Frozen waves captured in Nantucket surf photos

Frozen waves are photographed on Nantucket, Massachusetts. Photo by Jonathan Nimerfroh used by permission

Photographer was shocked to see ‘Slurpee waves’; a day later, ocean was frozen

The unusually cold winter of Massachusetts produced an incredible phenomenon 100 miles southeast of Boston on the island of Nantucket recently: frozen waves, or, as some are describing them, Slurpee waves.

Photographer Jonathan Nimerfroh had just finished a photo shoot when he decided to check out the beach, since they surf there in the winter.

He told GrindTV that the horizon had an eerie look to it, and upon closer inspection he discovered something very unusual.

“When I got to the top of the dunes, I could see that about 300 yards out from the shoreline the ocean was starting to freeze,” he told Shutterbug.com.

Waves were turning to slush, so Nimerfroh started taking photos of the Slurpee waves and the images started going viral Thursday.


Frozen waves are photographed on Nantucket, Massachusetts. Photo by Jonathan Nimerfroh used by permission


Frozen wave of Nantucket. Photo by Jonathan Nimerfroh used by permission


Frozen wave of Nantucket. Photo by Jonathan Nimerfroh used by permission


Frozen wave of Nantucket. Photo by Jonathan Nimerfroh used by permission

The high temperature of the day was 19 degrees Fahrenheit and the wind was howling from the southwest, which would typically make rough or choppy conditions not good for surfing, Nimerfroh explained to Shutterbug.com.

“But since the surface of the sea was frozen slush, the wind did not change the shape,” he said. “They were perfect dreamy slush waves.

“What an experience to be absolutely freezing on the beach watching these roll in while I mind-surfed them. I wonder if a shaper can make me a special-designed slurfboard?”

The next day, Nimerfroh went back to see if the waves had melted and discovered another oddity: The same 300-yard stretch out into the ocean was frozen on the surface. It was 10 inches thick.

“No waves at all,” he told Shutterbug.com. “I’ve been asking all the fishermen and surfers if they have ever seen such a thing. This is a first, they all said.”

It fits in quite nicely to the Massachusetts winter of firsts, then.


Original post found here: http://www.grindtv.com/lifestyle/in-style/post/frozen-waves-captured-nantucket-surf-photos/

More Mysterious Craters Found in Siberia

A Siberian hole that opened up mysteriously and was reported in July 2014

Last summer, the discovery of several new giant craters in Siberia drew worldwide interest, launching wild speculation that meteorites, or even aliens, caused the gaping crevasses. And now, scientists have found even more of them.


In July 2014, reindeer herders discovered a 260-feet-wide (80 meters) crater in northern Russia's Yamal Peninsula. Later that month, two more craters were discovered in the Tazovsky district and Taymyr Peninsula (also spelled Taimyr), respectively.

Now, satellite images have revealed at least four more craters, and at least one is surrounded by as many as 20 mini craters, The Siberian Times reported. [See Photos of Siberia's Mysterious Craters]

"We know now of seven craters in the Arctic area," Vasily Bogoyavlensky, a scientist at the Moscow-based Oil and Gas Research Institute, told The Siberian Times. "Five are directly on the Yamal Peninsula, one in Yamal autonomous district, and one is on the north of the Krasnoyarsk region, near the Taimyr Peninsula."

Now, two of the craters have turned into lakes, satellite images reveal. A crater called B2, located 6.2 miles (10 kilometers) south of Bovanenkovo, a major gas field in the Yamalo-Nenets autonomous district, is now a large lake ringed by more than 20 smaller water-filled craters.

But Bogoyavlensky thinks there may be many more. He called for further investigation of the craters, out of safety concerns for the region. "We must research this phenomenon urgently, to prevent possible disasters," he said.

Trapped gases

Although the origin of these craters remains somewhat mysterious, many scientists think they were created by explosions of high-pressure gas released from melting permafrost, or frozen soil, due to the warming of the climate.

