Pancake Ice

Exploring Tom Gill’s mesmerizing pictures of frozen icy world led me to discover a peculiar kind of ice today. Pancake Ice is circular in shape, and can range from 30 centimeters to 3 meters in diameter, and up to 10 centimeters in thickness. Pancake Ice is formed when temperatures hover right around zero degrees with at least moderate wave activity. Usually, it starts with a thin film of slush on the top of agitated water (sometimes called grease ice) that breaks up into circular sections. Collisions as they float about lead to the raised rims, either from the edges getting bashed up from bonking into each other, or from the slush that gets splashed onto the edges and freezes to gradually form a rim. Sometimes pancake ice forms at some depth, at an interface between water bodies of different physical characteristics, from where it floats to the surface; its appearance may rapidly cover wide areas of water.

See other strange ice formations: Penitentes and Snow Roller

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The Beautiful Fukang Meteorite

The Fukang meteorite, believed to be some 4.5 billion years old, which is as ancient as Earth itself, was unearthed near a town of the same name in China, in 2000. It is a pallasite, a type of meteorite with translucent golden crystals of a mineral called olivine embedded in a silvery honeycomb of nickel-iron. It’s a gorgeous meteorite, and possibly the most stunning extraterrestrial piece of rock man has ever seen.

The Fukang meteorite was found by a hiker. The man had often stopped and had lunch on this giant rock, and he always wondered what the metal and crystals were. He finally took a hammer and chisel and broke some pieces off, which he sent to the USA to confirm that it was a meteorite.

The original meteorite weighted just over a thousand kilogram, but the rock was so brilliant that everybody wanted a piece of it. Since then it has been divided into dozens of thin slices and auctioned or distributed around the world.

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A total of thirty-one kilograms of specimen is on deposit at University of Arizona. Marvin Kilgore of the University of Arizona's Southwest Meteorite Centre holds the largest portion weighing at 420 Kg. In 2008, this piece was expected to fetch $2 million at an auction at Bonham's in New York, but unfortunately, the prospective bidders were more impressed with a couple of pieces of 130-million-year-old fossilized dinosaur’s dung that day, which sold at more than twice the estimate.

According to Bonhams, pallasites are composed of approximately 50 per cent olivine and peridot crystals and 50 cent nickel-iron, and thought to be the relics of forming planets. They apparently make up less than one per cent of meteorites. They are believed to originate from deep inside intact meteors created during the formation of the solar system about 4.5 billion years ago and very few specimens are thought to have survived their descent through Earth's atmosphere.

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Kids Risking Their Lives to Reach School

For most parents and kids, crossing the street to catch the school bus is perhaps the riskiest part of the school run. But take a look at these Chinese schoolchildren from the village of Genguan. Everyday, these young kids walk along a precarious path carved by the side of a cliff, as they make their way to class in Bijie, in southwest China's Guizhou Province. Banpo Elementary School is located halfway up a mountain and the path to it winds through treacherous hillside passes and tunnels hewn out of the rock. The pebble-covered footpath is less than 0.5 meters wide, which means the children have to walk single file and press themselves into the side of the mountain if someone wants to squeeze past. This footpath was created 40 years ago as an irrigation ditch and although there is another safer route, but taking this means the children have to spend two hours to walk to school. The only assurance for parents is that Headmaster Xu Liangfan accompanies the 49 kids to school.

The story might sound incredible to some, but it isn’t uncommon for children from less privileged regions facing immense hardship on their commute to the institute of learning. You will be surprised at the great lengths some children are willing to go to reach school.

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In Sumatra, Indonesia, about 20 strong-willed pupils from Batu Busuk village have to tightrope walk 30 feet above a flowing river to get to their class on time and then walk a further seven miles through the forest to their school in the town of Padang. The kids have been doing the balancing act for the last two years since the suspension bridge collapsed in heavy rain.

Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg

No, the cat didn’t jump on my keyboard. It’s an actual name for a lake that is located in the town of Webster in Massachusetts, United States. Some people call it by its alternate name - Lake Chaubunagungamaug, while others prefer to call it simply Lake Webster, after the name of the town. The 45-letter name for this body of fresh water is often cited as the longest place name in the United States and one of the longest in the world. The name is so bizarre that even the authorities couldn’t spell it. Many road signs pointing to Lake Chargoggagoggmanchauggagoggchaubunagungamaugg have spelling mistakes in them.

The lake has been known, from early times, by various names such asChabanaguncamogue, Chaubanagogum, and Chaubunagungamaug. Historians agree that all these names bear the same meaning - "Fishing Place at the Boundary". For this great pond, divided by narrow channels into three larger bodies of water, was famed throughout the area and was the central gathering place for the Nipmuc Indians and their friends.

