NASA has announced the discovery of two planets, slightly smaller than Saturn, orbiting the same star in the Milky Way, which have been discovered by the Kepler Space Telescope.

William Borucki, the Kepler Mission Science Principal Investigator, at the NASA Ames Research Center, announced on a teleconference “the first discovery of multiple planets orbiting the same star.”

The two planets, known as Kepler 9B and 9C, have a clear gravitational interaction, according to NASA.

A third celestial body, has also been discovered. It’s about 1.5 times the size of Earth, but it has not yet, been confirmed as a planet.

“The discovery incorporates seven months of observations of more than 156,000 stars as part of an ongoing search for Earth-sized planets outside our solar system,” NASA said in a press release.

via NASA announces discovery of 2 new planets – This Just In – CNN.com Blogs.

watch this video….

Airborne: Flying car from China

China is a gigantic,it’s traffic problems are huge.In the big cities there is permanent traffic chaos around the clock. A cleverly designed flying car may help to solve some of the traffic problems.

…

…

Guangzhou (China), 13. August 2010 -

China is very large and its traffic problems are too. In the big cities roads are congested for 24 hrs a day. Now this flying car is supposed to help to relief some of the traffic problems. This flying vehicle is extremely versati, the double, large rear wheel splits into two propellers.

Students of the  Guangzhou Automobile School, of theSouth China University of Technology have developed the YEE flying car concept. The design won promptly the Gold Award in the  ”Science & Future” International Concept Car Design Contest. As main party of interest for the YEE, the inventors have the millions of office workers in their sight, so they may get to work quicker.

On the road the YEE flying car is a vehicle with 2 wheel receptacles in the front and a wide ,double wheel in the back. The basic concept is therefore  similar to the cars ALIAS of the US-american manufacturer ZAP or the T-REX of the canadian company Campagna Motors.

The difference of course lies in it’s ability to fly: the very small front wheels( five on each side), sit in high rails, wich can dip i a curve in order to allow a dynamic drive through curves. For flight these rails will move sideways and upwards and serve then as wings. The rear wheel splits apart and folds to a right and left propeller- whereby the props sit behind the three v-shaped spokes of the wheels. All that happens at high highway speed, so that the YEE can glide in the air and then the props are switched on- a risky plan.

Electropowered.

The YEE will be powered with electricity. All surfaces are covered with solar cells and on roads and landing sites there will be  charging stations. The building of a prototype is still in the distant future - also the building of the required infra structures such as landing and charging stations. So far the the chinese flying car is only a stylish idea.

…

Northern lights could illuminate the sky late Tuesday night – CNN.com.

…

(CNN) — Attention, Earthlings: The sun is spewing plasma toward you, and the results could be beautiful.

Stargazers looking to the sky late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning could see northern lights, or aurorae. According to the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, the potential light show started Sunday, when the sun’s surface erupted and hurled tons of ionized atoms — or plasma — into space.

“This eruption is directed right at us, and is expected to get here early in the day on August 4th,” said astronomer Leon Golub of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). “It’s the first major Earth-directed eruption in quite some time.”

When such an expulsion reaches Earth, it interacts with the planet’s magnetic field and can create a geomagnetic storm, the CfA said. Solar particles stream down the field lines toward Earth’s poles. Those particles crash with atoms of nitrogen and oxygen in the atmosphere, which then glow like little neon signs.

Sky watchers in the northern U.S. and other countries should look toward the north late Tuesday or early Wednesday for rippling “curtains” of green and red light, the CfA said.

Environmental lawyer ignores death threat to protect nature.

CNN’s Arwa Damon spends the day with Tony Oposa.

Tony Hayward will step down as chief executive of BP, the company announced Tuesday, amid ongoing outrage over the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

BP said Hayward will be replaced by American Robert Dudley effective October 1.24EmailPrintCommentDudley is another long-time BP employee with more than 30 years in the oil business.

