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Could We Live On Mars?

February 8th 2010 01:05

Can Mars Be Terraformed?

The answer is yes it probaly could. All that is required is a large budget and 1000 years or so.
Mars was once a warm planet with water and greenhouse gases which are now frozen in the dirt. If these can be released the prcess of warming Mars back up can start.

The project could begin with a series of survey missions, each crew making the 6 month journey to Mars would add a small habitation module to the main Mars base.

After 100 years an atmosphere could be made by releasing Carbon Dioxide now frozen in dirt and polar ice caps. Factories spewing potent green gases and maybe space mirrors focusing sunlight on ice, could start the thaw.

After 200 years rain would fall and water would flow once enough CO2 had been released to traise the atmospheric pressure and warm the planet above freezing. Microbes, algae and lichens could start growing on the rock.

After 600 years flowering plants could be introduced after the microbes had created organic soil and added some oxygen to the atmosphere. Boreal and perhaps even temperate forests might ultimately take root.

After 1000 years energy for cities might come from nuclear power and wind turbines. Martians would be able to go outside only with breathing gear as the oxygen will be too low for a few more thousand years.

click to enlarge

*Image and information sourced from the National Geographic here.

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Posted By: Ian - Category: satellite & space

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The Best and Worst of Elvis Presley

February 5th 2010 02:20

The life of Elvis Presley was a mixture of highs and lows, as were the albums he released.
The Chicago Tribune examines what to buy and what to avoid when searching for a piece of Elvis memorabilia.

Best: 'Elvis Presley

Full-length debut remains a rock 'n' roll landmark, with every facet of the singer's music (except gospel) on display.

Best: 'Elvis: NBC-TV Special' (1968)

The loose yet mesmerizing nationally televised "comeback" that made the leather-clad Elvis, however briefly, relevant for a new generation of rock fans.

Best: 'From Elvis in Memphis' (1969)

Coming off a series of vapid soundtrack albums, the singer works with producer Chips Moman and puts his own spin on '60s soul.

Worst: 'Fun in Acapulco' (1963)

The sound of Elvis phoning it in with songs such as "(There's) No Room to Rhumba in a Sports Car" and "The Bullfighter was a Lady."

Worst: 'Having Fun With Elvis on Stage' (1974)

No songs, just Elvis mumbling incomprehensible jokes.

Worst: 'Elvis in Concert'

Pure exploitation as the clearly out-of-it singer sleepwalks through a show months before his death.

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Posted By: Ian - Category: people

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Fire and Ice

February 3rd 2010 01:42

Ice is the natural state of things, cold, still and lifeless. Fire on the other hand breathes life into our world, but can be powerfully destructive if uncontrolled. This article on boston.com has many pictures dealing with both. Below is a sample.

Members of the public enjoy a late afternoon walk on the frozen Lake of Menteith, on January 4, 2010 in Scotland

Small fires burn on the hillsides above the in the southern German town of Pottenstein on January 6, 2010, part of an annual festival traditionally held to ward off evil spirits from the past year.

Hundreds of people holding lit flares aloft gather to submit a petition outside the residence of Iceland's President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson in Reykjavik January 2, 2010. Iceland's president said on Thursday December 31, 2009 that he would delay signing an amended bill to repay more than $5 billion lost by savers in Britain and the Netherlands when the island's banks collapsed.

Torchbearer and Hall of Fame hockey great Gordie Howe carries the Olympic flame in LaSalle, Ontario, on Wednesday, Dec. 23, 2009, during the 2010 Vancouver Olympics torch relay.

A member of the fire brigade removes icicles from a building to prevent them from falling on people in the eastern German city of Leipzig on January 13, 2010.

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Posted By: Ian - Category: nature

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The San Francisco Earthquake in Colour

February 1st 2010 01:23

The San Francisco earthquake of 1906 struck on Wednesday, April 18. It ruptured along the San Andreas Fault both northward and southward for a total of 296 miles (477 km). Shaking was felt from Oregon to Los Angeles, and inland as far as central Nevada. The earthquake and resulting fire are remembered as the worst natural disaster in the history of the United States. The death toll from the earthquake and resulting fire, estimated to be above 3,000, is the greatest loss of life from a natural disaster in California's history. The economic impact has been compared with the more recent Hurricane Katrina.

Frederick Eugene Ives was an early adopter of color photography and he took these images of San Francisco 6 months after the quake. These images are at street level at the Majestic Hotel.

colour photography early 1900s. San Francisco.

san franciso earthquake damge and rubble

*This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article for 1906 San Francisco earthquake.

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Posted By: Ian - Category: history

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Inside the Secret Service

January 29th 2010 14:29

What would life be like as a Secret Service Agent?
This article at Life Magazine attempts to answer that question after talking to some former agents.

