#BentBritain: #UK admits unlawfully monitoring legally privileged communications!

UK admits unlawfully monitoring legally privileged communications ~ Alan Travis and Owen Bowcott, The Guardian, Wednesday 18 February 2015.

Intelligence agencies have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for past five years, government admits

The admission comes ahead of a legal challenge brought on behalf of two Libyans, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, over allegations that security services unlawfully intercepted their communications with lawyers.  Photograph: PA & AFP

The regime under which UK intelligence agencies, including MI5 and MI6, have been monitoring conversations between lawyers and their clients for the past five years is unlawful, the British government has admitted.

The admission that the activities of the security services have failed to comply fully with human rights laws in a second major area – this time highly sensitive legally privileged communications – is a severe embarrassment for the government.

It follows hard on the heels of the British court ruling on 6 February declaring that the regime surrounding the sharing of mass personal intelligence data between America’s national security agency and Britain’s GCHQ was unlawful for seven years.

UK-US surveillance regime was unlawful ‘for seven years’

The admission that the regime surrounding state snooping on legally privileged communications has also failed to comply with the European convention on human rights comes in advance of a legal challenge, to be heard early next month, in which the security services are alleged to have unlawfully intercepted conversations between lawyers and their clients to provide the government with an advantage in court.

The case is due to be heard before the Investigatory Powers Tribunal (IPT). It is being brought by lawyers on behalf of two Libyans, Abdel-Hakim Belhaj and Sami al-Saadi, who, along with their families, were abducted in a joint MI6-CIA operation and sent back to Tripoli to be tortured by Muammar Gaddafi’s regime in 2004.

A government spokesman said: “The concession the government has made today relates to the agencies’ policies and procedures governing the handling of legally privileged communications and whether they are compatible with the European convention on human rights.

“In view of recent IPT judgments, we acknowledge that the policies adopted since [January] 2010 have not fully met the requirements of the ECHR, specifically article 8 (right to privacy). This includes a requirement that safeguards are made sufficiently public.

“It does not mean that there was any deliberate wrongdoing on their part of the security and intelligence agencies, which have always taken their obligations to protect legally privileged material extremely seriously. Nor does it mean that any of the agencies’ activities have prejudiced or in any way resulted in an abuse of process in any civil or criminal proceedings.”

He said that the intelligence agencies would now work with the interception of communications commissioner to ensure their policies satisfy all of the UK’s human rights obligations.

Cori Crider, a director at Reprieve and one of the Belhaj family’s lawyers said: “By allowing the intelligence agencies free reign to spy on communications between lawyers and their clients, the government has endangered the fundamental British right to a fair trial.

“Reprieve has been warning for months that the security services’ policies on lawyer-client snooping have been shot through with loopholes big enough to drive a bus through.

“For too long, the security services have been allowed to snoop on those bringing cases against them when they speak to their lawyers. In doing so, they have violated a right that is centuries old in British common law. Today they have finally admitted they have been acting unlawfully for years.

“Worryingly, it looks very much like they have collected the private lawyer-client communications of two victims of rendition and torture, and possibly misused them. While the government says there was no ‘deliberate’ collection of material, it’s abundantly clear that private material was collected and may well have been passed on to lawyers or ministers involved in the civil case brought by Abdel hakim Belhaj and Fatima Boudchar, who were ‘rendered’ to Libya in 2004 by British intelligence.

“Only time will tell how badly their case was tainted. But right now, the government needs urgently to investigate how things went wrong and come clean about what it is doing to repair the damage.”

Government sources, in line with all such cases, refuse to confirm or deny whether the two Libyans were the subject of an interception operation. They insist the concession does not concern the allegation that actual interception took place and say it will be for the investigatory powers tribunal hearing to determine the issue.

An updated draft interception code of practice spelling out the the rules for the first time was quietly published at the same time as the Investigatory Powers Tribunal ruling against GCHQ earlier this month in the case brought by Privacy International and Liberty.

The government spokesman said the draft code set out enhanced safeguards and provided more detail than previously on the protections that had to be applied in the security agencies handling of legally privileged communications.

The draft code makes clear that warrants for snooping on legally privileged conversations, emails and other communications between suspects and their lawyers can be granted if there are exceptional and compelling circumstances. They have to however ensure that they are not available to lawyers or policy officials who are conducting legal cases against those suspects.

Exchanges between lawyers and their clients enjoy a special protected status under UK law. Following exposure of widespread monitoring by the US whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013, Belhaj’s lawyers feared that their exchanges with their clients could have been compromised by GCHQ’s interception of phone conversations and emails.

To demonstrate that its policies satisfy legal safeguards, MI6 were required in advance of Wednesday’s concession to disclose internal guidance on how intelligence staff should deal with material protected by legal professional privilege.

The MI6 papers noted: “Undertaking interception in such circumstances would be extremely rare and would require strong justification and robust safeguards. It is essential that such intercepted material is not acquired or used for the purpose of conferring an unfair or improper advantage on SIS or HMG [Her Majesty’s government] in any such litigation, legal proceedings or criminal investigation.”

The internal documents also refer to a visit by the interception commissioner, Sir Anthony May, last summer to examine interception warrants, where it was discovered that regulations were not being observed. “In relation to one of the warrants,” the document explained, “the commissioner identified a number of concerns with regard to the handling of [legal professional privilege] material”.

Amnesty UK’s legal programme director, Rachel Logan, said: “We are talking about nothing less than the violation of a fundamental principle of the rule of law – that communications between a lawyer and their client must be confidential.

“The government has been caught red-handed. The security agencies have been illegally intercepting privileged material and are continuing to do so – this could mean they’ve been spying on the very people challenging them in court.

