Category: California

Trapped in an Underwater Air Bubble for Three Days

On By A.P.In air bubble, Aristotle, Brooklyn Bridge, California, Chevron, diving bell, Harrison Okene, Henry’s law, Kebmodee, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Maxim Umansky, Nigeria, ocean, Phlebas the Phoenician, PoseidonLeave a comment

Being buried alive is usually near the top of any worst-ways-to-die list. But how about being buried alive 100 feet below the ocean surface in a tiny pocket of air? For Harrison Okene, a 29-year-old Nigerian boat cook, this nightmare scenario became a reality for nearly three grueling days.

The story began on May 26 at about 4:30 a.m., when Harrison Okene got up to use the restroom. His vessel, a Chevron oil service tugboat called the AHT Jascon-4, swayed in the choppy Atlantic waters just off the coast of Nigeria. What caused the tugboat to capsize remains a mystery, though a Chevron official later blamed a “sudden ocean swell.”

Okene was thrown from the crew restroom as the ship turned over. Water streamed in and swept him through the vessel’s bowels until he found himself in the toilet of an officer’s cabin. As the ship settled on the ocean floor, the water stopped rising. For the next 60 hours, Okene—who was without food, water, or light—listened to the sounds of ocean creatures scavenging through the ship on his dead crewmates. Like a living Phlebas the Phoenician, he recounted his life’s events while growing more resigned to his fate.

Unbelievably, Okene survived his underwater ordeal long enough to be rescued. Basic physics, it turned out, was on Okene’s side the whole time—even if Poseidon wasn’t.

When Maxim Umansky, a physicist at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, read about Okene’s miraculous rescue, his interest was piqued. “For a physics question, it’s an interesting problem,” said Umansky. “Of course, I’m also glad the man survived and happy with the ending of his story.”

Umansky began conducting his own calculations to quantify the factors responsible for Okene’s survival. He also posed a question to a physics Web forum: How large does a bubble have to be to sustain a person with breathable air?

Okene’s salvation—the air bubble—was trapped because the overturned boat acted as a sort of diving bell, the cup-shaped chambers that have transported explorers and workers into the depths for centuries. In the fourth century B.C., Aristotle described the contraptions as enabling “the divers to respire equally well by letting down a cauldron, for this does not fill with water, but retains the air, for it is forced straight down into the water.” Years later, diving bells called caissons helped 19th-century workers construct the Brooklyn Bridge (though many died in the process).

Whether in a bell or boat, trapped air rises to the top of a concave chamber. The only way it can escape is by diffusing through the water itself, one molecule at a time. Eventually this would happen, but Okene would have succumbed to thirst, hypothermia, or asphyxiation long before his air bubble diffused into the ocean.

Fans of horror movies will note that asphyxiation typically claims victims of live burial. Carbon dioxide accounts for about 0.03 percent of normal air. If someone is trapped in an enclosed space, however, exhaling CO2 with every breath, the proportion of oxygen steadily decreases while the level of carbon dioxide increases. It’s the deadly CO2, not the lack of oxygen, that ultimately kills a person. Once the air reaches around 5 percent CO2, the victim becomes confused and panicked, starts hyperventilating, and eventually loses consciousness. Death follows. In an enclosed coffin, a person may produce deadly levels of carbon dioxide within two hours or so.

But Okene didn’t asphyxiate despite being trapped in a small, sealed space for 60 hours. How was this possible?

The water encapsulating his air bubble may have played a small role in his survival. Carbon dioxide, more so than oxygen or nitrogen, readily dissolves into water—especially cold water. The rate at which this occurs follows Henry’s law, a physics rule that states that the solubility of gas in a liquid is proportional to the pressure of the gas above the liquid. Disturbing the water’s surface, which increases its surface area, likewise increases the rate of transport of gaseous CO2 into the liquid. But if the volume of gas were too small to begin with—in other words, if deadly CO2 built up faster than it could diffuse away—that process wouldn’t have made much of a difference for Okene.

