Beneath the farms, orchards and vineyards of Central and Southern California lies a prehistoric soup worth a fortune. The mineral-rich Monterey and Santos shale formations stretching 1,750 square miles across the San Joaquin Valley and the Los Angeles Basin hold a watery mixture of oil and gas – but it’s the oil that may trigger another gold rush. That is, if companies can figure out a profitable way to tap it.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that the contiguous 48 states hold an estimated 23.9 billion barrels of recoverable oil, of which an astounding 15 billion barrels are in the Monterey/Santos formations. California has been plumbed for oil extraction and production for 150 years, but getting to the Monterey’s mother lode is no easy task.
Are We Trading Our Health For Oil in New, Fracking-Induced California Gold Rush?
Ice Melting Faster in Greenland and Antarctica in UN Leak
Ice in Antarctica and Greenland is disappearing faster and may drive sea levels higher than predicted this century, according to leaked United Nations documents.
Greenland’s ice added six times more to sea levels in the decade through 2011 than in the previous 10 years, according to a draft of the UN’s most comprehensive study on climate change. Antarctica had a fivefold increase, and the UN is raising its forecast for how much the two ice sheets will add to Earth’s oceans by 2100.
Scenario sees Alaska quake causing $10 billion in damage in California
An earthquake in Alaska, if large enough, could spawn a tsunami that could cause at least $10 billion in damage along California's coastline, scientists say.
Experts at the U.S. Geological Survey, in a paper released Wednesday, say a "hypothetical but plausible" magnitude 9.1 quake could create waves as high as 24 feet that could smash into California's coastal regions with little warning, just hours for most locations.
Revealed: The NSA’s Secret Campaign to Crack, Undermine Internet Security
The National Security Agency is winning its long-running secret war on encryption, using supercomputers, technical trickery, court orders and behind-the-scenes persuasion to undermine the major tools protecting the privacy of everyday communications in the Internet age, according to newly disclosed documents.
The agency has circumvented or cracked much of the encryption, or digital scrambling, that guards global commerce and banking systems, protects sensitive data like trade secrets and medical records, and automatically secures the e-mails, Web searches, Internet chats and phone calls of Americans and others around the world, the documents show.
NOAA: Sandy-Like Flooding Now Twice As Likely Due to Climate Change
A new analysis released Thursday of 12 extreme weather events in 2012 found "compelling evidence that human-caused change was a factor contributing to the event" in at least half of them, according to Thomas Karl, director of the Climatic Data Center at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The paper, which was published in the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, pulls together 19 studies on 12 separate weather events in the U.S. and around the world in 2012. Researchers looked at how climate change affected the amount of flooding that occurred due to Hurricane Sandy.
Aspartame patent reveals E. coli feces used
The European patent for aspartame is now available online, and it confirms the artificial sweetener is made from the waste products of genetically modified E. coli bacteria.
Though this fact was reported as early as 1999, not much attention was paid at the time to aspartame and its maker Monsanto, which was allegedly adding GM aspartame to soft drinks in Britain.
Google argues for right to continue scanning Gmail
Google's attorneys say their long-running practice of electronically scanning the contents of people's Gmail accounts to help sell ads is legal, and are asking a federal judge to dismiss a lawsuit that seeks to stop the practice.
In court records filed in advance of a federal hearing scheduled for Thursday in San Jose, Google argues that "all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing."
Iraqi Shia family targeted in deadly attack
An attack on a Shia Muslim family living near Baghdad has left at least 16 people dead, Iraqi officials say.
Six children and five women were among those killed when the neighbouring homes of two brothers in the town of Latifiya, 40km (25 miles) south of the capital, were targeted overnight.
Scientists: U.S. no longer the global leader in research
An overwhelming majority of U.S. scientists in all fields say the country is no longer the global leader in scientific research, a non-profit group says.
The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology's report on government-funded scientific research, titled "Unlimited Potential, Vanishing Opportunity," detailed the findings of a survey of more than 3,700 frontline scientists from all 50 states, Puerto Rico and the District of Columbia.
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