Gorgeous pics come to life before your eyes
Photographer John Eklund took more than 260,000 photos to complete his time-lapse project. The stunning result
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
Sunday, September 23, 2012
Fantastic Night News
50-Million-Year-Old Redwood Chunk Found in Diamond Mine
By Megan Gannon, News Editor | LiveScience.com – Fri, Sep 21, 2012
A. Location of the Ekati diamond …
The image at right shows the well-preserved
…
A search for diamonds in Canada's far north turned up a rare fossil —
- a chunk of a redwood sealed in volcanic rock more than 50 million years ago.
A study of the well-preserved specimen, which also contains a sliver of amber, shows that the now-icy region where it was found had a swampier past.
The wood was found a few years ago in a kimberlite pipe, named the Panda pipe, over 1,000 feet (315 meters) below Earth's surface at the Ekati diamond mine, just south of the Arctic Circle in Canada's Northwest Territories, the researchers say.
A kimberlite pipe, a type of volcanic pipe, forms when kimberlite magma pushes through deep fractures in the Earth's crust to create a vertical tubelike structure that's wider at the top like a carrot. Kimberlites have the deepest origins of all magmas on Earth and when they cool, they leave behind rocks dense in crystals, sometimes holding diamonds.
The researchers, who report their findings in a Sept. 19 paper in the journal PLoS ONE, say the site of the Panda pipe was covered with a forest of Metasequoia, similar to today's dawn redwoods, during the early Eocene.
The kimberlite eruption that occurred there about 53.3 million years ago opened a hole in the Earth's surface, sucking in some of those redwoods.
Lead author of the study Alex Wolfe of the University of Alberta explained that open space along the side of this hole allowed the trees to tumble far inside.
"Then it cooled, and the wood was locked in the volcanic rock," Wolfe told LiveScience in an email.
The specimen may be the oldest of its kind found in the region, surpassing wood from the Axel Heiberg fossil forest in northern Canada by millions of years. Wolfe said that for its age, it is by far the best preserved, which is important in a region where glaciers have scraped other traces of prehistory off the map.
"All sedimentary rocks and their fossils have been wiped clear by glaciation in this part of the world," Wolfe said. "Thus we have, deeply buried in these rocks, vestiges of ancient ecosystems and a sole source of fossils pertaining to the character of Eocene forests in subarctic Canada."
Since the fossil is in such good condition, it gives scientists a better picture of the region's climate in the early Eocene.
By measuring the ratio of oxygen and hydrogen isotopes (atoms of the same element with different numbers of neutrons) in the wood's well-preserved cellulose, the researchers found that western Canadian subarctic temperatures were 21 to 30 degrees F (12 to 17 degrees C) warmer and four times wetter than they are today.
- Image Gallery: Fossil Forest in the Canadian Arctic
- On Ice: Stunning Images of Canadian Arctic
- The Reality of Climate Change: 10 Myths Busted
Friday, September 21, 2012
Thursday, September 20, 2012
A chance to consider : Hard Water Damages Home !
Last Updated: 9/12/2012 14:53 PST
In a housing market still struggling to recover from the economic recession, most homeowners are concerned with keeping the values of their home up, and their energy bills down.
And, while people focus on energy costs, few realize that a typical household can waste hundreds of dollars in inefficient performance of appliances and up to 12,000 gallons of water annually.
If you’re one of the 85 percent of homes with hard water, you’re probably one of them.
Luckily, there is something you can do about it.
Hard water is a problem because it has high mineral content.
This leads to limescale buildup when calcium and magnesium minerals from the water attach to pipes and heating coils.
Limescale will continue to grow inside pipes and heating coils, but you won’t realize it until it restricts your water flow and reduces heat-transferring capability in your appliances.
Mineral limescale buildup can cost homeowners a lot of money if left unattended.
That’s because your appliances expend more energy to penetrate through the mineral buildup which means more energy (often a whopping 30 percent) and more water used in the heating process.
Is hard water costing you big time?
If any of the statements below describe your home, chances are you have a hard water problem:
Traditionally, homeowners fought these problems with salt or chemical based water softeners that are costly and required expensive installation and maintenance.
Many of these solutions are harmful to the environment and are being banned in many communities, leaving homeowners searching for alternatives.
