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World's Most Complete Map

BBC Geographical Science -- The most complete terrain map of the Earth's surface has been published. The data, comprising 1.3 million images, come from a collaboration between the US space agency Nasa and the Japanese trade ministry. The images were taken by Japan's Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer (Aster) aboard the Terra satellite. The resulting Global Digital Elevation Map covers 99% of the Earth's surface, and will be free to download and use. The Terra satellite, dedicated to Earth monitoring missions, has shed light on issues ranging from algal blooms to volcano eruptions. For the Aster measurements, local elevation was mapped with each point just 30m apart. "This is the most complete, consistent global digital elevation data yet made available to the world," said Woody Turner, Nasa programme scientist on the Aster mission. (06/30/09)

India Facing Drought

BBC Weather Science -- A heat wave is sweeping the country and rains are delayed in many parts. Rains usually last from June to September. "It [the monsoon] is late," federal minister Prithviraj Chavan told reporters. North-west India appeared to be worst affected by the slow rains with only 81% rains forecast. Monsoon rains are critical to India's farm prospects, which account for a sixth of economic output. Up to 70% of Indians are dependent on farm incomes, and about 60% of India's farms depend on rains. Irrigation networks are dismissed by critics as inadequate. The summer rains are crucial to crops such as rice, soybean, sugarcane and cotton. ... "Praying for rain, bracing for worst" headlined the Hindustan Times on its front page on Wednesday. The newspaper said that in at least eight states, monsoon rains so far had been 60 to 90% below normal. "There is concern but no worry as yet. There is still time," Farm Secretary T Nanda Kumar told the newspaper. One analyst said delay in the rains in some parts of India could hit economic growth. "Delay in monsoon will play the spoilsport and may hit GDP by at least 1 to 1.5 percentage points," stockbroker VK Sharma, told the Reuters news agency. Economists agree that the delay will cause further stress in a country where food prices are already high. (06/25/09)

Creative Genius 50,000 Years Ago?

BBC Archaeological Science -- Scientists in Germany have published details of flutes dating back to the time that modern humans began colonising Europe, 35,000 years ago. The flutes are the oldest musical instruments found to date. The researchers say in the journal Nature that music was widespread in pre-historic times. Music, they suggest, may have been one of a suite of behaviours displayed by our own species which helped give them an edge over the Neanderthals. The team from Tubingen University have published details of three flutes found in the Hohle Fels cavern in southwest Germany. The cavern is already well known as a site for signs of early human efforts; in May, members of the same team unveiled a Hohle Fels find that could be the world's oldest Venus figure. The most well-preserved of the flutes is made from a vulture's wing bone, measuring 20cm long with five finger holes and two "V"-shaped notches on one end of the instrument into which the researchers assume the player blew. The archaeologists also found fragments of two other flutes carved from ivory that they believe was taken from the tusks of mammoths. The find brings the total number of flutes discovered from this era to eight, four made from mammoth ivory and four made from bird bones. According to Professor Nicholas Conard of Tubingen University, this suggests that the playing of music was common as far back as 40,000 years ago when modern humans spread across Europe. "It's becoming increasingly clear that music was part of day-to-day life. Music was used in many kinds of social contexts: possibly religious, possibly recreational - much like we use music today in many kinds of settings." ... Professor Chris Stringer, a human origins researcher at the Natural History Museum in London comments: "These flutes provide yet more evidence of the sophistication of the people that lived at that time and the probable behavioural and cognitive gulf between them and Neanderthals. I think the occurrence of these flutes and animal and human figurines about 40,000 years ago implies that the traditions that produced them must go back even further in the evolutionary history of modern humans - perhaps even into Africa more than 50,000 years ago. (06/25/09)

Out of the Ashes

Ellen Brown writes: To put our new car company American Motors (formerly General Motors) to good use, we just need to own a bank. The federal government could create its own credit with its own government-owned lending facility, on the model of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation used by President Roosevelt to fund the New Deal. But instead of merely recycling borrowed money as Roosevelt did, the new facility could actually create credit on its books. Its capital base could be leveraged into many times that sum in loans, in the same way that private banks routinely create money (or “credit”) today. Assuming a reserve requirement of 10%, if the $300 billion or so that remains of the TARP money were deposited in the new bank, this money could be leveraged into $3 trillion in loans. If the money were counted as capital, at an 8% capital requirement it could become $3.75 trillion in loans, or 12.5 times the original sum. Indeed, it is the sovereign right of governments to create the national money supply, but few governments exercise that right today. The only money the U.S. government now issues are coins, which compose only about one ten-thousandth of the U.S. M3 money supply. The rest is created by private banking institutions when they make loans. This includes the privately-owned Federal Reserve, which creates Federal Reserve Notes (dollar bills) and lends them to the government and to commercial banks. Federal Reserve Notes compose only 3% of the money supply. All of the rest consists merely of credit created on the books of private banks. Many authorities have attested that banks simply create the money they lend as accounting entries on their books. The Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas states on its website: “Banks actually create money when they lend it. Here’s how it works: Most of a bank’s loans are made to its own customers and are deposited in their checking accounts. Because the loan becomes a new deposit, just like a paycheck does, the bank … holds a small percentage of that new amount in reserve and again lends the remainder to someone else, repeating the money-creation process many times.” This was confirmed recently by President Obama himself. In a speech at Georgetown University on April 14, he said: “[A]lthough there are a lot of Americans who understandably think that government money would be better spent going directly to families and businesses instead of banks—‘where’s our bailout?’ they ask—the truth is that a dollar of capital in a bank can actually result in eight or ten dollars of loans to families and businesses, a multiplier effect that can ultimately lead to a faster pace of economic growth.” The money generated by banks through the multiplier effect comes at a heavy cost in interest. One advantage of a government-owned bank is that it could fund public projects interest-free or nearly interest-free, cutting production costs dramatically. Interest comprises as much as 77% of the cost of goods and services, such as public housing, that require large amounts of capital. The cost of interest is lower for labor-based services such as garbage collection, for which it makes up only about 12% of the cost. Averaging them all together, the overall cost of interest has been estimated to be about half the cost of everything we buy. If money for infrastructure development were issued interest-free, projects currently considered unsustainable because of the burden of interest could become not only self-sustaining but actually profitable for the government. (06/16/09)

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