“This is the second time in as many weeks that government spies have been rumbled breaking the law.”

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#Obama’s ‘Crusaders’ analogy veils the #West’s modern crimes!

Obama’s ‘Crusaders’ analogy veils the West’s modern crimes ~ Ben White, The Nation, February 14, 2015.

Like many children, 13-year-old Mohammed Tuaiman suffered from nightmares. In his dreams, he would see flying “death machines” that turned family and friends into burning charcoal. No one could stop them, and they struck any place, at any time.

Unlike most children, Mohammed’s nightmares killed him.

Three weeks ago, a CIA drone operating over Yemen fired a missile at a car carrying the teenager, and two others. They were all incinerated. Nor was Mohammed the first in his family to be targeted: drones had already killed his father and brother.

Since president Barack Obama took office in 2009, the US has killed at least 2,464 people through drone strikes outside the country’s declared war zones. The figure is courtesy of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, which says that at least 314 of the dead, one in seven, were civilians.

Recall that for Obama, as The New York Times reported in May 2012, “all military-age males in a strike zone” are counted “as combatants” – unless “there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent”.

It sounds like the stuff of nightmares.

The week after Mohammed’s death, on February 5, Mr Obama addressed the National Prayer Breakfast, and discussed the violence of ISIL.

“Lest we get on our high horses”, said the commander-in-chief, “remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ.”

These comments prompted a (brief) media storm, with Mr Obama accused of insulting Christians, pandering to the terrorist enemy, or just bad history.

In fact, the president was simply repeating a point often made by liberals since September 11, namely, that all religions have blots on their copy book through the deeds of their followers.

One of the consequences, however, of this invocation of the Crusades – unintended, and all the more significant for it – is to seal away the West’s “sins”, particularly vis-à-vis its relationship to the Middle East, in events that took place a thousand years ago.

The Crusades were, in one sense, a demonstration of raw military power, and a collective trauma for the peoples of the regions they marched through and invaded.

In the siege of Jerusalem in 1099, a witness described how the Europeans ordered “all the Saracen dead to be cast outside because of the great stench, since the whole city was filled with their corpses”.

He added: “No one ever saw or heard of such slaughter of pagan people, for funeral pyres were formed from them like pyramids.”

Or take the Third Crusade, when, on August 20, 1191, England’s King Richard I oversaw the beheading of 3,000 Muslim prisoners at Acre in full view of Saladin’s army.

Just “ancient history”? In 1920, when the French had besieged and captured Damascus, their commander Henri Gourard reportedly went to the grave of Saladin, kicked it, and uttered: “Awake Saladin, we have returned! My presence here consecrates the victory of the Cross over the Crescent.”

But the US president need not cite the Crusades or even the colonial rule of the early 20th century: more relevant reference points would be Bagram and Fallujah.

Bagram base in Afghanistan is where US soldiers tortured prisoners to death – like 22-year-old taxi driver and farmer Dilawar. Before he was killed in custody, Dilawar was beaten by soldiers just to make him scream “Allah!”

Five months after September 11, The Guardian reported that US missiles had killed anywhere between 1,300 and 8,000 in Afghanistan. Months later, the paper suggested that “as many as 20,000 Afghans may have lost their lives as an indirect consequence of the US intervention”.

When it was Iraq’s turn, the people of Fallujah discovered that US forces gave them funerals, not democracy. On April 28, 2003, US soldiers massacred civilian protesters, shooting to death 17 during a demonstration.

When that city revolted against the occupation, the residents paid a price. As Marines tried to quell resistance in the city, wrote The New York Times on April 14, 2004, they had “orders to shoot any male of military age on the streets after dark, armed or not”.Months later, as the Marines launched their November assault on the city, CNN reported that “the sky…seems to explode”.

In their bombardment and invasion of Iraq in 2003, the US and UK armed forces rained fiery death down on men, women and children. Prisoners were tortured and sexually abused. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis died. No one was held to account.

It is one thing to apologise for the brutality of western Crusaders a thousand years ago. It is quite another to look at the corpses of the victims of the imperialist present, or hear the screams of the bereaved.

In his excellent book The Muslims Are Coming, Arun Kundnani analysed the “politics of anti-extremism”, and describes the two approaches developed by policymakers and analysts during the “war on terror”.

The first approach, which he refers to as “culturalism”, emphasises “what adherents regard as inherent features of Islamic culture”. The second approach, “reformism”, is when “extremism is viewed as a perversion of Islam’s message”, rather than “a clash of civilisations between the West’s modern values and Islam’s fanaticism”.

Thus the American Right was angry with Mr Obama, because for them, it is about religion – or specifically, Islam. Liberals, meanwhile, want to locate the problem in terms of culture.

Both want to avoid a discussion about imperialism, massacres, coups, brutalities, disappearances, dictatorships – in other words, politics.

As Kundnani writes: when “the concept of ideology” is made central, whether understood as “Islam itself or as Islamist extremism”, then “the role of western states in co-producing the terror war is obscured”.

The problem with Mr Obama’s comments on the Crusades was not, as hysterical conservatives claimed, that he was making offensive and inaccurate analogies with ISIL; rather, that in the comfort of condemning the past, he could mask the violence of his own government in the present.

The echoes of collective trauma remain for a long time, and especially when new wounds are still being inflicted. Think it is farfetched that Muslims would still care about a 1,000-year-old European invasion? Then try asking them about Guantanamo and Camp Bucca instead.

Ben White is a journalist and author of Israeli Apartheid

Pep Montserrat for The National

NASA’s Cassini catches sunlight glinting off the oceans of Saturn’s moon!