One of the many misspelled road signs. Can you spot the misspelling? Photo credit

The name came to its current form once the English colonists arrived in the area. At that time an Englishman named Samuel Slater began operating a mill at the nearby village of Manchaug, a corrupted version of “Monuhchogoks”. The Indians started calling the lake Chargoggaggoggmanchoggagogg which meant "Englishmen at Manchaug." Soon after, the name found its way into the map of 1795 that showed the town of Dudley. In 1831, both Dudley and Oxford, which adjoined the lake, filed maps listing the name of the pond as Chargoggagoggmanchoggagogg, but a survey of the lake done in 1830 lists the name as Chaubunagungamaugg, the ancient name.

Then later, someone decided to add the original Indian descriptive name Chaubunagungamaug to the newer nameChargoggagoggmanchoggagogg, and the entire designation becomes "Englishmen at Manchaug at the Fishing Place at the Boundary" or Chargoggagoggmanchauggagogg chaubunagungamaugg.

The late editor of The Webster Times, Laurence J. Daly, once humorously called the lake “You fish on your side, I fish on my side, and nobody fish in the middle.”

The Lake was formed by the retreat of glaciers during the last ice age and is replenished from underwater springs and streams. Visiting the area is a great way to spend some time with nature. There is a hiking trail called the Walkabout Trail in the area with some great views. Tourists often enjoy the swamps around the edges of the lake as good spots to look for wildlife. Swimming and boating are very popular activities on the lake.

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Blooming of the Tisza

Every year from late spring to early summer, an incredible natural spectacle transforms Hungary's Tisza River. Millions of long-tailed mayflies, orPalingenia longicauda, rise in huge clouds from the river, flutter on the surface of the water, mate and perish, all in just a few hours. The unique event which lasts for three to four days, is frequently referred to as “blooming of the Tisza”, and is amongst the most fascinating natural phenomena in European rivers.

Palingenia longicauda also known as the Tisa or Tisza mayfly after the European Tisza river where it is found, is the largest mayfly species in Europe, measuring 12 cm from head to tail. The insect spends most of their life-time – 3 years – developing as a larvae in the mud at the bottom of the river. After hatching the male adults only have a few hours to find a female and mate with her before they die. To do this, the male will glide down the river, trying to impregnate one of the females on the surface of the river. After mating, the female mayflies will fly over the surface of the river several kilometers upstream to compensate for downstream larval drift and laying their eggs along the way. The eggs drift to the bottom and after 45 days hatch into larvae, which dig tunnels in the mud forming dense colonies up to 400 per square foot. After three years, the larvae break for the surface and the adult mayfly appears. After they have fully matured, mayflies have roughly three hours before they die.

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With no time for courtship, reproduction is often a forcible act with up to 20 males simultaneously going after a lone female. An eager male might also lie in wait atop the skin of a female that has yet to shed.

The synchronized hatching of the Palingenia longicauda is one of nature’s great sights, as the surprisingly large insects seem to dance above the river’s surface, smothering the riverbank and any other available surface including cars, roads and people as they seek to find a mate in the short time available to them. The vast majority of mayflies die immediately after mating. At the end of the mayfly’s day-long dance, the surface of the Tisza is covered with large dead mayflies. In some cases the piles of dead mayflies block roads or bridges and need to be removed with a snow plow!

From the evolutionary point of view, the advantages of this huge, synchronized hatch are obvious: as insects can only mate in their adult stage, by synchronising the hatch,  the chance of finding a partner is maximized, which is very important for species with such a short adult life stage. Furthermore, predators like bats or birds are surprised by this sudden appearance of clouds of prey, and so can hunt only a small fraction of the population.

Today, Hungary's Tisza River and its tributaries are the only place in the world where you can find long-tailed mayflies,Palingenia longicauda. But a century ago the insects flourished in Europe's lowland rivers. According to experts, a combination of water pollution from heavy industries and riverbank re-engineering destroyed the mayfly larvae's natural habitats. After communist factories closed in the early 1990s, many rivers in Eastern Europe experienced a drop in pollution levels, and in some cases, the mayflies have returned, for instance, in River Danube some 30 km north from Budapest. Efforts are now being made to restore these once-tainted rivers, by harvesting hibernating eggs from the Tisza, then transplanting them into other European rivers.