Humans require 10 cubic meters of air per day. So for Okene to continue breathing for 60 hours, he needed 25 cubic meters of air. (Even if his metabolism changed in the cold water, Umansky says, this is still a safe estimate). But Okene was breathing at 100 feet, or 30 meters, below the surface of the water. For every 10 meters a person descends, one atmosphere of pressure is added. This compresses gas and makes it denser, according to Boyle’s law.

Since Okene was trapped at 30 meters below the surface, his air supply became denser by a factor of four. This means he needed only 6 cubic meters of air to survive rather than 25 cubic meters. A space of about 6 feet by 10 feet by 3 feet would be sufficient to supply that amount of air. The press reported that Okene’s chamber was only about 4 feet high, and Umansky speculates that it must have been connected to another air pocket under the hull of the boat. “That’s the most reasonable explanation for this miraculous survival,” he said.

In a lively discussion on the physics forum, about a dozen participants offered their own calculations and observations. One user, Anna V., came up with a slightly larger figure for the bubble’s required size, about 10 feet by 25 feet by 25 feet. An enclosure of this size “is a reasonable one on a tugboat,” she writes. “He was just lucky the air siphoned where he was trapped.”

Other people have survived short periods underwater breathing trapped air. In 1991 diver Michael Proudfoot reportedly spent two days in an air pocket on a sunken ship off the coast of California after he accidentally smashed his scuba gear. Okene likely holds the new record for most time spent trapped underwater. After his rescue, he had to spend another 60 hours in a decompression chamber to rid his body of excess nitrogen, and some of his skin peeled off from soaking in salt water for so long. As one of his friends understatedly wrote on Okene’s Facebook wall, “I feel sorry for u that happened man.” Dozens of other friends and family members thank God and Jesus for looking out for Okene, though perhaps a hat tip to physics is in order, too.

http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2013/06/harrison_okene_s_shipwreck_air_bubble_how_could_he_survive_underwater_for.html

Thanks to Kebmodee for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Rare saber-tooth whale found dead on Venice Beach in Southern California

On By A.P.In California, cookie-cutter shark, Heal the Bay, Los Angeles County Natural History Museum, Marine Animal Rescue, Nature, Nick Fash, Peter Wallerstein, saber-tooth whale, Sharks, Stejneger's beaked whale, Venice Beach, Whales2 Comments

Stejneger's Beaked Whale, Heather Doyle

A rare whale that has a dolphin-shaped head and saber-like teeth has been found dead on Los Angeles’ Venice Beach, even though it prefers frigid subarctic waters.

The roughly 15-foot-long female Stejneger’s beaked whale washed ashore Tuesday night, the Los Angeles Times reported. A truck hauled away the mammal, which was being examined at the Los Angeles County Natural History Museum to determine how it died.

The Stejneger’s beaked whale is rarely seen in the wild. The species typically dives deep in subarctic waters to feed on squid and small fish. It is believed to migrate as far south as Northern California, and how the whale ended up so far south will probably remain a mystery.

“This is the best,” said Nick Fash, an education specialist for the Santa Monica-based environmental group Heal the Bay. “(Previous finds) aren’t anything like this. This is a treat.”

Males are known for their saber teeth that stick up midway from each side of the lower jaw. However, the teeth of females and their offspring remain hidden beneath the gum tissue.

The whale was alive when it washed ashore, said Peter Wallerstein of Marine Animal Rescue. Its body was covered in bites from so-called cookie-cutter sharks that feed by gouging round pieces of flesh from larger animals.

Because the species isn’t seen much anywhere, the autopsies of washed-up carcasses are the best source for scientists to gather information.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/10/18/rare-saber-tooth-whale-found-dead-on-venice-beach-in-southern-california/

Built-up earwax taken from a blue whale carcass offers insights into the creature’s life

On By A.P.In Baylor University, blue whale, California, DDT, earwax, Mercury, Nature, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Stephen Trumble, Texas, WhalesLeave a comment

earqwax

Using built-up earwax taken from a blue whale carcass, researchers have been able to reconstruct a picture of its life by the chemicals and hormones in its ears.

