CAROLINA NATURALLY: Feb 15, 2014

Saturday, February 15, 2014

The Daily Drift

Amazing isn't it ...

Carolina Naturally is read in 195 countries around the world daily.

Sperm Whale ... !

Today is - World Whale Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Sioux Lookout, Byward Market, Pikangikum, Ottawa, Templeton, Prince Albert, Vaughan, Britannia, Vancouver, Thunder Bay, Orleans, Montreal, Toronto and Genesee, Canada

Medellin, Bogota, Colombia

Harve De Grace, Strtham, Punta Gorda, Albuquerque, Skowhegan, Minot, Seacaucus, Artesia, Lockport, Boca Del Mar and Ligonier, United States

Caracas, Venezuela

Cochabamba, Bolivia

Spanish Town, Jamaica

Durango and Tijuana, Mexico

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Europe

Neuchatel and Zurich, Switzerland

Kongens Lyngby, Denmark

Ryazan and Vladivostok, Russia

Amsterdam, Netherlands

Ostrava, Czech Republic

London and Wordplesdon, England

Athens, Greece

Rouen and Oberhaslach, France

Ruse, Bulgaria

Rome, Ivrea, Bologna, Rome and Milan, Italy

Myre, Bergen and Oslo, Norway

Teo, Eixample, L'Olleria and Madrid, Spain

Warsaw, Torun and Katowice, Poland

Kiev, Zhovti Vody, Dnipropetrovs and, L'viv, Ukraine

Lisbon, Portugal

Ankara, Turkey

Split and Zagreb, Croatia

Belgrade, Serbia

Dresden, Hamburg, Bornheim, Koeln and Nuremberg, Germany

Dublin, Ireland

Moscow and Krasnodar, Russia

Reykjavik, Iceland

Galanta, Slovakia

Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina

Luqa, Malta

Asia

Thiruvananthapuram, Kolkata, Delhi, Cochin, New Delhi, Cannanore, Pune, Chandigarh, Pondicherry, Ludhiana and Bangalore, India

Kuwait, Kuwait

Ad Dammam and Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Rasht, Iran

Manama, Bahrain

Binagadi, Azerbaijan

Kandy, Sri Lanka

Rangoon, Burma

Kabul, Afghanistan

Almaty, Kazakhstan

Bangkok, Thailand

Hanoi, Vietnam

George Town, Malaysia

Seongnam, Korea

Islamabad, Pakistan

Hong Kong, Hong Kong

Jakarta, Indonesia

Africa

Johannesburg, Randburg, Centurion, Cape Town and Pretoria, South Africa

Al Mansurah, Egypt

Algiers, Algeria

Lagos and Kaduna, Nigeria

Ouagadougou, Burkina Faso

Kenitra, Morocco

Pacific

Homebush, Brisbane, Perth and Surrey Hills, Australia

Makati, Pasig and Quezon City, Philippines

Today in History

1798		The first serious fist fight occurs in Congress.
1804		New Jersey becomes the last northern state to abolish slavery.
1862		Union General Ulysses S. Grant launches a major assault on Fort Donelson, Tenn.
1869		Charges of treason against Jefferson Davis are dropped.
1898		The U.S. battleship Maine blows up in Havana Harbor, killing 268 sailors and bringing hordes of Western cowboys and gunfighters rushing to enlist in the Spanish-American.
1900		The British threaten to use natives in the Boer War fight.
1925		The London Zoo announces it will install lights to cheer up fogged-in animals.
1934		U.S. Congress passes the Civil Works Emergency Relief Act, allotting new funds for Federal Emergency Relief Administration.
1940		Hitler orders that all British merchant ships will be considered warships.
1942		British forces in Singapore surrender to Japanese General Tomoyuki Yamashita.
1943		The Germans break the American Army's lines at the Fanid-Sened Sector in Tunisia, North Africa.
1944		American bombers attack the Abbey of Monte Cassino in an effort to neutralize it as a German observation post in central Italy.
1946		Royal Canadian mounted police arrest 22 as Soviet spies.
1950		Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung sign a mutual defense treaty in Moscow.
1957		Andrei Gromyko replaces Dmitri T. Shepilov as the Soviet Foreign Minister.
1961		Eighteen members of the U.S. figure skating team are lost in an airplane crash in Belgium.
1965		Canada's maple leaf flag is raised for the first time.
1967		Thirteen U.S. helicopters are shot down in one day in Vietnam
1974		U.S. gas stations threaten to close because of federal fuel policies.