NASA’s Cassini catches sunlight glinting off the oceans of Saturn’s moon ~ Rachel Feltman, The Washington Post, October 30, 2014.

Man, Cassini really is the best. The spacecraft, which orbits Saturn and is basically NASA’s pride and joy, keeps delivering both invaluable data and breathtaking photos. Including that one where Saturn looked like it had a creepy eye.

While it’s obviously a mosaic of several individual shots, the image above is certainly impressive. It’s the first time that one image shows both the polar seas of Titan (one of Saturn’s moons) and the aura of light caused by the sun hitting them. From NASA:

The sunglint, also called a specular reflection, is the bright area near the 11 o’clock position at upper left. This mirror-like reflection, known as the specular point, is in the south of Titan’s largest sea, Kraken Mare, just north of an island archipelago separating two separate parts of the sea.

These seas, which are made up of mostly methane and ethane, are on the planet’s poles — particularly in the north. The rest of the planet is mostly covered in sand dunes.

To the right of the yellow sunglint, the image also captures some bright methane clouds. It could be that these are producing liquid methane rain, keeping the polar seas full. And the bright outline that surrounds the sea (a “bathtub ring”) could represent the sea’s original outline, showing that it’s shrunk in size over time.

Rachel Feltman runs The Post’s Speaking of Science blog.

This near-infrared, color view from Cassini shows the sun glinting off of Titan’s north polar seas. (NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona/University of Idaho)

| Autumn Equinox: 5 Odd Facts About Fall!

Autumn Equinox: 5 Odd Facts About Fall ~ Jeanna Bryner, Managing Editor, Live Science.

The pools have closed and crisp temperatures and crunchy leaves are on their way. Today (Sept. 22) marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall, also called the autumn equinox, in the Northern Hemisphere.

The autumn equinox occurs today at 4:44 p.m. EDT (20:44 UTC) when the sun is directly in line with Earth’s celestial equator, or the equator projected onto the sky. Day and night last about equally long on Sunday, with about 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. This same phenomenon occurs on the spring equinox, which will next occur on March 20.

The date of the fall equinox (and its spring counterpart) varies slightly each year, sometimes falling on the 23rd or 24th depending on the quirks of the calendar, along with Earth’s slightly irregular orbit. Here are five surprising facts about fall and the autumn equinox.

A carpet of fallen leave beneath nearly bare trees, with green grass in the background serving as a memory of summer gone by. Credit: goran cakmazovic

The pools have closed and crisp temperatures and crunchy leaves are on their way. Today (Sept. 22) marks the end of summer and the beginning of fall, also called the autumn equinox, in the Northern Hemisphere.

The autumn equinox occurs today at 4:44 p.m. EDT (20:44 UTC) when the sun is directly in line with Earth’s celestial equator, or the equator projected onto the sky. Day and night last about equally long on Sunday, with about 12 hours of light and 12 hours of dark. This same phenomenon occurs on the spring equinox, which will next occur on March 20.

The date of the fall equinox (and its spring counterpart) varies slightly each year, sometimes falling on the 23rd or 24th depending on the quirks of the calendar, along with Earth’s slightly irregular orbit. Here are five surprising facts about fall and the autumn equinox.

1. Amazing light shows

In addition to the brilliant colors of fall leaves, the autumn equinox signals another colorful spectacle — the aurora borealis, also called theNorthern Lights. Besides the lengthening of nights and cool evening weather, which are great for stargazers, autumn truly is “aurora season,” according to NASA. That’s because geomagnetic storms are about twice as frequent as the annual average during the fall. [Aurora Photos: Northern Lights Dazzle in Night-Sky Images]

Particles that get discharged from the sun during such geomagnetic storms zip toward Earth at breakneck speed. As the particles slam into Earth’s magnetic field, they bump into atoms and molecules of oxygen, nitrogen and other elements. The result? Dazzling light shows, with hues most commonly of pink, green, yellow, blue, violet and occasionally orange and white — depending on what elements the particles collide with.

2. Animals respond, testes swell

Living things respond to the light changes that come with fall, with trees shedding their leaves and animals preparing for hibernation. Fall can bring an especially noticeable change to the high-attitude-livingmale Siberian hamster. That’s because the rodent’s testes swell up 17 times their size from short days to long; the swelling allows, in part, the animals to time reproduction properly.

Hamsters aren’t the only creatures to herald in fall in strange ways. When autumn hits, the black-capped chickadee goes gangbusters collecting seeds and hiding them in hundreds of different spots in trees and on the ground. At the same time, the tiny bird’s hippocampus balloons by 30 percent as new nerve cells pop up in this part of the brain, which is responsible for spatial organization and memory.

3. Full moon named for autumn

Autumn gets its own full moon, the Harvest Moon. From Wolf and Sturgeon to Hunter and Harvest, full moons are named for the month or season in which they rise. The Harvest Moon is the full moon closest to the autumn equinox, which occurred on the night of Sept. 18-19 this year.

Before artificial lighting, farmers took advantage of the full moon’s light to harvest their crops. In late summer and early autumn, many crops ripen all at once, making lots of work for farmers who had to stay in the fields after sundown to harvest all the goods. Such moonlight became essential to their harvest, and the Harvest Moon emerged, according to NASA.

4. Why fall leaves may fade

Climate change may dull the picture most synonymous with autumn — fall leaves. Leaves change their wardrobes in response to chilly temperatures and less light (as days begin to shorten); they stop producing chlorophyll, the green pigment that helps leaves capture sunlight to power photosynthesis. As green fades, the leave’s other pigments, such as the orange and yellow of carotenoids shine through. Vibrant red hues are the result of anthocyanins, pigments that are produced in the fall. [Photos of Turning Leaves: The Rich Colors of Fall Foliage]

These autumn colors could be some of the casualties of global warming, say scientists. Research has shown as the world warms, fall-colored leaves are delayed since their cues to change color come partly from cooling temperatures.

