An anonymous reader quotes a report from National Geographic: A fungus that has wreaked havoc on banana plantations in the Eastern Hemisphere has, despite years of preventative efforts, arrived in the Americas. ICA, the Colombian agriculture and livestock authority, confirmed on Thursday that laboratory tests have positively identified the presence of so-called Panama disease Tropical Race 4 on banana farms in…
Tag: Middle East
SpaceX Successfully Launches Twice-Flown Falcon 9, Catches Fairing At Sea
SpaceX successfully launched a Falcon 9 first-stage that had previously served two missions in July and November of 2018, today carrying its final payload, the AMOS-17 satellite for Spacecomm. “SpaceX had configured the Falcon 9 in its ‘expendable mode’ for this mission, which means it made use of all available fuel on board to carry the 14,000+ lb satellite to orbit,…
Scientists Are Using the Cold of Outer Space To Rethink Air Conditioning
A California-based company called SkyCool Systems is in the early stages of manufacturing a cooling system that’s more energy efficient than anything humans have used for a century. It’s doing it using radiative cooling, a concept that was used in the Middle East and India hundreds of years ago. Quartz reports: To understand how radiative cooling works, forget for a moment…
Partial lunar eclipse on July 16-17
Unfortunately, North America misses out on this eclipse entirely. It’s visible from South America at early evening July 16 – from Europe and Africa, later in the evening July 16 – and in Asia and Australia before sunup July 17. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/partial-lunar-eclipse-on-july-16-17…
Happy solstice, everyone!
Here’s some quick info that’ll help you connect with nature at this June solstice 2019. Source: https://earthsky.org/tonight/solstice-brings-northernmost-sunset…
Lessons From 5 Years of Free Cybersecurity For At-Risk Groups
Cloudflare’s Project Galileo, which offers free high-tier DDoS protection service to journalists, dissidents, civil liberties groups and other at-risk groups, turned 5 years old this week. From a report: The project currently serves over 600 accounts. An LGBT protection group in the Middle East, for example, does important work on a shoestring budget and cannot possibly afford to block the outsized…
When does Ramadan begin in 2019?
Earliest sightings of a young crescent in the west after sunset mark the start of the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. When will the UAE’s moon-sighting committee see this month’s young moon? If they’re using binoculars and telescopes (and have clear skies), they might see it May 5. For the eye alone, the date is probably May 6. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/when-does-ramadan-start-crescent-moon…
New moon is May 4
You can’t see a new moon; it’s between the Earth and sun and crosses the sky with the sun throughout the day. Will you see the returning young crescent moon in the west after sunset May 5? Maybe, with effort. The young moon will sweep past Mars around May 6 to 8. Source: https://earthsky.org/moon-phases/new-moon…
The Quest To Save the Banana From Extinction
Panama disease, an infection that ravages banana plants, has been sweeping across Asia, Australia, the Middle East and Africa. The impact has been devastating. From a report: In the Philippines alone, losses have totalled US$400m. And the disease threatens not only the livelihoods of everyone in this US$44 billion industry but also the 400m people in developing countries who depend on…
Cyberspies Hijacked the Internet Domains of Entire Countries
Trailrunner7 shares a report: The discovery of a new, sophisticated team of hackers spying on dozens of government targets is never good news. But one team of cyberspies has pulled off that scale of espionage with a rare and troubling trick, exploiting a weak link in the internet’s cybersecurity that experts have warned about for years: DNS hijacking, a technique…