Doomsday approaching? Clock ticking closer to midnight
Citing unchecked climate change and the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons, scientists Thursday moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight.
"It is now three minutes to midnight," said Kennette Benedict, the executive director and publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at a news conference in Washington, D.C. "The probability of global catastrophe is very high. This is about the end of civilization as we know it."
Three minutes is the closest to midnight the clock has been since 1984 during the Cold War. The closest it has ever been to midnight — two minutes— was in 1953, when the hydrogen bomb was first tested. The closer to a setting of midnight it gets, the closer it's estimated that a global disaster will occur.
"In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a statement.
"World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth."
The clock is symbolic and has been maintained by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists since 1947. The group was founded in 1945 by University of Chicago scientists who had helped develop the first nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project.
The scientists created the clock in 1947 using the imagery of apocalypse (midnight) and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the Earth.
Before Thursday, the Doomsday Clock was most recently moved ahead from six to five minutes to midnight in 2012, also in a response to nuclear proliferation and climate change.
"Human influence on the climate system is clear," Richard Somerville of the Bulletin said at the conference Thursday. "Each of the last three decades has been successively warmer than any preceding on record." - USA Today
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Mysterious pollutant killing birds in San Francisco Bay
The toll of dead birds found along the shores of San Francisco Bay has now topped 200. That's more than double the estimate that was offered Tuesday, as efforts to locate struggling animals (as well as the source of the goo responsible) kicked into high gear.
The growing casualties suggests the number will likely continue to rise over the rest of the week, though wildlife advocates are hopeful that the worst has passed.
Local officials and volunteers began collecting the dead birds over the weekend, after several dozen dead birds began showing up on a local beach last Friday -- all of them covered in a mysterious goo.
Several hundred more birds have been rescued alive and transported to care facilities where they're being washed and nursed back to health.
The mysterious substance found coating the sea birds -- a combination of surf scoters, buffleheads and horned grebes -- appears to be a sort of dirty rubber cement. Officials are performing a series of necropsies on deceased birds, and are running the unidentified goop through lab tests in order to put a name to it.
"It's some material that we nor the wildlife center has ever seen before," Andrew Hughan, a spokesman for the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, told the Los Angeles Times. "It's a real mystery."
The majority of the goo-coated birds were found along the east side of the San Francisco Bay near the San Leandro Marina, Hayward Regional Shoreline and Alameda.
Wildlife group International Bird Rescue is helping coordinate rescue and cleanup efforts.
"The good news is that we have modified our wash protocol, and it appears to be working on healthier birds," group leader Barbara Callahan said. "However, some of the birds that have recently arrived are in much poorer condition, likely because they've had this substance on their feathers for several days now."
Most experts believe the mystery goo is man made and not a natural fish oil and algal substance. Some have suggested it is likely a synthetic rubber called polyisobutylene. In 2013, a polyisobutylene spill killed some 4,000 birds in Great Britain. - UPI
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Blue Almond-Shaped Eyes
Lynwood, CA - 5/5/1989 - unedited: Hello, my experience did not involve a UFO but still just as scary. When I was a little girl, I shared a room with my three sisters. I shared a bunkbed with my younger sister and my two older sisters shared the other bunkbed across the room, facing the opening of the bedroom door. My two brothers and oldest sister moved out so my older sister took the spare bedroom and I moved to the empty bed on the other side of the room. There were always paranormal events that took place but unfortunately for me, I was the only one seeing and hearing them. I was brutally punished for speaking about my experiences so from that point on, I had to deal with these scary events on my own. Once i moved to the other side of the room, almost immediately I started to wake up in the middle of the night for absolutely no reason. When I would wake up, I always saw the same three beings standing in the doorway of my bedroom door. They were shaped like the all too familiar "little grey men". They had the large head, thin build with a little belly, long arms and short legs. One thing I couldn't help but notice is that I could see right thru them!! Their bodies were visibly outlined but I could see thru them and they had these large bright blue almond shaped eyes. The three beings were different sizes. The smallest was directly in the front, the other was a little taller and the tallest of the three was almost as tall as the doorway opening. I was always questioning if I was actually seeing this, especially since it kept happening, night after night. I remember they would just stand in the doorway, looking around as if they were looking out to make sure no one was coming. They