The Sun nearly shut down the Earth last November when a wave of massive explosions on the Sun threatened power grids all over the world. This solar flare, which hasn’t been measured until now, was so violent that satellite detectors were unable to record its true size. It shot charged electrical particles and gas into space at two million miles per hour. Scientists in New Zealand say it almost caused unimaginable destruction.
read more
While it seems as if more and more people, around the world, are now speaking English, a British language expert thinks that will change in the future. David Graddol says the number of people who speak English as a native language is falling, and the idea that English will become the world’s main language “is past its sell-by date.”
More and more people speak more than one language, even in the U.S., where people often have trouble learning a second language. But immigration is changing this. Last year the Census Bureau reported that almost one in five Americans speak another language than English at home. Spanish is the most common second language, followed by Chinese.
read more
Chinese textbooks have always boasted that the Great Wall of China, built in the 5th century BC, is so big that it can be seen from space, but Chinese astronaut Yang Liwei, who was the first Chinese person in space, says he couldn’t see it from his spacecraft Shenzhou V. However, Apollo 17 astronaut Gene Cernan, who walked on the moon in December 1972, claims he saw the wall from space. He says, "At Earth orbit of (100 miles) to (200 miles) high, the Great Wall is indeed visible to the naked eye."
read more
Witnesses who found the debris from the Roswell, New Mexico UFO crash in 1947 reported seeing metal as thin as the silver foil from a cigarette pack that nonetheless could not be pierced by a bullet. Now Discover Magazine reports that scientists have created what sounds like the same thing.
Brad Lemley writes in the April issue of Discover about a metal strip as thin as aluminum foil that cannot be even be severed by wire cutters. When a steel ball is dropped onto it, the ball bounces back and will not go through it.
read more