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POPSSolar system a bit squashed, not nicely round "Imagine a balloon is being blown up by the solar wind. You might imagine that if you took a balloon, which is mainly spherical, and pushed it against the wall, it would be blunted on one side," said Edward Stone of the California Institute of Technology, one of the scientists involved in the research.
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POPSMass extinctions? Blame it on the ocean In the course of hundreds of millions of years the world's oceans have expanded and contracted in response to the shifting of the Earth's tectonic plates and to changes in climate. There were periods of the planet's history when vast areas of the continents were flooded by shallow seas such as the shark and mosasaur infested seaway that neatly split North America during the age of the dinosaurs. As those epicontinental seas drained, animals like mosasaurs and giant sharks went extinct, and conditions on the marine shelves where life exhibited its greatest diversity in the form of things like clams and snails changed as well.
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POPSArctic sea ice melt 'even faster' Greenland is already losing ice to the oceans, contributing to the gradual rise in sea levels. The ice cap holds enough water to lift sea levels globally by about 7m (22ft) if it all melted. Natural climatic cycles such as the Arctic Oscillation play a role in year-to-year variations in ice cover. But Julienne Stroeve believes the sea ice is now so thin that there is little chance of the melting trend turning round. "If the ice were as thin as it was in the 1970s, last year's conditions would have brought a dip in cover, but nothing exceptional. "But now it's so thin that you would have to have an exceptional sequence of cold winters and cold summers in order for it to rebuild."
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POPSAncient cave found under church Half a dozen sources (including Fox News) used this news story with the headline "First Church In The World". Of course, they also omitted archaeologist Thomas Parker's words: "It's quite possible that there was a cave with earlier occupation which was later converted to Christian use. But to make the jump that this was actually used by Christians fleeing Jerusalem in the 1st century A.D. seems like a stretch to me."
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POPSAtheist quotes From a Norwegian site in English. I recommend browsing the source itself. A rich content with some interesting articles and documents.
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POPS Myanmar's fascist junta extends Suu Kyi house arrest Those who showed their incompetence to aid the cyclone victims, proving their determinism to oppress Myanmar people. If this knave, filthy junta still holds the power and dares to extend Suu Kyi's arrest arrogantly, only one thing can be said: Shame on the world.
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POPSIsrael 'has 150 nuclear weapons' Most experts estimate that Israel has between 100 and 200 nuclear warheads, largely based on information leaked to the Sunday Times newspaper in the 1980s by Mordechai Vanunu, a former worker at the country's Dimona nuclear reactor. The US, a key ally of Israel, has in general followed the country's policy of "nuclear ambiguity", neither confirming or denying the existence of its assumed arsenal.
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POPSPuzzling pagan burials at the famous Christian catacomb A very interesting article on the new discoveries at one of Rome's biggest catacomb complex, which was thought to be a Christian site for years. The latest foundings revealed the skeletons of more than 100 humans which predate Christianity and possibly "pagan burials". Puzzled scientists are working at the site for further details and clues. From the Archaeology Magazine.
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