Meteorological officials in the United Kingdom are warning that the upcoming winter season could arrive early, and see both record snowfall and low temperatures. The conditions are expected to either reach or surpass conditions in the winter of 1962-63, when temperatures plunged to -20ºC.

The cause for this bleak forecast is due to the recent weakening of the Gulf Stream current in the North Atlantic, of which would normally bring warm water to the UK from further south. This situation is also being exacerbated by the current period of reduced solar output, and may be affected further by the super-El Niño currently being experienced in the Pacific.
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In one of the most fantastic finds in the history of paleontology, scientists have discovered 15 skeletons of a previously unknown human ancestor in South Africa. The skeletons are believed to be 2.5 million years old, and are believed to have either been buried in the cave or to have died there for unknown reasons. Farther back in the cave, there appear to be many more skeletons. Because the cave is called Rising Star Cave, the species has been named "homo naledi." "Naledi" means "star" in the regional Sesotho language. The skeletons were found behind a large stone known as the Dragon’s Back.
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Two new climatological studies are warning about the potential for a scenario similar to what was depicted in Whitley Strieber and Art Bell’s book ‘The Coming Global Superstorm’. Both studies investigate the potential impact of freshwater from melting ice from the Arctic and Greenland: one focusing on the potential future impacts, and the other, how the deep past was affected by the same conditions.

The first study, from the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, used computer modeling to determine the effect that a rapid thaw of Greenland’s glaciers, of which would dump massive amounts of fresh water into the North Atlantic, would affect the Atlantic’s currents.
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The Mars Curiosity rover has taken a picture of a rock formation that looks for all the world like a spoon that is floating above the ground.

NASA has identified the spoon-like object as a ventifact, which is a rock that has been shaped by the wind, slowly sandblasted over time into its present shape, and held in place on its parent rock formation at the end of it’s handle. Mars’s lower gravity, approximately one-third that of Earth’s, has also probably helped prevent the spoon’s snapping off under it’s own weight. There are a number of other ventifacts present in the picture as well, but none quite as dramatic as the levitating Martian utensil.
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