A chemical engineer by training, Dudley was put in charge of the day-to-day leadership of the Gulf Coast clean-up operation in June.

Hayward will receive a years salary amounting to $1.6 million. The company also plans to nominate him as a non-executive director of Russian oil and gas venture TNK-BP.

The announcement of the change in leadership came as BP reported a second-quarter net loss of $17.2 billion. The heavy loss was due to a $32.2 billion charge the company took related to the oil disaster. That charge includes oil spill costs through the end of June, BP said.

The news ends weeks of speculation about management changes at the company responsible for what has been called the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history.

It also presents an opportunity for BP to put a new public face on the company as it seeks to rebuild its reputation.Hayward has become a lightning rod for public and political anger since a drill rig operated by BP exploded in the Gulf of Mexico in April.

The disaster killed 11 workers and ruptured a well deep below the surface.The company has already committed $20 billion to compensate individuals and businesses affected by the spill. But it still could face billions more in fines and legal costs associated with the explosion.

BP has since managed to temporarily halt the flow of oil into the Gulf. But attempts to provide a permanent fix were delayed after Tropical Storm Bonnie prompted crews to suspend efforts to create a relief well last week. BP said Monday it will probably be several more days before it can resume drilling operations.

The spill, which Hayward himself called an environmental catastrophe, has fouled large portions of the coastline in Louisiana, Mississippi and Florida. It has also crippled the Gulf Coast economy and led to a government-imposed moratorium on deepwater oil drilling in the region.

Investors have punished the company. Shares of BP BP have plunged nearly 40% since the spill, erasing about $72 billion of BPs market value.Despite signs that BP chose cheaper, riskier drilling tactics before the disaster, Hayward is not expected to face criminal charges.

Legal experts believe some mid-level employees at BP could go to jail though.Since he was thrust into the spotlight, Hayward has made a number of high-profile gaffes that critics say illustrated his lack of sensitivity for those hurt by the spill. In May, he botched an apology by saying hed like his life back, a slip he later apologized for.

Hayward, who grew up outside London, joined BP in 1982 after completing his Ph.D. in geology at the University of Edinburgh the same year. After stints on BP projects in Europe, China and South America, he was made a company director and returned to London in 1997.

He moved up the corporate ladder in the years after BP merged with Amoco in 1998, creating what was then the largest company in Britain. He took over as CEO in 2007.

via BP replaces CEO Tony Hayward with Robert Dudley – Jul. 27, 2010.

18 dead, 57 missing after Tropical Storm Conson rakes Philippines – CNN.com.

(CNN) — Eighteen people were killed and 57 others are missing as Tropical Storm Conson moved over the Philippines, the country’s National Disaster Coordinating Council reported Wednesday.

The storm, known locally as “Basyang,” had weakened slightly, the council said. As of 4 p.m. Wednesday (4 a.m. ET), its maximum sustained winds were at 53 mph (85 kph) near its center and gusts of up to 62 mph (100 kph).

Conson made landfall on the northern Philippine island of Luzon late Tuesday, about 41 miles (66 kilometers) east of the capital, Manila. It was back over the South China Sea, about 112 miles (180 kilometers) west of Iba, as of Wednesday afternoon.

Four people died when a warehouse under construction collapsed, the council said. Several people were hit by fallen debris and several others drowned. Twelve people were injured by debris. The missing included 25 fishermen.

Nearly 500 houses were reported damaged. Many were still without power, although it had been restored in some areas. More than 4,000 people were stranded in various ports, along with 26 vessels, the council said.

The storm is expected to move into southern China on Friday, but the Joint Typhoon Warning Center is predicting little or no intensification before landfall there. Heavy rain and flooding will be a concern for southern China.

The storm became the first typhoon of 2010 on Monday before losing some steam. While some flooding was reported after heavy rains, most roads and bridges were passable, the council said.

