Green Baron

True, we can't. And transporting such stuff to the moon is not even scifi. Even on earth concrete plants for large constructions are built on site and limestone mines nearby if possible because transporting that stuff in bulk is just too tedious. Very bad if the stuff dries up inside the container ;-)

Space golf. The Lunar Open. Gimme the putter, caddy.

Actually "measured" is an optimistic interpretation. Ground radar isn't as exact as weather radar, even if used on earth and on direct contact with the soil regolith. Let's say it's a strong evidence, combined with the gravitation anomalies, to extensive underground caves, that's what the papr states. A little spray concrete for sealing, curtains, candles and a fireplace and we are ready to return to the cave. Wait. Did "we" really live in caves in the past ? Just trying to be funny.

Most effective in locking away carbon on a geological scale are actually marine lifeforms, from corals over planktonic to unicellular. These can be really effective, building up layers of carbonate sediments and thus locking away the C for some time. The carbonate platforms can be seen from space (in the Caribbean, Oceania, etc.) Bad news, for corals it is getting too warm ...

Hi, i can't see the link for some reason but i fear it is about Allan Savory from the choice of words. If that is the case then it is just part of the noise from gurus and wannabe world saviours, bragadocios trying to catch the attention of the light minded. It is not science, the guy isn't even a scientist. Otoh, many real scientists all over the world work in the analysis of causes, contexts, relations, etc. blabla of climate and its change. Instead of listening to easy solutions presented by gurus i'd strongly recommend to follow the publications in the journals or from the respective national or international institutions, but always keep in mind that climate and its change is subject to political capriciousness, regrettably :-) If it is not about Allan Savory (and you're probably all searching) then just forget what i wrote. Don't even ignore me ...

It was fun from my side. No fun: co-evolution is not symbiosis ! Nobody would say that horses and grass steppes form a symbiosis, but they are a classical example of co-evolution in the Neogene. A biological evolution in space belongs to the realm of Star Trek & consorts. For complex organisms to evolve you'd need variation, selection (-> generations !), metabolism, energy, biocenosis, food-pyramids. Impossible in a vacuum.

More info on the AGU website: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2009GL040635/abstract http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2017GL074998/full http://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/hub/article/10.1002/2017GL074998/editor-highlight/ tl:dr: Combined data from JAXA Selene and NASA Grrail missions could be a hint to the presence of intact lavatubes on the moon. Space 1999 2017 :-)

Why so ? The barometric pressure doesn't define a storms category. Again, it's not the absolute pressure that provokes the wind speed, it's the gradient (and on a smaller amount other factors). A small storm can have extreme wind speeds. Example thunderstorms, tornado.

You'd need some form of co-evolution, like a space creature evolving together with space onions to feed from and using the "outputs" of the digestive process as a propellant. Maybe much of the methane is produced like this ? /fun Yes, this is pretty far in the realm of (sci)fi, which you'll realize when you look at how biological evolution works and what it needs. :-)

A few of Lan's thunderstorms reach heights of 18.5km ! They are not in the stratosphere though, the upwinds just lift (or better "reach into") the tropopause locally. Bulls eye of Lan :-): http://www.jma.go.jp/en/gms/

A physicist would probably object because it is there and can be mapped for example. We can't see a lot of things because our instruments or techniques don't allow, yet they are there. Now we could ask: Is the interaction via gravity enough for a direct observation ? Edit: already outdated with @sevenperforce's last ninja stab :-)

Hi ! Observable by the movement of stars, starclusters, galaxies and galaxy clusters. They do not move as indicated by the visible matter alone but like they would if there was ~5 times more matter. It is until now not visibly through telescopes, so it has been called "dark", without any intended mystification. Dark matter doesn't interact except by gravity. But what can't be seen electromagnetically may nevertheless exist, sotosay :-) Hope that wasn't totally wrong :-) Edit: same with gravitational waves. They exist and can be measured, though we can't see them. They are a new sense for observing the universe, somebody said that besides seeing (telescopes) we can now hear as well.