Fall’s cool nights and sunny days also help to trigger trees like the sugar maple to store their anthocyanins temporarily in their leaves, giving leaf peepers a show of red. But if global warming leads to warmer nights, paired with autumn’s shortening days, trees may not use their sugars to make red pigments, instead sending that fuel to twigs or burning it off, according to Howie Neufeld, a plant physiologist at Appalachian State University in North Carolina.

Climate change may also alter suitable habitats for trees like the sugar maple known to be big players in fall’s vibrant colors.

5. When is the equinox?

The autumnal equinox falls on different dates each year, usually Sept. 22, like this year, or Sept. 23; but in 1931, the equinox happened on Sept. 24. The reason: The Gregorian calendar doesn’t match up perfectly with the position of Earth in its orbit around the sun.

As Earth orbits the sun, it revolves around its axis at a 23.5-degree angle so that it is pointed directly toward the sun at the summer solstice, directly away from the sun during the winter solstice, and at a right angle with the sun on the equinoxes; that right angle means the sun shines about equal amounts of light across the Northern Hemisphere on the equinoxes. If this trek around the sun took exactly 365 days, Earth would be in its autumn equinox position on the same day each year. Since Earth takes 365.25 days to make a complete journey around the sun, the date is slightly different each year. The fall equinox won’t happen again on Sept. 24 until 2303.

Editor’s Recommendations

• 12 Strangest Sights on Google Earth
• Turning Leaves: The Rich Colors of Fall Foliage
• 50 Interesting Facts About The Earth 

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| Hygiene + Health: 8 Germiest Public Places!

8 Germiest Public Places ~ Editors of Prevention, ABC News.

Prepare to be grossed out.

An average adult can touch as many as 30 objects within a minute, including germ-harboring, high-traffic surfaces such as light switches, doorknobs, phone receivers, and remote controls. At home, you do all that you can to keep the germs at bay. But what happens when you step out the door to go to dinner, do some grocery shopping, or visit the doctor’s office? It’s not pretty.

Here’s where germs are most likely to lurk—and how you can limit your exposure.

Restaurant Menus

Have you ever seen anyone wash off a menu? Probably not. A study in the Journal of Medical Virology reported that cold and flu viruses can survive for 18 hours on hard surfaces. If it’s a popular restaurant, hundreds of people could be handling the menus—and passing their germs on to you.

Never let a menu touch your plate or silverware, and wash your hands after you place your order.

Lemon wedges

According to a 2007 study in the Journal of Environmental Health, nearly 70 percent of the lemon wedges perched on the rims of restaurant glasses contain disease-causing microbes. When the researchers ordered drinks at 21 different restaurants, they found 25 different microorganisms lingering on the 76 lemons that they secured, including E. coli and other fecal bacteria.

Tell your server that you’d prefer your beverage sans fruit. Why risk it? (You might want to skip the diet soda while you’re at it; learn about seven gross side effects of diet soda.)

Condiment Dispensers

It’s the rare eatery that regularly bleaches its condiment containers. And the reality is that many people don’t wash their hands before eating, says Kelly Reynolds, PhD. So while you may be diligent, the guy who poured the ketchup before you may not have been, which means his germs are now on your fries.

Squirt hand sanitizer on the outside of the condiment bottle or use a disinfectant wipe before you grab it. Holding the bottle with a napkin won’t help; napkins are porous, so microorganisms can pass right through, Reynolds says.

Restroom Door Handles

Don’t think you can escape the restroom without touching the door handle? Palm a spare paper towel after you wash up and use it to grasp the handle. Yes, other patrons may think you’re a germ-phobe—but you’ll never see them again, and you’re the one who won’t get sick.

Soap Dispensers

About 25 percent of public restroom dispensers are contaminated with fecal bacteria. Soap that harbors bacteria may seem ironic, but that’s exactly what a recent study found.

“Most of these containers are never cleaned, so bacteria grow as the soap scum builds up,” says Charles Gerba, PhD. “And the bottoms are touched by dirty hands, so there’s a continuous culture feeding millions of bacteria.”

Be sure to scrub hands thoroughly with plenty of hot water for 15 to 20 seconds—and if you happen to have an alcohol-based hand sanitizer, use that, too. (Prefer a more natural route? Check out this DIY natural, effective hand sanitizer.)

Grocery Carts

The handles of almost two-thirds of the shopping carts tested in a 2007 study at the University of Arizona were contaminated with fecal bacteria. In fact, the bacterial counts of the carts exceeded those of the average public restroom.

Swab the handle with a disinfectant wipe before grabbing hold (stores are starting to provide them, so look around for a dispenser). And while you’re wheeling around the supermarket, skip the free food samples, which are nothing more than communal hand-to-germ-to-mouth zones.

10 Germ Hot Spots At Home

Airplane Bathrooms

When Gerba tested for microbes in the bathrooms of commercial jets, he found surfaces from faucets to doorknobs to be contaminated with E. coli. It’s not surprising, then, that you’re 100 times more likely to catch a cold when you’re airborne, according to a recent study in the Journal of Environmental Health Research.

To protect yourself, try taking green tea supplements. In a 2007 study from the University of Florida, people who took a 450-milligram green tea supplement twice a day for 3 months had one-third fewer days of cold symptoms. (See what other supplements you need with the 100 Best Supplements For Women).

Doctor’s office

A doctor’s office is not the place to be if you’re trying to avoid germs. These tips can help limit your exposure.

