No one's eating whales — so why's Iceland killing them?

Iceland is butchering endangered whales for no reason — and it will cost marine ecosystems everything. Sign the Petition! Share on Facebook!

Dear hans ,

Barely anyone eats whale meat anymore — so why is the Icelandic government still allowing up to 1,145 minke and 770 endangered fin whales to be butchered every year?
Whale hunting hurts Iceland's tourism trade, alienates the country diplomatically, and wastes resources catching and killing a product only three percent of Iceland's people eat.

Please, join us in calling on Iceland to stop butchering marine wildlife for no reason. Whales are sensitive, sentient creatures who keep marine ecosystems going — and if we're going to stop their senseless slaughter, we need to speak out now.

PETITION TO ICELAND'S GOVERNMENT: Stop sanctioning the hunting of marine mammals like the minke and endangered fin whale, and start protecting these amazing creatures from this senseless slaughter.

Click here to sign -- it just takes a second.
Thanks,
-- The folks at Watchdog.net
P.S. If the other links aren't working for you, please go here to sign: http://act.watchdog.net/petitions/4139?n=58732451.fQoHiY

AC/DC return for anniversary

AC/DC frontman Brian Johnson has confirmed the band will be back in action soon to mark their 40th anniversary.

The Aussie giants – who played their first gig on December 31, 1973 – are planning to start studio work in May, then they’ll deliver one concert for every year of their career.

And the singer has confirmed their schedule had been put on hold while one member of the band dealt with serious health issues.

Johnson tells 98.7 The Gater: “We’ve been denying anything because we weren’t sure. One of our boys was pretty ill, so we didn’t like to say anything. We’re pretty private about things like this; he’s a very proud man.

“But I think we’ll be going in the studio in May in Vancouver – which means we should be getting ready.

“It’s been 40 years of the band’s existence, so I think we’re going to try to go 40 gigs to thank the fans for their undying loyalty. We’re happy to go out even though we’re getting a bit long in the tooth – I’m really looking forward to it.”

AC/DC were last on the road from 2008 until 2010 in support of 16th studio album Black Ice. The three-year trek remains the fourth-biggest grossing tour of all time, having brought in more than $440m.

In 2012 Johnson said the band were considering making a follow-up, but that they’d be unlikely to tour on the same scale, commenting: “It has to be right for the boys to do anything. We’re saying, ‘Can we do this? We’re not going to be a pale shadow of our former selves?’

“We’ll talk about it and make sure we’ve all got it. We’re five pieces of a card – if one of us is not really there, the whole thing would just collapse, I think.”

Queen Greatest hits. 6 milion copies soled in the UK only

As first band in history, Queen did sell over 6 million copies of an albutm in the UK.  TIme for a little celebration, below the press release and an excerpt from WikiPedia.   Below that 3 pictures from my own collection, with the cd (european print), and the book with the music tabs.

News Press Release: Queen are The Champions! Queen make Official Chart history - Greatest Hits becomes first album ever to hit 6 million UK sales Hashtag: #Queen6M   London, 11 February 2014   Legendary British band Queen have made chart history by becoming the first act ever to reach 6 million UK sales of an album, the Official Charts Company can confirm.   Queen have broken chart records after surpassing the 6 million sales milestone with their 1981 Greatest Hits album. Britain’s best-selling album of all time, a staggering one in three British families (or one in four British households) now owns a copy of the iconic act’s original best-of collection featuring such classic tracks as We Will Rock You, Another One Bites The Dust and their top-selling hit, Bohemian Rhapsody.   In a video message via OfficialCharts.com, Queen’s Brian May says:    “Great news, AMAZING news from the Official Charts Company! Queen’s Greatest Hits which was released in 1981 has passed the 6 million mark in sales, which is incredible. I just want to say thanks to everyone who has supported us through the years, we hope to continue to serve you.” View video here. Queen’s Roger Taylor adds:   "Wonderful. Who would have thought it! And all due to the Great British public. Thank you. A great honour!"   Martin Talbot, Chief Executive of the Official Charts Company comments :   “Becoming the first album to pass 6 million sales is a quite incredible achievement by Queen and their iconic Greatest Hits album. Ever since it was first released in 1981, this package of classic pop and rock tracks has been an indispensable item in every music fan’s record collection – perhaps THE definitive greatest hits album!"   A true, enduring classic, the British public continue to buy Queen’s Greatest Hits in their droves; some 33 years after its original release, the album regularly sells several thousand copies per week, particularly around the Christmas gifting period, a trusted stocking filler for British music fans. Sales of the album digitally are also now racking up, having been downloaded 124,000 times in the UK to date, though Queen’s Greatest Hits is evidently still very much an essential collectors’ favourite that music lovers demand to own a coveted physical copy of.   Gennaro Castaldo of British recorded music industry body, the BPI comments:   “Queen are a part of our music heritage now, with a timeless appeal that will ensure demand for their songs will continue as new generations of fans keep coming through."   Queen’s Greatest Hits leads the way, some 900,000 copies ahead of ABBA Gold as the UK’s best-selling album of all time.  ABBA last year overtook The Beatles Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band to take up second place in the list. And if 6 million sales isn’t enough for Freddie, Brian and co, Queen’s follow-up, Greatest Hits II, which was release in October 1991 – a month before lead singer Freddie Mercury’s untimely death - also rides high at Number 10 in the all-time Official Albums Chart, having notched up a further 3.9 million UK sales to date.   Queen's Greatest Hits is available now on CD / Download   www.queenonline.com