would sometimes, glance at me but continue to look around. Again, i wasnt sure if my eyes were playing tricks on me because it was very dark, but they were also moving around so I just couldnt get my mind to comprehend what I was seeing. I also remember it was very silent. Too silent, as if someone had eliminated the sound all together. I can recall on one occasion , rubbing my hands on the sheet under my pillow, trying to hear the sound it usually makes.....there was nothing. Absolutely no noise. I couldnt understand it. I dont remember being scared, just confused, intrigued, and vass amount of other emotions. This went on for sometime. I can not recall for how long nor can I recall how or when I went to sleep. I always woke up the next morning questioning my sanity. The very last encounter I remember is when, once again I was awakened and saw the same three beings in the doorway. This time was much different because this time for whatever reason, I decided to look in the direction of my feet. When I did that, I saw another being who looked exactly like the other three. It was on its knees, kneeling right next do me at my midsection. I was laying on my back and as I made eye contact with it, it leaned in within inches of my face and then it put its hand on my chest. For whatever reason, I was not scared but I did experience a rush of many other emotions. I remember being curious more than anything. I wanted to know if I was really loosing my mind or is this thing really real. From under the cover, I began moving my hand toward the creatures hand with the thiught in mind that if I touch its hand and feel it under my hand, then I know it is real. So, I did just that. My hand stayed under the cover, but i still placed my hand on its hand and when I felt it, thats when I realized it was real. I still wasnt afraid for some strange reason but at the same time, I could not believe what I was feeling. The entire time this is happening, this thing is still in my face and we are looking eachother in the eyes. The last thing I remember is touching its hand and then waking up the next morning. I sometimes wondered what happened in all thise encounters. What dont I remember. But I know, I really dont want to know the answer to that question. I never mentioned this to anyone, especially my family because of the severe punishments I had received before when I attempted to explain the paranormal entities I had been seeing. It wasnt until twenty years later (3 yrs ago) I was having a conversation with my older sister. We were reminiscing about that house. At first I shared with her my experiences with the paranormal. She then shared with me a story that sent chills down my spine. She told me that the bunk bed she slept in ( the one I slept in when she changed rooms) was a scary sleeping place for her. She explained that she had seen, on several occasions, a face leaning over from behind her, just staring at her. She said that because there was only about 3 inches if space from the wall to the bed, that no one would be able to fit in that space. She went on to tell me that this face was big, she could see right thru it, and it had large blue almond shaped eyes. It was then that i knew for a fact that I wasnt crazy. I had carried this with me for years and never told a soul because despite my experiences, I was still unsure of what had taken place...even though it happened often. I told my sister about my experiences and was so relieved that I wasnt alone. To this day, I wonder why? What did they want with us? What did they do? And what dont I remember. I just pray they never come back. Apart of me wonders if they did ever come back but I just dont remember any of it because they took those memories away from me. I have always had a problem with walking in my sleep. Ive had this issue all my life. I still do it to this day, but when I wake up outside my front door, or on the grass, or when I wake up with bruises, I can only wonder if I was just sleep walking or was it something more. i would love to get answers. I would live to know if anyone else has had an experience similar to mine. Thanks for reading my story. - MUFON CMS
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Wormhole might exist in Milky Way, allowing for space travel as seen in ‘Interstellar’
A new study has opened up the possibility that the center of our galaxy is actually a massive wormhole.
A science fiction staple, wormholes are theoretical shortcuts through the fabric of spacetime that could enable a spacecraft to travel from one part of the universe to another in a matter of seconds without having to go through the space in between.
Even though no direct evidence of wormholes exists physicists have long speculated over the possibility. Even Albert Einstein proposed the idea of wormholes in his theory of General Relativity.
Now thanks to a new study however the case for the existence of these theoretical portals has been given a significant boost. Astrophysicists from India, Italy and the US have published a new paper with mathematical evidence suggesting that the supermassive black hole at the center of our Milky Way galaxy might actually be a gigantic wormhole.
While the paper doesn't definitively prove that wormholes exist it does open up the door to a renewed interest in seeking out direct observations of these enigmatic objects.
"Our result is very important because it confirms the possible existence of wormholes in most of the spiral galaxies," the researchers wrote.
If this turned out to be the case then it might even be possible that we are sitting on a veritable intergalactic travel hub that future explorers could use to reach even the most distant of galaxies. Read more at NY Daily News
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