4 Times Olympians Refused Their Medals

When it came time to collect their medals, these athletes for various reasons said, 'No thanks.'

Did you know ...

That the Greenland glacier hits record speed

That it's Elizabeth Warren's party, Barack Obama is just living in it

About the coming war over morality in America

NC repugicans Fight Subpoena of Voter ID Emails Saying Accountability is a “Burden”

The repugicans in North Carolina are trying to quash a subpoena for emails regarding the "rationale, purpose and implementation" of House Bill 589, aka the most egregious vote ever…

The repugicans get into a lot of trouble when the public finds out how they really operate and what they really think. We usually have a pretty good idea of their disdain for people who weren’t born rich, women, racial minorities, the LGBT community, real or perceived political opponents and anyone else who thinks for themselves.
Yet, nothing drives home the point as well as videos and other communications in their own, uncensored, unspun words.
Mitt Romney saw what little chance he had of winning the presidency blow up in his face with his 47% comments captured on video for all of America to see. Even the party faithful couldn’t deny what most of America knew.
Chances are if repugicans do a post mortem on the corpse of Chris Christie’s political career, they’ll conclude that the culprit was staffers using email and text messages – not Christie’s penchant for using gangster tactics to achieve the bi partisanship many repugicans saw as his ticket to the White House in 2016.
While we were focused on Chris Christie, repugicans in North Carolina were busy trying to quash a subpoena for emails and other communications they created or received on the “rationale, purpose and implementation” of House Bill 589, aka the most egregious vote suppression law in the country.
It begs the question– what do they have to hide? We already know that repugicans in North Carolina and a host of other red states passed “voter ID” laws to suppress the vote. The repugicans, including one from North Carolina, admitted it and studies consistently prove it.
Moreover, North Carolinians are abundantly aware that repugicans have done much more than pass new voter ID requirements. They eliminated straight party ticket voting, early voting, voter awareness programs and pre-registration while making it easier for corporate outsiders to buy North Carolina’s elected representatives. The vote suppression law is one of the many reasons an estimated 80,000 North Carolinians joined the Moral Monday’s march in Raleigh last weekend.
Art Pope’s repugicans eliminated the earned income tax credit for 900,000 North Carolinians while slashing taxes for the richest people in North Carolina. They declared a savage war on the poorest North Carolinians with their denial of Medicaid coverage for 500,000 people and ending federal unemployment benefits. The repugicans that only the Koch Brothers could love also cut pre-K for 30,000 kids while shifting $90 million from public education to vouchers for charter schools and home schools. Our post on the reasons repugicans want to spend your tax dollars on private schools and home schooling is a must read.
With an agenda like this, it isn’t a stretch to see why repugicans fear being held accountable by an informed electorate. Even if repugicans won’t admit it, North Carolinians long to wake up from the nightmare created by the radical policies envisioned by Art Pope’s puppet in chief, Pat McCrony.
Even repugicans know that they can’t beat a subpoena by claiming they might be embarrassed or lose a few votes if these documents are released. So they are hoping to hoodwink the court by claiming legislative immunity.
But here’s the argument that really caught my attention.

The leaders also argue that legislative immunity frees legislators not only from the consequences of litigation, it also frees them from the burden of defending themselves.

The repugicans are arguing that the accountability that comes with governance in free societies is a “burden” they just don’t want to be bothered with.
Last month, a Winston-Salem Journal editorial countered this argument effectively and succinctly.

This isn’t a question of legislative immunity. It’s a matter of open government.
North Carolina law requires open public meetings and public records so the public can make that very kind of determination about the government that writes their laws.

Openness, accountability and transparency are all four letter words to repugicans in North Carolina and elsewhere because it means even the lowest informed voters in their base will understand the true nature and intent of repugican policies.

Georgian Paul Broun Supports the bible, Not the Constitution

Broun asks a question based on a false premise: "does it fit the judeo-christian biblical principles that our nation is founded upon?"…

The absurdity of repugican attacks on both President Barack Obama and on liberalism itself escalate daily, from Liberty Counsel’s claim that Obama be impeached for turning America “Into a godless, socialist nation” to the theory put forward at a well publicized tea party event attended by Jim Bridenstine (r-OK) – a claim Bridenstine did not contest – that because Obama is not really the president, he should just be executed. The repugicans love to fantasize about impeaching Obama, or just plain marching to the White House, demanding he surrender, and lynching him – you know, the way wingnuts have always treated uppity black men. Liberty Counsel, on the other hand, must realize that neither atheism nor socialism are impeachable offenses and that, in fact, the First Amendment demands that the government be no more a christian government than a muslim or jewish or hindu government.
But Liberty Counsel is far from alone in ignoring the First Amendment. ThinkProgress reported that senate hopeful Paul Broun (r-GA) said during an interview with the tea party express he will only vote for bills he thinks fit “judeo-christian biblical principles.”

