The world must have forgotten the name, but the Krakatoa Volcano needs to be reminded as of one of the most deadliest volcanoes in the world. It killed 36,000 people when it erupted in 1883. However, the stark reality is that the remaining part of the Volcano has started to spew lava again and thousands of farmers who stay close to the volcano even today, may be in jeopardy.

The impact of the first eruption was 13,000 times that of the atom bomb which rocked Hiroshima. Not only did it kill people, it even changed the course of the weather for many years.

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ISRO , Indian space & research organization has launched Bhuvan, a satellite mapping tool similar to Google Earth and Wikimapia.

Bhuvan was launched on 12th August 2009.

Bhuvan offers resolution up to 5 metres and is said to be a competitor to Google Earth.

“Bhuvan will be able to give you an image from only 10 meters away”, isro spokesman said.

Check the Official site www.bhuvan.nrsc.gov.in

Bhuvan can take closer pictures of the Indian Subcontinent as compared to the Google Earth.

Instructions to Download Bhuvan

Click link http://bhuvan2.nrsc.gov.in/Bhuvan/WebClient/PresentationLayer/WebClient/index.aspx

Step 1: Open link
Step 2: Register
Step 3: Login
Step 4: Download plugin and run
Step 5: Again click Above link

Bhuvan is capable of taking a zoom level of up to 10 meters, while Google Earth features a zoom level of up to 200 meters.

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The Perseid meteor shower is happening tonight between midnight to 5 a.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 12. It will be visible in most of North America.

Late Tuesday night is an option as well.

The Perseids are bits of debris from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. Every year around August the Earth passes through these debris streams.

“They are typically fast, bright and occasionally leave persistent trains,” says a SPACE.com Columnist. “And every once in a while, a Perseid fireball will blaze forth, bright enough to be quite spectacular and more than capable to attract attention even in bright moonlight.”

God has a show in store for tonight for those who are up or wish to stay up. Remember, to give credit where credit is due.

The best times to watch:

1. between midnight and dawn Wednesday

2. 4am-5am EST.

3. 1-2am PST

4. After daybreak in Europe.

Clouds caused by a colossal dust storm in Taklimakan desert in China in 2007 completed more than one full circle around the globe in 13 days.  The dust cloud – measuring about 1.9 miles vertically and about 1,242 miles horizontally – was formed in Xinjiang, in north-western China. Interestingly, the cloud remained in that formation all through its journey around the Earth.

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If the larger and medium economies of the world have to be motivated to cut down immensely on the carbon footprints, it might be the smaller nations which have to set an example stating that it can be done in a manner easier than anticipated.

Tuvalu, the fourth smallest nation in the world with a population of 12,000 people intends to become the first zer0-carbon country in the world – an example which could surely influence others.

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Eat This, Not That! took a look at what is found in bottled water.

I don’t know about the rest of the world, but for Americans and Japanese, what comes out of the tap is just as good if not better for you than what comes in the plastic bottles, and better for the environment, too! No recycling, no plastic, no contaminants!

Dasani of Coca-Cola is selling Philadelphia tap water that has been purified. The Natural Resources Defense Council found that about 22% of  brands tested contained contaminants ABOVE state health limits.

Let’s see, tap water that meets state, federal and local guidelines or trendy bottled water with fancy names that costs more than gasoline. Hmm…

I’ll put a purifier on my tap water and go with that and be kinder to the environment and my wallet as well. How about you?

Scientists get a lot of respect. Well deserved for the most part.

There are lots of people around me who are. Extremely knowledgeable folk. You can’t swing a dead cat at my church without hitting a PhD and we have less than 50 people in the building.

My son is going to be a scientist – grad school, physiology and so on.

Even with all the scientists, professional and otherwise, astronomer-types, an amateur stargazer was the one who found the  ’scar’ on Jupiter.

The guess is a  large comet or asteroid has slammed into Jupiter. It created a hole the size of Earth. And if Earth doesn’t clean up its act, we are likely to get sucked into that hold.

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Everybody knows you can’t just stare at the sun. Well, if you didn’t know that you do now. Do not stare at the sun. Repeat after me, do not stare at the sun.

Still, lots of folk will be looking to the heavens on July 22nd to watch the full solar eclipse. I remember doing this some 30+ years ago…okay make that almost 40 years ago. We had these thick glasses to filter out the sun and only the moon was left.

There’s another way to watch the eclipse. From how stuff works/science.

1. Get two pieces of cardboard (flaps from a box, backs of paper tablets).
2. With a pin or pencil point, poke a small hole in the center of one piece (no bigger than the pin or pencil point).
3. Take both pieces in your hand.
4. Stand with your back to the sun.
5. In one hand, hold the piece with the pinhole; place the other piece (the screen) behind it.
6. The sunlight will pass through the pinhole and form an image on the screen (see How does a pinhole camera work?
7. Adjust the distance between the two pieces to focus and change the size of the image.

Or you can go to one of these

4 places to watch the July 22nd full solar eclipse online

The agreement reached at the recent summit of the Group of Eight industrial nations (the G8) held in Italy to limit global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) could help a post-Kyoto Protocol treaty materialize in December 2009.

According to Jose Manuel Barroso, president of the European Commission (EC), an agreement on the global temperature target, especially by the developing economies like the United States, could form the global benchmark and catalyst for the crucial negotiations on climate change to be held in Copenhagen in Denmark in December 2009.

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El Nino is back.

US government scientists are saying that the periodic warming of water in the tropical Pacific Ocean, otherwise known as El Nino, which can affect weather all over the world, is back!

The Pacific was in a neutral state, however, forecasters at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say the sea surface temps are up about 1 degree C above normal. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center also said temperatures in other tropical regions are also above normal. The readings are warmer than usual as much as 975 feet below the ocean surface.

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