Friday 31 January 2014
The Unbreakable Super Bowl Records
The previous 47 Super Bowls are full of fun facts, amazing performances
and assorted oddities. Here are eight records that may never be topped
-- or even matched -- in the biggest NFL game of the century every
season.Yes, it's a quarterback-driven league these days and we've seen
astounding passing numbers this season alone, most notably from
record-setting Broncos quarterback Peyton Manning. But it will be hard
to top what happened in Super Bowl XXI, when Giants quarterback Phil
Simms completed a Super Bowl-record 88.0 percent of his throws
(22-of-25) for 268 yards and three touchdowns in his team's 39-20 win
over the Broncos. In the second half alone, Simms was 10-of-10 for 165
yards and two touchdowns (although there was that fortuitous bounce off
tight end Mark Bavaro to wide receiver Phil McConkey for a touchdown).
The mark is based on a minimum of 20 pass attempts.
Once upon a time, in a game far, far away, this was a league where the
running backs were household names. The running attacks have taken a
back seat in recent years, which makes some yearn for the Washington
Redskins, the "Hogs" and Hall of Fame running back John Riggins, who
totaled 166 yards rushing on a Super Bowl record 38 carries in his
team’s 27-17 win over the Miami Dolphins. Since Riggins' workhorse
performance in Super Bowl XVII, 20 of the 30 champions ran the ball
fewer than 38 times as a team. And none of the 47 losing teams in the
Big Game has ever totaled at least 38 rushing attempts.
NASA Twitter, Arizona State University (Daily Mail)
Zoom in
January 22, 2014
A jelly doughnut rock on Mars is one strange news story that space
experts remain baffled by this week, though new evidence on this stone —
being called “Pinnacle Island” by researchers — is now being examined
and yielding even more peculiar results. Scientists have recently
discovered that the foreign object is in fact high in 3 elements in
particular: sulfur, magnesium, and manganese. Fox News
reports this Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014, that the purpose or sudden
emergence of this small stone remains an utter mystery, but hopefully a
mystery that may be cracked in the near future.
The jelly doughnut rock, as it is being affectionately called for looking quite like the sweet dessert, is in fact one of the oddest things on Mars that space experts have ever come across on the distant planet. The stone randomly appeared before NASA’s Opportunity rover last week, and has remained a source of interest and speculation ever since. First spotted this Jan. 8, experts quickly realized that this stone had not existed in the same location only 13 days before.
“Pinnacle Island” is the name of this strange rock being examined, and the foreign object can be clearly seen as a whitish color on the outer surface, while bearing a reddish color toward its center. The “jelly doughnut rock Mars” spectacle was first called as such by a lead scientist in the Opportunity rover’s mission, Steve Squyres.
"It looks like a jelly donut," said Steve Squyres, the rover's lead scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., during a recent NASA event marking Opportunity's 10th year on Mars. "And it appeared, it just plain appeared, at that spot and we haven't driven over that spot."
A more in-depth examination of the mysterious rock revealed quite a bit more about this tasty-looking stone as well, bearing high levels of 3 elements that aren’t normally seen together, especially on a distant planet like Mars.
"It's like nothing we ever seen before. It's very high in sulfur, very high in magnesium, it has twice as much manganese than anything we've seen on Mars," Squyres said with excitement in last week's Jan. 16 event. "I don't know what any of this means. We're completely confused, [but] we're having a wonderful time."
How, then, did this Pinnacle Rock — this jelly doughnut stone from Mars, if you will — actually appear in its mysterious emergence in front of the Opportunity? Two theories have emerged so far: one is that the bit of rock is simply a stray bit of debris from an impact crater located not far from the crater that simply fell in its way. The second theory is that the stone was actually struck by the travelling rover’s wheels and scattered in front of its passage.
"That's the more likely scenario," Squyres said of the wheel-driven notion. "The crater ejecta one, I don't really believe. I think that the idea that somehow we mysteriously flicked it with the wheel is the best explanation."http://www.examiner.com/article/jelly-doughnut-rock-mars-pinnacle-island-stone-examined-high-3-elements
The jelly doughnut rock, as it is being affectionately called for looking quite like the sweet dessert, is in fact one of the oddest things on Mars that space experts have ever come across on the distant planet. The stone randomly appeared before NASA’s Opportunity rover last week, and has remained a source of interest and speculation ever since. First spotted this Jan. 8, experts quickly realized that this stone had not existed in the same location only 13 days before.
“Pinnacle Island” is the name of this strange rock being examined, and the foreign object can be clearly seen as a whitish color on the outer surface, while bearing a reddish color toward its center. The “jelly doughnut rock Mars” spectacle was first called as such by a lead scientist in the Opportunity rover’s mission, Steve Squyres.