The whale in question was a male blue whale that died after it was struck by a ship near Santa Barbara, Calif., in 2007. Researchers removed a 10-inch ear plug from the carcass during a necropsy. They did a careful chemical analysis of it to measure what the whale had been exposed to in its lifetime. The study appeared in a recent edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academies of Science.

The scientific community has been excited about the possibilities raised by the new method “once they get past the ‘eew!’ factor of it being earwax,” says Stephen Trumble, lead author on the paper and a biology professor at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.

Baleen whales are known to accumulate layers of earwax in their ear canal. These create a waxy plug that can be over a foot long. The earwax is laid down in layers, a dark one when the animal is feeding and a light one when the animal is migrating and eats very little. The layers are routinely used to determine whale ages.

Now by analyzing the chemicals, pollutants and other matter that accumulated in that wax, researchers were able to build a very complete picture of the animal’s life and exposure to chemicals.

The whale was likely born around 1995. It was exposed to large concentrations of persistent organic pollutants such as DDT and other pesticides in the first six months of its life, most likely while it was still nursing. Many mammals are known to pass chemicals through milk and researchers believe that’s what happened to this whale.

DDT is one of a group of persistent organic pollutants that can take decades to break down in the environment. Although it was banned in the United States in 1972 it is still found in the world’s oceans, and was present at higher levels when this whale was born.
There were also two spikes in its exposure to mercury, around ages 5 and 10. The researchers think these might have occurred as the animal migrated past the coast of California, possibly exposing it to higher levels of pollution than it encountered in the open ocean and when passing less polluted land masses.

When it was about 10 years of age researchers believe it became sexually mature because of increases in testosterone. Its stress hormones spike right around that time, too, which the researchers believe might have been linked to breeding competition or social bonds it formed during this period.

The method offers researchers a much easier and more precise way of measuring what whales are exposed to than previous methods, which included examining whale blubber, blood, feces and blowhole spray, says Sascha Usenko, a professor of environmental chemistry and one of the Baylor researchers.

Since their paper was published they’ve been getting offers of whale earwax specimens, called plugs,from around the world. “We’re going to receive one hopefully this week that’s about three and a half feet long from a bowhead whale from Barrow, Alaska,” Trumble said.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/10/whale-earwax-gives-researchers-peek-whale-life/2861591/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+usatoday-NewsTopStories+(USATODAY+-+News+Top+Stories)

New Solar Plant in Arizona Powers 70,000 Homes Day Or Night

On By A.P.In Abengoa Solar, Arizona, Arizona Public Service, energy, Mojave desert, Patrick Dinkel, Ray Gaudette, renewable energy, salt battery, Science, Solar Energy, solar power, Solyndra, South Africa, The Future, U.S. Department of EnergyLeave a comment

solar power

Outside Phoenix, Ariz., on Wednesday, a power company turned on one of the largest solar power plants of its kind in the world. But unlike other solar farms, this plant continues giving power to 70,000 Arizona households long after the sunset.

The Solana plant uses 3,200 mirrors that are tilted so they focus the sun’s rays to heat a specially-designed oil. That boils water, which drives turbines and generates electricity. Or, the oil can heat giant tanks of salt, which soak up the energy. When the sun goes down, or when households need more power, the hot salt tanks heat up the oil, which again boils water to drive the turbines.

Whereas conventional solar panels only give power when the sun is up, these giant salt batteries give renewable energy on demand. They can store six hours-worth of energy, which can meet the demands of Arizona customers, according to months of test data.

“That’s the sort of thing you can do with a conventional gas plant that no one had envisioned doing with renewables,” says Patrick Dinkel, vice president of resource management for Arizona Public Service, which is Arizona’s largest utility company.

The company has already bought the power from this plant for the next 30 years, to add to the state’s goal of generating 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2025. The plant does mean higher energy bills for APS customers — an extra $1.28 per month for the first five years, $1.09 per month for the next five, and then 94 cents per month after that, according to the company. Dinkel says the state won’t see a lot more of these plants soon because that would cost too much.

