March 17, 2021
Earlier studies have suggested the possibility that Earth was once covered with water. New evidence – focused on Earth’s mantle – suggests our planet was a true water world, covered by a global ocean, billions of years ago.
Artist’s concept of a water-world planet. Image via Sci-News.com.
Scientists theorize that some exoplanets – worlds orbiting distant suns – might be water worlds, rocky planets completely covered by global oceans. This month, a researcher at Harvard University published new evidence that Earth itself was once a water world, with its own global ocean and very little, if any, visible land. Planetary scientist Junjie Dong at Harvard is lead author on the new paper, which focuses on the amount of water present in Earth’s mantle, the layer of rock between our planet’s crust and core. These results were published on March 9, 2021, in the peer-reviewed journal
Despite a collapsing Lebanese economy and considerable political turmoil, Hezbollah continues to threaten Israel. These threats must be taken seriously,.
Eric Goldstaub, a 17-year-old Viennese Jew, was turned down by 50 consulates in Vienna before he went to the Chinese consulate, where on July 20, 1938, he obtained 20 Chinese visas for himself and his extended family. He died in Toronto at the ripe old age of 92.
Lilith Sylvia Doron met Ho while they both watched Hitler’s triumphant entry into Vienna in March 1938. When Doron’s brother, Karl, was arrested and sent to Dachau, he was released thanks to a visa issued on Ho’s instructions. Both she and her brother reached Palestine in 1939.
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Researchers believe land would have been scarce some 3 billion to 4 billion years ago. Alec Brenner/Harvard University
Ancient Earth was a water world
Mar. 9, 2021 , 9:00 AM
Across the ages, sea levels have risen and fallen with temperatures but Earth’s total surface water was always assumed to be constant. Now, evidence is mounting that some 3 billion to 4 billion years ago, the planet’s oceans held nearly twice as much water enough to submerge today’s continents above the peak of Mount Everest. The flood could have primed the engine of plate tectonics and made it more difficult for life to start on land.
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A new review of existing evidence proposes eight hallmarks of environmental exposures that chart the biological pathways through which pollutants contribute to disease: oxidative stress and inflammation, genomic alterations and mutations, epigenetic alterations, mitochondrial dysfunction, endocrine disruption, altered intercellular communication, altered microbiome communities, and impaired nervous system function.
The study by researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, Ludwig Maximilian University, and Hasselt University is published in the journal
Cell. Every day we learn more about how exposure to pollutants in air, water, soil, and food is harmful to human health, says senior author Andrea Baccarelli, MD, PhD, chair of Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia Mailman School. Less understood, however, are the specific biological pathways through which these chemicals inflict damage on our bodies. In this paper, we provide a framework to
Published 3 March 2021
On the 8th of January 1740, the Dutch East India Company (VOC) ship
Rooswijk weighed anchor and left harbour on the Dutch island of Texel, carrying a varied cargo that included large quantities of silver coins and bullion intended for trade. This marked the start of what would have been an arduous 9-12-month long journey to Batavia, the then capital of the former Dutch East Indies (now Jakarta, Indonesia). However, by the next day
Rooswijk had been driven onto the Goodwin Sands off the coast of Kent and subsequently broke up – sinking with no survivors. Passing into obscurity, it was not until 2005 that the ship was re-discovered following a search by recreational diver Ken Welling.