Volcanic origin for Little Ice Age

BBC News, by Richard Black, Environment correspondent, 30 January 2012

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Plants trapped under Iceland's icecaps
store a record of ancient temperatures

The Little Ice Age was caused by the cooling effect of massive volcanic eruptions, and sustained by changes in Arctic ice cover, scientists conclude.

An international research team studied ancient plants from Iceland and Canada, and sediments carried by glaciers.

They say a series of eruptions just before 1300 lowered Arctic temperatures enough for ice sheets to expand.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, they say this would have kept the Earth cool for centuries.

The exact definition of the Little Ice Age is disputed. While many studies suggest temperatures fell globally in the 1500s, others suggest the Arctic and sub-Arctic began cooling several centuries previously.

The global dip in temperatures was less than 1C, but parts of Europe cooled more, particularly in winter, with the River Thames in London iced thickly enough to be traversable on foot.

What caused it has been uncertain. The new study, led by Gifford Miller at the University of Colorado at Boulder, US, links back to a series of four explosive volcanic eruptions between about 1250 and 1300 in the tropics, which would have blasted huge clouds of sulphate particles into the upper atmosphere.

These tiny aerosol particles are known to cool the globe by reflecting solar energy back into space. 

The Little Ice Age saw an increase in
 cold winters in parts of Europe, but a
small global change

"This is the first time that anyone has clearly identified the specific onset of the cold times marking the start of the Little Ice Age," said Dr Miller.

"We have also provided an understandable climate feedback system that explains how this cold period could be sustained for a long period of time."

The scientists studied several sites in north-eastern Canada and in Iceland where small icecaps have expanded and contracted over the centuries.

When the ice spreads, plants underneath are killed and "entombed" in the ice. Carbon-dating can determine how long ago this happened.

So the plants provide a record of the icecaps' sizes at various times - and therefore, indirectly, of the local temperature.

An additional site at Hvitarvatn in Iceland yielded records of how much sediment was carried by a glacier in different decades, indicating changes in its thickness.

Putting these records together showed that cooling began fairly abruptly at some point between 1250 and 1300. Temperatures fell another notch between 1430 and 1455.

The first of these periods saw four large volcanic eruptions beginning in 1256, probably from the tropics sources, although the exact locations have not been determined.

The later period incorporated the major Kuwae eruption in Vanuatu.

Aerosols from volcanic eruptions usually cool the climate for just a few years.

When the researchers plugged in the sequence of eruptions into a computer model of climate, they found that the short but intense burst of cooling was enough to initiate growth of summer ice sheets around the Arctic Ocean, as well as glaciers.

The extra ice in turn reflected more solar radiation back into space, and weakened the Atlantic ocean circulation commonly known as the Gulf Stream.

"It's easy to calculate how much colder you could get with volcanoes; but that has no permanence, the skies soon clear," Dr Miller told BBC News.

"And it was climate modelling that showed how sea ice exports into the North Atlantic set up this self-sustaining feedback process, and that's how a perturbation of decades can result in a climate shift of centuries."

Analysis of the later phase of the Little Ice Age also suggests that changes in the Sun's output, particularly in the ultraviolet part of the spectrum, would also have contributed cooling.

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U.N. sustainable development summit shifts from climate change

"Update on Current Events" – Jul 23, 2011 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: God, Gaia, Shift of Human Consciousness, 2012, Benevolent Design, Financial Institutes (Recession, System to Change ...), Water Cycle (Heat up, Mini Ice Ace, Oceans, Fish, Earthquakes ..), Nuclear Power Revealed, Geothermal Power, Hydro Power, Drinking Water from Seawater, No need for Oil as Much, Middle East in Peace, Persia/Iran Uprising, Muhammad, Israel, DNA, Two Dictators to fall soon, Africa, China, (Old) Souls, Species to go, Whales to Humans, Global Unity,..... etc.)