BROUN: I do go against my leadership all the time because I stand firm on the four questions that I ask about all legislation. The first, is it constitutional according to the original intent? The second, does it fit the judeo-christian biblical principles that our nation is founded upon? Third, do we need it? Fourth, can we afford it? If all four yes, I vote yes, otherwise I vote no.

Broun’s criteria are laughable. Original intent is a convenient expression used by tea partiers who are completely ignorant of history. For them, original intent has nothing to do with the 18th century and everything to do with the 21st. Original intent is, for them, anything that advances their agenda. In other words, this is a meaningless criteria. Broun’s third reason answers itself – only anti-Obama legislation is “needed.” As for his fourth, there is always money in the federal budget to restrict women’s right to control their own reproductive functions but never any money in the federal budget to create even a single job. Basically, Broun is making excuses before even getting the job.
Another problem is that “judeo-christian” is “itself a christian ideological construct” says scholar Mark S. Smith. The christians in Paul’s day were only too happy to claim to have replaced the jews as god’s chosen people. The new testament replaced the old, christians can ignore jewish dietary restrictions, and for many, jesus’ death has nullified the Law of Moses. You know that judaism doesn’t have a concept of “original sin” or even a satan, the central figure in the religio-wingnut crusade against Obama, gays and lesbians, and pretty much everything else they don’t approve of. And without satan, how can evolution be, as Broun claims, a lie “from the pit of hell”?
Really, there isn’t much jewishness in christianity other than a penchant among religio-wingnut figures to misquote the old testament in order to buttress christian claims, admittedly a practice as old as christianity itself (for example, identifying jesus with the Suffering Servant of Isaiah (52.13-53.12), an interpretation completely novel to judaism’s interpretations of its own scriptures. The gospels were even written in Greek, the language of judaism’s Pagan neighbors, rather than Hebrew.
But if Broun really means what he says, no such bill will ever come before him because the United States is not based upon biblical principles, judeo-christian or otherwise. The Constitution establishes the United States; it does not establish christianity. Neither jesus nor the bible are mentioned; neither are the ten commandments. The Constitution is based on English Common Law and Common Law, while it does owe something to ancient Pagan Roman law, has nothing to do with biblical law, old OR new testament.
Broun will not admit this, of course. Nobody on the religio-wingnut fringe will. But it is a verifiable fact. And Broun’s insistence on supporting such legislation only marks him as an enemy of not only the First Amendment but of the Constitution itself, and as a man who wishes the bible to supersede the Constitution as the law of the land. Because the bible has never been the law of the land, one has to wonder what, exactly, Broun is loyal to. It is certainly not, whatever his election ads may claim, the United States of America or its secular Constitution.

According to Mathematicians, There Are 177,147 Ways to Tie a Tie

If you are so unfortunate as to have a job that requires you to wear the cursed things, then maybe you should try a different knot in your tie. You can try these fancy ones, like the hoity-toity Eldredge Knot. But your possibilities don’t end with just a few that you’ve encountered online.
According to researchers led by Mikael Vejdemo-Johansson of the of the KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Sweden, there are 177,147 potential variations of the knotted tie. They built on the work of previous mathematicians who concluded that there were only 85 possibilities. To Vejdemo-Johansson and his colleagues, this seemed to be too small a number:

Vejdemo-Johansson apparently came to believe that the number produced by Mao and Fink was too small after noting the unique tie knot in the movie "The Matrix Reloaded"—a knot that didn't appear in the researchers list, which meant something wasn't quite right. In reexamining the criteria that Mao and Fink used for inclusion, they noted the pair restricted the number of tucks that would occur at the end of the tie tying, to just one. The pair, it was noted, also assumed that any knot created would naturally be covered in part by a flat section of fabric. Also, they restricted the number of windings that could be made to just eight, believing any more than that would cause the tie to become too short.

After devising new ways of expressing tie-tying mathematically, they crunched their numbers and came up with a result of 177,147.

The Pleasant Places To Live

Where in the U.S. will you find the most 'pleasant' days in a year? Pleasant here means the mean temperature was between 55° F and 75° F, the minimum temperature was above 45° F, the maximum temperature was below 85° F and there was no significant precipitation or snow depth.