The Secret Service was founded in 1865 to battle the flood of counterfeit currency washing over the country near the end of the Civil War. It wasn't until 1902, a year after the assassination of President William McKinley, that the Service began, as part of its official mission, to protect the president, vice president, their families. (Ironically, the legislation creating the Secret Service was on Abraham Lincoln's desk the night he was murdered by John Wilkes Booth.)

what it takes to be a secret service agent

The agency's rigorous, frequent training keeps agents prepared for virtually any contingency—including, of course, the one unthinkable scenario. He characterizes much of the training as "going through realistic situations that have been specifically designed to create instinctive reactions to a single second's madness." Almost two weeks of every two months is spent at the agency's training center in Beltsville, Maryland, which features city blocks lined with facades of office buildings and hotels; roads for motorcades; and a Boeing 707 for running through airplane-based scenarios.

With American flags fluttering, the Presidential State Car—since 1983, a Cadillac limousine—is a national icon and an emblem of power. And in the case of President Obama's edition (every president gets a new ride), the machine is also an absolute beast. In fact, that's the nickname the Secret Service slapped on it before the inauguration in January, when Obama's limo made its formal debut. The Beast has its own air recirculation system to protect the president in the case of a chemical attack. Its doors are now sheathed in 8-inch-thick military-grade armor. Even the bulletproof windows are five inches thick. "The limousines of yesteryear were designed to provide protection and to get the president out of any situation," Ken Lucci, CEO of Ambassador Limousine Inc. and owner of two Reagan-era limos, told CNN. "Today, they [the Secret Service] expect a prolonged attack, and they expect an attack that is a lot more violent than [with] a weapon you can hold in your hand. It literally is a rolling bunker."

A lot of their work is extremely boring. You stand in a field for ten hours. You stand in a stairwell for twelve hours. You stand out in the cold, and the heat, and for the most part you have to be quiet, and just watch, and listen. You develop a way of watching. We all go through the same training, but we develop our own styles of scanning, assessing. We watch for someone who looks uncomfortable, or out of place. Dressed wrong for the weather. Someone unsmiling when everyone else is laughing and waving. And then, every once in a while, you catch someone staring at you. Maybe they're just curious about the job, or you happened to lock eyes at the instant their gaze moved briefly from the center of attention. But it's strange, and it definitely raises flags—even if a moment later it's clear that it meant absolutely nothing.

The Secret Service is not made up exclusively of agents wearing suits, ties, shades, and earpieces. In fact, as the agency's "dual mission" is to both protect VIPs as well as safeguard the nation's financial infrastructure (e.g., take down counterfeiters, fiscal gangsters, ID thieves, etc.), most agents spend as much time in SWAT-style gear as in white shirts and wingtips. The agents above—members of an elite division within the agency called the Counter Assault Team, or CAT—are prime examples of the agency's more heavily armed elements. They're not beside the president when he works a crowd, but in stairwells, on rooftops, in alleyways.

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Posted By: Ian - Category: politics

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How the UK is Coping With This Exceptionally Cold Winter

January 27th 2010 02:01

This striking image taken by Nasa's Terra satellite on 7 January 2010 shows the UK deep in the clutches of a cold snap.

[ Click here to read more ]

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Posted By: Ian - Category: weather

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Monasteries Around The World

January 25th 2010 01:26

Monasteries may vary greatly in size. In most religions the life inside monasteries is governed by community rules that stipulates the gender of the inhabitants and requires them to remain celibate and own little or no personal property.

The life within the walls of a monastery may be supported in several ways: by manufacturing and selling goods, often agricultural products such as cheese, wine, beer, liquor, and jellies; by donations or alms; by rental or investment incomes; and by funds from other organizations within the religion which in the past has formed the traditional support of Monasteries

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Posted By: Ian - Category: buildings

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Snowy Scenes

January 22nd 2010 14:51

When winter arrives so does the snow!
The Big Picture as Boston.com produced this article which showcases everything that is beautiful about the white powder.

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Posted By: Ian - Category: landscape

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Satellite Photos of Haiti Before and After the Earthquake

January 19th 2010 06:40

The 2010 Haiti earthquake was a catastrophic magnitude 7.0. Its epicentre was approximately 25 km (16 miles) west of Port-au-Prince, the capital of Haiti. The earthquake occurred on Tuesday, 12 January 2010. The United States Geological Survey recorded a series of at least 33 aftershocks, fourteen of them between magnitudes 5.0 and 5.9. It is estimated that about three million people were affected by the quake, and that up to 200,000 have died as a result of the disaster. Several prominent public figures are among the dead.

The earthquake caused major damage to Port-au-Prince. Most major landmarks were significantly damaged or destroyed, including the Presidential Palace, the National Assembly building, the Port-au-Prince Cathedral, and the main jail. Compounding the tragedy, most hospitals in the area were destroyed. Because the organizational structures in Haiti had been destroyed, it has been called the worst disaster the UN had ever been confronted with

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Posted By: Ian - Category: events

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The Decade That Was

January 18th 2010 13:56

As the first decade of the new millennium slips us by, msnbc takes a look back at the decade in pictures. It's amazing what can happen in 10 short years. Below are a small number of the major events, read the full list and article here.

2000: Concorde in flames

A passenger in another plane snapped this photo of Air France Flight 4590 as the Concorde trailed flames during its takeoff from Paris on July 25. Moments later, the supersonic jet crashed, killing all 109 people on board and five more on the ground

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Posted By: Ian - Category: history

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February 2010

4 Posts

January 2010

14 Posts

December 2009

13 Posts