An emergency "Plan B" using the latest technology is needed to save the world from dangerous climate change, according to a poll of leading scientists carried out by The Independent. The collective international failure to curb the growing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere has meant that an alternative to merely curbing emissions may become necessary.
Recent research shows that melting icebergs in the ocean around Antarctica may actually slow global warming. The iron particles they carry feed algae blooms that suck up CO2. Could man-made algae blooms in the frigid waters help combat climate change?
You could attempt something similar in the Mediterranean, red sea and Gulf of Arabia. keep to the Fen Causeway
The number nine has a special significance for Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Nine is the number of planets in the Solar System, and Sykes is one of several leading astronomers who want to keep it that way. Unfortunately, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which adjudicates on these matters, has ruled there are no longer nine planets in the Solar System, after a decision two years ago to downgrade Pluto to the lowly status of a "dwarf planet". But in 2009, Dr Sykes and his like-minded colleagues hope to get the ruling overturned at the next general assembly of the IAU, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August.
The number nine has a special significance for Mark Sykes, director of the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona. Nine is the number of planets in the Solar System, and Sykes is one of several leading astronomers who want to keep it that way.
Unfortunately, the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which adjudicates on these matters, has ruled there are no longer nine planets in the Solar System, after a decision two years ago to downgrade Pluto to the lowly status of a "dwarf planet".
But in 2009, Dr Sykes and his like-minded colleagues hope to get the ruling overturned at the next general assembly of the IAU, to be held in Rio de Janeiro in August.
Onto the barricades! Says an Eight Planets partisan... as for motivations on the other side:
The row over Pluto's downgrading has been simmering since the astronomy organisation voted to relegate it in August 2006 in Prague. It was agreed at the last vote of that conference - after many scientists had left. It was particularly galling for Alan Stern, principal investigator on a Nasa mission, New Horizons, which had launched a nuclear-powered probe to Pluto six months earlier. Dr Stern and Nasa found that their £460m New Horizons spacecraft, due to arrive at Pluto in 2015, was no longer going to visit the Solar System's most distant planet, but just one of many chunks of rock in the Kuiper belt of asteroids beyond Neptune.
The row over Pluto's downgrading has been simmering since the astronomy organisation voted to relegate it in August 2006 in Prague. It was agreed at the last vote of that conference - after many scientists had left.
It was particularly galling for Alan Stern, principal investigator on a Nasa mission, New Horizons, which had launched a nuclear-powered probe to Pluto six months earlier.
Dr Stern and Nasa found that their £460m New Horizons spacecraft, due to arrive at Pluto in 2015, was no longer going to visit the Solar System's most distant planet, but just one of many chunks of rock in the Kuiper belt of asteroids beyond Neptune.
Marketing, marketing! The article fails to mention the Kuiper Belt dwarf planet whose discovery prompted the 2006 decision, being larger than Pluto: Eris. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Critics claimed Germany's new citizenship test was too difficult when it was introduced last year. Now they are saying it's too easy -- officials have revealed the test has a 99-percent pass rate.
The Government is threatening to regulate the food industry to stop firms promoting unhealthy eating habits among the nation's seven million schoolchildren, the Health minister, Ben Bradshaw, warned yesterday.