This map shows the regions of the United States with the most (and least) pleasant days in a typical year. Just hover your mouse over the map to see the results.

Why Being Tired Can Make You Thinner and Healthier

by Elise Solé

When you’re exhausted, going to the gym is probably the last thing you want to do, but it turns out that’s when you should go. According to a new study to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, people make better health decisions when they’re feeling tired and rundown.

The urge to take care of our bodies when we're sleepy could be biological. “We proposed that people are more motivated to engage in healthful behavior when they are depleted and perceive their safety to be at stake," wrote study authors Monika Lisjak, assistant professor of marketing at Erasmus University in the Netherlands and Angela Y. Lee, professor of marketing at Northwestern University.
In the study, researchers asked subjects to read about the dangers of kidney disease and early detection, those with a family history included. Afterward, those who were feeling exhausted expressed a higher likelihood of being tested than their energized counterparts. In another study, subjects were asked to complete a survey on health and fitness, either before or after hitting the gym. After the survey, everyone was told to choose a gift of either sunblock or moisturizer. Those who had worked out were more likely to select the skin-saving sunblock.
The results are surprising, given past research about how exhaustion affects the brain. According to the Division of Sleep Medicine at Harvard Medical School, sleep deprivation affects our mood, appetite, and ability to focus. And gym-goers can attest to that feeling of denial when their alarm goes off in the morning.
But making wise health decisions is doable, even when you’re not feeling it, according to Will Torres, personal trainer and owner of Willspace, a gym in New York City. “If you’re truly exhausted, it’s best to just go to sleep, but if you just need to recharge, there are simple things you can do,” he tells Yahoo Shine.
Get your heart rate up: Let’s say you’re exhausted because you’ve been slouched over your desk all morning. Simply straightening up will boost your energy levels. “When you’re slumping, you can’t take a full breath because bad posture compresses the diaphragm,” says Torres. “Sitting up straight allows your lungs to take in more air, which sends a message to your brain to wake up.” Or (if you have forgiving officemates), try 20 jumping jacks and 10 squats. “It’s not a workout per se, but you will feel more awake,” he says.
Eat more fiber: “People tend to reach for sugary foods to give them a quick boost of energy, but without fiber to slow digestion down, they’ll crash,” says Torres. Rather than an energy bar or mixed-fruit smoothie (both of which are loaded with sugar), try a fiber-filled apple, piece of watermelon, or pear.
Stay away from new routines: You’ve been wanting to try kickboxing for ages, but when you're tired is not the time. “Starting a new type of workout takes coordination and focus and tired people have neither,” says Torres. “When you’re exhausted, do things you’ve always done or try running, weight machines, or brisk walking to avoid injury.”

Chronic stress predisposes brain to mental illness

University of California, Berkeley, researchers have shown that chronic stress […]

Health News

Can Pizza Prevent Norovirus?

A substance in oregano oil, often used in pizza, appears to be effective against norovirus ...

Heighten Your Senses By Simulating Blindness!

What if it was possible to heighten your senses without having to to lose one? Well, Trace is here to tell you that it might be possible, and how simulating blindness could cause you to have better hearing!

How Do You Get Pink Eye?

NBC sportscaster Bob Costas is suffering from this uncomfortable condition.

Chikungunya Fever: Will the Virus Spread to the US?

A debilitating mosquito-borne disease once confined to Africa and Asia has now spread to the Caribbean and may make its way across North and South America.

Beauty Works Like a Drug on the Brain

The human desire to look at attractive faces plays a role in how people select their partners.

DNews: World's First Marijuana Overdose?

A few days ago, a woman died from a heart attack apparently triggered by a marijuana overdose. Laci was suspicious of this tabloid headline and decided to to investigate whether it's possible to die from a marijuana overdose.

Random Celebrity Photos

scottydex:

Joan Blondell- actress, American Films in the 1930s

Joan Blondell- actress, American Films in the 1930s

Sinkhole Swallows Eight Corvettes

Of all the places a sinkhole can open up and swallow cars, would you believe it had to be in the National Corvette Museum? Western Kentucky is full of underground holes, the most famous of which is Mammoth Cave. This morning, another one was born, right under six rare 'Vettes owned by the museum and two on loan from General Motors.

Bowling Green city spokeswoman Kim Lancaster said the hole opened up at about 5:40 a.m. CST Wednesday, setting off an alarm and a call to the fire department. Frassinelli said no one was in the museum at the time.

