At the end of the last Ice Age, as the world began to warm, a swath of the North Pacific Ocean came to life. During a brief pulse of biological productivity 14,000 years ago, this stretch of the sea teemed with phytoplankton, amoeba-like foraminifera and other tiny creatures, who thrived in large numbers until the productivity ended—as mysteriously as it began—just a few hundred years later. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Hunter-gatherers living in glacial conditions produced pots for cooking fish, according to the findings of a pioneering new study led by the University of York which reports the earliest direct evidence for the use of ceramic vessels.
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Scott Mendelson, Contributor
During the summer of 2013, there will be six animated (or live-action/animated hybrid) entries. At a glance, it would seem like healthy competition as each of the major current players are offering an official entry into the summer box office sweepstakes. You’ve got 20th Century Fox taking a shot at proving they can do more than Ice Age sequels, delivering the somewhat on-the-nose-titled Epic over Memorial Day weekend. Pixar unleashes their official summer entry, the Monsters Inc. prequel Monsters University on June 21st. Universal delivers its trump card with Despicable Me 2 over July 4th weekend while Dreamworks releases its snail-racing comedy Turbo on July 17th, a frankly unusual release date for them, but no matter. Sony delivers The Smurfs 2 on July 31st while Disney offers up the previously straight-to-DVD entry Planes on August 9th. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
Research from New Zealand’s University of Otago detailing the fossil of a dwarf baleen whale from Northern California reveals that it avoided extinction far longer than previously thought. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
Expensive gasoline is a signature of the Obama Era, and it’s going to shoot up another 6 to 9 cents per gallon under new Environmental Protection Agency rules, if the oil industry’s estimates are correct. An estimated additional cost of $130 per car on new vehicles will also be part of the package. The goal of these regulations is to reduce tailpipe emissions by cutting down on the amount of sulfur and nitrogen oxide in gasoline. The cost won’t be easily absorbed by a weak economy struggling to emerge from years of anemic growth.
The EPA, of course, says the gas price increase will be much smaller – only a penny or two per gallon – but as Charles Drevna, head of the American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers, ruefully noted to Fox News, “I haven’t seen an EPA rule on fuels that has come out since 1995 that hasn’t said it would cost only a penny or two more.” For what it’s worth, the American Energy Alliance notes that the price of gasoline in California, where these fuel standards are already in effect, is 38.9 cents per gallon higher than the national average.
It should come as no surprise that much of this proposed gas price increase is a tithe to the bizarre Church of Global Warming, which soldiers on even after the total debunking of “global warming” mythology over the past two years. In fact, according to CNS News, the Obama Administration is now amusing itself by issuing reports that say we were going to have a brutal Ice Age, but “because of humans, the next ice age has been ‘delayed indefinitely.’” That’s how the cult leaders are claiming that global warming is real, despite the utter lack of verifiable evidence that any significant “climate change” is occurring. So… another wing of the Administration wants to spend billions to reduce the very same emissions that are protecting us from a new Ice Age?
But leaving the radical environmental lunacy aside, there could be significant health benefits from the new regulations due to reduced sulfur emissions, and the corresponding health care savings might offset, or even outweigh, the increased gasoline cost. Some auto manufacturers think the new standards will also improve fuel efficiency, which would ameliorate sticker shock at the pump.
Read More at Human Events . By John Hayward.
Photo Credit: Geoff Livingston Creative Commons
Although “climate” is generally associated with periods of at least three decades, less than one and one-half decades following mid-1970s “scientific” predictions that the next Ice Age was rapidly approaching, the media trumpeted a new and opposite alarm…a man-made global warming crisis. Previously, even the prestigious National Academy of Sciences had issued a warning that there was “a finite possibility that a serious worldwide cooling could befall the earth within the next 100 years.” …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
By Matt Fowler
After suffering through four Ice Age movies (well, suffering through installments two through four anyhow) the science-be-damned plot of “primitive critters trying to outrun the rapid destruction of their habitat” seems like it should completely exhausted by now. And while DreamWorks’ The Croods doesn’t necessarily put a new spin on the story, it does manage to do it, along with the father/daughter rift from last summer’s Continental Drift, a whole lot better.
If you’re a parent then you know all too well that when it comes to kids’ movies, some are an absolute chore and some are enjoyable. A few weeks back I got dragged to see a pretty awful one (which shall remain nameless, yet the release date will clue you in) and since then I’ve been wondering at what age you have to be to be able to discern the difference. The Croods isn’t a chore.
By Tim Worstall, Contributor We’re expected to read this piece of news in one particular manner. We should actually be reading it in an entirely different one. So, researchers have found out that we’re currently in a warmer world than we used to be. But also that in the recent past it was even warmer again than it is now: The Earth is warmer now than during 70 to 80 percent of the time stretching back to the last Ice Age, according to researchers from Oregon State and Harvard universities who studied data from more than 73 global sites. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
(Phys.org)—A slice of ice from 17,500 years ago can help scientists figure out how the Earth came out of the Ice Age and how climate change can happen in the future, according to South Dakota State University Professor Jihong Cole-Dai of the chemistry and biochemistry department. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Phys.org
By Jonathon Keats, Contributor
In some countries it would be grounds for arrest. Some 35,000 years ago, an Ice Age sculptor carved a mammoth tusk into a naked female figure with impossibly large breasts. Thighs and buttocks were also exaggerated, and her legs were salaciously spread. Archeologists dubbed her the Venus of Hohle Fels after the German cave where she was found. The scientific journal Nature was less euphemistic, dubbing the diminutive object a “prehistoric pin-up”. …read more
Source: FULL ARTICLE at Forbes Latest
