THEL ought to be able to too. IDK what the status of those programs happens to be these days. They are both military class lasers though.

Lake Mead could be dry by 2021

There is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead, a key source of water for millions of people in the southwestern United States, will be dry by 2021 if climate changes as expected and future water usage is not curtailed, according to a pair of researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, UC San Diego.

Without Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell, the Colorado River system has no buffer to sustain the population of the Southwest through an unusually dry year, or worse, a sustained drought. In such an event, water deliveries would become highly unstable and variable, said research marine physicist Tim Barnett and climate scientist David Pierce.

Barnett and Pierce concluded that human demand, natural forces like evaporation, and human-induced climate change are creating a net deficit of nearly 1 million acre-feet of water per year from the Colorado River system that includes Lake Mead and Lake Powell. This amount of water can supply roughly 8 million people. Their analysis of Federal Bureau of Reclamation records of past water demand and calculations of scheduled water allocations and climate conditions indicate that the system could run dry even if mitigation measures now being proposed are implemented.

The paper, “When will Lake Mead go dry?,” has been accepted for publication in the peer-reviewed journal Water Resources Research, published by the American Geophysical Union (AGU), and is accessible via the AGU’s website (see instructions below).

Still wanna live in LV, Suzanne?

Russia & China: Space Weapons Ban Proposed...Again

Russia and China have proposed a new treaty to ban the use of weapons in space, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Tuesday, amid concerns of growing anti-satellite missile rivalry.

"Without preventing an arms race in space, international security will be wanting," Lavrov told a conference on disarmament in Geneva.

"The task of preventing an arms race in space is on the conference's agenda. It's time... to start serious practical work in this field," he said.

The new treaty would prohibit the deployment of weapons of any kind in space, and the use or threat of force against space objects, he added.

Concerns over a new arms race in space have been growing since China tested an anti-satellite missile in January last year, sparking diplomatic concern.

The United States also has its own anti-satellite programme ranging from laser cannon to satellite destroying missiles.

Note: almost any militarily useful laser - 100 kw or higher - will be a useful ASAT weapon.

It's obvious whey the Russians want this: their tech base couldn't compete on this level. The Chinese could and probably would continue development covertly. This wouldn't stop ASAT or space based weaponry developments, it would merely allow others to catch up...which is what the Chinese want. Their credibility wrt ASATs and opposed space based weaponization got shot to hell along with that satellite they shot down.

New Greenland Ice Sheet Study

A comprehensive new study authored by University at Buffalo scientists and their colleagues for the first time documents in detail the dynamics of parts of Greenland’s ice sheet, important data that have long been missing from the ice sheet models on which projections about sea level rise and global warming are based.

The research, published online this month in the Journal of Glaciology, also demonstrates how remote sensing and digital imaging techniques can produce rich datasets without field data in some cases.

Traditionally, ice sheet models are very simplified, according to Beata Csatho, Ph.D., assistant professor of geology in the UB College of Arts and Sciences and lead author of the paper.

“Ice sheet models usually don’t include all the complexity of ice dynamics that can happen in nature,” said Csatho. “This research will give ice sheet modelers more precise, more detailed data.”

The implications of these richer datasets may be dramatic, Csatho said, especially as they impact climate projections and sea-level rise estimates, such as those made by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

“If current climate models from the IPCC included data from ice dynamics in Greenland, the sea level rise estimated during this century could be twice as high as what they are currently projecting,” she said.

Stepping closer to the projections I've been hearing around work for a time now...

Velafrons coahuilensis: Mexican hadrosaur

A new species of dinosaur unearthed in Mexico is giving scientists fresh insights into the ancient history of western North America, according to an international research team led by scientists from the Utah Museum of Natural History at the University of Utah.

“To date, the dinosaur record from Mexico has been sparse,” said Terry Gates, a paleontologist with the Utah Museum of Natural History, Utah’s designated natural history museum.

The new creature — aptly dubbed Velafrons coahuilensis — was a massive plant-eater belonging to a group of duck-billed dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs. “Velafrons is a combination of Latin and Spanish meaning “sailed forehead,” in reference to the large sail-like crest that grew atop the dinosaur’s head,” said Rosario Gomez, director of the paleontology program in Coahuila, Mexico. “The second part of the name honors the state of Coahuila in north-central Mexico, where the specimen was found,” said Gomez.

