Weird Links

The Homo sapiens skull has a distinctive feature previously found only in Neandertals, providing further evidence of interbreeding between the two species, according to a new study.

The otherwise human skull has a groove at the base of the back of the skull, just above the neck muscle, that is ubiquitous in Neandertal specimens but has never been seen in the remains of a modern human.

The next cold war has already started and this one will be frozen. The battle for the mineral treasures of the Arctic will not only last for decades, it will be fought in temperatures below -40C, amid bone-chilling blizzards and unrelieved winter darkness.

The submarine stunt by Russian explorers intent on staking Moscow’s Arctic claim has provided a jolt of urgency to international efforts to protect and administer what one American admiral described as 'the last great unexplored bastion on earth'.

On paper, the Basel project looks fairly straightforward: Drill down, shoot cold water into the shaft and bring it up again superheated and capable of generating enough power through a steam turbine to meet the electricity needs of 10,000 households, and heat 2,700 homes.

Scientists say this geothermal energy, clean, quiet and virtually inexhaustible, could fill the world's annual needs 250,000 times over with nearly zero impact on the climate or the environment.

In this paper we propose a mathematical model of the Martian CO2 system, and use it to produce analysis which clarifies the potential of positive feedback to accelerate planetary engineering efforts...We examine the potential of various schemes for producing the initial warming to drive the process, including the stationing of orbiting mirrors, the importation of natural volatiles with high greenhouse capacity from the outer solar system, and the production of artificial halocarbon greenhouse gases on the Martian surface through in-situ industry.

To double-quote from the article, Castro writes:

"The government of the United States sees and hears all, with or without legal authority. They can prevent any attack on their people, unless there is some imperial need to deliver a bang so that they can carry on with and justify the brutal war which has been declared against the culture, religion, economy and independence of other peoples."

Iran has been deliberately moving its exposure to the dollar and dollar-based assets, faced with the threat that the US could freeze its US-based dollar accounts in response to its nuclear plans.

Three big oil producing nations — Iran, Venezuela and Russia — have all been moving much of their foreign currency reserves from dollars to euros in recent months.

Old gold (from 2003), but very nice article explaing all about petrodollars for those of us who can never seem to quite grasp the concept :/

Almost 70% of the world's international currency reserves—the money that nations use to finance international trade and protect themselves against financial speculators—takes the form of U.S. dollars. The dollar is used for this purpose because it is relatively stable. Because the United States has a major share of world trade and financial assets, certain commodities, in particular oil, are denominated in it. The net result is a large diversified demand for dollars.

The use of the U.S. dollar as an international currency, however, has been declining gradually for over thirty years. In the past several years, this reduction in the share of dollar reserves has accelerated with the decline in the value of the dollar and the rise of the euro as a legitimate contender for reserve currency status.

This is a simple guide to tweaking .bashrc, which I will lose unless I post it here. Rock out.

In the experiment, researchers extracted the whole genetic code from a simple bacterium, Mycoplasma mycoides. They squirted the DNA [LOL :<] into a test tube containing a related species, Mycoplasma capricolum. They found that some of the bacteria absorbed the new genome and ditched their own. These microbes grew and behaved exactly like the donor.

Replaces the standard menu bar with a tiny menu popup, which you can then move to the Navigation toolbar.

This is good for those of us using the Gnome desktop under Linux; since it saves you some vaulable screen real estate and helps stop your browser window feeling letter-boxy at 1024x768.

(Also, yes, I have been away from updating for a couple of weeks - just moved house and have finally got a new 'net connection).