Greatest Hits (Queen album)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Greatest Hits
Original 1981 edition
Greatest hits album by Queen
Released	26 October 1981
Recorded	1973–1980 (1981 U.K. edition (Parlophone) & 2011 U.K. edition (Island) & 1994 U.S. edition) 1972–1981 (1981 U.S. & Canada edition) 1974–1981 (1981 Japan edition & 2011 Japan Reissue edition) 1972–1983 (1992 U.S. edition (Hollywood Recoreds) 1973–1982 (2004 U.S. edition (Greatest Hits: We Will Rock You)
Genre	Rock
Length	57:20 (UK edition)
Label	Parlophone
Producer	Queen, various
Queen chronology
Queens Greatest Hits (1981) Greatest Hits II (1991)
Alternative covers
1992 U.S. edition
2011 Universal Remaster

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]
Entertainment Weekly	B+[2]
The Rolling Stone Album Guide	[3]

Greatest Hits is a compilation album by the British rock group Queen. When released in October 1981, the album consisted of Queen's best-selling singles since their first chart appearance in 1974 with "Seven Seas of Rhye", up to their 1980 hit "Flash" (though in some countries "Under Pressure", the band's 1981 chart-topper with David Bowie, was included). There was no universal track listing or cover art for the album, and each territory's tracks were dependent on what singles had been released there and which were successful.

Queen's Greatest Hits was an instant success, peaking at number one on the UK Album Chart for four weeks. It has spent 476 weeks in the UK Charts, and is the best-selling album of all time in the UK, selling six million copies there.^[4][5][6][7] It is certified eight times platinum in the United States, and is Queen's most commercially successful album worldwide with over 25 million copies sold, making it one of the best-selling albums of all time

History[edit]

There was no universal track listing or cover art for the Greatest Hits album, and each territory's tracks were dependent on what singles were released there and what tracks charted. In some cases, despite the band's popularity, not enough songs were issued as singles to fill a compilation album, and a few album tracks were used as filler. Some examples of these were "Sweet Lady" and "Love of My Life", neither was released as a single in any country, but appear on some regions'1981 Hits release. In the UK and the U.S., where solid numbers could be collected, the standard was raised again by only including top 20 hits.

The U.S. ended up with its original edit of Queen's first single release, "Keep Yourself Alive", which had been re-released in the U.S. in 1975 (original release was 1973) after the success of "Bohemian Rhapsody". Also, because of the delay in release dates between the UK (out first) and the U.S. (almost a month later), the U.S. was able to add "Under Pressure" (Queen's duet with David Bowie) to its Hits collection, as it was released during that interim.

In Argentina and Brazil, the LP edition included the same list of UK Greatest Hits minus "Seven Seas of Rhye", and including "Love of My Life" (Live Killers version). CD version is the same as the British.

