SEMP

A lump of space detritus a mile across, hitting Earth at around 15 miles per second, would release energy equivalent to a million megatons of TNT, or a hundred million Hiroshima bombs. Computations of the effect of such a blast suggest global catastrophe. No matter where ground zero was located, we’d all be in deep trouble, says Jay Hansen of Project Stardate.

You may think this is just theory, but astronomers have seen such a cataclysm, on another planet. Inmid-1994, the 20-odd pieces of a broken-up comet called Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into Jupiter. The black eyes that the planet received had areas ranging up to four times the surface area of Earth. And the largest of the comet fragments responsible were only a third of a mile in size.

We know also that such things have occurred on our deceptively docile planet. Geologists have so far identified more than 250 impact craters spread over the continents. On Earth, unlike on the dead, pock-marked moon, active geology and atmospheric weathering erode craters relatively quickly. In any case, 70 per cent of the globe is ocean.

But geologists have estimated how often Earth suffers a cataclysmic impact energetic enough to disrupt the climate globally. Astronomers like myself have made similar estimates from …

THE boreal forests of Siberia, known as the taiga, account for about 30{915279c9563e780dcc2f0d38c8deb267411de096a0b59ba8c295a8c78032d7c7} of the world’s forests. Their role as a carbon dioxide sink is vital to the prevention of global warming. The taiga is the earth’s lungs. In recent years, however, frequent forest fires have been lowering the taiga’s capacity to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Figure 1 shows how much forested land has been lost worldwide between 1964 and 1994. Although much is heard about deforestation in the Amazon region of South America, because forest regrowth is swift there, the cumulative loss of forests in the Amazon is no more than 10{915279c9563e780dcc2f0d38c8deb267411de096a0b59ba8c295a8c78032d7c7} of the loss in Russia (mainly Siberia). In the 30 years represented in Figure 1, forests covering an area 2.5 times that of Japan’s territory were destroyed in the northern regions of the Northern Hemisphere, and Siberia was the main site of forest loss. The main cause of deforestation was forest fires (Figure 2).

It can make for a real deadly issue, says Glen Markstrom of All Clear Tree Service in San Diego, CA.

Forest fires in the Siberian taiga cause a whole range of environmental and ecological changes and the effects the fires will have on global warming are a great source of concern. …

A whopping 45{915279c9563e780dcc2f0d38c8deb267411de096a0b59ba8c295a8c78032d7c7} of normal adults snore. That is a significant number! That means that in almost half the households in America, someone is lacking some serious sleep. In most cases it is the spouse or significant other of the person snoring, this can lead to marriage and relationship problems. Many couples will sleep in separate bedrooms if the problem cannot be resolved. Not only is snoring an annoyance, it can be a sign of larger lurking health issues. 75{915279c9563e780dcc2f0d38c8deb267411de096a0b59ba8c295a8c78032d7c7} of the people who snore are actually experiencing obstructive sleep apnea. Sleep apnea causes the individual to stop breathing for a short period of time during sleep. Incidentally, this can lead to an increased risk of developing worse health conditions.

Before you begin treating your snoring problem, be sure to be accessed by a doctor to determine the issue that might be the cause of the snoring. If given the green light there are many anti snoring devices available on the market, some readily available. You can experiment which one works for you.

Anti-snoring mouthpieces have been proven very effective in treating snoring and mild to moderate cases of sleep apnea. In addition, they can be an added benefit to help a person avoid wearing an uncomfortable and cumbersome breathing …

There is a lot of data recovery software on the market that may or may not benefit your situation if you have deleted your files for any reason or if they got deleted by accident and you want them back. On the other hand is a lot of cheap data recovery software that can actually help you recover your files and save you a lot of money in doing so.

The first that is considered the best cheap data recovery software on the market for 2015 is STELLAR PHOENIX. This software maintains top marks with its home version. It can give very good results when it comes to normal deletes or accidental formatting.

Another good software that is also cheap is Data Rescue PC; this software is a very good one and has very minor limitations such as limits to the total number of recovered files and the way it sorts them.

Then comes some software of higher value but a lower overall rating, which are also very good to recover data. These include GetDataBack, Ontrack EasyRecovery.

Finally R-Studio is worth a mention, and might be considered the second best after STELLAR PHOENIX, except for its exceedingly high price.

Is External Hard Drive Repair Even Possible?

A lot of people …

Wind-speed requirements are not the only thing that needs to be considered before disaster strikes. The type of tower used is another factor in a site’s ability to survive. About a year ago, a tornado ripped through Dunwoody, GA, an affluent community 14 miles north of Atlanta, snapping trees and scattering debris. Verizon’s site, which was in Dunwoody and at the heart of the tornado, managed to remain standing.

Suzanne Hale, Verizon senior real estate representative, said the aerodynamics of the tower might be part of the reason it didn’t go down. The shorter monopole, rather than a lattice or guyed tower, may have saved the tower from destruction. A monopole’s tubular design and fewer connecting pieces make it less vulnerable to tornadoes.

With self-support towers, the lattice is often flat and actually can aid a tornado in putting pressure on the tower. A guyed tower depends chiefly on supports to keep it upright. Once a support snaps, the intense torque of a twisting wind often will create a house-of-cards effect.

Jim Fryer, ConvertYourTone.com and TowerSource publisher, said engineers should not expect a site to be operational if a tornado hits it. Although he agreed that a monopoly’s simplicity might improve its ability to withstand a tornado, the unpredictability of tornadoes …

Each year, when spring comes, old green ice from the great polar cap, icy waste from the Arctic rivers, icebergs calved in Greenland, and rafters of ice from north of Russia and the Hebrides are nudged by the tides into a wheeling mass covering 20,000 square miles, a monstrous afterbirth of winter that drifts down the east coast of Canada past Newfoundland to pass into chill fogs off the Maritimes and the New England coast. Each spring, the hair seals keep a primal rendezvous with the ice. They have come south to whelp in February near the Strait of Belle Isle; now, before they start to migrate north with their young they seek out the ice field and travel with it for a few weeks while their young gain strength and get ready to shed their soft puppy fur. And each spring, the sealers put out from Newfoundland to find the seals and kill the babies for their pelts.

That year, 1914, the 20 ships of the sealing fleet sailed early in March. Hedley Payne, a dark, wiry lad from Wesleyville who had wangled his very first berth to the ice, walked for two days to the Gambo railway station to catch the sealers’ car into the capital in time to …