The good news today is the development of new affordable solutions and technologies that make it easy and worthwhile to get rid of the hard water scourge.
One company in particular has introduced a remarkable device that eliminates limescale buildup throughout your entire home.
It’s called HydroCare from WAVE Home Solutions. It’s an environmentally-friendly, maintenance-free technology that saves homeowners an average of $1,200 every year.
HydroCare uses a non salt, chemical-free approach to prevent minerals from crystallizing inside your pipes and heating coils.
It transmits a specially designed electric field to help the calcium and magnesium minerals to form crystals and stay suspended in water rather than on pipes and appliances.
You simply clip the compact HydroCare unit to the pipe of your water heater, and then plug it into an outlet.
It begins working right away, transmitting a patented signal into your entire water system.
The signal is continuously transmitting and operating preventing minerals from depositing on the inside of your pipes.
It also dissolves existing buildup of lime scale and treats the water throughout your entire house.
It's safe, harmless, maintenance-free, and it’s guaranteed. It’s also incredibly cost effective, so it pays for itself in a short amount of time through energy savings, water conservation, and extended appliance life.
The company also offers a unique, one year performance guarantee on all HydroCare units.
If, after one year of installation, you are not satisfied with the effectiveness and benefits of your HydroCare unit, they will refund you the price of the unit.
So, while increasing energy bills are a problem for everyone, new technologies like this are allowing a growing number of Americans to stop paying significant hidden costs from hard water in their homes.
Click here to learn how WAVE Home Solutions may be able to slash your water and energy bills now.
How to Stop Hard Water from Damaging Your Home and Save $1200 a Year
In a housing market still struggling to recover from the economic recession, most homeowners are concerned with keeping the values of their home up, and their energy bills down.If you’re one of the 85 percent of homes with hard water, you’re probably one of them.
Luckily, there is something you can do about it.
Hard water is a problem because it has high mineral content.
This leads to limescale buildup when calcium and magnesium minerals from the water attach to pipes and heating coils.
Limescale will continue to grow inside pipes and heating coils, but you won’t realize it until it restricts your water flow and reduces heat-transferring capability in your appliances.
Mineral limescale buildup can cost homeowners a lot of money if left unattended.
That’s because your appliances expend more energy to penetrate through the mineral buildup which means more energy (often a whopping 30 percent) and more water used in the heating process.
Is hard water costing you big time?
If any of the statements below describe your home, chances are you have a hard water problem:
- Dishes come out of the dishwasher with spots on them;
- Water heaters and other hot water appliances need frequent repairs;
- There is mineral buildup on your faucets, showerheads, and bathtub;
- Water pressure is decreasing through your showerheads and faucets.
Many of these solutions are harmful to the environment and are being banned in many communities, leaving homeowners searching for alternatives.
The good news today is the development of new affordable solutions and technologies that make it easy and worthwhile to get rid of the hard water scourge.
One company in particular has introduced a remarkable device that eliminates limescale buildup throughout your entire home.
It’s called HydroCare from WAVE Home Solutions. It’s an environmentally-friendly, maintenance-free technology that saves homeowners an average of $1,200 every year.
HydroCare uses a non salt, chemical-free approach to prevent minerals from crystallizing inside your pipes and heating coils.
It transmits a specially designed electric field to help the calcium and magnesium minerals to form crystals and stay suspended in water rather than on pipes and appliances.
You simply clip the compact HydroCare unit to the pipe of your water heater, and then plug it into an outlet.
It begins working right away, transmitting a patented signal into your entire water system.
The signal is continuously transmitting and operating preventing minerals from depositing on the inside of your pipes.
It also dissolves existing buildup of lime scale and treats the water throughout your entire house.
It's safe, harmless, maintenance-free, and it’s guaranteed. It’s also incredibly cost effective, so it pays for itself in a short amount of time through energy savings, water conservation, and extended appliance life.
The company also offers a unique, one year performance guarantee on all HydroCare units.
If, after one year of installation, you are not satisfied with the effectiveness and benefits of your HydroCare unit, they will refund you the price of the unit.
So, while increasing energy bills are a problem for everyone, new technologies like this are allowing a growing number of Americans to stop paying significant hidden costs from hard water in their homes.
Click here to learn how WAVE Home Solutions may be able to slash your water and energy bills now.
This article sponsored by Wave Home Solutions
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