“Right now natural gas wins that race (for cheap power,)” Dinkel says. “The challenge is no one knows what those economics look like in five years.”

The U.S. Department of Energy lent Abengoa Solar, the Spanish company that built that plant as well as Europe’s first solar thermal power plant, $1.4 billion, out of the $2 billion price tag. It’s the same program that financed Solyndra, a solar panel firm that went bankrupt in 2011. But this is a different kind of investment, says Armando Zuluaga, general manager of Abengoa Solar. He points out the company already has a public utility buying their output for the next 30 years, so the government will get its money back with interest.

“There’s no market risk here,” Zuluaga says. “It’s just about getting the plant built.”

This won’t be the last we hear of Abengoa Solar and this technology. The company is building a similar, though smaller plant in the Mojave desert in California, which will come online next year, as well as plants in South Africa.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2013/10/11/232348077/in-ariz-a-solar-plant-that-powers-70-000-homes-day-or-night

Thanks to Ray Gaudette for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

Today’s awardee for 2013 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine, James Rothman, hopes it will help him secure funds for the research for which he won the prize.

On By A.P.In Berkeley, California, Goran Hansson, James Rothman, National Institutes of Health, NIH, NIH funding, Nobel Prize, Randy Schekman, Stanford, Stanford University, Thomas Sudhof, Yale University1 Comment

Rothman

STOCKHOLM (AP) — Two Americans and a German-American won the Nobel Prize in medicine on Monday for discovering how key substances are transported within cells, a process involved in such important activities as brain cell communication and the release of insulin.

James Rothman, 62, of Yale University, Randy Schekman, 64, of the University of California, Berkeley, and Dr. Thomas Sudhof, 57, of Stanford University shared the $1.2 million prize for their research on how tiny bubbles called vesicles act as cargo carriers inside cells.

This traffic control system ensures that the cargo is delivered to the right place at the right time and keeps activities inside cells from descending into chaos, the committee said. Defects can be harmful, leading to neurological diseases, diabetes and disorders affecting the immune system.

“Imagine hundreds of thousands of people who are traveling around hundreds of miles of streets; how are they going to find the right way? Where will the bus stop and open its doors so that people can get out?” Nobel committee secretary Goran Hansson said. “There are similar problems in the cell.”

The winners’ discoveries in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s have helped doctors diagnose a severe form of epilepsy and immune deficiency diseases in children, Hansson said. In the future, scientists hope the research could lead to medicines against more common types of epilepsy, diabetes and other metabolism deficiencies, he added.

Schekman said he was awakened at 1 a.m. at his home in California by the chairman of the prize committee, just as he was suffering from jetlag after returning from a trip to Germany the night before.

“I wasn’t thinking too straight. I didn’t have anything elegant to say,” he told The Associated Press. “All I could say was ‘Oh my God,’ and that was that.”

He called the prize a wonderful acknowledgment of the work he and his students had done and said he knew it would change his life.

“I called my lab manager and I told him to go buy a couple bottles of Champagne and expect to have a celebration with my lab,” he said.

In the 1970s, Schekman discovered a set of genes that were required for vesicle transport, while Rothman revealed in the 1980s and 1990s how vesicles delivered their cargo to the right places. Also in the ’90s, Sudhof identified the machinery that controls when vesicles release chemical messengers from one brain cell that let it communicate with another.

“This is not an overnight thing. Most of it has been accomplished and developed over many years, if not decades,” Rothman told the AP.

Rothman said he lost grant money for the work recognized by the Nobel committee, but he will now reapply, hoping the Nobel prize will make a difference in receiving funding.

Sudhof, who was born in Germany but moved to the U.S. in 1983 and also has U.S. citizenship, told the AP he received the call from the committee while driving toward the city of Baeza, in southern Spain, where he was due to give a talk.