(CNN) — The deadly bombings in Uganda’s capital may have heralded a chilling new chapter in the history of a Somali Islamist group with links to al Qaeda.

For almost four years the radical al Shabaab movement has been engaged in a violent struggle with the U.N.-backed transitional government for control of Somalia, which has had no effective administration since Mohamed Siad Barre’s regime collapsed in 1991.

But the weekend bomb attacks in Kampala that killed 74 people would mark the first time the group has claimed responsibility for an operation beyond the Somali border, apart from sporadic attacks across the border into northern Kenya.

Al Shabaab, meaning “the youth” in Arabic, advocates the strict, often brutal, Saudi Arabian-inspired Wahhabi interpretation of Islam. It emerged in 2005 as the militant youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), which briefly controlled much of the Horn of Africa nation before being ousted in 2006 by troops from neighboring Ethiopia.

While most of the ICU’s leaders fled, al Shabaab fighters under leader Ahmed Abdi Godane remained behind to wage a guerilla-style war against the invading force.

The U.S.-backed Ethiopians remained until early 2009 when the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) took tentative control, clinging to a small part of the capital, Mogadishu. They were supported by African Union (AU) peacekeepers mainly from Uganda and Burundi.

By contrast al Shabaab won control of much of central and southern Somalia, while their growing ties with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terror network gave them valuable manpower and resources. In March last year bin Laden issued a statement calling for Muslims everywhere to “help the Somali mujahedeen fight until Somalia is an Islamic state.”

According to the transitional administration in Mogadishu the burgeoning relationship with al Qaeda led to an influx of militant fighters from abroad.

“With regard to the fighting that’s going on in Afghanistan, in Pakistan and in Yemen, some people are looking for a place to hide and Somalia is a good candidate for that,” Somali President Sheikh Sharif Sheikh Ahmed told CNN in April.

Ahmed, once a senior, moderate figure in the ICU, said al Shabaab has also reached out to the Somali diaspora living in the West, radicalizing young Muslims via the Internet and encouraging them to move back to the country to join the “Jihad.” The group have become particularly adept at using the media in this way to announce details of attacks that it has carried out.

Senior African Union military figures say the signs of al Qaeda’s hand in the fighting are visible through the use of Improvised Explosive Devices, or IEDs, and suicide bombings.

But it is al Shabaab’s mutation from nationalist insurgents to fully-fledged terrorist organization that has been most significant, according to Rashid Abdi of the International Crisis Group.

“If you look at the rhetoric and language and if you look at the Web sites, if you hear their preachers or their scholars speak, it is completely indistinguishable from al Qaeda leaders,” Abdi said.

Uganda’s recent involvement in Somalia makes it unsurprising that a newly “internationalized” al Shabaab would eventually target them, according to analyst Alex Vines, from London-based think tank Chatham House.

“Al Shabaab are the leading point of inquiry because of its previous threats against Uganda and because of its contributions to the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) and the presence of the EU training mission in Mogadishu,” he told CNN.

In March, the New York Times reported that the U.S. had become so concerned with the group’s activities across Somalia and in Yemen, across the Gulf of Aden, that they were giving direct military support to the TFG. This was strongly denied in Washington.

But al Shabaab’s growing reach also indicates that they have a consistent income stream. In addition to money being sent from sympathetic Somalis and Muslims in the West, there’s growing evidence the group are benefiting from the explosion in piracy off Somalia. Piracy expert Andrew Mwangura believes many pirates may be “fronting” crime syndicates based around the Mideast, with ransom cash eventually filtering through to Islamist fighters who control much of Somalia’s coastline.

Al Shabaab is believed to number up to 7,000 armed men, with a main force of around 3,000 fighters with well-honed guerrilla skills, according to Agence France-Presse. It comprises an armed wing, known as the Jeish al-Usrah (Army of Suffering), as well as a religious police or propaganda arm known as Jaysh al-Hisbah (Army of Morality).

via Somali militants ready to terrorize world? – CNN.com.