"It looks like a jelly donut," said Steve Squyres, the rover's lead scientist at Cornell University in Ithaca, N.Y., during a recent NASA event marking Opportunity's 10th year on Mars. "And it appeared, it just plain appeared, at that spot and we haven't driven over that spot."
A more in-depth examination of the mysterious rock revealed quite a bit more about this tasty-looking stone as well, bearing high levels of 3 elements that aren’t normally seen together, especially on a distant planet like Mars.
"It's like nothing we ever seen before. It's very high in sulfur, very high in magnesium, it has twice as much manganese than anything we've seen on Mars," Squyres said with excitement in last week's Jan. 16 event. "I don't know what any of this means. We're completely confused, [but] we're having a wonderful time."
How, then, did this Pinnacle Rock — this jelly doughnut stone from Mars, if you will — actually appear in its mysterious emergence in front of the Opportunity? Two theories have emerged so far: one is that the bit of rock is simply a stray bit of debris from an impact crater located not far from the crater that simply fell in its way. The second theory is that the stone was actually struck by the travelling rover’s wheels and scattered in front of its passage.
"That's the more likely scenario," Squyres said of the wheel-driven notion. "The crater ejecta one, I don't really believe. I think that the idea that somehow we mysteriously flicked it with the wheel is the best explanation."http://www.examiner.com/article/jelly-doughnut-rock-mars-pinnacle-island-stone-examined-high-3-elements
Thursday 30 January 2014
17 California communities running out of water
A visitor walks near the
receding waters at Folsom Lake, which is 17 percent of its capacity, in
Folsom, California January 22, 2014. California Governor Jerry Brown
last week declared a drought emergency, and the dry year of 2013 has
left fresh water reservoirs with a fraction of their normal water
reserves. Picture taken January 22, 2014. REUTERS/Robert Galbraith
(UNITED STATES - Tags: ENVIRONMENT TPX IMAGES OF THE DAY)
SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) —
Seventeen rural communities in drought-stricken California are in danger
of running out of water within four months, according to a list
compiled by state officials.
Wells are
running dry or reservoirs are nearly empty in some communities. Others
have long-running problems that predate the drought.
The
communities range from the area covered by the tiny Lompico County
Water District in Santa Cruz County to the cities of Healdsburg and
Cloverdale in Sonoma County, the San Jose Mercury News
(http://bit.ly/LmgFL2 ) reported Tuesday.
Most
of the districts, which serve from 39 to 11,000 residents, have too few
customers to collect enough revenue to pay for backup water supplies or
repair failing equipment, the newspaper reported.
A storm expected to drop light and moderate rains on Northern California on Wednesday and Thursday won't help much.The list of vulnerable communities was compiled by the state health department based on a survey last week of the more than 3,000 water agencies in California.
"As
the drought goes on, there will be more that probably show up on the
list," said Dave Mazzera, acting drinking-water division chief for the
state Department of Public Health.
He said state officials are
discussing solutions such as trucking in water and providing funding to
drill more wells or connect rural water systems to other water systems.
Lompico
County Water District, in the Santa Cruz Mountains near Felton, has
just 500 customers and needs nearly $3 million in upgrades to its water
system.
"We have been unable to
take water out of the creek since August and well production is down,
and we didn't have that much water to begin with," said Lois Henry, a
Lompico water board member.
Henry said the district may soon have to truck in water.
In
Cloverdale, where 9,000 get water from four wells, low flows in the
Russian River have prompted the City Council to implement mandatory 25
percent rationing and ban lawn watering. The city raised water rates 50
percent to put in two new wells, which should be completed by July.
"Hopefully
we'll be able to get through the summer and the development of this
project will pay off." City Manager Paul Caylor said.
Residents of urban areas for the most part have not felt the effects of the drought so far.
Other
areas on the state list include small water districts in Fresno,
Madera, Mariposa, Kern, Amador, Mendocino, Nevada and Placer counties.
___
Information from: San Jose (Calif.) Mercury News, http://www.mercurynews.com
Son Surprises Mom, A Diehard Seahawks Fan, With Tickets To The Super Bowl
A heartwarming new video of a man surprising his mom with tickets to the Super Bowl has quickly gone viral.
A YouTube user named Mike Harris posted this clip of his mom (a diehard Seahawks fan) opening a package containing several tickets to the big game in New York.
"What? No way! We can't do this," Harris' mom says, before she stars breaking down.
In the description on the YouTube page, Harris says he initially thought tickets would be too expensive, but after seeing a headline about the falling prices of seats, he looked online and found them $1,000 cheaper than a week earlier. He bought three, one for his mom, himself and his best friend since kindergarten.