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Photo credit: Reuters

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first u must have iso file of win7 on your pc then

1- open the ultraiso program

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3- insert your usb flash in your pc

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U.S. intelligence methods to spy on your phone

In pursuit continued toward information , put U.S. intelligence mobile phones and modern communications as one of the main objectives of the work, especially with the boom witnessed by the world in the use of smartphones « Smartphone » , and managed and the National Security Agency, the U.S. , according to confidential documents that leaked « Snowden » , the development of techniques and tools and mechanisms for granted the ability to penetrate these devices of various types , from « iPhone » hardware, operating system « Android » and even devices « BlackBerry » , which girl reputation on the security of the device and communications passing through its network is too impenetrable .

Magazine « Der Spiegel » German was able to see many of the confidential documents and reports, which have been leaked from the National Security Agency, the U.S. NSA monitored in this investigation how successful agency in penetrating devices modern mobile phones and what information you get from this breakthrough at large.

In a conference held in Washington recently , Cut « Michael Hayden » Chairman and the National Security Agency , former U.S. to attend a funny story about Bmobail « iPhone », where he and his wife in one of the shops « Apple » state of Virginia , approached them a vendor for the promotion of the device , saying that there are more than 400 thousand application to work on the device , listen ' Hayden ' and then turned around , saying to his wife in a low voice : ' this young man did not know who I am .. Is not it? 400 thousand application means 400 thousand chance of attack and penetration .

In fact, did not comment « Hayden » exaggerated greatly , According to the papers of Interior , told U.S. National Security , obtained by « Edward Snowden » and managed the magazine « Der Spiegel » access them , the United States Agency not only penetrate systems embassies and data , which are traded via submarine cables , but they are also very interested in new forms of communication , which exploded on a large scale in recent years via smartphones .

In Germany, for example , currently has more than 50 % of the users of mobile devices « smart » , and in the United Kingdom , the ratio of up to two-thirds of the total users, and possesses some 130 million people of these devices in the United States , as turning the computer minivan to the center communications and personal assistant, these devices also find out information about its users much more than what people think of the user.

For an institution like NSA , the data volumes are simply gold mines , which meets all the information you need intelligence , almost, in a single device : lists of social communication to information about the user's behavior and its geographical location and interests Personal ( through Keywords for example ), photos, and sometimes credit cards numbers and passwords.

Technology experts at the headquarters of the agency NSA in the « Fort Meade » state « Maryland » considered at the outset that the global success overwhelming for smartphones represents an enormous challenge and very difficult to get information , where to open this up many new channels of communication and that I think IAEA experts that they could not at all to explore their way through this maze .

According to an internal report issued in 2010 and titled « explore trends and objectives and current techniques » the spread of smartphones is happening « rapidly » and developments « complexity of the analysis of information targets traditional » , but the National Security Agency has dealt with this issue as quickly as it has changed user behavior with these devices .

According to the document of the Interior, has been the formation of a task force to deal with production companies and operating systems, the famous , and the teams started specializing in the study extensive for a « iPhone » and operating system iOS with the study of operating systems Android from « Google », and another team's work on ways to penetrate ' Blackberry ' , which appeared in front of them fortified castle until that time.

However , the information that was leaked from within the agency does not refer to operations of espionage and large-scale users of mobile devices smart, but at the same time, the documents clearly confirm that the agency if you select a smartphone as a target 'll find a way to access the information comprising the this device .

Exciting thing is that the agency NSA has targeted devices and systems manufactured by American companies such as « Apple and Google » , but the case « BlackBerry » , which is manufactured by a Canadian company not less sensitivity , because Canada is one of the countries of the Alliance « Eyes five » , which signed an agreement not to engaging in any espionage activities against one another .

The documents reveal , which was leaked that this agreement has been completely ignored , where there is no evidence on the cooperation of the company « Blackberry is on a voluntary basis with the intelligence agency .

And reveal the leaked documents , the agency relies primarily on « negligence » , which handles its user with the phone, where the user does not deal seriously with any concerns about the use of the phone, and the biggest concerns user is mostly lost contact with the company to provide the service , and review a detailed report carries title « Does the target have a smart phone ? » intensive espionage operations , carried out by the agency against a users ' iPhone ' His great popularity and proliferation .

In this report, the review by comparison with the novel « 1984» classic of the writer George Orwell , which revolves around the state practiced espionage wide , revealing at the same time for the current view , adopted by the National Security Agency, the U.S. on smart phones and users , and wondering author of the report : « Who knew in 1984 that this person will be the older brother .... it refers to images of ' Steve Jobs ' founder ' Apple ' .

The results reviewed by the National Security Agency examples of penetrating successful it is surprising , since the training image to the son of defense minister a former U.S. He put his arm around the waist woman , an image taken Abjahazh « iPhone » , and a host other images reviewed by younger and girls in disaster areas, and include men militants in the mountains of Afghanistan , and an Afghan man suspected with his friends in Thailand.