Utah Museum of Natural History paleontologists teamed up with researchers from the Utah Geological Survey; Coordinacion de Paleontologia, Secretaria de Educacion y Cultura de Coahuila the Museo del Desierto, in Saltillo, Coahuila, Mexico; and the Royal Tyrrell Museum, in Drumheller, Alberta, Canada, to excavate and study the 72-million-year-old specimen. The species was announced in the December edition of the Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology.

Very kewl. As time goes on I am sure that Mexico will contribute more and more fossils to our knowledge of Mesozoic Laurasia as America and Canada already have.

More on Nemicolopterus crypticus

A new species of miniature flying reptile that lived more than 120 million years ago has been unearthed in China, researchers announced today.

The mini-pterosaur, dubbed Nemicolopterus crypticus, had a wingspan of only 10 inches (25 centimeters)—about the size of a modern sparrow.

It would be interesting to follow up to see if all the mini pterosaurs were completely gone - as I understand NOW that they are believed to be the case - by the end of the Cretaceous. If there were mini pterosaurs at the KT Boundary, it might still be that they just got unlucky: 50% of mammal species died at the KT Boundary, remember, as well as nontrivial numbers of birds. However, as it stands right now, it looks like the pterosaurs were too large to survive as adults at that point: they starved and froze.

However, it should be remembered that the pterosaurs were fundamentally different fliers and animals that even their fellow archosaur flying relatives: they were hatched able to fly right away. Furthermore, a lot of "species" that were originally identified from fossils for pterosaurs have turned out to be the same species of different ages. This has interesting implications for their paleobiology. It very well may be that the giant pterosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous were actually filling several niches with a single species as they grew. The young might well have competed with the birds as insectivores. The mature, but smaller to mid sized ones might have been active hunters of smaller to medium sized prey like the raptors of today. The larger, giant sized individuals might have been stork-like fishers, as Darren Naish has mentioned, or scavengers. This is not all that different than what the Komodo Dragon does now. This would help explain why there were larger sized pterosaurs rather than several different species of the buggers at or near the KT: the ones that grew into mongo sized ones could compete with those that were minisized as well as have access to other food sources later in life.

This would also help explain why they died out: there were less of them to just game the odds statistically when their turn at playing the mass extinction roulette came. One species that fills 3+ niches means there are 1/3 (or less) the species to have some attempt at survival. It also means that once you cross out of a age related niche you might well be in trouble to find food in the aftermath of the bollide impact. Bug eating works well, but if that's only available to you when you're not sexually mature...ah frakk!

So, if no one else has marked their territory on this hypothesis as to why the pterosaurs failed to make it across the KT, call it mine and send me a more experienced collaborator to try to guide me in testing it for publication. ;)

Coming Tonight...

There is really someone out on wikipedia that is cranking out some moderately good - better than I've seen before for the most part and sometimes really, really nice - therapsid & Late Permian pix.

Anways, I am planning on getting out a write up that is a spin off of my long overdue Permian Terrestrial Ecology post. The ecology post has grown to be a small book so I am going to cut chunks out and put them into their own separate articles here. This one tonight will be talking just about the gorgonopsids. Where they come from. What they were. What happened to them. I find them pretty amazing critters that, alas, had their time cut short.

Until tonight then!

PS Zach, the post is mostly done, so no worries, eh?

Keen on McCain

`He's got to not just sort of placate among issues because in many cases, the problems he has with the right are not as much issues-based as they're based on a sense that conservatives have that John McCain doesn't like them, hasn't liked them, and would like them to go somewhere else.''

That would be my take too.

All in favour?

O:)

More Local Stupidity Goes National...and may effect me

Berkeley, the famously liberal college town in California, has taken aim at Marine recruiters, saying they are "not welcome in our city."

Republican lawmakers in Washington fired back this week, threatening to take back more than $2 million of federal funding to the city as well as money designated for the University of California-Berkeley, the campus that became a haven of protests during the Vietnam War.

The battle erupted after the Berkeley City Council approved a measure last week urging the Marine recruiters to leave their downtown office.

"If recruiters choose to stay, they do so as uninvited and unwelcome intruders," the item says.

It goes on to say the council applauds residents and organizations that "volunteer to impede, passively or actively, by nonviolent means, the work of any military recruiting office located in the City of Berkeley."

Outside the Shattuck Avenue recruiting station earlier this week, a handful of protesters with the anti-war group Code Pink camped out, strumming a guitar as they sang anti-war songs and held signs against the Iraq war.