Harris writes that his mom has been a fan for 35 years and even attended the team's sendoff in Seattle with no idea that she'd be joining them at MetLife Stadium.
The only disappointment is that their two dogs won't be able to join
them at the game. They seemed so eager to share the special moment with
Harris' mom, which is totally adorable.
The clip has received tens of thousands of views in less than 24 hours.
To read more about this story, check out Harris' description on the video's YouTube page.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0fnKdPgxc
A YouTube user named Mike Harris posted this clip of his mom (a diehard Seahawks fan) opening a package containing several tickets to the big game in New York.
"What? No way! We can't do this," Harris' mom says, before she stars breaking down.
In the description on the YouTube page, Harris says he initially thought tickets would be too expensive, but after seeing a headline about the falling prices of seats, he looked online and found them $1,000 cheaper than a week earlier. He bought three, one for his mom, himself and his best friend since kindergarten.
Harris writes that his mom has been a fan for 35 years and even attended the team's sendoff in Seattle with no idea that she'd be joining them at MetLife Stadium.
The clip has received tens of thousands of views in less than 24 hours.
To read more about this story, check out Harris' description on the video's YouTube page.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sO0fnKdPgxc
Watch 63 years of climate change in one horrifying GIF
Global warming is still the topic
of much debate, but a short video posted recently by NASA is fairly
convincing. The 15-second animation, which was posted by NASA last week
and picked up on Tuesday by Co.Exist, shows a view of the
entire globe with an overlay that details climate change. NASA
scientists analyzed data collected over the past 63 years by 1,000
meteorological stations from around the world, and the animation they
compiled shows just how rapidly the Earth’s climate is changing.
The GIF is a consolidated version
of NASA’s full animation that helps illustrate just how drastic the
change has been since 1950. Temperatures in some regions have swung by
as much as 4 degrees Celsius in the past 60 years alone.
“Long-term trends in surface
temperatures are unusual and 2013 adds to the evidence for ongoing
climate change,” GISS climatologist Gavin Schmidt said with regard to
NASA’s findings. “While one year or one season can be affected by random
weather events, this analysis shows the necessity for continued,
long-term monitoring.”
According to the report, the
average global temperature in 2013 was 58.3 degrees Fahrenheit. That’s
1.1 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the mid-20th century baseline
temperature.
“Last year, when the concentration
of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere surpassed levels of 400 parts per
million, the amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide reached a higher point
than it had at any time in the last 800,000 years,” Co.Exist’s Sydney Brownstone noted.
White House weighs petition to deport Justin Bieber
Washington (AFP) - As if Barack
Obama didn't have enough problems to deal with already, his
administration now is being asked to weigh in on the grave matter of Justin Bieber's bad behavior.
By
midday Wednesday (1700 GMT), a petition on the White House website
calling for the deportation of the Canadian-born teen idol had garnered
103,000 names -- easily surpassing the threshold of 100,000 signatures
required for presidential consideration.
"We
the people of the United States feel that we are being wrongly
represented in the world of pop culture," says the petition, created by
one "J.A." in Detroit on January 23, the day Bieber was busted in Miami
Beach for impaired driving and illegal drag racing in a flashy Italian
sports car.
"We would like to
see the dangerous, reckless, destructive and drug-abusing Justin Bieber
deported and his green card revoked. He is not only threatening the
safety of our people but he is also a terrible influence on our nation's
youth. We the people would like to remove Justin Bieber from our
society."
The White House
website hosts citizens' petitions on other, more heady issues such as
the legalization of marijuana and a pardon for National Security Agency
whistleblower Edward Snowden.
"Every petition that
crosses the threshold will be reviewed by the appropriate staff and
receive a response," assistant White House spokesman Matt Lehrich said.
But
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki cautioned that the petition
program "doesn't always determine a step will be taken, it's more of
another opportunity for the voices of the American people to be heard."
There
was no comment from Bieber himself, who according to gossip websites
was back in Los Angeles on Wednesday after a weekend beach break in
Panama.
Bieber, 19, is
understood to be living and working in the United States under a
renewable O-1 visa for entertainers, rather than a green card for
permanent resident status.
It remains unclear whether Bieber's visa to stay in the United States would be affected by his arrest.
Now out on bail, Bieber is
due back in Miami for a court appearance on Valentine's Day, when he
will also also face charges of resisting arrest and using an expired
driver's license.
Police in Los
Angeles are pursuing their own investigation into an earlier incident
in which Bieber allegedly hurled eggs at a neighbor's house.
Wednesday 29 January 2014
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