A brand new house with a sea view, close to the beaches of the "Kabakum" and "Sunny Day" for sale – Video

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A brand new house with a sea view, close to the beaches of the "Kabakum" and "Sunny Day" for sale
200 METERS AWAY FROM THE BEACH OF THE GOLDEN SANDS HOLIDAY COMPLEX! GOOD PLACE FOR A HOLIDAY! EXCELLENT ECOLOGICALLY AREA! PANORAMIC VIEW! POSSIBILITY FOR YE...

By: Mirela Imoti

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A brand new house with a sea view, close to the beaches of the "Kabakum" and "Sunny Day" for sale - Video

St Martin SXM – Beaches of Sint Maarten – Caribbean – How Many Can YOU Name Correctly? – Video

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St Martin SXM - Beaches of Sint Maarten - Caribbean - How Many Can YOU Name Correctly?
Here is a quick tour from the water of some of the most popular and famous beaches on St Martin, Dutch side (Sint Maarten). How many can you properly name? Y...

By: Rick Moore

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St Martin SXM - Beaches of Sint Maarten - Caribbean - How Many Can YOU Name Correctly? - Video

Fanning, Parkinson in war to save beaches

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Australia's top surfers have won the battle to save the best wave in the world, but the war to save the Gold Coast's surfing future is just beginning.

Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson are celebrating the Queensland government's decision to can a cruise ship terminal and resort near the world-famous famous Kirra Beach.

But they've vowed it's just the first step to protect the natural assets that pump $3.2 billion into the Gold Coast economy alone each year.

The surf champions have now turned their sights on stopping another cruise ship terminal from being built on the Broadwater, saying it will affect the famous TOS South Stradbroke break.

They have also put themselves up as ambassadors - alongside surf legend Kelly Slater - for a world surfing reserve to be declared from South Stradbroke Island to Snapper Rocks on the NSW border.

Prime Minister Tony Abbott lent his support to the declaration of a world surf reserve at Manly in Sydney in 2012.

Now the pressure is on him to back a much larger reserve off the southeast Queensland coast, and consider more similar reserves elsewhere around Australia.

Fanning and Parkinson both rate Kirra as the best ride in the world.

They say the threat to its future has revealed how vulnerable Australian beaches are to development threats, and new laws are needed to safeguard them and the billions they generate for the economy.

"We want the premier to guarantee there'll never be a cruise ship terminal on the Gold Coast full stop," Parkinson told reporters after the Kirra project was canned on Thursday.

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Fanning, Parkinson in war to save beaches

Parko and Fanning call for beaches to be protected

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Gold Coast residents are outraged over a multi-billion dollar plan to turn Kirra Beach into a super port that includes a massive cruise terminal and a casino resort.

WORLD champion surfers Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson have backed calls to turn every Gold Coast beach into World Surfing Reserves.

Fanning and Parkinson hit the surf break at Kirra to rally support for the proposal early this morning.

Brad Farmer, head of National and World Surfing Reserves, urged Premier Campbell Newman to rule out "all commercial development" on Gold Coast beaches.

He said the move would "protect the Gold Coast from environmentally destructive cruise ship terminals and beachfront casinos".

"Our world surfing champions Mick Fanning and Joel Parkinson have backed the idea," he said.

"We need an iron-clad agreement to ensure our beaches are off limits."

Parko to stop Broadwater cruise terminal

FORMER world surfing champion Joel Parkinson has turned his attention to stopping the Broadwater cruise ship terminal now that plans for Bilinga are dead in the water.

Premier Campbell Newman this week killed off any hopes billionaire developer Bob Ell and his business partners had of building the Gold Coast Ocean Terminal near Kirra Beach.

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Parko and Fanning call for beaches to be protected

Stonyhurst College runaways: police search beaches in hunt for Edward Bunyan and Indira Gainiyeva

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The Foreign Office advises tourists that the crime rate in the Dominican Republic is "high", with tourists often mugged at gunpoint.

Colonel Martinez insisted: "It is not dangerous, they should be safe as long as they are careful with their possessions and don't wear expensive jewellery and gold watches.

"I don't want to tell you they are 100 per cent safe but they will be if they are careful."

Once they locate the runaways, the local police are expected to arrange for them to be reunited with their parents, who will have the final say about what happens to them next. It is unclear whether they have committed any crime, though as minors they must have permission from their parents to travel abroad.

Edward, whose mother lives in Canada, and Indira, whose family own a chain of pharmacies in Kazakhstan, slipped out of school on Monday night, taking a taxi to Manchester Airport at 3am, where they boarded a flight to the Dominican Republic via Europe.

Andrew Johnson, headmaster of Stonyhurst, said: We believe the police have located them to an area of the Dominican Republic but we dont know for sure that the police have found them. We are waiting to hear any news.

We really want to get them back and know that they are safe, but they need to be reunited with their parents and have a conversation with them.

A spokesman for Lancashire Police said: We do have a rough idea where they are located. We are working closely with the teenagers' parents, who live abroad, and one is hoping to travel out to the island to meet them.