“I got the call while I was driving and like a good citizen I pulled over and picked up the phone,” he said. “To be honest, I thought at first it was a joke. I have a lot of friends who might play these kinds of tricks.”

The medicine prize kicked off this year’s Nobel announcements. The awards in physics, chemistry, literature, peace and economics will be announced by other prize juries this week and next. Each prize is worth 8 million Swedish kronor ($1.2 million).

Rothman and Schekman won the Albert Lasker Basic Medical Research Award for their research in 2002 — an award often seen as a precursor of a Nobel Prize. Sudhof won the Lasker award this year.

“I might have been just as happy to have been a practicing primary-care doctor,” Sudhof said after winning that prize. “But as a medical student I had interacted with patients suffering from neurodegeneration or acute clinical schizophrenia. It left an indelible mark on my memory.”

Jeremy Berg, former director of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, said Monday’s announcement was “long overdue” and widely expected because the research was “so fundamental, and has driven so much other research.”

Berg, who now directs the Institute for Personalized Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, said the work provided the intellectual framework that scientists use to study how brain cells communicate and how other cells release hormones. In both cases, vesicles play a key role by delivering their cargo to the cell surface and releasing it to the outside, he told the AP.

So the work has indirectly affected research into virtually all neurological disease as well as other diseases, he said.

Established by Swedish industrialist Alfred Nobel, the Nobel Prizes have been handed out by award committees in Stockholm and Oslo since 1901. The winners always receive their awards on Dec. 10, the anniversary of Nobel’s death in 1896.

Last year’s Nobel medicine award went to Britain’s John Gurdon and Japan’s Shinya Yamanaka for their contributions to stem cell science.

http://news.yahoo.com/americans-german-american-win-medicine-nobel-132221489.html

Divers nearly swallowed by humpback whales

On By A.P.In California, humpback whale, Nature, Shawn Stambuck, WhalesLeave a comment


Two ocean scuba divers have narrowly missed being swallowed whole by two humpback whales that shot up from the deep to chase fish right next to where the divers were floating.

Charter boat owner and captain Shawn Stambuck was filming the divers off the coast of California from his boat and posted video of the near miss online on July 20.
In the footage, a whale’s tail can be seen breaking the surface in the distance as seagulls swoop down from above. A shot below the surface shows the ocean under the divers teaming with a large school of small fish, which one website later identified as sardines.

Then, out of nowhere, the water around two divers begins bubbling and frothing as the fish swim up and break the surface en masse. Seconds later, two massive whales barrel up out of the water with their mouths gaping open to swallow the fish, just metres away from the divers.

One of the divers can be heard yelling out “holy s—” as he swims for the boat.

“You’re going to have to do more to clean that wet suit,” another person laughs off camera.

The divers were likely never going to end up food for the whales, as humpbacks feed predominately on krill and small fish and do not have a gullet large enough to fit a human.

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/world/2013/07/23/06/08/divers-nearly-swallowed-by-humpback-whales

Florida man wakes up with no memory of his past and speaking only Swedish

On By A.P.In Amber Glatt, brain, California, Coachella Valley, Desert Regional Medical Center, Florida, Johan Ek, Lisa Hunt-Vasquez, Michael Boatwright, Michael Thomas Boatwright, Palm Springs, Swedish, transient global amnesiaLeave a comment

swede

Doctors are looking into the mystery of a Florida man who awoke speaking only Swedish, with no memory of his past, after he was found unconscious four months ago at a Southern California motel.

Michael Boatwright, 61, woke up with amnesia, calling himself Johan Ek.

Boatwright was found unconscious in a Motel 6 room in Palm Springs, Calif., in February. After police arrived, he was transported to the Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs where he woke up.

Hospital officials said Boatwright may have been in town for a tennis tournament in the Coachella Valley. He was found with a duffel bag of exercise clothes, a backpack and tennis rackets. He also carried four forms of identification — a passport, a California identification card, a veteran’s medical card and a Social Security card — all of which identified him as Michael Thomas Boatwright.