GLOBAL WARMING – NOT LONG TERM (WATER CYCLE)

New Mini Ice Age

"The weather you have today, and all the alarming attributes of it, is a scenario of what was scheduled to happen on Earth anyway. I review again that the weather changes you are seeing prophesied by myself, 21 years ago, are not a surprise. The changes are not caused by the pollutants you put in the air. You call it global warming and that's a nice phrase, and perhaps that will get you to put less pollutants in the air – a very good thing. But what you are seeing in the weather shift today was not caused by Humans putting things into the air. It would have happened anyway in about 300 years."

"We've called this process the water cycle, since it's all about water, not about air. The water is the predominant attribute of Gaia and of the weather cycle you're seeing. More predominant is the temperature of it. The cycle is ice to water and water to ice, and has been repeated on this planet over and over and over. It is not new. It is not exceptional. It is not frightening. But it's a cycle that modern humanity has not seen before, and it's a long cycle that is beyond the life span of a Human Being. Therefore, it tends to be overlooked or not seen at all !"

"In the days of the Lemurians, the water level of the Pacific Ocean was almost 400 feet lower, and that's only 50,000 years ago. [Kryon invites science to check this out – the water level at that time.] That was a water cycle working, and the reason it was lower was due to so much of the water being stored as ice. Today you're going through another water cycle that will eventually lead to cooling. The last one was in the 1400s."

"Science sees that at about 1650. As mentioned, they are so slow there is no remembrance that a Human has of them except in past writings and in the rings of the trees. The time span of the changes is so great that environmental record keeping does not exist in the form that it does today. But you can still look at the rings of the trees and at the striations of the rocks and can generally figure out that a few hundred years ago, you had a mini-ice age. Now you're going to have another one."  Read more .....(THE RELATIONSHIP TO GAIA - April 2010 (Kryon Channeling))

Radical Theory Explains the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life, Challenges Conventional Wisdom

ScienceDaily, January 26, 2012

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• Live Fast, Die Young? Maybe Not

A revolutionary scientific theory

 of life asserts that Earth is alive.

(Credit: Beboy / Fotolia)

ScienceDaily (Jan. 26, 2012) — Earth is alive, asserts a revolutionary scientific theory of life emerging from Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. The trans-disciplinary theory demonstrates that purportedly inanimate, non-living objects -- for example, planets, water, proteins, and DNA -- are animate, that is, alive. With its broad explanatory power, applicable to all areas of science and medicine, this novel paradigm aims to catalyze a veritable renaissance.

Erik Andrulis, PhD, assistant professor of molecular biology and microbiology, advanced his controversial framework in his manuscript "Theory of the Origin, Evolution, and Nature of Life," published in the peer-reviewed journal, Life. His theory explains not only the evolutionary emergence of life on earth and in the universe but also the structure and function of existing cells and biospheres.

In addition to resolving long-standing paradoxes and puzzles in chemistry and biology, Dr. Andrulis' theory unifies quantum and celestial mechanics. His unorthodox solution to this quintessential problem in physics differs from mainstream approaches, like string theory, as it is simple, non-mathematical, and experimentally and experientially verifiable. As such, the new portrait of quantum gravity is radical.

The basic idea of Dr. Andrulis' framework is that all physical reality can be modeled by a single geometric entity with life-like characteristics: the gyre. The so-called "gyromodel" depicts objects -- particles, atoms, chemicals, molecules, and cells -- as quantized packets of energy and matter that cycle between excited and ground states around a singularity, the gyromodel's center. A singularity is itself modeled as a gyre, wholly compatible with the thermodynamic and fractal nature of life. An example of this nested, self-similar organization is the Russian Matryoshka doll.

By fitting the gyromodel to facts accumulated over scientific history, Dr. Andrulis confirms the proposed existence of eight laws of nature. One of these, the natural law of unity, decrees that the living cell and any part of the visible universe are irreducible. This law formally establishes that there is one physical reality.

Another natural law dictates that the atomic and cosmic realms abide by identical organizational constraints. Simply put, atoms in the human body and solar systems in the universe move and behave in the exact same manner.

"Modern science lacks a unifying, interdisciplinary theory of life. In other words, current theories are unable to explain why life is the way it is and not any other way," Dr. Andrulis says. "This general paradigm furnishes a fresh perspective on the character and meaning of life, offers solutions to protracted problems, and strives to end divisive debates."