1. Take your own books and magazines (and kid’s toys, if you have your children or grandchildren with you).

2. Pack your own tissues and hand sanitizers, which should be at least 60% alcohol content.

3. In the waiting room, leave at least two chairs between you and the other patients to reduce your chances of picking up their bugs. Germ droplets from coughing and sneezing can travel about 3 feet before falling to the floor.

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| UK weather: Forecasters warn jet stream plunge may cause unsettled wet weather till August!

Get ready for a typically damp British summer as forecasters warn jet stream plunge could lead to unsettled wet weather into August ~  AMANDA WILLIAMS, Daily Mail.

• Last two weeks of hot, clear days have been replaced by erratic conditions
• Rain and winds of up to 40mph set to hit the coast over next few days
• It is being caused by a south shifting jet stream – fast flowing air currents
• Jet stream sitting further south than is normal for this time of year
• It means the UK is experiencing unsettled and fast moving weather

Britain’s fine weather looks set to be over for the foreseeable future as forecasters warn the unsettled and wet conditions could last until the end of July and into August.

The last two weeks of hot, clear days have been replaced by erratic conditions, including rain and high winds of up to 40mph, interspersed with pockets of warm, sunny and dry periods.

Forecasters have attributed the unpredictable stretch – which is being caused by a south shifting jet stream – to just another ‘typical British summer’.

The Great Marquess steam locomotive cuts her way across gloomy skies on her maiden ‘Fellsman’ voyage of the year over Ribblehead Viaduct in North Yorkshire. It comes as forecasters warn the unsettled and wet conditions could last until the end of July and into August

 

It is one of the most scenic railway routes in Britain, the Settle to Carlisle line. But passengers would have been able to see little of their beautiful surroundings thanks to the ‘typically British’ summer we have been experiencing – caused by a south shifting jet stream

Jet streams are belts of fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmosphere, formed near air masses with significantly different temperatures

 

 

The ‘blink and you’d miss it summer’ is the latest in six months of unsettled weather, including a particularly bitter winter, and unseasonably cold Spring – which saw the coldest Easter Sunday on record.

Jet streams are belts of fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmosphere, formed near air masses with significantly different temperatures.

They are responsible for moving weather around the latitudes.

The Polar jet stream, which is the most northerly jet stream, affects the UK, and tends to be further south in the winter and further north in the summer.

But it has been sitting further south than is normal for this time of year, which is why the UK looks set to experience a wet summer.

 

More…

• The underwater village: Burst dyke leaves entire German town submerged as aerial shots reveal devastation of recent heavy rain

 

BBC weather forecaster Paul Hudson wrote on his blog about the work of Professor Hubert Lamb, who noted a yearly change of pattern from around the middle of June. He called it the ‘return of the westerlies’; and means a ‘typical British Summer’ sees unsettled weather last well into July and August.

He wrote: ‘Lamb’s work effectively describes a typical British summer; one in which long spells of fine settled weather are the exception rather than the rule.

An aerial view over the town of Fischbeck, near Magdeburg in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt after flooding from the river Elbe

The bursting of a dyke, top has led to the flooding of the village. Weeks of heavy rain this spring have sent the Elbe, the Danube and other rivers such as the Vltava and the Saale overflowing their banks, causing extensive damage in central and southern Germany

‘Although it’s early days, there are already indications that this summer is starting to resemble one of Professor Lamb’s typical British summers.’

A Met Office spokesman said what we were experiencing was indeed a ‘typical British summer’.

He said: ‘The weather can be best summed up over the course of the day as quite unsettled, a few places experiencing dry, bright spells, and temperatures will be quite decent when the sun does come out – with highs of around 22 degrees.

‘There is rain clearing out of Scotland, heading into the South West moving along the south coast into the afternoon – turning into heavy rain throughout the evening.

‘There will also be more rain overnight in places and it will windy as well along the western coast, with gusts of between 35-40mph.

A sea of red as giant poppies shine in the sun at Bamburgh in Northumberland. The glorious conditions experienced last weekend, however, already seem like a distant memory

 

But Met forecasters say there will still be some ‘pockets of fine weather’, it just depends ‘where and when you ‘catch them

‘There is a lot of weather going on and it is looking quite unsettled.

JET STREAM: WHY THE WEATHER IS SO UNSETTLED AND WET

 Jet streams are belts of fast flowing, narrow air currents found in the atmosphere, formed near air masses with significantly different temperatures.

They are responsible for moving weather around the latitudes.

The Polar jet stream, which is the most northerly jet stream, affects the UK, and tends to be further south in the winter and further north in the summer.

Recently, the jet stream has been further south – which is why the UK has experienced such wet summers.

A band of high pressure is blocking the path of the jet stream, meaning that the present weather conditions will stay until this pressure moves.

‘The jet stream is a narrow band of fast moving wind high up in the atmosphere, which effectively can steer in low pressure systems off the Atlantic which then get caught up in this area

‘Where that jet stream sits is important. If it is to the north, we get settled conditions.

‘To the south we get unsettled conditions sent to us.

‘At the moment it is sitting more or less over us or just to the south.

‘We will see some bright spells in between, where it is sunny with some pretty decent temperatures, but the weather is moving through quite quickly.

‘It really depends on ‘where and when’ if you are hoping to see better weather.

‘It is typical British weather –  with areas of sunshine and showers.’

Britain’s wheat harvest this year could be almost a third smaller than it was last year due to extreme weather, the National Farmers’ Union has warned.

It said the reduction came after arable crops had been hit by severe snow, rain and flooding since the autumn.

In Europe the torrential weather this spring has sent the Elbe, the Danube and other rivers such as the Vltava and the Saale overflowing their banks, causing extensive damage in central and southern Germany, the Czech Republic, Austria, Slovakia and Hungary.

