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Showing posts with label Magnetic field. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Magnetic field. Show all posts

Saturday, May 08, 2010

Elements of Attraction [Today's News Poem, May 8, 2010]

Elements of Attraction [Today's News Poem, May 8, 2010]

Awakening Gaia—who slumbers in magma,
Recoiling from birth even now, in the churning
Of iron—intelligence flickers in magnets.
We creep and we fly through the dreams of our hostess.
She's muttering curses. We're misapprehending
The message of burning. The ashes may flutter
And scorch what's not smothered; a gusher in oceans
Ignites on the surface and swims with the currents;
The coal in the seams in the mines is a shadow
Of flames ever spinning and reeling from natal
Exertions. She lusts for the Sun and she pities
Near Luna—it's old and depleted and barren.
The Sun is much finer: alone in the darkness
The system surrounds it, enthralled with attraction.

“British air passengers faced more misery on Saturday as a volcanic ash cloud from Iceland continued to disrupt European flight schedules. ”
– BBC, 22:53 GMT, Saturday, 8 May 2010 23:53 UK
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/8670339.stm

“Gulf fishery managers are bracing for the arrival of oil gushing from a ruptured undersea wellhead off Louisiana's coast since April 20, when the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig under contract with BP Plc exploded. The blast killed 11 crew members, sank the rig and unleashed a spill that could eclipse the 1989 Exxon Valdez disaster in Alaska.”
– Steve Gorman, Reuters, Sat May 8, 2010 1:07am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6470GI20100508?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews

“Four hours after an explosion killed at least eight people in Russia's largest coal mine, Raspadskaya, another blast rocked the West Siberian mine, a source in the mine's administration said on Sunday. "The blast took place at about 1:00 a.m. Moscow time," the source said without elaborating. The information is yet to be officially confirmed.”
– RIA Novosti, 03:06 05/09/2010, accessed May 8, 2010, 4:51pm PST
http://en.rian.ru/russia/20100509/158935952.html

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Tuesday, May 04, 2010

The Ghosts of Banquo and Icarus [Today's News Poem May 4, 2010]

The Ghosts of Banquo and Icarus [Today's News Poem May 4, 2010]

Floes adrift on lava float away on molten
Clay and grind their teeth together; loosening, then
Crumbling the brittle igneous to boulders,
Else to rifts and canyons. Poles align to colder
Regions, warmer climes, then back again. It shudders;
Vomits rock and ash so hot the vessel's rudders
Fail. The oceans boil the krill. The storks are trailing
Embers, losing feathers, melting skin and wailing.
Splash! The potion's seasoned. Princes feed, while rulers
Sleep in beds of sand and wait for something crueler.

“A tumble in global stocks spread to Asia on Wednesday on heightening fears that Greece's debt woes could spread to other countries.”
– Vikram S Subhedar, Reuters, Wed May 5, 2010 12:28am EDT
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6360JO20100505
“BP Plc is fighting the oil slick menacing the Gulf Coast with more than 150,000 gallons of a detergent-like chemical intended to blend oil and water. ”
– Bloomberg Business Week, May 05, 2010, 12:22 AM EDT
http://www.businessweek.com/news/2010-05-05/bp-s-cleanup-uses-detergent-like-chemical-to-attack-oil-slick.html
“Every so often, movements deep within the iron core of the Earth mean that the planet flips its magnetic field; south becomes north and north becomes south. The last reversal was 780,000 years ago, and there are signs that another could be on the way soon. "The strength of the Earth's magnetic field has decreased by nearly eight per cent in the last 150 years," says Nils Olsen of Denmark's National Space Institute. "In some regions it has decreased by 10 per cent in just 20 years."”
– Kate Ravilious, The Telegraph, 10:59PM BST 26 Apr 2010
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/7636088/After-the-volcano.-.-.-the-threat-of-further-natural-disasters.html


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