One debate swirls around the scientific merit of James Lovelock's popular Gaia hypothesis. By showing that Earth is theoretically synonymous with life, Dr. Andrulis' paradigm substantiates the Gaian premise that all organisms and their surroundings on earth are closely integrated to form a single self-regulating complex system.

Another legendary quarrel is that between biblical creationists and neo-Darwinian evolutionists. In demonstrating that the origin and evolution of life is a consequence of natural laws and physical forces, this theory synthesizes arguments and dispels assumptions from both sides of the creation-evolution debate.

To test his paradigm, Dr. Andrulis designed bidirectional flow diagrams that both depict and predict the dynamics of energy and matter. While such diagrams may be foreign to some scientists, they are standard reaction notation to chemists, biochemists, and biologists.

Dr. Andrulis has used his theory to successfully predict and identify a hidden signature of RNA biogenesis in his laboratory at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine. He is now applying the gyromodel to unify and explain the evolution and development of human beings.

Related Articles:

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

"Spiritual Logic" - Oct 15 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) 
(Subjects: Benevolent Design, Channelling, Holy scriptures, Higher self, (Old) Souls, Universes, Big Bang, Galaxy/Solar system build for life, Astronomy, Life on Earth tried to start 5 times/ 5th time life started, Large Animals/No Humans,  Asteroid belt, 7 Sisters / 100.000 year ago Pleiadian Brothers and Sisters seeded Humans on earth, DNA, Humans Ascensiont with Pleiadian DNA, Lemuria (Hawaii),21-12-2012, 26.000 years cycle, 1987 - Harmonic convergence (11:11), Shift of Human Consciousness, Gaia, The Humanization of God, 1991 Russia falls, 1994 started 36 years galactic window (Presession), Mid point on 21-12-2012, Lemuria (Hawaii) center of the Earth time,  Love (Mother & Child),  Religion, Higher self, Global Unity,..... etc.)

U.N. sustainable development summit shifts from climate change

Reuters, by Deborah Zabarenko and Nina Chestney, Tue Jan 24, 2012

A man sorts offcuts of fabric that will be sold to textile factories before

 being recycled, in the outskirts of Faisalabad, December 27, 2011.

(Credit: Reuters/Fayyaz Hussain)

(Reuters) - Representatives from around the world gather in Rio in June to try to hammer out goals for sustainable development at a U.N. conference designed to avoid being tripped up by the intractable issue of climate change.

But there is concern in the lead-up to the conference, known as Rio+20 or the Earth Summit, that it risks ending up as all talk and little action.

In an attempt to avoid too much confrontation, the conference will focus not on climate change but on sustainable development - making sure economies can grow now without endangering resources and the environment for future generations.

U.N. conferences over the past decade have begun with high hopes for agreements to compel nations to cut climate-warming emissions and help adapt to a hotter world, but they often ended with disappointingly modest results. That was the case last year in the global climate change summit in Durban, South Africa. Participants at that meeting agreed to forge a new deal by 2015 that would go into force by 2020.

The "sustainable" branding for this year's summit, rather than climate, is by design, said Ambassador Andre Correa do Lago, who headed Brazil's delegation to the U.N. climate talks in Durban and will be a chief negotiator for Brazil in Rio.

Sustainable development is an easier sell globally than climate change, even though sustainable development is a way of tackling global warming and other environmental issues, he said.

"Climate change is an (issue) that has very strong resistance from sectors that are going to be substantially altered, like the oil industry," do Lago said. "Sustainable development is something that is as simple as looking at how we would like to be in 10 or 20 years."

The time seems ripe. Natural resources are at a premium. The global human population tops 7 billion. Traditional economies are failing. And the planet is warming. Leaders may accept the premise that it makes sense to ensure rich and emerging nations can grow without further damaging the environment.

The focus of global meetings has been on the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide, but the world's biggest emitters, including China and the United States, have balked, arguing it would cripple economic development.

Climate change first claimed the world stage at the U.N. Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro 20 years ago. That first Earth Summit in 1992 ultimately led to the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol and a treaty on biodiversity.

