Blogs / Discoblog

Greenland’s ice sheet is melting at a record-breaking rate—but it’s not all tumbling straight into the sea. A significant portion of Greenland’s meltwater—which forms on the surface during the summertime and can pool into lakes—finds its way straight through the ice sheet to the bedrock. There, it disperses and lubes up the ice-bedrock interface, substantially accelerating the flow of ice to the sea which, theoretically, causes the sea level to rise and exposes more ice to melting.

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Keren Blankfeld Schultz at Scientific American has an interesting report on the effects of severe weather on the length of a single day, or the total time it takes Earth to rotate once on its axis. As it turns out, the speed of the planet’s rotation is determined by the amount of mass across its surface, which is made up of the “roiling aggregation of gases that comprise the atmosphere, the solid earth itself, its fluid core, and the sloshing ocean.”

So when an event that has the power to move a huge amount of mass—such as, say, an earthquake and/or tsunami—occurs, it can alter the earth’s rotation speed enough to lengthen or shorten a day by as much as several thousandths of a second.

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• The hottest country code on teh Internets [sic]: .su—as in, the Soviet Union. Which, in case you somehow forgot, doesn’t exist anymore.

• Big prizes are spurring a new age in (and at least one blog about) space exploration. Now PETA hopes to do the same with a $1 million prize to the first mad scientists who can “produce commercially viable quantities of in vitro meat at competitive prices by 2012,” thereby sparing real animals from becoming meat. Note the stipulation about “commercially viable,” you home molecular gastronomists.

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• Are stars secretly zombie cannibals? A new study suggests that “dead” stars may consume their healthy neighbors, thus creating a large and mysterious cloud of antimatter in the center of the galaxy. Look for George Romero’s take, coming soon to a theater near you.

• A Bosnian man claims his home has been targeted by aliens, after the house was hit by meteorites five times. But before you write him off, consider this: Experts at Belgrade University have confirmed that the rocks are genuine. (more…)

If you feel immobilized by the latest bump in gas prices, just follow these five simple steps:

1. scour through the rotting dregs of your kitchen’s garbage cans, collect all animal and plant products (the fouler the better)
2. toss a few billion garbage-loving bacteria into the decaying sludge
3. give the microbes a few days to breed and ferment
4. discard gelatinous muck, save all gases emitted
5. enjoy your environmentally friendly energy!

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The Friends-inspired rumor that urine can relieve a jellyfish sting provided more comedic value than useful first-aid advice, but there are actually many practical applications for that yellow waste product. Ancient Egyptians and Aztecs rubbed urine on their skin to treat cuts and burns, while the Romans used it as a bleaching agent for cleaning clothes and teeth. And now, it may help fight global warming.

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The climate blog Celsias offers some intriguing insight into geoengineering. Recently spotlighted on DISCOVER’s website, geoengineering involves drastic, planet-scale alterations to the climate so Earth remains habitable for humans, despite our impressive negligence. The geoengineering schemes highlighted in the DISCOVER slideshow include blocking the sun with trillions of space-based shields and shading ourselves with stratospheric sulfur injections—but these are not the only innovative ways to help our climate.

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