The hole is in part of the domed section of the museum, and that area will remain closed. That's an original part of the facility for which was completed in 1994. The fire department estimated the hole is about 40 feet across and 25 to 30 feet deep. Pictures of the sinkhole show a collapsed section of floor with multiple cars visible inside the hole. A few feet away, other Corvettes sit undamaged and undisturbed.

No one was injured. The dome is closed, but the rest of the museum is open.

10-Year Old Charged with Careless Driving after Crashing Car into DMV

A 10-year old girl and her mother went to the office of the state Division of Motor Vehicles in Parker, Colorado on Monday. While they were waiting, the girl went back to their SUV to get something out. Shortly thereafter, the SUV crashed into waiting area with the girl behind the wheel.
The girl says that she climbed from the back seat into the front seat of the SUV, which then “just went.” It travelled about 20 to 30 feet before coming to a stop when the girl’s frantic mother told her how to push the brakes.
The mother insists that she did not leave the motor running. Police cited the girl for careless driving.

Man accused of driving two cars drunk on the same night

A man accused of driving two cars drunk on the same night made it pretty easy for deputies to catch him. He called them. Then, they caught him in a big lie, and it was caught on tape.

Earlier this month, a Santa Fe County Sheriff’s deputy walked into a situation involving a red sedan crashed into an irrigation ditch, a truck still running in the middle of the road and 52-year-old Rudy Fernandez. Fernandez called 911 to report his red sedan stolen from his Santa Fe home shortly after deputies got a call about a crashed car in the same area.
When deputies arrived, Fernandez suspiciously, was already at the scene. “I, I did a mistake by coming over here to look for my car, and I, I came over here, and I wrecked into it right now,” Fernandez told the deputy on scene. He later explained to the deputy that he meant to say he came across his stolen car, not that he wrecked it.

YouTube link.

The deputy said there was no evidence the red car was stolen. He believed Fernandez crashed it, walked home, then drove drunk again in his truck. After failing field sobriety tests, Fernandez was arrested and charged with careless driving, leaving the scene of an accident and aggravated DWI. This was his first DWI arrest.

Woman fired gun at McDonald's drive-through because she didn’t get bacon on her sandwich

A woman accused of firing a gun early on Monday morning at a Grand Rapids, Michigan McDonald’s restaurant, allegedly because she didn’t get bacon on her sandwich, now faces three criminal charges. Shaneka Monique Torres, 29, was arraigned in Grand Rapids District Court on charges of carrying a concealed weapon, discharge of a firearm in or at a building and felony firearms.

Torres and another woman placed an order at the drive-through window at the business on Sunday. The workers got the order wrong, police said, and the customers were told their next meal would be free. So the women returned to the restaurant’s drive-through window at around 3am on Monday and ordered again. Torres was the passenger in the vehicle, and was flirting with the employee in the first drive-through window, police said.
She left that person her phone number in hopes he would call her later. Torres and the other woman drove up to the second drive-through window to get their order, which was wrong, police said. Torres pulled out a gun, reached across the driver and fired one shot through the closed car window and drive-through window, police said. The bullet went through the other side of the building, but did not hit anybody.

YouTube link.

Workers didn’t realize what had happened. They thought a coffee pot had exploded. The customers drove away and went to Torres’ house, where she was dropped off. Police tracked down the shooter at her home because she left her cellphone number with the drive-through worker. Police arrested Torres at her home. She is currently being held at the Kent County Correctional Facility on a $50,000 cash surety bond.

Ziggy

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Treasure trove of fossils found in Canada will 'significantly' change understanding of evolution

Already, 50 animal species have been unearthed

by Mike Krumboltz

Old bones galore!