So far, the flooding in Europe has claimed at least 22 lives.

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| Food Explainer: Why Does Microwaving Water Result in Such Lousy Tea?

 Nadia Arumugam, Slate.

Don’t put this in the microwave! Photo by Oli Scarff/Getty Images.

A reader recently wrote in to ask: Why is tea made with microwave-heated water so lousy compared to tea made with water boiled in a kettle?

Because a proper cup of black tea must be made with water that’s come to a rolling boil. A kettle is designed to heat water evenly to 212 degrees Fahrenheit. Heat at the bottom of the kettle—whether from a heating element embedded in an electric device or from a burner on the stove—creates a natural convection current: The hot water rises and the cool water falls in a cyclical fashion, which uniformly heats the contents of the kettle to a boil (at which point an electric kettle clicks off or a stovetop kettle whistles).

But microwaves don’t heat water evenly, so the boiling process is difficult to control. Microwave ovens shoot tiny waves into the liquid at random locations, causing the water molecules at those points to vibrate rapidly. If the water isn’t heated for long enough, the result is isolated pockets of very hot or boiling water amid a larger body of water that’s cooler. Such water may misleadingly exhibit signs of boiling despite not being a uniform 212 degrees. For instance, what appears to be steam rising from a mug of microwaved water is only moist vapor evaporating off the water’s surface and condensing into mist on contact with cooler air—it’s the same principle that makes our breath visible on frigid days.

Why is water temperature so important to good-tasting tea? When tea leaves meet hot water, hundreds of different compounds that contribute flavor and aroma dissolve and become suspended in the water. Black tea contains two kinds of complex phenolic molecules, also known as tannins: orange-colored theaflavins and red-brownthearubigins. These are responsible for the color and the astringent, brisk taste of brewed black tea, and they are extracted only at near-boiling temperatures.

Water also cooks certain volatile compounds, chemically altering them to produce more nuanced flavors and aromas, such as the earthy, malty, and tabacco notes in black tea. When the water isn’t hot enough to instigate these reactions and produce these bold flavors, tea tastes insipid.

Overheated water results in bad tea, too—and this is also easier to do in a microwave than in a kettle, since there’s no mechanism to indicate when the water has reached a boil. The longer water boils, the more dissolved oxygen it loses—and tea experts say that dissolved oxygen is crucial for a bright and refreshing brew. Microwaved water can also be taken to several degrees above boiling if heated for too long (which is impossible in a kettle, because the metallic surface prevents overheating). Such ultra-hot water destroys desired aromatic compounds and elicits an excess of astringent, bitter notes by overcooking the leaves. Overheated water can also accentuate naturally occurring impurities in the water that contribute off flavors to the final brew.

It’s possible that the material of the heating vessel also affects tea’s flavor. Modern day kettles are invariably made from stainless steel. While stainless steel is considered a nonreactive material, research has shown that minuscule amounts of chromium, iron, and nickel can migrate from a container or a utensil into the food. These don’t pose a safety threat, but they may well subtly affect the taste of water boiled in a kettle. In contrast, only glazed ceramics, glass, and plastics are safe to use in microwaves. It’s not inconceivable that the lack of trace metal ions are partly responsible for a lousy cup of microwave tea.

Microwaved water isn’t totally useless for all tea. In fact, water that’s microwaved to below boiling is ideal for green tea. The mellow, brothy flavors prized in green tea are mostly derived from specific savory-tasting amino acids that start to dissolve at 140 degrees. While mouth-puckering tannins are desirable in black tea, with green tea, boiling water extracts too many astringent notes and too much bitter caffeine that would overwhelm the delicate amino acids. Caffeine is extremely soluble at 212 degrees, but significantly less so at 145 to 175 degrees, the ideal temperature range for brewing green tea.

Food Explainer thanks Lou Bloomfield of the University of Virginia, Skip Rochefort of Oregon State University, and tea expert Bruce Richardson.

 

Previously from the Food Explainer:
What’s the Difference Between Yogurt and “Cultured Dairy Blend”?
Why Does Tomato Sauce Splatter When It Cooks?
Why Does Steam Make Bread Light and Crusty?
Why Does Eating Hot Chilies Make My Nose Run?
Why Are Some Boiled Eggs Easier To Peel Than Others?
Why Does Fish Sauce Have an Expiration Date?
Why Is Cheese Yellow When Milk Is White?

 

 

| Curiosity’s pictures find ancient history of flowing water on Mars!

Mars pebbles prove water history ~ Jonathan Amos, Science correspondent, BBC News.

Scientists now have definitive proof that many of the landscapes seen on Mars were indeed cut by flowing water.

The valleys, channels and deltas viewed from orbit have long been thought to be the work of water erosion, but it is Nasa’s latest rover, Curiosity, that has provided the “ground truth”.

Researchers report its observations of rounded pebbles on the floor of the Red planet’s 150km-wide Gale Crater.

Their smooth appearance is identical to gravels found in rivers on Earth.

Rock fragments that bounce along the bottom of a stream of water will have their edges knocked off, and when these pebbles finally come to rest they will often align in a characteristic overlapping fashion.

Curiosity has pictured these features in a number of rock outcrops at the base of Gale Crater.

It is confirmation that water has played its part in sculpting not only this huge equatorial bowl but by implication many of the other landforms seen on the planet.

“For decades, we have speculated and hypothesised that the surface of Mars was carved by water, but this is the first time where you can see the remnants of stream flow with what are absolutely tell-tale signs,” Dr Rebecca Williams from the Planetary Science Institute, US, told BBC News.