In 1991, Queen sought to issue a second Greatest Hits collection worldwide, this time with a standard track listing. However, the band had just changed record labels in the US, from Capitol to Hollywood Records, who were keen on a massive promotion of the band's back catalog. The problem was that Elektra still held the US rights to that first 1981 collection (despite being Hollywood's US licencée). Hollywood Records decided to not release Greatest Hits II to the U.S. market, but instead created their own collection, Classic Queen (1992), peaking at no.4.^[10] This compilation was made up of tracks such as "Bohemian Rhapsody", "Keep Yourself Alive" and "Under Pressure" (which had already appeared on the Elektra 1981 Hits collection) as well as newer tracks ("A Kind of Magic" and "Radio Ga Ga").^[11] Some tracks were not even singles in the U.S. ("One Year of Love") or anywhere ("Stone Cold Crazy").^[11] Though well received, this collection would eventually pose the problem of overlapping track lists in the future.

Hollywood Records, later that year, re-released a companion collection Greatest Hits with similar artwork (on a red background, where Classic Queen was on royal blue). Commonly referred to as the Red Greatest Hits, it features most of the '70s tracks absent from Classic Queen (including "Another One Bites the Dust" [1980], "We Will Rock You", "We Are the Champions" and "Killer Queen").

In 2004, to promote the Las Vegas production of the musical We Will Rock You, Hollywood Records released Greatest Hits: We Will Rock You Edition which was the UK Greatest Hits with three bonus tracks.

California Drought

California Drought

Feb. 7, 2014:   California is supposed to be the Golden State.  Make that golden brown.

The entire west coast of the United States is changing color as the deepest drought in more than a century unfolds.  According to the US Dept. of Agriculture and NOAA, dry conditions have become extreme across more than 62% of California’s land area—and there is little relief in sight.

"Up and down California, from Oregon to Mexico, it's dry as a bone," comments JPL climatologst Bill Patzert. "To make matters worse, the snowpack in the water-storing Sierras is less than 20% of normal for this time of the year."

A new ScienceCast video asks, is this climate change? The answer is here

The drought is so bad, NASA satellites can see it from space. On Jan. 18th, 2014—just one day after California governor Jerry Brown declared a state of emergency—NASA’s Terra satellite snapped a sobering picture of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.  Where thousands of square miles of white snowpack should have been, there was just bare dirt and rock. 

At the Jet Propulsion Lab, a group of researchers led by Tom Painter are preparing to fly a Twin Otter aircraft over the Sierras to investigate the situation.  Their “Airborne Snow Observatory” is equipped with a laser radar and a spectrometer to measure the snow’s depth and reflectivity.  From these data, it is possible to calculate the water content of the Sierras within 5% and future snowmelt rates with similar precision.

“The Airborne Snow Observatory was designed for times like this when we really need to know the state of the snow pack,” says Painter. “Our next flight will be over the Tuolumne River Basin.” The Tuolumne watershed and its Hetch Hetchy Reservoir are the primary water supply for 2.6 million San Francisco Bay Area residents.

For updates, check the US Drought Monitor

The change in scenery is so striking, a group of high school science students in central California have been flying high altitude balloons to photograph it.  From the stratosphere, their home town of Bishop looks like a settlement on the planet Mars: image, movie

"The lack of snow is really striking," says 17-year-old Amelia Koske-Phillips, president of the Earth to Sky Calculusscience club. “I've never seen a winter as brown as this," adds 16-year old Carson Reid, a member of the launch team.

Bill Patzert blames the drought, in part, on the Pacific Decadal Oscillation, or "PDO," a slowly oscillating pattern of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific Ocean.  At the moment, the PDO is in its negative phase—a condition historically linked to extreme high-pressure ridges that block West Coast storms and give the Midwest and East Coast punishing winters.

"I’m often asked if this is part of global warming," says Patzert. “My answer is ‘not yet.’ What we’re experiencing now is a natural variability that we’ve seen many times in the past. Ultimately, though, climate change could make western droughts much worse.”

For more information about climate change and other Earth science topics, stay tuned to Science.nasa.gov

Credits:

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

Web Links:

All Dry on the Western Front -- Earth Observatory

NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory -- JPL

Orangutans under attack

Dear friends,


The world’s orangutans are hanging on by a thread, with scientists warning we don’t have much time left before they’re extinct. Now there’s a brilliant plan that could save them, if we all chip in what we can.