This summit offers a chance to renew political will to make the world's economies greener.

Since the 1992 summit, successive attempts to secure a new binding pact to cut greenhouse gas emissions have failed to produce concrete results, public interest in climate change has waned, and many world leaders are concentrating on upcoming elections and financial worries.

"A MISSED OPPORTUNITY"

There is concern that this new summit could fall short.

"The most it will manage is to set some voluntary goals with a vague timeline, but it will not be clear what the process is to achieve these goals," said Andrew Light of the Center for American Progress think tank in Washington. Without real goals and a way to reach them, Light said, Rio "will be a missed opportunity."

A U.N. draft document was released this month as a starting point for the June conference, outlining seven issues including jobs, energy, food, water and disasters.

"Without clearly defined goals, the summit will not provide the clarity and certainty that are needed to get the private sector to actively participate and potentially make the investments needed to achieve the goals," said Stephen Starbuck, expert on climate change and sustainability at Ernst & Young.

A narrower climate focus could also put off some countries, such as the United States, where opposition to carbon-capping legislation was so strong from Republicans and the oil industry that it overturned plans for a national emissions cap-and-trade arrangement.

In the past 20 years, the debate has changed as the world has changed, according to Tim Wirth, a former U.S. senator who attended the 1992 Rio meeting and will be at this year's conference as president of the non-profit U.N. Foundation.

"The debate's changed because of China, India, Brazil and South Africa, the very rapid and surprisingly powerful growth of the newly industrialized countries," he said.

In 1992 and in the Kyoto Protocol that grew from events at Rio, these developing countries and others were exempt from curbing carbon dioxide emissions, while rich countries like the United States would have had to cut back. In the end, the U.S. Senate never ratified the Kyoto Protocol, which entered into force in 2005.

"Rio was really exploratory," Wirth said. "Nobody knew what this was going to be all about. ... I think Rio+20 becomes an opportunity to be very specific, especially about energy and development."

Although fast-developing economies are eager for this shift, Wirth said there may be resistance from big energy powers like the United States and some oil producers in the Middle East.

"These are the countries that say, 'Hey, this is our sandbox, you can't get into it,'" he said. "But I think that's passing by very quickly."

Rio+20 will have to give the private sector the clarity and incentives they need over the medium term, Starbuck said.

Any goals set in Rio would likely be for the next 20 years, which could be too far in the future for most chief executives whose time in office is more likely to last years, not decades.

Instead, interim goals set along the way to 2030 would make the private sector more likely to engage, Starbuck added.

(Reporting by Deborah Zabarenko in Washington and Nina Chestney in London; Editing by Russell Blinch and Will Dunham)

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Matthew preparing us for the Golden Age. (Channelled by Suzy Ward)  - New !

NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

German village generates 321 percent more renewable energy than it needs, earns millions selling it back to national power grid

Durban? What a waste of time!

  (Photo: RNW)

GLOBAL WARMING / CLIMATE CHANGE ISSUE (THRU CHANNELING)

7. Let us give you another prime example of duality, the controversial issue you call global warming. Those who believe this is a natural occurrence cite Earth’s ice ages as proof that humankind has no hand in today’s record temperatures, the melting of glaciers and the harsh climate anomalies. They believe that there is no need to change manufacturing operations or turn to alternative energy sources because doing so would be cost-prohibitive. Then there are those who believe that science proves climate change is manmade. They point to industrial pollution and the use of biofuels as the cause, and they maintain that unless action is taken to end those practices, the cost will be total destruction of the environment. With the two sides at loggerheads, no large scale efforts are underway to change business as usual.


8. The truth is, both sides have validity even though neither knows that Earth herself is in the process of restoring the moderate climate of Eden times, when her body was pristine and healthy. And pollution, a product of humanity, must stop because it is harming the planet and all of its life forms. Eventually the two sides of the global warming issue will realize that protecting and repairing the environment is essential, and formerly extreme views will be reconciled into effective methods to remedy the present critical state. Read more ..... (Q&A - November 2010 (Matthew Channeling))

DSM to produce advanced biofuel

RNW, 24 January 2012

Dutch specialty chemicals company DSM has entered into a joint venture with the US ethanol producer POET to produce biofuel from the inedible plant material left over from the corn harvest.