The American space agency first announced the discovery of the pebbles in September last year, barely seven weeks after Curiosity had landed in Gale.

Researchers have since been studying the robot’s pictures in more detail and have now written up a report for Science magazine – the first scholarly paper from the surface mission to make it into print; and the study reinforces the initial interpretation.

The team only has pictures from the rover’s main cameras. Attempts will be made to get close-up, high-resolution imagery of Gale’s conglomerates in the weeks ahead using the Mahli “hand lens”.

It describes the nature of the outcrops, and estimates the probable conditions in which their sediments were laid down.

The pebbles range in size from about two to 40mm in diameter – too big to have been blown along by the wind.

These clasts, as scientists will often call them, are cemented together in a sandy matrix to make a rock type referred to as a conglomerate.

In many places, the clasts are touching each other, and the pictures show examples of so-called imbrication – an arrangement where elongated pebbles stack like a row of toppled dominos. It is a classic sign of past river activity.

Precisely dating landforms on Mars is not possible, but the rock outcrops seen by the rover are almost certainly more than three billion years old.

Curiosity’s pictures have enabled the team to make some informed statements about the speed and depth of the water that once flowed across the crater floor.

So many surface features look from orbit to have been cut by flowing water.

“We estimate that the flow velocities were walking pace, approximately – it’s not something we can absolutely reconstruct, but it gives us a rough idea, and these are minimum values,” explained Prof Sanjeev Gupta from Imperial College London, UK.

“And we can also say that the water depths ranged from ankle-deep to waist-deep.

“This is the first time we’ve been able to do this quantification [on the Red Planet]. It is routine to do this on Earth, but to do it on Mars by looking at ancient rocks is just remarkable.”

Ancient river deposits on Earth. Note the predominantly sandy layers. These indicate there was a drop in the speed of the water, meaning only the smallest particles could be carried and deposited downstream.

The pebbles come in a variety of dark and light shades, further indicating that they have been eroded from different rock types and transported from different locations.

Using its Chemcam remote-sensing laser, the rover was able to detect feldspar in the lighter toned clasts.

Feldspar is a common mineral on Earth that weathers quickly in the presence of water.

This suggests past conditions were not overly wet and that the pebbles were carried only a relatively short distance – probably no more than 10-15km.

Take a trip to Mars

• Explore the Red Planet with Nasa’s robot

This fits with satellite observations of what appears to be a nearby network of old rivers or streams spreading away from the mouth of a channel that cuts through the northern rim of Gale Crater.

This valley – or Peace Vallis as it is known – is the probable route down which the water flowed and later dumped its load of rounded gravels.

Curiosity is due to drive back on itself in the coming weeks as it makes for the big peak, Mount Sharp, at the centre of the crater.

Scientists hope this will take the vehicle past similar rock outcrops so that additional pictures can be obtained.

“What’s exciting is that when we made this discovery our highest resolution camera – the hand-lens camera, Mahli – hadn’t even been commissioned. It has now. So, if we find similar rocks on the way to Mount Sharp, we will be able to get much better images with fantastic detail,” said Prof Gupta.

Sanjeev Gupta will be discussing the explorations and discoveries of the Curiosity rover on Mars with astrobiologist Lewis Dartnell at next week’sTimes Cheltenham Science Festival on Sunday 9 June. A huge panorama of Mount Sharp built from Curiosity pictures is going on display at the Visions of the Universe exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in London from Friday 7 June.

 

More on This Story

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  25 MAY 2013, SCIENCE & ENVIRONMENT

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Related Internet links

• Martian Fluvial Conglomerates at Gale Crater
• Mars Science Laboratory

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Related articles

• New analysis of Curiosity rover data confirms that streams flowed on ancient Mars (al.com)
• Water once flowed on Mars, rover research finds (yubanet.com)
• New analysis by NASA’s Curiosity rover confirms a stream once ran through crater on Mars – @AP (bigstory.ap.org)
• Nasa: Pebbles Find Supports Mars Life Theory (news.sky.com)
• Waunakee woman helps direct Mars rover (wiscnews.com)
• Radiation on Mars trip would have unknown health effects (cnn.com)
• Mars Curiosity rover locates ancient stream bed (telegraph.co.uk)
• Nasa’s Curiosity rover helps find proof of water on Mars (metro.co.uk)
• Rover discoveries suggest water flowed on Mars (sacbee.com)
• Leicester scientist helps discover ancient streambed on Mars (24dash.com)

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• New analysis by NASA’s Curiosity rover confirms a stream once ran through crater on Mars – @AP (bigstory.ap.org)
• Nasa: Pebbles Find Supports Mars Life Theory (news.sky.com)
• Waunakee woman helps direct Mars rover (wiscnews.com)
• Radiation on Mars trip would have unknown health effects (cnn.com)
• Mars Curiosity rover locates ancient stream bed (telegraph.co.uk)
• Nasa’s Curiosity rover helps find proof of water on Mars (metro.co.uk)
• Rover discoveries suggest water flowed on Mars (sacbee.com)
• Leicester scientist helps discover ancient streambed on Mars (24dash.com)

| We’ve hit the Carbon Level we were warned about. Here’s what that means!

We’ve Hit the Carbon Level We Were Warned About. Here’s What That Means. ~ Text by James West and Tim McDonnell; Interactive by Duncan Clark, Mother Jones.

A monitor in Hawaii registered 400 parts per million of carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere, higher than ever above the “safe” 350 ppm level.

This interactive explainer originally appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

Over the last couple weeks, scientists and environmentalists have been keeping a particularly close eye on the Hawaii-based monitoring station that tracks how much carbon dioxide is in the atmosphere, as the count tiptoed closer to a record-smashing 400 parts per million. Thursday, we finally got there: The daily mean concentration was higher than at any time in human history, NOAA reported Friday.

