Bali volcano eruption: Agung and Batur are connected

Bali volcano eruption: Agung and Batur are CONNECTED-scientists warn of huge eruption 

TWO volcano's in Bali are connected by the same 'plumbing' system, scientists have discovered, and there are fears it could cause a MAJOR eruption in the future.

Experts from the University of Bristol found that Bali's deadly Mt Agung is connected to the nearby volcano, Batur. They were analyzing Mt Agung after it erupted in 2017, forcing 100,000 people to leave their homes. Two months prior to this eruption, there was a sharp uptake in earthquake activity in the region. This was also the case when Agung previously erupted in 1963, killing almost 2,000 people.

How the brain enables us to rapidly focus attention

How the brain enables us to rapidly focus attention

University of Queensland researchers have discovered a key mechanism in the brain that may underlie our ability to rapidly focus attention.

Our brains are continuously bombarded with information from the senses, yet our level of vigilance to such input varies, allowing us to selectively focus on one conversation and not another. 

Professor Stephen Williams of the Queensland Brain Institute at explains, "If we want to give our full concentration, something happens in the brain to enable us to focus and filter out distractions."

Discovery of recent Antarctic ice sheet collapse raises fears of a new global flood

Discovery of recent Antarctic ice sheet 

Collapse raises fears of a new global flood

Some 125,000 years ago, during the last brief warm period between ice ages, Earth was a wash. Temperatures during this time, called the Eemain were barely higher than in today's greenhouse-warmed world. Yet proxy records show sea levels were 6 to 9 meters higher than they are today, drowning huge swaths of what is now dry land.

Scientists have now identified the source of all that water a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.  Glaciologist worry about the present-day stability of this formidable ice mass. Its base lies below sea level, at risk of being undermined by warming ocean waters and glaciers fringing it are retreating fast. The discovery, teased out of a sediment core and reported last week at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Washington, D.C., validates those concerns,  providing evidence that the ice sheet disappeared in the recent geological past under climate conditions similar to today's. "We had an absence of evidence," says Andres Carlson, a glacial geologist at Oregon State University in Corvallis, who led the work. I think we have evidence of absence now.

We've Never Seen Something Like This Orbiting The Sun

"We've Never Seen Something Like This Orbiting The Sun": Ultima Thule Is Still Weird

The most distant object our species has ever visited, a space rock called 2014, is less snowman shaped than scientists previously thought.

NASA flew its New Horizons probe by the rock, which is nicknamed Ultima Thule and located 4 billion miles from Earth, on New Years Day. 

New Horizons flew within 2,200 miles, travelling at a speed of 32,200 mph. The fly by gave scientists the opportunity to collect photos and information about the rock that they hope will help solve some long standing mysteries about the solar system's 4.5 billion years of history. 

The north magnetic pole just changed

 The north magnetic pole just changed

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Magnetic north just changed. Here's what that means.The foundation of many navigation systems, the World Magnetic Model finally got a much-needed update with the end of the U.S. government shutdown.

  

Magnetic north has never sat still. In the last hundred years or so, the direction in which our compasses steadfastly point has lumbered ever northward, driven by Earth's churning liquid outer core some 1,800 miles beneath the surface. Yet in recent years, scientists noticed something unusual: Magnetic north's routine plod has shifted into high gear, sending it galloping across the Northern Hemisphere-and no one can entirely explain why.

The changes have been so large that scientists began working on an emergency update for the World

Magnetic Model, the mathematical system that lays the foundations for navigation, from cell phones and ships to commercial airlines. But then the U.S. government shut down, placing the model's official release on hold, as Nature News First Reported earlier this year.

Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune

Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune

During its routine yearly monitoring of the weather on our solar system's outer planets, NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has uncovered a new mysterious dark storm on Neptune and provided a fresh look at a long-lived storm circling around the north polar region on Uranus. 

Like Earth, Uranus and Neptune have seasons, which likely drive some of the features in their atmospheres. But their seasons are much longer than on Earth, spanning decades rather than months.

Distant volcano could turn latest lunar eclipse dark red

Distant volcano could turn latest lunar eclipse dark red

 

 

 

 

 

 

 On the evening of January 20 to 21, the entire Western Hemisphere will be treated to a more-than-hour-long sky show: a total eclipse of the moon. The eruption of a volcano half a world  away could make this particular event especially colorful-as a deep red.

Total lunar eclipses aren't rare. They happen somewhere across the globe once a year or so. But not everybody can see them. People have to be on the night side of  Earth to catch the dark shadow fall over  the moon face.