Earth and Planetary Sciences
jlynch | December 16, 2006The AP is reporting a further clampdown by the Bush administration on governmental science - in this case, within the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS). New rules require screening of all facts and interpretations by agency scientists:
The new requirements state that the USGS's communications office must be "alerted about information products containing high-visibility topics or topics of a policy-sensitive nature.''
The agency's director, Mark Myers, and its communications office also must be told -- prior to any submission for publication -- "of findings or data that may be especially…
jlynch | December 6, 2006NASA today announced that it had evidence that water may have flowed on Mars as recently as the past five years. Images taken by the Mars Global Surveyor do not directly show water, but instead show recent changes in surface features that are consistent with water flow. More here, here and over at NASA.
jlynch | November 11, 2006 It has been a while since I posted some science-related material (October 22nd to be precise ... you can blame the recent election if you like), so here goes ...
The little yellow dots you seem above are a series of minor earthquakes that occurred last week in southern California, overlayed on the 3D surface within Google Earth. The data is provided by the USGS Earthquake Hazards Program and is easily accessible in real time using the following KMZ file which will automatically load in GE. Give it a try, it's mucho cool.
On a related note, I played around a little with Microsoft Virtual…