Don’t worry: The earth is not about to go up in a ball of flame. The 400 ppm mark is only a milestone, 50 ppm over what legendary NASA scientist James Hansen has since 1988 called the safe zone for avoiding the worst impacts of climate change, and yet only halfway to what the IPCC predicts we’ll reach by the end of the century.

“Somehow in the last 50 ppm we melted the Arctic,” said environmentalist and founder of activist group 350.org Bill McKibben, who called today’s news a “grim but predictable milestone” and has long used the symbolic number as a rallying call for climate action. “We’ll see what happens in the next 50.”

We could find out soon enough: With the East Coast still recovering from Superstorm Sandy and the West gearing up for what promises to be a nasty fire season, University of California ecologist Max Moritz says milestones like these are “an excuse for us to take a good hard look at where we are,” especially as the carbon concentration shows no signs of reversing course.

Scientists first saw the carbon scale tip past 400 ppm last summer, but only briefly; the record reported today by NOAA is the first time a daily average has surpassed that point. For the last several years concentrations have hovered in the 390s, and we’re still not to the point where the carbon concentration will stay above the 400 ppm threshold permanently. But that’s just around the corner, said J. Marshall Shepherd, president of the American Meteorological Society.

“It’s clear that sometime next year we’ll see 400 consistently,” he said. “Avoiding the future warming will require a large and rapid reduction in greenhouse gases.”

Most scientists, environmentalists, and climate-conscious policymakers agree this will require, at a minimum, slashing the use of fossil fuels, and in the meantime, taking steps to adapt for a world with higher temperatures, higher seas, and more extreme weather. For example, according to Hansen, the world will need to completely stop burning coal by 2030 if returning to 350 ppm is to remain possible. What’s the holdup? Texas Tech climatologist Katherine Hayhoe blames “the inertia of our economic system, and the inertia of our political system.” But she, like most of her peers, believe it can—and must—be done: “We have to change how we get our energy and how we use our energy.”

This interactive explainer originally appeared on the Guardian website and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.

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CO2-variations hg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

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• Climate hits 400ppm of CO2 for first time in 3 million years (treehugger.com)
• Carbon dioxide level crosses milestone at Hawaii site (reuters.com)
• Carbon dioxide at NOAA’s Mauna Loa Observatory reaches new milestone: Tops 400 parts per million (sciencedaily.com)
• 400 ppm …. yikes! (skeptical-science.com)
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The Keeling Curve of atmospheric CO 2 concentrations measured at the Mauna Loa Observatory. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

| Poaching boom sees thousands of elephants killed in Gabon!

Poaching boom sees thousands of elephants killed in Gabon ~ Matt McGrathEnvironment correspondent, BBC News.

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Elephant poaching across Africa is said to be at its highest level in 20 years.

More than 11,000 elephants have been killed by ivory poachers in Gabon since 2004 according to new research.
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The country is home to over half of Africa’s forest elephants who are highly valued because of the quality of their tusks.

Campaigners say the situation in what was believed to be a safe haven for these elephants is “out of control.”

They blame the ongoing high demand for jewellery and other ivory products in Asia.

“If we do not turn the situation around quickly, the future of the elephant in Africa is doomed” ~ Prof Lee White, ANPN

 

Gabon holds about 13% of the forests of Central Africa but it is home to around 40,000 forest elephants, a smaller species that are attractive to poachers because their ivory is tinged with pink and is very hard.

The new research has been carried out by the Gabonese national parks agency (ANPN) alongside WWF and the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

Cross border poachers

Dr Fiona Maisels of the WCS explained that they had analysed the population of elephants in the Minkebe national park and compared it with their data gathered in the same area 9 years ago.

“Between 44-77% of the elephants have been killed,” she said. “In other words 11,100 elephants have been lost since 2004.”

Much of the attention on elephant poaching has been in the neighbouring Democratic Republic of Congo but with demand for ivory growing and prices rocketing in recent years, poachers have sought out the forest elephants in the vast expanses of Minkebe.

And despite the efforts of the Gabonese government to bolster anti-poaching patrols, according to Bas Huijbregts from WWF, the authorities are failing.

“In an area like Minkebe which is about 30,000 sq km, that’s about the size of Belgium, without any roads. It is very difficult to track poachers here,” he said.

The authorities believe that between 50 and 100 elephants per day were being killed in the park in 2011. Much of the poaching has been carried out by gangs from neighbouring Cameroon, with ivory carried across the northern border by porters.

Around five tonnes of seized ivory were burned in Gabon last year

The high prices being paid for ivory in Asian markets are having a knock-on effect on attempts to control the trade in Gabon says Bas Huijbregts.

“Such a high value commodity, it is corrupting governance on all levels – there are checkpoints all over the place, but no one ever detects that ivory,” he said.

“When arrests are made, they are often obstructed by government people who have a stake in the trade as well.”

In June last year Gabon’s president Ali Bongo Ondimba ordered the burning of the country’s stockpile of seized ivory. However the poaching continues and is leading many conservationists to question the long term survival of elephants in Africa.

Professor Lee White who heads Gabon’s national park system said that despite their best efforts, the situation is running out of control.

“If we do not turn the situation around quickly, the future of the elephant in Africa is doomed,” he said. “These new results illustrate starkly just how dramatic the situation has become.”

Campaigners say that next month’s meeting of the convention on the international trade in endangered species (CITES) will be an opportunity for global governments to strengthen measures against ivory poaching.

In the UK, WWF are seeking a million signatures on a petition to stamp out legal loopholes that allow the ivory trade to continue.

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