Palm Springs police have documented his information in case anyone lists Boatwright as missing or wanted, authorities said.

In March, doctors diagnosed Boatwright with Transient Global Amnesia, a condition triggered by physical or emotional trauma that can last for several months.
The rare mental disorder is characterized by memory loss, “sudden and unplanned travel,” and possible adoption of a new identity, according to the Sun.

After an extensive search, medical personnel and social workers have been unable to locate Boatwright’s next of kin. Authorities are still unsure of his birthplace, listed on his ID as Florida — photos show him in Sweden at a young age.

Boatwright doesn’t recall how to exchange money, take public transportation, or seek temporary housing like homeless shelters or hotels, the social worker assigned to his case, Lisa Hunt-Vasquez said.

He doesn’t remember his son and two ex-wives, either.

He has no income or insurance, further complicating his treatment at Desert Regional. And he has little money he can access — only $180. He also has a few Chinese bank accounts, but can only access one account, which holds $7, according to the newspaper.

Doctors don’t know how much longer he will be able to stay at the centre — aside from his amnesia, Boatwright is in good health. The hospital is currently looking for alternatives that would keep him off the streets. For now, Boatwright is unsure of both his past and his future.

“Sometimes it makes me really sad and sometimes it just makes me furious about the whole situation and the fact that I don’t know anybody, I don’t recognize anybody,” Boatwright told the newspaper.

Last year, a North Dakota college student who went missing for nearly a week before turning up in Arizona said she had a bout of amnesia and didn’t know who she was.

Amber Glatt, a 22-year-old Valley City State University student, vanished on the Fourth of July, prompting aerial searches. She contacted her mother five days later from the Grand Canyon. Her mother said Glatt has had recurring amnesia since suffering a head injury years ago.

Glatt told WDAY-TV that after she lost her memory she met a man in a bar who let her tag along on his trip to the Grand Canyon. She said the man eventually saw online that she’d been reported missing and alerted her.

Glatt regained most of her memory.

http://www.theprovince.com/news/Florida+wakes+with+memory+past+speaking+only+Swedish/8666679/story.html

Electricity-Generating, Transparent Solar Cell Windows

On By A.P.In California NanoSystems Institute, Engineering, Inventions, Jody Troupe, Nano Renewable Energy Center, polymer solar cell, Science, Solar Energy, solar power, The Future, UCLA, Yang YangLeave a comment

ucla-transparent-solar-windows-537x373

A team from UCLA has developed a new transparent solar cell that has the ability to generate electricity while still allowing people to see outside. In short, they’ve created a solar power-generating window! Described as “a new kind of polymer solar cell (PSC)” that produces energy by absorbing mainly infrared light instead of traditional visible light, the photoactive plastic cell is nearly 70% transparent to the human eye—so you can look through it like a traditional window.

“These results open the potential for visibly transparent polymer solar cells as add-on components of portable electronics, smart windows and building-integrated photovoltaics and in other applications,” said study leader Yang Yang, a UCLA professor of materials science and engineering and also director of the Nano Renewable Energy Center at California NanoSystems Institute (CNSI). “Our new PSCs are made from plastic-like materials and are lightweight and flexible. More importantly, they can be produced in high volume at low cost.”

There are also other advantages to polymer solar cells over more traditional solar cell technologies, such as building-integrated photovoltaics and integrated PV chargers for portable electronics. In the past, visibly transparent or semitransparent PSCs have suffered low visible light transparency and/or low device efficiency because suitable polymeric PV materials and efficient transparent conductors were not well deployed in device design and fabrication. However that was something the UCLA team wished to address.

By using high-performance, solution-processed, visibly transparent polymer solar cells and incorporating near-infrared light-sensitive polymer and silver nanowire composite films as the top transparent electrode, the UCLA team found that the near-infrared photoactive polymer absorbed more near-infrared light but was less sensitive to visible light. This, in essence, created a perfect balance between solar cell performance and transparency in the visible wavelength region.