The Dutch company is one of the first worldwide to produce advanced, ‘second generation’, biofuels. POET–DSM Advanced Biofuels will produce the ethanol from the stalks and leaves of the corn plant using a a biological process which involves a chemical reaction between water and enzymes followed by fermentation. The resulting biofuel is referred to as 'advanced' because the process utilises only material which has no nutritional value.

Milestone

Production is scheduled to start in the second half of 2013 in a factory in the US state of Iowa, which will be built next to an existing POET production unit. DSM and POET will both make an initial investment of 192 million euros in the new factory which is to produce between 75 and 95 million litres of ethanol a year. The joint venture, with its headquarters located in South Dakota, is to be profitable by 2014. DSM and POET both have a 50 percent stake in the joint venture.DSM CEO Feike Sijbesma on Monday spoke of a strategic milestone for DSM and a major step in the direction of a bio-based economy. “We are not just talking about a bio-based economy, we are really going to make it happen.”

Commercially viable

DSM believes biofuel has great commercial potential. Projections made by the US government show that production of biofuel in the United States alone could be as high as 60 billion litres by 2020. Between 350 and 400 new bio-refineries would have to be built to meet demand.

POET–DSM Advanced Biofuels is forecast to realise an annual turnover of around 100 million US dollars plus additional revenue from licence agreements with other POET factories and third parties. Mr Sijbesma declined to give an estimate of how much revenue these agreements could generate.

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NASA Produces and Promotes New LENR Video: Nuclear Power Coming Soon To Your Home

Conserving biodiversity hotspots 'could bring world's poor $500bn a year'

Study puts economic value on the indirect ecosystem services provided by the world's poorest people

guardian.co.uk, Fiona Harvey in Jakarta, Friday 20 January 2012

A farmer walks with an ox-drawn cart - Webuye district, Kenya. Many of
the benefits of conservation, so-called 'ecosystem services', are invisible.
Photograph: Jake Lyell/Alamy

Some of the world's poorest people would be half a trillion dollars a year better off if the services they provide to the rest of the planet indirectly – through conserving natural habitats – was given an economic value, a new study has found.

Many of these valuable habitats and species are under threat, but the people who live in these areas lack the means to improve their conservation, according to a new study in the journal BioScience.

If poor people were paid for the services they provide in preserving some of the world's key biodiversity hotspots, they could reap $500bn. There are some fledgling schemes that could help to raise this cash – for instance, the United Nations-backed system called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), which uses carbon trading to generate cash to preserve trees – but so far they are small in scale.

The benefits of safeguarding these habitats, such as providing valuable services from food, medicines and clean water to absorbing carbon dioxide from the air, are more than triple the costs of conserving them, the researchers found.

Will Turner, vice–president of Conservation International and lead author of the study, said: "Developed and developing economies cannot continue to ask the world's poor to shoulder the burden of protecting these globally important ecosystem services for the rest of the world's benefit, without compensation in return. This is exactly what we mean when we talk about valuing natural capital. Nature may not send us a bill, but its essential services and flows, both direct and indirect, have concrete economic value."

He said that preserving areas of highest biodiversity should be the priority. "What the research clearly tells us is that conserving the world's remaining biodiversity isn't just a moral imperative - it is a necessary investment for lasting economic development. But in many places where the poor depend on these natural services, we are dangerously close to exhausting them, resulting in lasting poverty," said Turner.

Many of the benefits of conservation, so-called "ecosystem services", are invisible – for instance, maintaining wooded land can help to prevent mudslides during heavy rainfall, and provides valuable watersheds that keep rivers healthy and provide clean drinking water, as well as absorbing carbon dioxide from the air. These benefits are not assigned an economic value, however, so that chopping down trees or destroying habitats appears to deliver an instant economic return, when in fact it is leading to economic losses that are only obvious when it is too late.