"In my opinion, it definitely relates to warming and permafrost," said Vladimir Romanovsky,a geophysicist who studies permafrost at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

Romanovskythinks he knows how this occurs: Pressurized gas — mostly methane, but possibly carbon dioxide as well — exists beneath the permafrost. Since warming temperatures thaw the permafrost from the bottom up, an underground cavity forms, Romanovsky said. As the gas gets close to the surface, it deforms the ground above, creating a small hill. Finally, the pressurized gas erupts through the surface, forming a crater, he said.

In November 2014, scientists went on an expedition to study the Yamal crater, snapping some stunning photos. Vladimir Pushkarev, director of the Russian Centre of Arctic Exploration, actually climbed down into the crater on a rope to observe it from the inside.

"You can see from the photographs a very different structure," where most of the hole is caved in, but only the upper 16 to 23 feet (5 to 7 m) looks like a crater, Romanovsky told Live Science. "Only the upper several meters [of ground] was thrown away, but most of the hole was actually there before the eruption."

Dangerous explosions

The erupting methane may have even caught fire. Residents near the crater in the town of Antipayuta reported seeing a bright flash in the distance, according to The Siberian Times.

"Probably the gas ignited," Bogoyavlensky told The Siberian Times. Investigating the craters will be dangerous, because scientists don't know when the gas emissions will occur, he added.

How the methane would have caught fire is somewhat of a mystery, Romanovsky said. "It seems like it happened during wintertime, so there should be no thunderstorms, no lightning," he said. He thinks the methane probably erupted without igniting, just due to high pressure.

These craters should only form when the temperature is warm enough to melt the permafrost. "If the warming continues, we will see more and more of this phenomenon," Romanovsky said. It could happen anywhere there are enough sources of natural gas, including parts of Alaska and northwestern Canada, he added.

Original post found here: http://news.yahoo.com/more-mysterious-craters-found-siberia-120514819.html

APNewsbreak: Police foil plot to kill people at mall

A car is parked outside a home on Tiger Maple Drive in Timberlea, Nova Scotia, a Halifax suburb, where police found a deceased person Friday, Feb. 13, 2015. A senior police official said Friday police foiled a plot by suspects who were planning on going to a mall and killing as many people as they could before killing themselves on Valentine’s Day in Halifax. The official told The Associated Press the suspects were on a chat stream and were apparently obsessed with killing and death and had many photos of mass killings. (The Canadian Press, Andrew Vaughan/Associated Press)

TORONTO — A senior police official said that police foiled a plot by two suspects who were planning on going to a mall and killing as many people as they could before committing suicide on Valentine’s Day in Halifax.
The official told The Associated Press on Friday the suspects were on a chat stream and were apparently obsessed with death and had many photos of mass killings. Police and other officials said it was not related to Islamic terrorism.

The official said one of the two suspects, a 23-year-old American woman from Geneva, Illinois, was arrested at Halifax’s airport and confessed to the plot. The official said she prewrote a number of pronouncements to be tweeted after her death.
Police said the suspects had access to firearms, but did not elaborate.
The official said the 19-year-old male shot himself to death after police were tipped off about the plot and they surrounded his home. Police saw two people leave the house who they determined were his parents and pulled them over on a traffic check. They then called the suspect. As the man told police that he didn’t have any guns and he was on his way out of the house he shot himself, the official said.
The official spoke anonymously because they were not authorized to speak publicly.
Police earlier said two other Nova Scotia men, ages 20 and 17, were also involved, although investigators are still trying to determine what their roles were. The police official said the 17-year-old male was wanted for threatening to shoot up a high school and had an outstanding warrant.
“Had they been able to carry out their intentions the possibility for a large loss of life was definitely there,” Brian Brennan, Nova Scotia Royal Canadian Mounted Police Commanding Officer, said earlier Friday.
“We believe we have apprehended all known individuals in this matter and have eliminated the threat. We are not seeking any further suspects at this time in relation to this investigation.”

