Read the full stories at http://www.news.yahoo.com.
UFOs Seen in London Skies: A video purportedly showing a UFO mothership and a fleet of alien spacecraft has gone viral on YouTube. The ships, seen as white dots flying across the skies, come and go several times before a larger shape appears, hovers, then disappears at great speed.
View the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OAouX-nWvv4
U.S. Nuclear Regulators Weaken Safety Rules: One of the fall outs of Federal legislators loosening safety standards for nuclear reactors is that radioactive tritium has been found to be leaking from three-quarters of the U.S.’s commercial nuclear power sites, often into groundwater from corroded, buried pipes. And U.S. nuclear power plant operators have not figured out how to quickly detect leaks of radioactive water from aging pipes that snake underneath sites as well. The leaks are often undetected for years.
Federal legislators have been working closely with the nuclear power industry to keep the nation’s aging reactors operating within safety standards by repeatedly weakening the standards, or simply failing to enforce them. Time after time, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has lowered standards, stating that safety margins could be lowered without peril. The result? Rising fears that those accommodations are significantly undermining safety. Reactor parts of systems fail and regulations are eased to accommodate to get the reactors back in compliance. As a result, the minimum standards have been relaxed for acceptable radiation damage to reactor vessels. And as of today, 82 reactors are more than 25 years old.
But some safety experts call it “tombstone regulation,” implying that problems fester until something goes terribly wrong. “Until there are tombstones, they won’t regulate,” says one industry whistleblower. We may not have to wait long, unfortunately.
Power Grid Changes May Disrupt Clocks: A year-long experiment with the nation’s electric grid could mess up traffic lights, security systems, and some computers–and make plug-in clocks and appliances like coffeemakers run up to 20 minutes fast. The group that oversees the U.S. power grid is preparing an experiment that would allow more frequency variation without correction in order to make the power supply more reliable, save money, and reduce what may be needless efforts. The test is tentatively set to start in mid-July. But the National Institute of Standards and Technology experts are saying there will be more widespread effects.
The federal government provides the official time by phone and on the Internet for backup, just in case your clocks and other appliances are among those affected.
Ocean Life on the Brink of Mass Extinctions: Life in the oceans is at imminent risk of the worst spate of extinctions in millions of years due to threats such as climate change and over-fishing, a recent study shows. Time is running out to counter hazards such as collapse of coral reefs or a spread of low-oxygen “dead zones.” And unless action is taken now, the consequences of our activities are at high risk of causing the next globally significant extinction event in the ocean. Science lists five mass extinctions over the last 600 million years, the most recent being 65 million years ago when the dinosaurs disappeared. And from a geological point of view, mass extinctions happen overnight, but on a human timescale, we may not realize that we are in the middle of such an event right now.
Japanese Scientists Synthesize Meat From Human Feces: Somehow this headline sounds like a Vonnegut plot line: Population boom equals food shortage. Solution? Synthesize food from human waste matter. Absurd, yes? But Japanese scientists have actually discovered a way to create edible steaks from human feces. Are they safe to eat? According to officials, “Yes, as long as you cook them.” But that brings up the question, what about cross-contamination in processing plants and what if they’re undercooked, or worse yet, raw? Hungry yet?
Share this post...