The study, entitled Global Biodiversity Conservation and the Alleviation of Poverty, was led by a team from Conservation International, and co-authored by scientists at NatureServe, the US National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. They looked in particular at 17 of the world's most important areas for biodiversity.

They found that some of the ecosystem services accrued to the local people themselves – for instance, using forests as sources of food, medicines and shelter – while the rest are regional or global.

The study follows on a growing body of work from the past decade that has sought to place a value on ecosystem services, as a way of ensuring that they are accounted for in economic policy. If nature is not economically valued, many scientists have argued, it is more prone to being destroyed.

Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International and a co-author, said: "We have always known that biodiversity is foundational to human wellbeing, but we now have a strong case that ecosystems specifically located in the world's biodiversity hotspots and high-biodiversity wilderness areas also provide a vital safety net for people living in poverty. Protecting these places is essential not only to safeguard life on earth but also to support the impoverished, ensure continued broad access to nature's services, and meet the UN millennium development goals."

He called on governments to integrate the conservation of nature into economic and poverty-alleviation policies, in order to value these services better.

Dark matter galaxy hints seen 10bn light-years away

BBC News, 18 January 2012

Related Stories 

• Images detail dark matter mystery
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• Dark matter theory 'may be wrong'

The light bent by a dark-matter-dominated
 galaxy can form what is known as
an "Einstein ring"

Astronomers have spotted a "dwarf" galaxy some 10 billion light-years away which may be made mostly of the mysterious material called dark matter.

The dwarf was found using a technique called gravitational lensing. It is only the second dark dwarf ever seen, and it is by far the most distant.

The fact that so few dwarf galaxies are seen in our own cosmic neighbourhood has remained a conundrum in astronomy.

The study in Nature could explain it: they may be overwhelmingly dark matter.

Dwarf galaxies often occur in the periphery of larger galaxies, where they are known as satellites - the Milky Way may have many as well.

"According to the theory of galaxy formation, you'd expect thousands of these satellites," explained lead author of the study Simona Vegetti of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

"But if you look at the Milky Way we only find 30, so it's important to understand how many satellites are really there, and important to look at other galaxies other than the Milky Way," she told BBC News.

That will help determine if our cosmic neighbourhood of galaxies - the Local Group - is unusual, or if the theory of galaxy formation is incomplete.

Massive question

Dark matter is so named because it does not interact with light - it cannot be seen directly, as the stars and dust of the cosmos can.

However, it does have mass - making up 85% of the mass in the Universe - and the effects of that mass can be spotted.

Gravitational lensing is a technique in which an object that lies between Earth and a distant light source can actually act as a "lens"; the object's mass bends the distant galaxy's light, magnifying and distorting it.

By using computer models of how that magnification and distortion should work, the mass of the lensing galaxy - and where that mass is distributed - can be determined.

Dark energy and dark matter mysteries 

. Gravity acting across vast distances does
not seem to explain what astronomers see

. Galaxies, for example, should fly apart;
some other mass must be there holding
them together

. Astrophysicists have thus postulated "dark
matter" - invisible to us but clearly acting 
on galactic scales

. At the greatest distances, the Universe's 
expansion is accelerating

. Thus we have also "dark energy" which
acts to drive the expansion, in opposition to
gravity

. The current theory holds that 73% of the
Universe is dark energy, 23% is dark matter, 
and just 4% the kind of matter we know well

BBC Universe: Dark matter

BBC Universe: Dark energy

The technique was recently used to develop the widest view of dark matter distribution in the Universe ever produced.

Dr Vegetti and colleagues in the US and the Netherlands have now used the Keck telescope in Hawaii to study the lensing caused by a distant elliptical galaxy called JVAS B1938+666.

They found a discrepancy in comparing with the image that their detailed computer model suggested should come from the system.

Something with a mass about 200,000,000 times that of our Sun is in the periphery of the image they see.

Yet that source of mass is not visible in the image of the galaxy itself.

"It's very hard to tell at the moment because the telescopes are just not powerful enough to see such dim galaxies so far away," Dr Vegetti said.

"But [the dwarf galaxy] is most likely dominated by dark matter, or maybe there are a few stars hiding here and there."

The team must continue the hunt for such satellites to get to the bottom of the dark mystery.