"Time to end the war, time to end the war, time to end the war right now," they sang to the beat of "I've Been Working on the Railroad." Video Watch protesters sing "I Ain't Afraid" »

One giant sign said, "No Military Predators in Our Town." Another message on a pink placard read, "Join the Marines. Travel to Exotic Lands. Meet Exciting and Unusual People -- And Kill Them."

Zanne Joi peered out from under her straw hat. "This Marine recruiting station is trying to recruit our youth to go to Iraq to kill and be killed. And we are against that," said Joi, a member of Code Pink Women for Peace.

"This is part of a multi-pronged effort to end this war."

Protester Sharon Adams added: "This recruiting station recruits people to go fight and then once they fight and they serve their country, our country doesn't take care of them. That's a shame."

But not everyone here supports the protesters.

[...]

Gunnery Sgt. Pauline Franklin, a spokeswoman for the Marine Corps Recruiting Command, told CNN there is "no plan for that office to move."

She said recruiters are there to "provide information to qualified men and women who are looking for opportunities that they may benefit from by serving in the military."

"The Marine Corps is here to support and defend the Constitution of the United States, which does guarantee the freedom of speech," Franklin said. "In terms of the situation in Berkeley, the City Council and the protesters are exercising their right to do so."

In Washington, a group of Republican lawmakers have introduced the Semper Fi Act of 2008 -- named after the Marine motto -- to rescind more than $2 million of funds for Berkeley and transfer it to the Marine Corps.

"Like most Americans, I really get disturbed when taxpayer money goes to institutions which proceed to take votes, make policy or make statements that really denigrate the military," said Sen. David Vitter, R-Louisiana, a co-sponsor of the bill.

He told CNN he believes the bill will pass. "I think it's going to have significant support."

The bill's co-sponsor, Sen. Jim DeMint, R-South Carolina, said in a written statement, "Berkeley needs to learn that their actions have consequences."

First up, I think that Code Pink is a bunch of nitwits (they have a right to protest though, I do agree, even if what's coming out of their mouths seriously pisses me off). One of the things they have been espousing is that the recruiters are trying to go to the HS to get the young, dumb, and impressionable. This station is actually aimed at the university to get graduates to join.

Secondly, the Repugnants sponsoring that bill are right up there with them.

Thirdly, I happen to work for Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and I am an University of California employee. If they really strip money from going into Berkeley, it might be an issue for, y'know my job.

gah. Idiocy is contagious.

Clearing Land for Biofuels Makes Global Warming Worse

Growing crops to make biofuels may accelerate global warming, not slow down its effects, a new study says.

When farmers clear native ecosystems such as forests or grasslands to grow crops, this gives off substantial amounts of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas that fuels climate change.

Biofuels such as ethanol from corn and biodiesel from palm oil typically start out with a "carbon debt."

Before these biofuels could reduce individual carbon dioxide emissions, they would first have to pay off this debt, which would take decades or centuries.

"I was surprised that with so many of the crops, it takes so long before you break even [on carbon emissions]," said study co-author David Tilman of the University of Minnesota in St. Paul. The university and the nonprofit group the Nature Conservancy conducted the study.

"I don't think we can afford to make biofuels if we have to wait 50 years for any benefit," he added.

Many scientists believe the planet is at a crucial juncture, and that carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced sharply over the next 50 years to avoid the catastrophic consequences of climate change.

But there are some kinds of biofuels that could be helpful, such as those made from grasses or algae, as they avoid the debt problem, Tilman said.

The study will be published online tomorrow in the journal Science.

mmm. Not only is corn based ehtanol less than ideal energetically and causes issues with food prices, its not the best way to be carbon neutral. Fancy that.

Cons' Issues with McCain

There's an AP article on Yahoo News that outlines the 'Top Ten' reasons that the conservatives are freaking out over McCain winning the Repugnant nomination.

1. Campaign finance reform. McCain tried to limit the role of money in politics with measures that, critics say, stomp on the constitutional right to free speech.

2. Immigration. McCain has been a vocal supporter of a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, although he now says he understands the border between the U.S. and Mexico must be sealed first.


3. Tax cuts. McCain twice voted against President Bush's tax cuts, saying in 2001 they helped the wealthy at the expense of the middle class and in 2003 that there should be no tax relief until the cost of the Iraq war was known. But he now wants to extend the tax cuts.

