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Science

Ancient Underwater Forest Discovered

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Alabama Under ocean Forest
Sonar Map of the Ancient Underwater Forest of the Coast of Alabama (CREDIT: Grant Harley, Kristine DeLong)

Just off the coast of Alabama, divers have discovered and ancient forest beneath the waves of the Gulf of Mexico. This Bald Cypress forest was hidden under the sand for over 50,000 years and was likely uncovered by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The undersea forest, which is about 60 feet below the ocean surface, was preserved amazingly well because of the lack of oxygen that exists under the ocean sediments. Now that the area is exposed it won’t be around for very long as it will soon be destroyed by living creatures.

Ben Raines was one of the first divers to see this amazing place. Ben is the executive director of the nonprofit Weeks Bay Foundation. He mentioned that a local dive shop owner had been trying to keep the place a secret because he feared that divers take things from the dive area and would eventually spoil the ancient underwater forest.

You can experience the underwater forest in the video above, which takes you down under the Gulf of Mexico and gets you up close and personal with these amazing ancient trees. You can read the complete article on this forest by LiveScience.

 

PayPal Goes Galactic With Space Currency

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The question that you may or may not have ever asked; what currency will we use in space? PayPal is trying to answer this question by officially launching PayPal Galactic. It’s one of the problems that no one ever really seems to talk about, until now.

I often think about how people could soon be spending their vacation in a “space hotel” and how we could set-up shop on Mars and start building cites and growing our own food there but I never thought about how we would pay for things in these places. It may sound like crazy science fiction movie but I think it’s a great time to start figuring out these problems as space becomes more accessible.

Pat Rawlings_J. Spencer, Donut Robot Moon

As space tourism programs are opening space travel to ‘the rest of us’ this drives questions about the commercialization of space. We are launching PayPal Galactic, in conjunction with leaders in the scientific community, to increase public awareness of the important questions that need to be addressed,” -David Marcus, PayPal’s President. 

Even if spending your vacation on Mars doesn’t happen during your lifetime, it doesn’t mean that it will never happen. It’s the way we are built as humans, we want to explore and push the limits of what we can do and where we can go, so space colonization is highly likely if not completely inevitable. One day, generations after us may need to study their history books to prepare for a test that focuses on the earliest settlers who came to Mars and built the first cities. Perhaps PayPal will be in those books as the pioneers who helped create the first universal space currency.

PayPal is currently working with the SETI Institute (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence) to help bring this issue to light and hopefully make all of this happen. PayPal Galactic also has Buzz Aldrin talking about the issue, whom you can see in the video above.

So, What do you think about PayPal Galactic? Are we ready to talk about space currency?

 

Take A Look at The Supermoon This Weekend

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2011 Supermoon
Supermoon of 2011 (Image Credit: Peter2006son)

This weekend will offer a once-a-year opportunity to catch a view of the Supermoon, which is also called a perigee Moon. A Supermoon is what we see in the night sky when the Moon is closest to Earth in it’s elliptical orbit and a full Moon at the same time.

All of this will happen on June 23rd (Sunday) and the Moon will be much larger and brighter that it normally is. You should have no problem noticing it, as long a the weather permits for good viewing. Another effect that occurs during the Supermoon is that of enhanced or stronger tides. These tides are about 40% stronger than those that occur during Apogee, which is when the Moon is at it’s farthest point from Earth in it’s elliptical orbit.