XIAM007

Making Unique Observations in a Very Cluttered World

Thursday 10 July 2014

Scientist: Yellowstone super volcano Twice as big as once thought... -

Scientist: Yellowstone super volcano Twice as big as once thought... - 




The world’s authority on Yellowstone’s Super Volcano says it’s more than twice as big as scientists once thought. Does that mean it’s more likely to blow up soon? Penny Preston found Dr. Robert Smith at his home near Grand Teton, and found the answer.

Millions of people visit Yellowstone each year to see its geysers, fumeroles, hot springs, and mud pots. It’s the largest concentration of thermal features in the world. The park sits on top of the world’s largest active volcano. The Super Volcano. Its most recent eruption was more than 600,000 years ago. All that remains is the top, or caldera.

When you come into the Park they’ll give you a map and it has an overlay of the caldera. It’s huge.

The scientist who knows more about the Super Volcano than anyone, Dr. Robert Smith of the University of Utah, said, “Anytime you come to Yellowstone you have to drive uphill. And the reason is this giant plume of magma, is very hot, therefore it’s bullient, low density and it just lifts the surface up.”

Dr. Smith has been studying Yellowstone’s earthquakes and it’s Super Volcanos for almost sixty years.

He pointed out, “And these giant eruptions, supervolcanos if you wish, probably last many, many months, maybe even years.”

Not only that, they’re huge, thousands of times larger than Mount St. Helens. Smith and his students use siesmographs to map the magma pool underneath Yellowstone’s volcano, and satellites to determine how much the land swells or bulges. They found that the magma is, “2.5 times larger than we had originally imaged.”

The magma movement is signaled by earthquakes. Smith mentioned the 4.8 magnitude Norris area earthquake that damaged Lake Hotel last spring.

He explained, “It’s the biggest earthquake in 30 years.”

So, how likely is it that the big one will blow soon?

“If we were to have another big eruption, it would affect a large area, on the order of several states. But, as I said, that probability is very, very, very, very small. In my calculations it’s point zero, zero, zero, one percent.”

Smith said the magma pool is not getting bigger. His team added a lot more seismographs over the years, and are getting a clearer picture of the magma.

KULR-8 Television, Billings, MT

Read more - 
http://www.kulr8.com/story/25970770/super-volcano-is-bigger

Texas city using treated wastewater for drinking... - a toilet-to-tap reuse program -

Texas city using treated wastewater for drinking... - a toilet-to-tap reuse program - 



s much of Texas grapples with lingering drought, a second city in the Lone Star State has begun reusing treated wastewater in a state-approved recycling process to bolster drinking supplies.

Wichita Falls, near the Oklahoma border, on Wednesday began reusing millions of gallons of water at the River Road Waste Treatment plant that's been purified to meet government drinking standards. The water is then sent by a 12-mile pipeline to the Cypress Water Treatment Plant for additional purification.

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved Wichita Falls' proposal for a toilet-to-tap reuse program for up to six months.

The West Texas town of Big Spring, whose spring dried up decades ago, implemented an indirect potable reuse program — where effluent flows into another body of water before being treated — earlier this year. The water is then filtered through reverse osmosis. The city of Brownwood, about 80 miles south of Abilene, has approval for a project similar to Wichita Falls' to treat 1.5 million gallons of water daily, but it has not started doing so.

Wichita Falls is operating under a Stage 5 drought catastrophe, in which outdoor watering is banned and conservation is urged. Demand for city water has dropped 45 percent, according to City Manager Darron Leiker.

Still, the city's reservoirs are on a trajectory to run dry by August 2016, according to the Texas Water Development Board. The Wichita Falls area needs drinking water for about 150,000 people, and supplies from local reservoirs have plummeted from nearly 90 percent capacity before the drought began in late 2010 to about 20 percent capacity in late June.

"We can't conserve our way out of this," Leiker said.

The city's cloud-seeding experiments to stimulate rain have been unsuccessful. It's considering using a polymer product to coat the surface of its reservoirs to repress evaporation, though a recent field test proved disappointing.

The situation is fallout from Texas' driest year ever in 2011. Since then, when rain has fallen in the western half of the state, it didn't land into lakes' watersheds.

The drought is the second-worst in Texas after the 1950s Dust Bowl, according to the state's climatologist, John Nielsen-Gammon.

Read more - 
http://news.yahoo.com/texas-city-using-treated-wastewater-drinking-200245424.html

New Study Says Eating Apples May Increase Sexual Pleasure In Women -

New Study Says Eating Apples May Increase Sexual Pleasure In Women - 



It's been said that an apple a day keeps the doctor away, but new research suggests it can do a lot more than that.

A new study published in Archives of Gynecology and Obstetrics suggests that eating more apples leads to better sex for women.

Researchers analyzed 731 sexually active Italian women aged 18 to 43 with no history or complaint of sexual disorder. Women taking prescription drugs or suffering from depression were excluded from the study as well.

Participants were separated into two groups: regular apple consumption (one to two apples a day) and no apple consumption (0 to 0.5 apples per day). The women then filled out the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), which is comprised of 19 questions about sexual function, sexual frequency, orgasm, lubrication and overall sexual satisfaction.

Researchers found that "daily apple use is associated with higher FSFI scores in sexually active female patients, thus increasing their lubrication and overall sexual function."

So why apples?

The researchers hypothesize that apples may improve sexual function because, like red wine and chocolate, they contain polyphenols and antioxidants that can stimulate blood flow to the genitalia and vagina, thus helping with arousal.

Not only that, researchers says apples contain phloridzin, a common phytoestrogen that is structurally similar to estradiol -- a female sex hormone -- and plays a huge role in vaginal lubrication and female sexuality.

Of course, the study has its limitations. It's a relatively small sample size and it's difficult to separate correlation from causation. However, the researchers note the results are "intriguing," to say the least.

Read more - 
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/08/sex-study_n_5568877.html