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GENEVA (AP) -- A senior official at the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says solar storms pose a growing threat to criticial infrastructure such as satellite communications, navigation systems and electrical transmission equipment. NOAA Assistant Secretary Kathryn Sullivan says the intensity of solar storms is expected to peak in 2013 and countries should prepare for "potentially devastating effects." Solar storms release particles that can temporarily disable or permanently destroy fragile computer circuits. Sullivan, a former NASA astronaut who in 1984 became the first woman to walk in space, told a U.N. weather conference in Geneva on Tuesday that "it...

Seen coiled around a branch in an undated picture, a new species of snake called the ruby-eyed green pit viper (Cryptelytrops rubeus) has been discovered in Southeast Asia, according to a recent study. The snake lives in forests near Ho Chi Minh City and across the low hills of southern Vietnam and eastern Cambodia's Langbian Plateau. Scientists collected green pit vipers from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam, and Cambodia between 1999 and 2003 and examined them in the lab, using physical characteristics and genetics to identify new species. "We know this species from only a few specimens, and very few people in...

McGill geology researchers' discovery of high concentrations of CO2 at mid-ocean ridges confirms explosive nature of certain volcanic eruptionsBetween 75 and 80 per cent of all volcanic activity on Earth takes place at deep-sea, mid-ocean ridges. Most of these volcanoes produce effusive lava flows rather than explosive eruptions, both because the levels of magmatic gas (which fuel the explosions and are made up of a variety of components, including, most importantly CO2) tend to be low, and because the volcanoes are under a lot of pressure from the surrounding water. Over about the last 10 years however, geologists have nevertheless...

Three new pics at link.....

So much for the environmental Apocalypse of 2010, or whatever it was that the greenies took to calling last April's Deepwater Horizon explosion and subsequent oil spill. First, it turned out that, just four months after the explosion, nearly all the oil that leaked into the Gulf of Mexico -- once estimated at 200 million gallons -- had disappeared with scant ill effect. Now a federally funded field study in the journal Science reports that some 200,000 tons of toxic methane gas from the spill -- which experts once estimated would remain in the gulf waters for as long as...

When we think of reality show, we think trashy housewives and serial dating, but this is not your typical reality show. Instead, Sarah Palin's Alaska is a unique look into faith, family, love, strong American values and the natural beauty Alaska has to offer. “It really goes into the life of Sarah Palin not the politics of it,” Roxy Stahl from Motive Entertainment tells Townhall, adding that the show is designed to be a documentary rather than a reality series, showcasing the great outdoors. During the course of the series, viewers will get to know Todd Palin’s grandmother Lena, an...

Beautiful song

Someone has slipped sliced-open beer cans around the necks of at least three gulls in the Bay Area, and now an animal rescue group is trying to find the birds and the person or people responsible. "It's sick. What's the next level of this kind of abuse?" said Rebecca Dmytryk of Monterey County-based WildRescue. Dmytryk said she first heard about the birds after getting some disturbing photos at the end of September that showed a gull with half a Budweiser can stuck around its neck like a collar. She has confirmed sightings at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco, a beach...

HELENA, Mont. – A Montana woman fended off a bear trying to muscle its way into her home Thursday by pelting the animal with a large piece of zucchini from her garden. The woman suffered minor scratches and one of her dogs was wounded after tussling with the 200-pound bear.

Environmentalism: Liberal Rebellion Against Death I believe the liberal’s twisted environmentalism is due to their own alienation from nature. It also stems from their spiritual helplessness. Extreme liberalism is rebellion against death, which is really rebellion against life as it is. Why do they become vegetarians? Not because they think it’s healthier—it’s to avoid the anxiety that comes from eating meat—acceptance of death. Why are they absurdly anti-war? Same reason. They flock to urban centers where people are supreme, and where nature has been subdued or eliminated. Seems odd for environmentalists, but it isn’t. The city is the greatest example...