4. Gay Marriage. McCain refuses to support a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

5. Stem cell research. McCain would relax restrictions on federal dollars for embryonic stem cell research, which critics consider tantamount to abortion.

6. Global warming. Among the loudest voices in Congress for aggressive action against global warming and a frequent critic of the Bush administration on the issue.

7. "Gang of 14" member. One of seven Republicans and seven Democrats who averted a Senate showdown over whether filibusters could be used against Bush judicial nominees.

8. Kerry veep. McCain was approached by the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, about being his running mate. McCain talked with Kerry but rejected the offer.

9. Works with Democrats. See all of the above.

10. Belligerence. McCain can be acerbic toward his critics, such as when he labeled televangelists Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance." He reconciled with Falwell in 2006. Conservative James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, said in a statement on the morning of the Super Tuesday primaries that he would not vote for McCain, citing among other things his "legendary temper" and that he "often uses foul and obscene language."

That last is the only one that is even close to troubling: only for its implications for international politics. A few American polis need their butts kick. More than a few.

GOP Rumor: Romney Bails

Now its Huckabee vs McCain. That settles that. Huckles - even if all of Romney's delegates transfer to him which I doubt - still puts him waaaaay the heck behind McCain. It's too bad: I definitely preferred Romney over Huckles. Huckles gives me the heebee geebees.

Update: Yep, he's out. CNN's Political Ticker has a quote from a Romney partisan that I need to bring to everyone's attention:

“I vote the party, not the person.”

This is so fundamentally wrong I cannot even start on where to slag this opinion.

Huckles vs McCain. Who! Will! Win! (it's a bit snarky & rhetorical)

Ukraine Gains Entrance to WTO

Ukraine won permission to join the World Trade Organization after a 15-year battle to speed economic growth, improve living standards and set up a free- trade area with the European Union.

WTO members approved the accession agreement today in Geneva. Ukraine now has until July 4 to ratify the accord and will become a WTO member 30 days after that.

Ukraine, a country of 46 million that borders Russia and the European Union, reported an average wage of about $267 a month in 2007, or about a quarter of the monthly wage in neighboring Poland, also a member of the WTO. Ukraine is counting on WTO membership to open new markets and give a boost to the $106 billion economy.

``We have difficult homework to do,'' Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said at a press conference in Geneva. ``This starts the colossal integration work that lies ahead.'' Membership means ``better living standards, higher wages, improved social standards and economic life.''

The WTO sets global rules to ease commerce among members and acts as an arbitrator in settling trade disputes between countries. The organization is struggling to break a deadlock in talks on a broad treaty to eliminate more trade barriers and is now targeting a deal next year.

Woo! Congratulations to my Ukrainian readers!

One step down two[1] more to go (plus interminable internal issues to clear up). This also means Russia gets the shaft.

1. Meaning NATO AND EU membership.

Germans Simulate Sauropod Digestion

Scientists from the University of Bonn are researching which plants giant dinosaurs could have lived off more than 100 million years ago. They want to find out how the dinosaurs were able to become as large as they did. In actual fact such gigantic animals should not have existed. The results of the research have now been published in the journal 'Proceedings of the Royal Society B'.

Take 200 milligrammes of dried and ground equisetum, ten millilitres of digestive juice from sheep's rumen, a few minerals, carbonate and water. Fill a big glass syringe with the mix, clamp this into a revolving drum and put the whole thing into an incubator, where the brew can rotate slowly. In this way you obtain the artificial 'dinosaur rumen'. With this apparatus (also used as a ‘Menke gas production technique’ in assessing food for cows) Dr. Jürgen Hummel from the Bonn Institute of Animal Sciences (Bonner Institut für Tierwissenschaften) is investigating which plants giant dinosaurs could have lived off more than 100 million years ago, since this is one of the pieces which are still missing in the puzzle involving the largest land animals that ever walked the earth. The largest of these 'sauropod dinosaurs' with their 70 to 100 tonnes had a mass of ten full grown elephants or more than 1000 average Germans.

We have some sauropod types in the audience. Thoughts? Zach?