Canadian Public Safety Minister Steven Blaney applauded the work of police in Canada and Geneva, Illinois and well as border officials in a statement. The Geneva police department said in a statement they were contacted by Canadian police and had no contact with the American woman before her arrest.
Canadian Justice Minister Peter MacKay has scheduled a news conference for Saturday morning.
Copyright 2015 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

Original post found here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/canadian-police-foil-plot-to-kill-people-in-halifax/2015/02/13/99ec3e60-b3e1-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html

Scientists warn of 'mega-drought' risk in western US

Currently the western United States has been experiencing a drought for about 11 of the past 14 years (AFP Photo/Justin Sullivan)

 San José (United States) (AFP) - Long-lasting mega-droughts could occur with increasing frequency in the western United States later this century if no action is taken to rein in climate change by curbing fossil fuel use, researchers said.

Mega-drought is defined as any drought as bad as the worst already seen in the 20th century, but lasting much longer, for 35 years or more.

The study is the first to predict that the coming intense dry spells could exceed the decades-long mega-droughts that occurred centuries ago and are blamed for the demise of certain civilizations in the late 13th century.
"I was honestly surprised at just how dry the future is likely to be," said co-author Toby Ault, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University.
"I look at these future mega-droughts like a slow moving natural disaster. We have to put mega-droughts into the same category as other natural disasters that can be dealt with through risk management."
The risks and dangers are worse today because of the larger population and greater dependence on water resources, scientists warned.

A woman looks at a pier once surrounded by the waters of Lake Buchanan on March 12, 2014 in Burnet,  …

 

"We are the first to do this kind of quantitative comparison between the projections and the distant past, and the story is a bit bleak," said Jason Smerdon, a co-author and climate scientist at the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, part of the Earth Institute at Columbia University.
"Even when selecting for the worst mega-drought-dominated period, the 21st century projections make the mega-droughts seem like quaint walks through the Garden of Eden."
- 'Unfavorable' forecast -

Researchers applied 17 different climate models to analyze the future impact of rising temperatures on regions from Mexico to the United States and Canada.

They also projected a continued rise in emissions of the greenhouse gases that contribute to global warming, and looked at a scenario in which actions were taken to cut back on greenhouse gases resulting in lower emissions. Both approaches raised concern for the future.

Water levels in Lake Success remain desperately low as the drought worsens on February 11, 2015 near …

"The results... are extremely unfavorable for the continuation of agricultural and water resource management as they are currently practiced in the Great Plains and southwestern United States," said David Stahle, professor in the Department of Geosciences at the University of Arkansas who was not involved in the study.

Currently the western United States has been experiencing a drought for about 11 of the past 14 years.

The dry area spans California, Nevada, New Mexico, Arizona, Texas and Oklahoma and other parts of the region, directly affects more than 64 million people.
"Natural droughts like the 1930s Dust Bowl and the current drought in the Southwest have historically lasted maybe a decade or a little less," said Benjamin Cook of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory.
"What these results are saying is we're going to get a drought similar to those events, but it is probably going to last at least 30 to 35 years."

The research was presented at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting, and published in a new AAAS online journal called Science Advances.

Original post found here: http://news.yahoo.com/scientists-warn-mega-drought-risk-western-us-224005257.html

Rise in substantiated chokehold complaints in NYC points to need for better-defined chokehold ban

Fox News Contributor Bo Dietl discusses the NYPD’s need for new bulletproof vests and the movie ‘American Sniper.’

 Police watchdogs in New York City saw a significant increase in verified complaints of police officers using a banned chokehold maneuver in 2014.

The Civilian Complaint Review Board is an independent agency that handles police misconduct grievances. While the number of chokehold-related complaints the board receives hasn’t changed drastically over the past few years, The New York Times reported this week that the number of complaints it has been able to substantiate has increased. Six out of the 222 chokehold complaints the board received last year were substantiated, compared to two out of 197 the year before. Between the years of 2009 and 2013, the board confirmed nine chokehold complaints — only three more than in 2014 alone. And it just confirmed a seventh in January.