Sorry for the long hiatus, but life called me and I had to reply. But here I am, back again in all my thrifty glory, with some fun things to share and some amazing things to look forward to. Today, the fun sharing stuff: I’ve been to a few yard sales recently and picked up oodles of stuff for a song or two. Some of it was stuff to keep, like a Lucy Davies framed print of a blue and white kitchen counter (much like my own) to hang above my kitchen counter! Asking price was $2.00, but since I...

Wildlife officials have killed a grizzly bear in Wyoming and a grizzly bear in Montana to head-off potential lawsuits. The Montana grizzly killed and partially consumed Kevin Kammer at a Gallatin National Forest campground near Cooke City, Mont. on July 29. The Wyoming grizzly killed 70 year-old botanist Erwin Evert on June 17 on the Shoshone National Forest near the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park. The circumstances were quite different, but the decision to kill the bears was undoubtedly influenced by a 1996 court case over the terrible bear mauling of 16 year-old Anna Knochel at a U.S. Forest...

I found this video of a pelican landing on the water at Sea World, during a live show. Before you realize what landed on the water, one of the Killer Whales chomps on the pelican and dives with it. The next thing you see is all the whales having a food fest on the remains in front of all the spectators. It's real funny, nature at it's finest. Here is the link, Orca Eats pelican During Show @ Sea World

With MANY THANKS to FoxNews website. When there is a massive oil spill, and the one in the Gulf of Mexico is, the silent victims of it is nature in itself. This special slide show presents not only the animals that have been rescued, and sadly in some pictures, those that have been lost, but the clean up efforts and also of protests that have been going on.

While no animal was injured beyond being ruffed up and maybe bruised a bit, this video is a good lesson for showing how dangerous wild deer can really be. If you do a google search you will find that Bambi has been known to attack and kill domesticated pets and even humans when protecting their young. Here are just two different stories about humans being attacked and killed by deer in the past few years.  One was in Southern California when a man was just picking tomatoes in his back yard, ( Man dies 3 weeks after deer gores...

University of California librarians are urging professors not to submit research to Nature or 66 related journals to protest a 400 percent increase in the publisher's prices. A new contract with Nature Publishing Group would raise the university's subscription costs by more than $1 million, library and faculty leaders wrote in a letter this week to professors throughout the 10-campus system. With recent budget cuts, UC libraries simply can't handle the higher price, which would take effect in 2011, the letter said. Boycotting the Nature group would be a huge step for a university that, according to UC estimates, has...

"HARRISON, Wis. — David Schoone, a farmer in this lush region of northern Wisconsin, says a lone gray wolf sneaked up on his school-age daughter three years ago as she bounced on a trampoline in his backyard. More recently, Mr. Schoone was chased into his pickup truck by a wolf, and his cousin's wife had to run from two wolves that descended on her from opposite sides of a shed. This month, he lost two young steer to wolves. "We gotta watch all the time," said Mr. Schoone, 43 years old, who carries a loaded rifle when he works in...

Rarely are currency exchange rates as good for the American dollar as that of Asian countries. In Asia, the American dollar carries a lot of clout and with the recent devaluation of the USD; it is a good thing that these countries offer an excellent trip for so little cost to Americans.

PARIS – As airline losses from the volcanic ash cloud spiraled over $1 billion on Monday, the industry demanded EU compensation and criticized European governments for relying too much on scientific theory — not fact — in their decisions to shut down airspace across the continent. Shares of some European airlines fell as flight disruptions from the volcanic cloud moved into a fifth day, and the International Air Transport Association complained of "no leadership" from government leaders — one of whom admitted to EU dissension about how to respond. "It's embarrassing, and a European mess," IATA CEO Giovanni Bisignani told...

PORTLAND – About two dozen women marched topless from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park this afternoon in an effort to erase what they see as a double standard on male and female nudity. click image to enlarge A group of women and men who had shed their tops march down a Congress Street sidewalk from Longfellow Square to Tommy's Park. They were promoting the freedom of women to be topless in public. The group attracted many amateur and professional photographers. The women, preceded and followed by several hundred boisterous and mostly male onlookers, many of them carrying cameras, stayed on...