Top Of The Table

If you're an international reader, right now Manchester City/Manchester United is what you're looking at right now and I could post anything I wanted without you noticing.

But just in case, here's a halftime distraction. Name the 100 largest cities in the world in 15 minutes (by lucky happenstance, the exact length of halftime).

One little thing, though: it's the 100 largest as of the year 1950. (I'll give you a free one: Manchester's on the list. I got 76 overall.)

Get Off Its Lake Lawn

You probably remember the taxonomy chart from science class (whether or not you can recite it): kingdom, order, phylum, etc. You probably don't remember the tree of life, though, also known as the phylogenetic tree. That's a chart created to try and piece together how species evolved into other species, like a large-scale family tree.

Well, scientists in Norway think they've found something that is further towards the roots of that tree than just about anything else. 20 years ago, a tiny little microorganism was found in a tiny little lake about 30 kilometers south of Oslo. The University of Oslo has been trying to figure out what it is ever since, and they've just concluded that that microorganism is, in fact, mankind's oldest relative. They're giving it a new genus on the taxonomy chart, Collodictyon, and note that of everything that they cross-referenced the organism with over 20 years of searching, they only got a single partial match with something in Tibet. The organism itself hasn't been found anywhere outside that one lake.

The second link in that last paragraph, which goes to Science Daily, will be able to give you the nitty-gritty on what the Collodictyon is made of and all its various parts, as well as its daily life, which basically consists of living in the muck, waiting for some algae to float by, popping up, eating it, and then sinking back into the muck to munch. When they run out of algae, they start eating each other.

I'll leave to you the inevitable humanity's-oldest-relative jokes about who or what else that description might fit.

CANNONBAAAAALLLLL!

You see that little note under 'About Me', where I say I make absolutely zero promises as to what knowledge exactly I intend to impart on any given day?

You'd do well to listen to it sometimes. Today is science-experiment day, and you're going to learn how bowling balls float. As long as they're 12 pounds or less, though. (How many times have we gone to the Steve Spangler well? It's got to have been at least a couple times by now.)

Cleanup, Aisle Apollo 11

Did you watch the movie Wall-E? If so, you might remember the part where Wall-E leaves Earth and goes up to the space colony where the main part of the movie takes place. The rocket he's on, as it's leaving Earth's atmosphere, plows through a thick layer of space junk, almost so dense as to block out the sun.

That scene is there for a reason: more stuff is being launched into orbit every day, all of it at risk of slamming into each other (and thereby creating more pieces of space junk), and much of it does. And the hell of it is, nobody's ever been able to really figure out how to get it down once they're done using it before its orbit decays and it comes down on its own, possibly on someone's head. (Second pop culture reference: Dead Like Me, the events of which were kicked off when the main character was killed by a plummeting space station toilet seat.) The longer it takes us to figure out, the more stuff goes up, and the bigger risk there is that something crashes into something else, possibly something important.

For example, the International Space Station, which had to dodge a piece of junk last month.

It doesn't take much to cause havoc, given the speeds at which things typically orbit. Anything can wreak havoc if it's going fast enough. Throw a bullet at someone and they'd just be annoyed and tell you to stop it, because it's just a tiny little piece of metal, but shoot it at them and we all know what happens.

The speed of a bullet as it leaves an AK-47 (aka muzzle velocity) is 2,340 feet per second. That's 1,595.45 MPH. This article about a space junk alert from last November is talking about speeds of 17,000 MPH. Get the idea?

Currently, the closest thing anyone can come up with to an actual cleaning job is to either make a given object's orbit decay and take one's chances on where it crashes, or to have a 'graveyard orbit' far above the regular orbit in which the stuff we're actually using lies. At the end of a satellite's life, the last of its fuel is used to boost it up high out of the way of everything else. But that's not really a clean; that's just sweeping the problem under the rug. So we're in that weird 'proof of concept' part of the innovative process when you get a whole bunch of off-the-wall ideas.

You know that part. It's this part.



Eventually it's got to get done, though- it's imperative that we find a way to get that space junk down- so that in mind, Treehugger has compiled nine concepts being kicked around at the moment.

It's not exactly getting to Mars, but you can't get anywhere if there's a traffic jam.

Random News Generator- Cook Islands

You'd think the Cook Islands would be one of those places that gives me nothing and where I'd just rant about the RNG hating me.

The Independent, however, proves you wrong, as currently, there is a legal battle going on in the United Kingdom concerning ancestral land rights. Back in 1898, when the British were colonizing the islands, there was something of a power-sharing agreement going on in the local land rights court, with the British hoping to grab as much as they could from the "lazy" natives but fearful of what might happen if they actually tried to grab it outright. So when the British judge ordered the transfer in 1903 of one 53-acre plot to settlers, he included a clause reverting it back to the natives after the death of the settler.

Somewhere along the line, someone crossed out that clause.

It is now 2012, and the descendants of all involved are trying to sort out the mess created by that someone. As you might expect, the descendants of the natives are arguing for the version that enforces the crossed-out reversion clause, while the descendants of the settlers are arguing for the version where 'crossed out' means 'not in force'. The case in question technically involves only June Baudinet (on the side of the settlers) and Ellena Tavioni and the Macquarie family (on the side of the natives), but other similar claims around the island could be influenced by the precedent set here, so the rest of the island is watching with interest.

So no, the British Empire hasn't quite had the sun set on it yet.

China To Reportedly Stop Repatriating North Korean Refugees

Just breaking... a week ago, actually, but breaking on my news feed anyway. I just came across this article from Shanghaiist, a link in a reporting trail leading back to Japan's Yomiuri Shimbun. According to the report, China has ended, or at least suspended, their longstanding practice of sending North Korean defectors passing through China back to North Korea. One quoted Chinese official, lacking name or location, holds that this is at least partly a response to being kept out of the loop on North Korea's failed missile test earlier this month.

Whatever the reason, though, this is huge. China is, after exiting North Korea itself, the biggest obstacle between defectors and freedom in South Korea or the West. Being sent back to North Korea means certain torture and possible execution. According to the Chinese official in Liaonang province quoted by the Shimbun- a province bordering North Korea- "If refugees are sent back, that's the end of their lives. We can't ignore it." The threat of being caught by China is a big stumbling block in the logistics of escaping North Korea. If the threat of repatriation is gone, that is certain to increase the flow of refugees not only leaving North Korea, but making it to South Korea as well.

Now, China does have a way of saying one thing and doing another. Hopefully, this is not one of those times. However, earlier this month, in the time leading up to the launch, China allowed five defectors who had been trapped in the South Korean embassy in Beijing since 2009 to proceed to Seoul.

The reported change in tone comes too late for the 31 refugees who had been repatriated in March, despite a global campaign for their release. But hopefully, those 31 are the last 31.

Today's Advice Apparently Someone Needs

Do not attempt to get out of a probation hearing by having someone stab you. Your body does not enjoy having hard, sharp, pointy objects going into places where there has been no provided orifice, and it is likely to make this fact known to you through making you scream in pain. Also, odds are you're not going to get out of the hearing, and when the judge finds out, he is likely to be dumbstruck by your breathtaking escapade. This means that, in addition to jail, odds are you will also need some level of medical attention, at which point you will get treated on by a doctor who knows going in that you convinced someone to give you stab wounds to get out of a probation hearing.

There is also, of course, the small risk of your accomplice not being able to stab to wound as opposed to stabbing to kill. If one is not an experienced stabber, this can easily happen, at which point the police may have some fairly difficult questions for your accomplice.