The Times notes that, since the volume of complaints hasn’t really wavered over the years, the rise in substantiated claims can be attributed to changes in the board’s evaluation process under new chairman Richard Emery. New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio appointed Emery, a civil rights attorney, to head up the review board on July 17, 2014 — the same day a Staten Island man named Eric Garner died after a New York police officer put him in a chokehold. 

The new figures emphasize the same concerns brought to light by Garner’s death about how often the chokehold is used by police officers — not only in New York but in other cities and counties where the maneuver is banned — and how that ban is enforced, if at all.

In the case of New York City, once a misconduct complaint has been verified, the review board submits a recommendation to the police commissioner for how the offending officers should be punished. But, the Times reports, despite the fact that the review board recommends harsh discipline (such as suspension  or termination) in most chokehold cases, officers who’ve violated the ban in recent years have barely even been punished by the police department.

Attempting to examine New York’s situation through a wider lens highlights an even bigger issue: There is no national data on police use of banned chokeholds because there is no official, comprehensive, nationwide database for complaints of police misconduct. Even comparing the NYPD to other major police departments with similar bans isn’t easy.  

“There are about 200 oversight entities across the country — at this point, most major police departments have some kind of oversight — and they’re all different,” Brian Buchner, president of the nonprofit National Association for Civilian Oversight for Law Enforcement, said. “No two are exactly alike.”

Chicago and Los Angeles, for example, may seem comparable because of their size and the fact that both police departments have similar prohibitions on the use of suffocating techniques, like the chokehold banned by the NYPD. But Buchner points out that the drastic differences in how those cities handle complaints of officer misconduct makes it impossible to compare them.

“In Chicago, a complaint will not be investigated if the complainant does not sign an affidavit swearing to the truthfulness of their complaint,” Buchner said. “In L.A., anyone can file a complaint. It can be anonymous, it can be a third party, but the LAPD is obligated to investigate them all."

The NYPD first issued a ban on the use of chokeholds in 1993 amid something of a nationwide movement to combat a rising number of deaths in police custody — many of which were believed to have been caused by variations of the potentially lethal chokehold maneuver.

But even as police departments around the country proceeded to adopt similar prohibitions, each new ban varied greatly from the last.

Chicago’s policy, which has only been in place since 2012, doesn’t even use the word “chokehold.” The LAPD, on the other hand, first banned one version of the previously popular mode of restriction in 1982 following a lawsuit. Today, Los Angeles treats “carotid chokeholds,” a specific kind of restraint that applies pressure to the neck on both sides, like any other deadly weapon: It's permitted only when deadly force is needed and even then requiring the same kind of review that would follow a police shooting.

Even though New York City’s ban has been in place for more than two decades, Garner’s death — and the ensuing dispute over whether or not the move that preceded it qualified as a chokehold — revealed departmentwide confusion over what a chokehold even is. The Garner fallout prompted law enforcement officials to consider broadening the ban to include any type of neck pressure or to adopt something like the Los Angeles model. New York City Council is even considering passing a law to criminalize chokeholds during an arrest, though de Blasio has already promised to veto it.

The continued public interest in police oversight following a summer strewn with high-profile deaths like Garner's at the hands of police is sure to further illuminate the need for comprehensive, nationwide law enforcement data. But in the case of the chokehold ban, it seems that New York police can’t be compared to those in other cities, let alone to one another, until everyone understands what the “chokehold ban” really means. 

