January 23, 2000 Guilford, Connecticut - This week fishermen from the Connecticut Commercial Lobstermen's Association met with state and federal officials to discuss why 100,000 lobsters died this past fall in Long Island Sound. Pathologists confirmed an amoeba which invades marine animals when their immune systems are weakened was pervasive throughout the dead lobsters. But what weakened the creatures' immune systems?
"Since it was first observed thirty-seven years ago, understanding the source of the X-ray background has been the Holy Grail of X-ray astronomy. Now, it is within reach."
- Dr. Alan Bunner, Director
NASA's Structure and Evolution of the Universe
January 17, 2000 Huntsville, Alabama - NASA's Chandra X-Ray Observatory was launched only five months ago, but it continues to astonish astronomers with its discoveries. One of the most perplexing cosmic mysteries has been the source of x-ray radiation that seems to pervade the universe.
January 16, 2000 Petersfield, Hampshire, England - Five hundred years before Christ, a Greek named Empedocles wrote, "The Nature of God is a circle of which the center is everywhere and the circumference is nowhere."
Those words begin a new and beautiful book called Crop Circles, The Greatest Mystery of Modern Times by British author and researcher, Lucy Pringle. She is a founding member of the Center for Crop Circle Studies and Chairman of the Unexplained Phenomena Research Society in the U. K. She is currently coordinating research into the effects of electromagnetic fields on living matter and has over six hundred reports in her data base.
January 13, 2000 Boulder, Colorado - What happens to global weather systems if the earth warms up several more degrees Fahrenheit in the future? That's a question that the Pew Center on Global Climate Change in Arlington, Virginia wanted to know. So, they went to a climate expert Dr. Tom Wigley at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado. Dr. Wigley received his Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from the University of Adelaide in Australia in 1967 and has become a climate expert. The past six years he has focused on computer models of earth weather systems to project the effects of ever-increasing greenhouse gasses. Recently, Dr. Wigley's computer research was released by the Pew Center.
FACTS:
- 1998 was the warmest year on record globally.
- 1999 was the second warmest year on record
for both the U.S. and U. K.
- The earth warmed 1 degree Fahrenheit
between 1900 and 2000.
- The earth is projected to get 2 to 6 degrees F.
warmer by 2100.
- Ocean levels rose 4 to 10 inches
between 1900 and 2000.
- Ocean levels will rise 18 to 36 inches
higher by 2100.
"There's no question that greenhouse gasses are there, that they are going to increase and even if we started action now, it takes a long time for them to come out. They have a residence time of about 300 years in the atmosphere, so it's going to take a long time. We really have to do two things. One is we're going to have to learn to live with the world that has a different climate than it has today. And we're going to have to learn how to be more energy efficient."
- James Baker, Ph.D., Administrator, NOAA,
January 7, 2000
January 9, 2000 Washington, D. C. - Three massive storms with high winds swept across England and Europe in December knocking down 300 million trees in France alone. Scientists told the American Geophysical Union that the polar wind pattern has changed and "could be responsible for fiercer winter storms across western Europe and western North America."
January 7, 2000 Manheim, Pennsylvania - Between December 31st, New Year's Eve, and January 1, 2000, a black Italian duck and several rabbits were attacked and killed in Manheim, Pennsylvania about fifteen miles northwest of Lancaster. Since then, more kills have extended to sheep and goats and now the State Dog Warden and Pennsylvania Game Commission are trying to find out what's responsible for the attacks. Their main suspect is a dog.
The first office to receive attack reports was the Penn Township Police, in Manheim. Police Chief Larry Snavely described what has happened so far.
January 5, 2000 Gosport, Hantsfordshire, England - Photographer Steve Alexander and writer Karen Douglas have created a beautiful "pictorial tour of crop circles and their landscapes" from the 1999 summer in a large booklet (11 3/4 by 8 1/4 inches, 25-pages) which accommodates large landscape photographs and smaller close-up details. Thirty-three of the best 1999 English formations are featured in more than 100 images.
January 2, 2000 Rhinebeck, New York - As the year 2000 ends one millennium and January 1, 2001 will begin the next millennium, Gerald Celente, Editor of the Trends Journal in Rhinebeck, New York headlines "The Top 10 Trends of the 21st Century."
He forecasts:
1) Revolutionary breakthroughs for energy production;
2) A New Millennium Religion;
3) Family units no longer based on marriage;