"We were kind of lucky that the first one we looked at also had a satellite," Dr Vegetti said.

"If we find other galaxies or satellites, it will tell us whether we need to change the properties of dark matter; if we don't find enough, then dark matter must be different from what we think."

Related Article:

"Spiritual Logic" - Oct 15 2011 (Kryon Channelling by Lee Caroll) 
(Subjects: Benevolent Design, Channelling, Holy scriptures, Higher self, (Old) Souls, Universes, Big Bang, Galaxy/Solar system build for life, Astronomy, Life on Earth tried to start 5 times/ 5th time life started, Large Animals/No Humans,  Asteroid belt, 7 Sisters / 100.000 year ago Pleiadian Brothers and Sisters seeded Humans on earth, DNA, Humans Ascensiont with Pleiadian DNA, Lemuria (Hawaii),21-12-2012, 26.000 years cycle, 1987 - Harmonic convergence (11:11), Shift of Human Consciousness, Gaia, The Humanization of God, 1991 Russia falls, 1994 started 36 years galactic window (Presession), Mid point on 21-12-2012, Lemuria (Hawaii) center of the Earth time,  Love (Mother & Child),  Religion, Higher self, Global Unity,..... etc.)

"Recalibration of Knowledge" – Jan 14, 2012 (Kryon channelled by Lee Carroll) - (Subjects: Channelling, God-Creator, Benevolent Design, New Energy, Shift of Human Consciousness, (Old) Souls, Reincarnation, Gaia, Old Energies (Africa,Terrorists, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Venezuela ... ), Weather, Rejuvenation, Akash, Nicolas Tesla / Einstein, Cold Fusion, Magnetics, Lemuria, Atomic Structure (Electrons, Particles, Polarity, Self Balancing, Magnetism), Entanglement, "Life is necessary for a Universe to exist and not the other way around", DNA, Humans (Baby getting ready, First Breath, Stem Cells, Embryonic Stem Cells, Rejuvenation), Global Unity, ... etc.) - New !

"The Interdimensional Universe" – Nov 15, 2003 (Kryon channeled by Lee Carroll)

“…  Let me give you another hint about the mechanics of your Universe. We've talked about gamma-ray activity for almost a decade. We told you to "look for intense gamma-ray activity." We told you that when you see it, you'll know that there's creation going on - something special happening. Now we identify this as dimensional shift. It's always accompanied by powerful gamma rays, specifically of extreme high intensity. This is an attribute of dimensional shift, and also tells you that something is happening. You see this at the edge of your galaxy, and you know that something is changing there. It's a "mini-big bang," if you want to use your own terms. It's part of a constantly changing Universe, one that's moving in a push/pull fashion. …”

Stephen Hawking

(According to Gaia is Stephen Hawking an incarnation of Sir Isaac Newton, confirmed in a channeling thru Pepper Lewis in the Shirley Maclaine Radio Show 2, including explanations of BP Oil spill, Dark Matter, God/God/Local God..., ET Disclosure, 3/5/7 dimensions, Money, Currencies ... etc.)

Keystone XL pipeline: Obama rejects controversial project

Republicans set up election-year showdown by blasting Obama for decision, saying thousands of jobs have been lost 

guardian.co.uk, Suzanne Goldenberg, US environment correspondent,  Wednesday 18 January 2012

John Boehner, surrounded by other House Republicans, decries the state
 department's announcement that the US will not proceed with the
controversial Keystone Pipeline. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Barack Obama rejected the controversial Keystone tar sands pipeline on Wednesday, making good on a promise not to give in to a Republican ultimatum on the project.

The announcement from the state department – which was expected – was hailed by environmentalists as a victory.

But it sets up an election-year confrontation over the pipeline, which was to carry carbon-heavy crude from the tar sands of Alberta across the American heartland to refineries on the Texas coast.

However, TransCanada, the Canadian company which was seeking to build the pipeline, will be allowed to re-apply for permission to go ahead with the project.

"The Department's denial of the permit application does not preclude any subsequent permit application or applications for similar projects," the state department said in a statement said.