Original post found here: http://news.yahoo.com/rise-in-substantiated-chokehold-complaints-in-nyc-illuminates-need-for-better-defined-chokehold-ban-010052104.html

Funeral set for 3 killed near University of North Carolina

CHAPEL HILL, N.C. (AP) — Thousands of people are expected to attend a prayer service for three young adults gunned down in North Carolina in what police call a long-running dispute over parking spaces.
Family and friends gathering for Thursday's funeral and burial services for the newlywed couple and the wife's sister are grappling with questions about whether the violence had some connection to their Muslim faith. The father of the two slain women says hatred of Muslims might explain why the dispute erupted into death. Officials have said they are still investigating any possibilities the crime was hate-motivated.
Charged with three counts of first-degree murder is Craig Stephen Hicks, 46, who has described himself as a "gun toting" atheist. Neighbors said Wednesday that he always seemed angry and confrontational. His ex-wife said he was obsessed with the shooting-rampage movie "Falling Down" and showed "no compassion at all" for other people.
His current wife, Karen Hicks, said that her husband "champions the rights of others" and that the killings "had nothing do with religion or the victims' faith." She then issued another brief statement, saying she's divorcing him.
Officers were summoned when a neighbor called 911 Tuesday evening to report hearing multiple gunshots and people screaming.
Found dead at the scene were Deah Shaddy Barakat, 23; his wife, Yusor Mohammad, 21; and her sister Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19. In a brief court appearance Wednesday, Hicks, who lived in the same apartment building as the victims, pleaded indigence and was appointed a public defender.
The women's father, Mohammad Abu-Salha, said police told him each was shot in the head in the couple's apartment and that he's convinced it was a hate crime.
"The media here bombards the American citizen with Islamic, Islamic, Islamic terrorism and makes people here scared of us and hate us and want us out. So if somebody has any conflict with you, and they already hate you, you get a bullet in the head," said Abu-Salha, a psychiatrist.
The killings are fueling outrage among people who blame anti-Muslim rhetoric for hate crimes. A Muslim advocacy organization pressed authorities to investigate possible religious bias. Many posted social media updates with the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter.
"We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated, and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case," Chapel Hill police Chief Chris Blue said in an email.
Chapel Hill Police asked the FBI for help, and Ripley Rand, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina, said his office was monitoring the investigation. Rand said the crime "appears at this point to have been an isolated incident."
About 2,000 people attended a candlelight vigil for the victims Wednesday evening at UNC. Several people who knew them spoke about their selflessness as friends recounted kindnesses they had extended to others through the years.
Barakat and Mohammad were newlyweds who helped the homeless and raised money to help Syrian refugees in Turkey. They met while helping to run the Muslim Student Association at N.C. State before he began pursuing an advanced degree in dentistry at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Mohammad, who graduated in December, planned to join her husband in dentistry school in the fall.
Abu-Salha was visiting them Tuesday from Raleigh, where she was majoring in design at N.C. State.
"This was like the power couple of our community," said Ali Sajjad, 21, the N.C. State association's current president.
Many of the condominiums in the complex are rented or owned by students and recent graduates at UNC — campus is 3 miles away.
Hicks had less success. His wife said Hicks, unemployed and driving a 15-year-old car, had been studying to become a paralegal.

Alesso And Calvin Harris’s Newest Hit ‘Under Control’ Is Already Over A Year And A Half Old (Listen)

When Alesso and Calvin Harris first debuted their newest track “Under Control” a few weeks ago, something seemed a little fishy. Well, after some searching and some friendly help, it turns out that “Under Control” sans Theo Hutchcraft‘s vocals happens to be over a year and a half old.

When EDC first made its way to New York back in 2012, Alesso graced the main stage with a massive set. During that set, Alesso did a track mixed with the vocals of “Wild One Two” by David Guetta.

If you look at the Youtube video below, you can easily identify the track as the beat for “Under Control.”

With that being said, one begins to ponder; if the track was already made, what did Calvin Harris do on it?

As fans, we will probably never know, but adding a name like Calvin Harris on to anything, even if you’re Alesso, will help boost its popularity immensely. Check out the video below and let us know how you feel about this discovery!

Read more: http://elitedaily.com/music/music-news/alesso-calvin-harris-newest-hit-control-already-year-half-old/