There’s a crucial corridor connecting two essential orangutan habitats in the wetlands of Borneo that is on the brink of destruction. Saving this land could be the difference between life and death for countless orangutans, who need continuous swaths of forest and trees to survive. Conservation NGOs and local groups have fearlessly announced they will buy the land and protect it for good, but to do it they need enough money to beat out profit-hungry companies looking to move in and destroy it.

This is exactly the kind of moment the Avaaz community was made for — our unique, people-powered funding model could allow us to finance the crucial sanctuary quickly, and create a fund to defend other key pieces of land around the world.

Click to pledge what you can, we’ll process your donation only if we raise enough to buy the land:            

YES, I'LL PLEDGE €2 -- enough to protect up to 108m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €3 -- enough to protect up to 162m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €6 -- enough to protect up to 325m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €12 -- enough to protect up to 649m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €24 -- enough to protect up to 1298m² of land To pledge an amount other than the ones listed above, click here.

Orangutans are some of our most intelligent, thoughtful relatives — their name means “person of the forest” in Malay. They spend 90% of their time roaming and climbing trees (the males can stretch their arms up to 7 feet!) — even sleeping high up in nests of leafy branches, and they use big leaves as umbrellas when it rains. So, as demand for palm oil skyrockets and companies rush to clear more and more land, their homes are literally falling like dominoes.

Allowing the world’s orangutans to die out would mean not only losing one of the planet’s most majestic creatures forever, but would also change the entire ecosystem of the rainforests they inhabit. As they roam the forest eating fruit, orangutans scatter the seeds far and wide, helping the entire forest stay healthy and robust.

In Borneo, where 80% of the orangutans’ habitat has already been destroyed, even a small area of land can make a massive difference as it can link together protected forests that have survived. That’s why this plan to save the orangutans is so powerful — by connecting a forest reserve with a wildlife sanctuary, we can get the most from every cent raised.

Click to pledge — if we raise enough money we can give the local groups the money they need to buy the land — and create a rapid-response fund we can use at a moment’s notice to defend wildlife populations from critical threats:            

YES, I'LL PLEDGE €2 -- enough to protect up to 108m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €3 -- enough to protect up to 162m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €6 -- enough to protect up to 325m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €12 -- enough to protect up to 649m² of land YES, I'LL PLEDGE €24 -- enough to protect up to 1298m² of land To pledge an amount other than the ones listed above, click here.

Time and time again the Avaaz community has come together to protect forests and critically endangered species, from the Amazon in Ecuador and Brazil, to elephants, rhinos and lions threatened by poaching. Last year, nearly 1.5 million of us came together to call on the Indonesian government to protect its precious orangutan population. Now, we have a chance to make a massive difference in Malaysia, before even one more precious orangutan dies.

With hope and determination,

Ricken, Mia, Emma, Allison, Christoph, Diego, Mais, Wen-Hua, Oli and the whole Avaaz team


MORE INFORMATION:

Why is the Orangutan in Danger? (Orangutan Foundation International)
http://www.orangutan.org/orangutan-facts/why-is-the-orangutan-in-danger-2

Bornean orangutan (WWF)
http://worldwildlife.org/species/bornean-orangutan

Endangered Animals Fight for Their Lives in Borneo's Forests (New Indian Express)
http://www.newindianexpress.com/education/student/Endangered-Animals-Fight-for-Their-Lives-in-Borneos-Forests/2014/01/09/article1990789.ece 

Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet

Kepler Finds a Very Wobbly Planet

Feb. 4, 2014:  Imagine living on a planet with seasons so erratic you would hardly know whether to wear Bermuda shorts or a heavy overcoat. That is the situation on a weird, wobbly world found by NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope.

The planet, designated Kepler-413b, precesses, or wobbles, wildly on its spin axis, much like a child's top. The tilt of the planet's spin axis can vary by as much as 30 degrees over 11 years, leading to rapid and erratic changes in seasons. In contrast, Earth's rotational precession is a relatively tame 23.5 degrees over 26,000 years. Researchers are amazed that this far-off planet is precessing on a human timescale.

This illustration shows the unusual orbit of planet Kepler-413b around a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars. The planet's 66-day orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the binary star's orbit. The orbit of the planet wobbles around the central stars over 11 years. Image Credit:  NASA, ESA, and A. Feild (STScI)

Kepler 413-b is located 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Cygnus. It circles a close pair of orange and red dwarf stars every 66 days. The planet's orbit around the binary stars appears to wobble, too, because the plane of its orbit is tilted 2.5 degrees with respect to the plane of the star pair's orbit. As seen from Earth, the wobbling orbit moves up and down continuously.