GLONASS Sucks, Really, Ask Putin

[During Christmas 2007] independent observers expressed concern that official optimism about GLONASS was unfounded, that of the 18 GLONASS satellites currently in orbit only 13 were in fact operational, that the positioning system will be dysfunctional for at least two more years, and that at best GLONASS provided positional accuracy of only 10–17 meters (Nezavisimaya gazeta, December 26, 2007). In less than a month Ivanov has come around to agree with the critics, announcing that the positioning system is inaccurate and does not cover all of Russia all of the time, that the GLONASS satellites are unreliable, that Russian industry is not producing GLONASS positioners, and the leadership of the Federal Space Agency (Roskosmos) “should be held personally responsible for the shortcomings in the work of the global navigation system.

[...]

The Russian space industry is reasonably competitive, unlike many other sectors of the Soviet technological and industrial heritage. Roskosmos is earning billions of dollars from contracts with NASA to service the International Space Station and by making and launching foreign and Russian satellites (Itar-Tass, April 12, 2007). Roskosmos has been successfully integrating its products with Western-made hardware. Last week a Proton-M rocket successfully launched a Russian Express-AM33 communications satellite from Kazakhstan. The satellite will provide commercial and government communication services. The satellite's platform was made in the closed nuclear city of Krasnoyarsk-26 (Zheleznogorsk) at the same industrial unit that makes the GLONASS satellites, while the electronic hardware of Express-AM33 was provided by the French company Thales Alenia Space (RIA-Novosti, January 28).

Popovkin explained that Russia widely uses foreign components to make satellites but cannot buy U.S. space-quality electronics, because they may be sabotaged by secret “insertions.” So Moscow is forced to buy cheap replacements not designed for satellite use from other sources. Thus the Russian military gets satellites that are sabotage-free – but they do not work well.

Really?

Permian Strata Destroyed to Make Cement

A fossil-rich region of India's war-torn state of Kashmir could be blasted out of existence by mining operations, according to eyewitness accounts by geologists.

Fossil beds in the rocky Guryul Ravine, just south of the city of Srinagar, date back 260 million years to the pre-dinosaur Permian period.

Specimens from the site include primordial corals, small invertebrates, plants, and a group of mammal-like reptiles known as therapsids. (See pictures of the ancient creatures of the Permian.)

But the fossils lie inside rich tracts of limestone—a key ingredient in cement manufacturing.

Local authorities declared the Guryul site a protected area last year and claim that mining activities have ceased.

But there are still quarry owners who supply stone chips to small-scale cement factories in nearby towns, said Ghulam Mohamad Bhat, a sediment geologist at Kashmir's University of Jammu.

Bigger pieces of exploded rock are used in road and housing construction.

Quarry operators earn about 600 rupees (U.S. $15) per truckload of stones, according to a recent report in the Telegraph, a leading daily newspaper of eastern India.

"Underhanded mining has gone on for years and is still going on," Bhat said. "Sadly, the fossil section at Guryul has been entirely put to sale."

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHH!!!!!!

Darren? Sarda? Julia! Brian! SOMEONE! DO SOMETHING!

Permian strata fossiliferous strata getting pulverized for cement!!!

New Mexico. Democrats. Oy.

Democratic Party officials in New Mexico resumed counting votes Wednesday after a higher-than-expected turnout proved problematic for caucus voters and left the state as the last one undecided from Super Tuesday for Democrats.

With 181 of 184 precincts reporting, Hillary Clinton led early Wednesday morning with 65,845 votes, a mere 117-vote lead against Barack Obama's tally of 65,728 votes.

Still outstanding are votes from three polling sites in Rio Arriba County: Espanola Middle School, Hernandez Elementary School, and Chimayo Elementary School. Democratic party officials said they cannot reach the Rio Arriba County Chair for the returns.

Oh, Espanola! Nuff said.

okokok. Old Los Alamos-Espanola-Santa Fe troika rivalry coming out again. sorry 'bout that.

T3H 3V1L: IT! JUST! WONT! DIE!

The Crazy Old Coot just won't give up. Even the Rabid Keebler Elf did on the 'Brat side. Sheesh.

Results

Front Runner

Teh 3v1L got spanked: I actually know someone that voted for him and I gave him a hard time just out of shock! When I blurted out why?! He said maybe the party would listen to what RP was saying. Given the numbers that T3h 3v1L received, he should stop being so delusional.

Huckles did much better than I thought to my dismay. Romney did worse. I don't care for either result.

It looks to me that unless McCain screws up, he's the nominee. Whether or not I vote for him in November depends on his VP. His age still concerns me.

Okay, Noel, 'splain me your party's results. If CNN's right, Obama's got a Latino issue big time.