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A geological secret passage beneath Panama may explain why rocks from Earth's mantle are found more than 1,000 miles (1,609 kilometers) from where they originated.This opening, located some 62 miles (100 km) below Earth's surface, may allow a flow of mantle materials to travel all the way from beneath the Galápagos Islands to beneath Panama.This never-before-discovered form of transport may also help explain why Panama has very few active volcanoes. On the west coast of Central America, the Cocos tectonic plate is diving down and pushes oceanic crust under the continental crust of the North American, Caribbean and Panama tectonic...

A new adaptation of Jules Verne classic Around The World In 80 Days has been dismissed as 'woke nonsense' by furious BBC license payers. The eight-part adaptation starring David Tennant as globetrotting Phileas Fogg launched on Boxing Day, but a series of socially conscious tweaks to the legendary tale left viewers choking on their turkey sandwiches. Two notable departures from Verne's original 1872 text sees Passepartout, Fogg's loyal valet, played by a black actor - French star Ibrahim Koma - while Detective Fix also gets a modern-day makeover.

The BBC's highly-anticipated sci-fi drama, The War Of The Worlds, has dropped it's first trailer. Veering away from the 2005 Hollywood version - which starred Tom Cruise, was helmed by Steven Spielberg and was set in the present day - the three-part series takes place in Edwardian England, harking more accurately back to the source text. The novel - written by H. G. Wells and published in 1897 - sees martians, in the form of giant, spindly-legged machines - attack Earth, on hunt for resources.

Jules Verne's book Dick Sand, A Captain at Fifteen and the life of St. Josephine Bakhita are witness that caution at Islam is not racist, it's anti-racist. There's a knee-jerk liberal presumption that objection to unlimited Muslim immigration is racist. Within Islam itself, Arabs are presumed to be superior to non-Arabs. Islam envisions Allah as a slavemaster. (Christianity teaches that "There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.") Slavery is so institutionalized in Islam, one of the major political historical periods,...

While you were out shopping Sunday for those last-minute holiday gifts, the Navy pushed ahead with its own vision of an underwater sugar plum: a fleet of “long endurance, transoceanic gliders harvesting all energy from the ocean thermocline.” Fact is, the Navy has been seeking—pretty much under the surface—a way to do underwater what the Air Force has been doing in the sky: prowl stealthily for long periods of time, and gather the kind of data that could turn the tide in war. The Navy’s goal is to send an underwater drone, which it calls a “glider,” on a roller-coaster-like...

American film historians recently came across a fascinating discovery when they found the Czech National Film Archive has the only surviving print of the 1929 US movie, the Mysterious Island. The archive in Prague stores around 500 films from Hollywood’s early days, proof that the global dominance of American cinema goes all the way back to the birth of the film industry.The epic American movie The Mysterious Island, loosely based on the French writer Jules Verne’s adventurous novel, was released in 1929. The Technicolor film starred, among others, the Oscar-winning actor Lionel Barrymore. But it became a financial and critical...

This week's feature is Disney's epic version of Jules Verne's classic underwater adventure novel "20,000 Leagues Under The Sea." One of the best films from the Disney Studio of this era.

Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons, and Alternative Theories of Everything by Margaret Wertheim Walker, 323 pp., $27.00                                                   Pierpont Morgan Library/Art Resource An engraving by William Blake from The Song of Los, 1795 Physics on the Fringe describes work done by amateurs, people rejected by the academic establishment and rejecting orthodox academic beliefs. They are often self-taught and ignorant of higher mathematics. Mathematics is the language spoken by the professionals. The amateurs offer an...

A Monash geoscientist and a team of international researchers have discovered the existence of an ocean floor was destroyed 50 to 20 million years ago, proving that New Caledonia and New Zealand are geographically connected. Using new computer modelling programs Wouter Schellart and the team reconstructed the prehistoric cataclysm that took place when a tectonic plate between Australia and New Zealand was subducted 1100 kilometres into the Earth's interior and at the same time formed a long chain of volcanic islands at the surface. Mr Schellart conducted the research, published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters, in collaboration...

This week I did an amzing discovery that I’d like to share with my fellow Vernians: an audio recording of an interview with Jules Verne by a Dutch journalist! A couple of days ago, I received an email from a Mrs Rina Appel from Amersfoort, a town not far from where I live. Among the inheritance left by her aunt, who passed away last year, she had found a small wooden crate containing five wax cilinders, each wrapped in a leather case. On the crate was a handwritten label that read “Jules Verne 1903”. The crate had belonged to Rina...

Mariners have long told of rare nighttime events in which the ocean glows intensely as far as the eye can see in all directions. Fictionally, such a "milky sea" is encountered by the Nautilus in Jules Verne classic "20,000 Leagues Under the Sea." Scientists don't have a good handle what's going on. But satellite sensors have now provided the first pictures of a milky sea and given new hope to learning more about the elusive events. The newly released images show a vast region of the Indian Ocean, about the size of Connecticut, glowing three nights in a row. The...

PARIS (AFP) - In 1872, French author Jules Verne sent one of his greatest heroes, British adventurer Phileas Fogg, around the world in 80 days -- an amazing feat given the modes of transportation available at the time. On March 3, US aviator Steve Fossett completed the first solo flight around the world without refueling in three days. Last week, French sailor Bruno Peyron made the trip by boat in 50 days, winning the... Jules Verne trophy. One hundred years after the death of the French writer, known worldwide for his fantastic tales of undersea exploration and space travel, technology...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2003 February 15 Happy Birthday Jules Verne Credit: NASA Explanation: One hundred seventy-five years ago (on February 8th), Jules Verne was born in Nantes, France. Inspired by a lifelong fascination with machines, Verne wrote visionary works about "Extraordinary Voyages" including such terrestrial travels as Around the World in 80 Days, Journey to the Centre of the Earth, and Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In 1865 he published...