A massive trove of fossils discovered by researchers in British Columbia, Canada, will "significantly increase our understanding of animal evolution," according to the group's lead researcher Jean-Bernard Caron.
The discovery was made in 2012, but was published only this week in the scientific journal Nature Communications.
Already, 50 animal species have been unearthed.
The find was made at Kootenay National Park, about 26 miles from Yoho National Park, where some of the planet's earliest fossils were discovered more than a century ago, according to a statement from the Royal Ontario Museum.
"The rate at which we are finding animals — many of which are new — is astonishing," Caron told the Daily Mail. "There is a significant possibility that we'll eventually find more species here than at the original Yoho site, and potentially more than from anywhere else in the world."
Researchers believe the find "will greatly further our understanding of the sudden explosion of animal life during the Cambrian Period," which National Geographic describes as having produced "the most intense burst of evolution ever known." BBC classifies the Cambrian period as beginning 545 million years ago and ending 495 million years ago.
The exact location is being kept a secret to prevent amateur diggers and lookie-loos from potentially damaging more yet-to-be discovered treasures.
"We were already aware of the presence of some Burgess Shale fossils in Kootenay National Park," geologist Robert Gaines said in a statement. "We had a hunch that if we followed the formation along the mountain topography into new areas with the right rock types, maybe, just maybe, we would get lucky — though we never in our wildest dreams thought we’d track down a motherload like this."
There are timeline implications to the find, as well. The Royal Ontario Museum explains that some of the species that were recently at Kootenay were also seen "in China’s famous Chengjiang fossil beds, which are 10 million years older."
The implication being that the "worldwide distribution of Cambrian animals, as well as their longevity, might have been underestimated," according to the museum.
Canoe.ca reports that researchers plan to return this summer.

The New Faces of Shakespeare

Two New Portraits of Shakespeare Found

The two previously unknown portraits reveal the bard at a young age and then toward the end of his life.

Shakespeare Portraits Reveal Bard at Different Ages

Newly uncovered portraits of William Shakespeare are compared with the established depictions of the bard.

Ancient Junkies

Drug References Found on Walls of Ancient Egyptian School

Archaeologists have discovered a school dating back about 1,700 years that contains ancient Greek writings on its walls, including a text about ancient drug use.

Why Pointed Skulls Spawn Alien Theories

Strange, elongated skulls found in South America are spawning theories about unknown humans and aliens. But why?

Daily Comic Relief

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NASA says it may have discovered flowing water on Mars

This newly released image shows a potential water flow on the surface of Mars.

Scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory say new images from the surface of Mars may hold evidence that flowing water exists on the planet.

The potential discovery is noteworthy, since scientists have held on to the possibility of traces of water existing under the surface of Mars but had almost written off the possibility of flowing water still existing on the planet’s surface.
Orbiting spacecraft captured the imagery, which appears to show liquid flowing down a slope on the planet’s surface during a seasonal change in which surface temperatures rise.
“We still don't have a smoking gun for existence of water in RSL, although we're not sure how this process would take place without water," said Lujendra Ojha, lead author of the new report and a graduate student at the Georgia Institute of Technology. RSL refers to recurring slope lineae, the techincal term for the potential water flow.
“The flow of water, even briny water, anywhere on Mars today would be a major discovery, impacting our understanding of present climate change on Mars and possibly indicating potential habitats for life near the surface on modern Mars," said JPL’s Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter project scientist Richard Zurek.
In theory, that could mean previously frozen water was temporarily melting and moving downward.
But even “warm” temperatures on the red planet’s surface are still well below freezing. So, how could water move at all?
NASA says iron-rich minerals on the planet’s surface, such as ferric sulfate, could act as a sort of antifreeze, allowing water to remain liquid despite freezing temperatures.
The potential finding follows a 2011 study from Ojha that first pointed to potential saltwater flows on the planet’s surface. In his new paper, Ojha said the water flows appear to continue for about two months' time.
The results were published in the latest issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Solar System's Largest Moon, Gets 'On The Map'

Ganymede, Solar System's Largest Moon, Gets 'On The Map'

The first geologic map of Jupiter's moon Ganymede has been created, revealing its varied and complex terrain.

Astronomical News

Probe to use Prehistoric Pigment Shield for Solar Plunge

Inspired by a prehistoric material used by our ancestors to create cave drawings 30,000 years ago, scientists have found an ingenious method to keep the upcoming European Solar Orbiter cool.

One Year Later: Russian Meteor is a Science Boon

On Feb. 15, 2013, during the morning commute in the skies over Chelyabinsk, Russia, modern civilization has a ringside view of what it's like to be hit by a violent cosmic event.

Random Photos

Animals That Use Each Other As Pillows

Here are 31 photos of animals cuddling up and sleeping together in blissful slumber.

Animal News

Color Explosion Led to Fabulous Dinos 150 M Years Ago

A color explosion happened around 150 million years ago, resulting in dinosaurs sporting a multitude of hues.

Killer Whales Die in New Zealand Mass Stranding

The loss is a major blow to the local Orca population.

Why Do Zoos Kill Healthy Animals?

Over the weekend, 18-month-old Marius the giraffe was shot, cut up, and fed to the lions in front of visitors at the Copenhagen Zoo. Trace discusses why zoos sometimes kill their healthy animals.