UCLA Develops Electricity-Generating, Transparent Solar Cell Windows

Thanks to Jody Troupe for bringing this to the attention of the It’s Interesting community.

If The Sun Went Out, How Long Could Life On Earth Survive?

On By A.P.In California, California Institute of Technology, David Stevenson, Eric Blackman, Space and Time, The Sun, University of Rochester1 Comment

SolarProminence_0

If you put a steamy cup of coffee in the refrigerator, it wouldn’t immediately turn cold. Likewise, if the sun simply “turned off” (which is actually physically impossible), the Earth would stay warm—at least compared with the space surrounding it—for a few million years. But we surface dwellers would feel the chill much sooner than that.

Within a week, the average global surface temperature would drop below 0°F. In a year, it would dip to –100°. The top layers of the oceans would freeze over, but in an apocalyptic irony, that ice would insulate the deep water below and prevent the oceans from freezing solid for hundreds of thousands of years. Millions of years after that, our planet would reach a stable –400°, the temperature at which the heat radiating from the planet’s core would equal the heat that the Earth radiates into space, explains David Stevenson, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology.

Although some microorganisms living in the Earth’s crust would survive, the majority of life would enjoy only a brief post-sun existence. Photosynthesis would halt immediately, and most plants would die in a few weeks. Large trees, however, could survive for several decades, thanks to slow metabolism and substantial sugar stores. With the food chain’s bottom tier knocked out, most animals would die off quickly, but scavengers picking over the dead remains could last until the cold killed them.

Humans could live in submarines in the deepest and warmest parts of the ocean, but a more attractive option might be nuclear- or geothermal-powered habitats. One good place to camp out: Iceland. The island nation already heats 87 percent of its homes using geothermal energy, and, says astronomy professor Eric Blackman of the University of Rochester, people could continue harnessing volcanic heat for hundreds of years.

Of course, the sun doesn’t merely heat the Earth; it also keeps the planet in orbit. If its mass suddenly disappeared (this is equally impossible, by the way), the planet would fly off, like a ball swung on a string and suddenly let go.

http://www.popsci.com/science/article/2013-07/if-sun-went-out-how-long-could-life-earth-survive?cmpid=obinsite

Kettle that looks like Hitler brews trouble for JCPenney

On By A.P.In Culver City, Fuhrer, history, Hitler, JCPenney, kettle, Michael Graves Design Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle, NaziLeave a comment

hitler-kettle_2574818b

Trouble is brewing for an American retailer after customers noted that one of its tea kettles bears a striking resemblance to Adolf Hitler.

Bemused motorists took photographs of the huge JCPenney billboard advertising the kettle as they drove past it on the 405 Interstate highway near Culver City in California, one of America’s busiest stretches of roads.

“That Hitler looks like a kettle,” commented one user of Reddit, one of the several websites where the image was posted over the weekend.

“He even has his right arm extended,” wrote another, while a third added: “I’m a little Nazi, short and stout”.

Things that look Hitler have become a popular web meme – with the genre perhaps defined by the house in Swansea that bears an unsettling resemblance to the Nazi Fuhrer.

The kettle – officially the Michael Graves Design Bells and Whistles Stainless Steel Tea Kettle – retails for £35.08 on the JCPenney website, and can be delivered to the UK.

“This stainless steel tea kettle has all the bells and whistles you’ll need – a cool-touch handle, space-saving design and a delightful whistle to let you know when it’s ready to pour,” the website stated.

One reviewer on the website noted that she loved the kettle’s “sleek European design”. “My kids love when it boils and starts to whistle,” she wrote. “I can not say enough good things about this!”

A second reviewer was less enthralled, however, describing the quality of the kettle as “extremely poor”. “Mostly (sic) importantly the kettle’s bell does NOT ring and its whistle volume is extremely low!” the consumer wrote.

When listing pros, however, the same user noted that the appliance “looks beautiful”.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/northamerica/usa/10084348/Kettle-that-looks-like-Hitler-brews-trouble-for-JCPenney.html