Archive - Sep 2011

The junk in low Earth orbit: space pollution and rising hazard from debris

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NASA: 'We May Never Know' Whereabouts of Satellite Debris
NASA scientists are still not sure exactly where pieces of a huge, defunct satellite landed after re-entering Earth's atmosphere this morning, but early evidence suggests that the debris landed somewhere in the Pacific Ocean, which could complicate recovery efforts.

During a Saturday afternoon conference call with reporters, Nicholas Johnson, chief orbital debris scientist for NASA, acknowledged that "we may never know" the whereabouts of the Upper Atmosphere Research Satellite (UARS).

Data from the Department of Defense's Joint Space Operations Center (JSOC) indicate that UARS fell to the Earth sometime between 11:23pm Eastern Friday night and 1:09am Saturday morning. At that point, the satellite passed over Canada, the African continent, and the Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans. The mid-point of that path, and likely point of entry, according to those calculations, is off the West Coast of the U.S., as indicated by the green circle on a map published by NASA.  read more »

Victoria filmaker Ian Hinkle will shoot undersea footage of Scott Cassell's potentially world-record non-stop dive Saturday, from Catalina Island's avalon Harbor to Los Angeles.

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Going to great depths to save ocean life

Scott Cassell already holds the record for longest non-stop dive but is ready to break it again while trying to preserve ocean life.

On September 17, the explorer and combat/commercial diver will attempt a 30-mile (48-kilometre) non-stop SCUBA dive from Catalina Island to Los Angeles, gathering information about shark population and what the ocean actually holds, a task that only human effort can accurately collect.

“[The ocean] is where monsters dwell,” says Cassell, who has spent more than 13,000 hours under water in his lifetime, “Where man’s imagination can become reality because it truly does have the most magnificent animals to ever have existed.”

From 1,000 ft. to 3,000 ft., he will be diving through two great white shark strike zones, and an area that has been known to contain very large Mako sharks, to calculate how many sharks there are in Southern California.

Aside from sharks, other dangers Cassell is prepared to face include hypothermia, decompression sickness, extraordinary currents, equipment failure, and physical exhaustion.

For this diver, however, his safety, although important, is not top priority. “Every dive is a mission,” says Cassell. “And the mission is always first.”  read more »

Photo courtesy of Jónína G. Óskarsdóttir / Barcroft Media

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Weather disasters keep costing U.S. billions this year - Blizzards. Tornadoes. Floods. Record heat and drought, followed by wildfires.

The first eight months of 2011 have brought strange and destructive weather to the United States. From the blizzard that dumped almost two feet of snow on Chicago, to killer tornadoes and heat waves in the south, to record flooding, to wildfires that have burned more than 1,000 homes in Texas in the last few days, Mother Nature has been in a vile and costly mood.

Climate experts point to global warming, meteorologists cite the influence of the La Nina weather phenomenon or natural variability and, in the case of tornadoes hitting populated areas, many simply call the death and destruction bad luck.

But given the variety and violence of both short-term weather events and longer-term effects like a Southwestern drought that has lasted years, more scientists say climate itself seems to be shifting and weather extremes will become more common.

"A warmer atmosphere has more energy to power storms. We've loaded the dice," said Jeff Masters, co-founder and director of meteorology for Weather Underground, Inc, speaking on Wednesday at a news conference on climate. "Years like 2011 may become the new normal in the United States in coming decades."  read more »

*update* 22 August 2014
Jobs prefaced his Stanford remarks by saying: "I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation."

Steve Jobs in his Los Angeles office in 1981, five years after he co-founded Apple.

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak in 1976, when they founded Apple. Jobs sold his Volkswagen minibus and Wozniak his two Hewlett-Packard calculators to raise the money they needed.

On the cover of Macworld, a sister publication of Computerworld, in 1984.

During happier times with John Sculley. Jobs lost the helm at Apple in 1985 after a power struggle with Sculley, who was CEO of Apple at the time, and Jobs left to found NEXT.

In 1986, Steve Jobs bought Pixar from George Lucas for less than $10 million. The company later was renamed to Pixar Animation Studios. This photo is from the 2003 opening of 'Finding Nemo'. Pixar was ultimately sold to Walt Disney in 2006.  read more »