Obama, in his statement, pinned the blame for the decision on the Republicans for trying to push the administration to an earlier deadline. "The rushed and arbitrary deadline insisted on by congressional Republicans prevented a full assessment of the pipeline's impact, he said. "This announcement is not a judgment on the merits of the pipeline, but the arbitrary nature of a deadline that prevented the state department from gathering the information necessary to approve the project and protect the American people."

He said officials would continue to explore new pipeline routes

Environmental groups immediately hailed the decision as David versus Goliath victory for an unlikely coalition between national activists and Nebraska landowners opposed to the pipeline's route across an ecologically sensitive area known as the Sand Hills.

Industry groups – and Republicans – said the decision showed Obama did not care about jobs. There was also disappointment from the Canadian government, which had pushed hard for the pipeline.

As news spread on Wednesday of a forthcoming announcement, Bill McKibben, the environmentalist who galvanised opposition to the pipeline, said: "Assuming that what we're hearing is true, this isn't just the right call, it's the brave call. The knock on Barack Obama from many quarters has been that he's too conciliatory. But here, in the face of a naked threat from Big Oil to exact 'huge political consequences' he's stood up strong."

Damon Moglen, the climate campaigner of Friends of the Earth, cast the decision as an epic victory. When the project was first proposed, in August 2008, "No one thought we could win," he said

Industry groups said Obama was squandering a chance to create jobs through pipeline construction, and warned he would rue his decision come election day.

"This political decision offers hard evidence that creating jobs is not a high priority for this administration," said Tom Donohue, president of the Chamber of Commerce, which has pushed hard for the pipeline.

Mitt Romney, the Republican frontrunner, said the decision showed a "lack of seriousness" about bringing down unemployment, and that Obama was pandering to his political base.

Republicans in Congress echoed the jobs argument, and said they would try and put forward new legislation to push the project forward.

"President Obama is about to destroy tens of thousands of American jobs," a spokesman for Republican house speaker John Boehner said.

Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper has also pushed hard for the pipeline, telling the CBC earlier this week that the administration's earlier delays were made for "very bad political reasons".

In an extraordinary rant this month, the natural resources minister, Joe Oliver,lashed out at opponents of the pipeline as foreign radicals and jet-setting celebrities.

However, administration officials argued that Republicans would have to take some of the blame for the cancellation of the project.

The White House had warned repeatedly that it would be forced to turn down the nearly 1,700 mile pipeline, after Congress voted last month to give the administration a tight 60-day deadline to render its decision.

White House spokesman Jay Carney made it clear on Tuesday that Obama would not be stampeded into approving the project. "There was an attempt to short-circut the review process in a way that does not allow the kind of careful consideration of all the competing criteria here that needs to be done," he said. "It's a fallacy to suggest that the president would sign into law something when there isn't even an alternate route identified in Nebraska," he said.

In an official statement, the state department said: "The Department of State recommended to President Obama that the presidential permit for the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline be denied and, that at this time, the TransCanada Keystone XL Pipeline be determined not to serve the national interest."

The statement said officials had not had enough time for an adequate review of the project, given the 21 February deadline set by Congress. The State Department has final authority over the pipeline because it crosses international border with Canada.

The state department had earlier delayed a decision for up to a year, saying it needed to review additional routes through Nebraska.

That decision, which the state department attributed to intense grassroots opposition from Nebraska, was a political gift to Obama, saving him from making a decision on a project which had been cast as a choice between jobs or the environment.

The state department said at the time that the review, including a search for alternate routes across Nebraska, would likely delay a final decision until 2013.

TransCanada had begun to work with officials in Nebraska on finding a new path around the Sand Hills, adding about 100 additional miles to the route. Officials had indicated earlier they were close to agreeing on a new route.

But activists in Nebraska and Washington warned that they would be as ready to fight off a new tar sands pipeline. "If they do reapply, TransCanada will face the same valid public concerns and fierce opposition as the first time," said Susan Casey-Lefkowitz, a campaigner for the Natural Resources Defence Council in Washington. "If they do reapply, TransCanada will face the same valid public concerns and fierce opposition as the first time."

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