Kepler finds planets by measuring the dimming of starlight when a planet passes in front of its parent sun--or, in this case, suns because the planet circles a pair of stars. Normally, planets transit like clockwork. Astronomers using Kepler discovered the wobbling when they found an unusual pattern of transiting for Kepler-413b.

"Looking at the Kepler data over the course of 1,500 days, we saw three transits in the first 180 days -- one transit every 66 days -- then we had 800 days with no transits at all. After that, we saw five more transits in a row," said Veselin Kostov, the principal investigator on the observation. Kostov is affiliated with the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Md. "[The next transit visible from Earth is not predicted to occur until 2020.]"

Astronomers are still trying to explain why this planet is out of alignment with its stars. There could be other planetary bodies in the system that tilted the orbit. Or, it could be that a third star nearby that is a visual companion may actually be gravitationally bound to the system and exerting an influence.

"Presumably there are planets out there like this one that we're not seeing because we're in the unfavorable period," said Peter McCullough, a team member with the Space Telescope Science Institute and Johns Hopkins University. "And that's one of the things that Veselin is researching: Is there a silent majority of things that we're not seeing?"

Even with its changing seasons, Kepler-413b is too warm for life as we know it. Because it orbits so close to the stars, its temperatures are too high for liquid water to exist, making it uninhabitable. It also is a super Neptune -- a giant gas planet with a mass about 65 times that of Earth -- so there is no surface on which to stand.

Credits:

Production editor: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

More information:

NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, Calif., is responsible for the Kepler mission concept, ground system development, mission operations and science data analysis. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., managed Kepler mission development. Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp. in Boulder, Colo., developed the Kepler flight system and supports mission operations with the Laboratory for Atmospheric and Space Physics at the University of Colorado in Boulder. The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore archives, hosts and distributes Kepler science data. Kepler is NASA's 10th Discovery mission and was funded by the agency's Science Mission Directorate.

For images and more information about Kepler-413b, visit: http://hubblesite.org/news/2014/12

For more information about the Kepler space telescope, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/kepler

Crue to be sued if they ever tour again

MARTIN KIELTY at 10:08pm January 28 2014

Job done: Motley confirm their demise

Motley Crue have signed a contract to guarantee they’ll never tour again following their farewell world trek.

The Cessation of Touring Agreement, signed in front of hundreds of witnessed from the press last night, ensures the band can’t come back after the end of 2015.

And they’ve confirmed the movie version of their celebrated book The Dirt will appear after they’ve played their last show.

Crue have been plotting their own demise for some time, with bassist Nikki Sixx insisting they’d “blow their own brains out” when the time came to quit.

Drummer Tommy Lee says: “Everything must come to an end. We always had a vision of going out with a big fucking bang, and not playing county fairs, or clubs with one or two original band members. Our job here is done.”

But Sixx warns: “When it comes to putting together a new show we always push the envelope. Letting on to what we’re doing would be like finding out what you’re getting for Christmas before you open the presents. In an age of too much information we’d like to keep some surprises close to our chest.”

The band, who were formed in 1981, will set off on their Final Tour on July 2, with more than 72 shows in the US. That will be followed by gigs across the rest of the world next year.

Alice Cooper will open the shows, with Crue admitting: “Alice invented the genre and Crue put steroids in it.” Cooper adds: “Real hard rock bands are hard to find these days. Motley has always gone on stage with one attitude: blow the audience away. That’s exactly how we do it.”

The Dirt movie will be released next year, directed by Jackass mastermind Jeff Tremaine, who said last year: “The Dirt is something I pursued with everything I had. I’ve wanted to make this going back to 2002. I put everything I had into chasing it, and convincing everyone that I am the right guy for it. I really feel I am.”

Meanwhile, it’s been announced that country music artists are working on a Crue tribute album. It will feature Taylor Swift, Tim McGraw and many others; and executive Scott Borchetta says: “Our album will highlight just how great the Motley Crue song catalog is.  At the end of the day, that’s what will stand the test of time.”

T