Where i live it is usually quite calm. Tradewinds in summer, some rain in autumn or winter. It is rare that a real storm hits the Canaries, but it can happen. Ophelia decided to take the path between Madeira and the eastern Azores. Heavy rain can cause landslides on volcanic islands, the lava layers may act as a ramp on which the steep flank of a volcanic edifice can slide towards entropy, destabilized by water, earthquake or just for the lulz of it. Every few hundred thousand years such a catastrophic event happens (edit: not necessarily caused by water), causing cubic-kilometers of debris flow to be deposited on the seafloor and it creates quite typical topographic features, like the Canadas on Tenerife or the Caldera de Taburiente on La Palma. El Hierro, seen from a satellite, shows a such a typical "horseshoe", facing NNW. Should it happen on La Plama's western flank of the Cumbre Vieja, then people on the other side of the pond might experience a fully grown tsunami of sorts. "Hi New York, i am the Atlantic, may i introduce myself ?". Don't worry (yet), the flank is under constant observation because of awareness ;-) The Cumbre Vieja is considered an active Volcano, last eruption 1971 created the Teneguia. There have been several swarms of earthquakes recently (9th to 14th of October), nothing people can sense (Richter mag 1-2.4) but enough for British (La Palma is a touristic island) tabloids like Mirror to predict the end of the world. The swarms were in the upper mantle, at depths between 17 and 32 km. Such swarms might indicate that something is bubbling up but don't necessarily mean that an eruption (better: outflow) is at hand. After all, the volcanism on/in/under the Canaries, though of roughly the same sort as that on the Hawaiian islands, produces much less lava than the latter. Weather is fine. It had 32 degrees over the weekend because of the endless Calima this year, but now it is around 25 at day and 18 at night. Celsius, of course. The past years have been much too dry, according to those who live here.

I binge-played X2 and X3 (the first version), i found the building part fun in the beginning. What annoyed me was that "space"-ships limp along at 100m/s (if tuned) and fly perfect straight lines between stations. I recall that X3 was more fun once i found out how to use the script language to do my own stuff, but in the end it got boring as well. It is a large open ended game but it gets repetitive, in principle the production chains of the factions are all the same, just the names and the designs change. The game can get big (like hundreds of factories and thousands of ships) but lacks a means to control all of them. Also, at some point far in the game, you are forced to fight because your sectors get overrun. You can cheat a bit by sending fleets in and let the computer do the find ("off sector fight" it was called) and building a fleet capable of doing so late game was expensive. Money was more of a matter than in KSP :-) I quit playing when they moved to steam for drm. But i see that it is available on GOG. For those who like to play without being watched over ;-)

I doubt that was the case. I would guess that's within the margins of signal detection and processing in the instruments. Edit: ... or travel through intergalactic medium (which is incredibly thin but existent) acted as a filter, or the processes during the merger have a sequence ... but i am guessing.

Who is missing aliens, megatsructures and habitable planets ? Just plain science. I personally find it pretty thrilling as well. We start to see a bit more of what's going on "around us".

@cypher_00 apparently knew what was coming :-) https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso1733/ and links to papers in the footnotes. Happy reading !

Ok. Whose bet was on the visible and gravitational observation of the merger of two neutron stars ? :-)

Live Stream starts at 16:00 CEST https://www.eso.org/public/live/

Nature is the wrong one to blame ... :-/

Nobody can give you exact numbers. Because conditions were appropriate. We have an extremely warm Atlantic surface, one of the main driving forces for storms of that sort. When the storm formed it stayed stationary for a few days. Now it drifts with the global circulation pattern, which is in this latitude mostly from west to east. It'll calm down when it comes over cooler waters or hits land. UK's met office has warning for the Irish coastal waters. Overall, the patterns that we observe this year are in conformity with models that predict stronger and more storms as a result of global warming. They were called "tropical" in the past because they mostly appear over tropical waters. But as temperature and energy distribution in hydro- and atmosphere changes they can of course happen at higher latitudes as well. If you're living in a rural area on the Irish western coast then get some candles and a few tin cans because it might happen that you'll be cut off for a few days if the storm doesn't loose much energy. Models aren't clear, it might just be a post tropical storm but it might as well arrive as a (weakened) hurricane.

I'm looking forward to the first crew who made it to Mars, stayed there a while and made it home again not being half dead. Though i might not live up to see it, being a little older than half a century ;-)

I'd call that a fantasy :-) Though i doubt it'll ever happen. Too many unsolved problems here on earth.

It changes first and foremost itself e. g. through self-domestication or avoiding natural selection through technology. Global/endangering environmental changes are secondary effects, in our case they became clearly visible some 20 years ago. An "intergalactic catastrophe" ? What would that be ? Even if we colonize Mars or whatever we were still under the same astronomic risks than we are on earth. With the difference that our natural environment is missing, which doesn't exactly sound reassuring. There is no retreat if something goes wrong. Self sufficient colonies are fantasies. If you refer to the "imminent" collision between Milky Way and Andromeda that is not a cataclysm of sorts. It's more like gases mixing. I fear our tools are just an illusion and many can only exist (and be affordable) because we have a worldwide economic network. Set us back to e.g. late medieval times and things already look much different. The earth would not be able to support 7 billion people then and plagues or wars over resources would decimate us (did decimate them). May i ask what you mean with that ?

I only have one like per post :-) The oldest individuals we found so far are several sub-species of trees with an exceptionally slow metabolism, and they have thousands of years (<10.000). Clonal colonies might get older, but they don't "develop".