When they are located, they will not be dragged back in handcuffs - instead it is our priority to locate them safely as they remain as being reported missing.

The runaways have been lauded as heroes by some classmates, with one suggesting they were keeping up a school tradition known as hen banter which involved rebelling against school rules.

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Stonyhurst College runaways: police search beaches in hunt for Edward Bunyan and Indira Gainiyeva

Great whites frolick near beaches

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A hooked juvenile white shark breaching while being led away from the surf zone for tagging off Bennetts Beach in 2011. Photo: CSIRO

Up to 250 juvenile great white sharks are living off the NSW coast and spending a lot of time off beaches in depths of one to five metres, CSIRO research has found.

Tagged great whites have been tracked swimming along the coast from Lake Macquarie to Seal Rocks. These sharks are ''abundant along a section of coastal waters in the Port Stephens region'' from about September to January each year, the study says.

The sharks are residing along three beaches: northern Stockton, which is south of the Port Stephens estuary, and Bennetts (also known as Hawks Nest Beach) and Mungo Brush to its north. Satellite tracking showed juvenile white pointers occupied waters from inshore to depths of 120 metres, about 25 kilometres offshore.

A juvenile white shark with a tag on the dorsal fin, ready for release. Photo: CSIRO

''They spend a significant amount of time in the surf zone in water depths of one to five metres, where they are readily observable and frequently encountered by the public,'' a CSIRO report said.

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Research in 2010 and 2011, based on tagging and monitoring, estimated the sharks spend ''an average of 36.5 per cent'' of their time off Port Stephens in ''near-shore waters including the surf zone''.

In 2012-13, great whites were recorded spending 20 per cent of their time in the surf zone.

''This study provides further confirmation the Port Stephens region is a key nursery area for juvenile white sharks in eastern Australia,'' the report said.

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Great whites frolick near beaches

Teaching Astronomy at a California Community College – J. Krestow – 5/23/2013 – Video

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Teaching Astronomy at a California Community College - J. Krestow - 5/23/2013
Professor Jennifer Krestow, Glendale Community College Professor Talk Abstract: Ever wonder what a community college prof really does? What a typical day is ...

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Teaching Astronomy at a California Community College - J. Krestow - 5/23/2013 - Video

2014 Van Biesbroeck Prize Awarded to Former STScI Deputy Director Hauser

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Newswise Michael Hauser, former deputy director of the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and an adjunct professor in the Johns Hopkins University's Physics and Astronomy Department, both located in Baltimore, Md., will receive the 2014 George Van Biesbroeck Prize from the American Astronomical Society (AAS).

The prize honors a living individual for long-term extraordinary or unselfish service to astronomy, often beyond the requirements of his or her paid position. It is named for astronomer George Van Biesbroeck (1880-1974), who studied minor planets, comets, satellites, and double stars.

Hauser, an emeritus astronomer at STScI, said he is honored to receive the award. "I am very surprised and proud to learn that I have been awarded the AAS George Van Biesbroeck Prize for 2014," Hauser said. "This recognition from my colleagues in the astronomical community means a great deal to me. It has been a privilege to be a participant in the remarkable transformation of our discipline over the past 43 years."

In its citation, the Van Biesbroeck Prize committee recognized Hauser's long service to the astronomy community. The committee emphasized Hauser's "strategic vision" in establishing and leading the infrared group at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., and later, as STScI's deputy director, where he played a key role in turning STScI into a multi-mission institution.

Throughout his career, Hauser has had wide-ranging influence as a mentor to young scientists, including Nobel Laureate John Mather of Goddard. He also has served on an unusually large number of committees, often as chair, helping to guide major space-based astronomy missions and long-term strategic plans.

Hauser was a member of the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) science team. The science team used NASA's COBE satellite, launched in 1989, to measure the early universe's diffuse infrared and microwave radiation, which is considered a relic of the big bang. The COBE science team received several honors for their analysis of the COBE data, including the Gruber Foundation's 2006 Cosmology Prize.

Hauser served as deputy director of STScI from 1995 to 2009. During his tenure, he was a leader in the transformation of STScI to a multi-observatory organization that includes both the Hubble and James Webb space telescope programs.

Before arriving at STScI, Hauser worked at Goddard for 21 years, holding various management positions and performing astrophysical and cosmological research. He led the Infrared Astrophysics Branch for 14 years and subsequently served for 7 years as chief of the Laboratory for Astronomy and Solar Physics. He was a member of the science working group for NASA's pioneering infrared astronomy mission, the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS), and was principal investigator of the Diffuse Infrared Background Experiment (DIRBE) on NASA's COBE mission. Hauser also was a co-investigator on the COBE Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) and Differential Microwave Radiometers (DMR). The COBE instruments provided precise quantitative confirmation of the big bang as the origin of the universe, discovered the first evidence for the primordial irregularities that have led to the growth of the cosmic structures we see today, and provided the first detection of the cosmic infrared background radiation, a cumulative measure of energy released since stars and galaxies formed.

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2014 Van Biesbroeck Prize Awarded to Former STScI Deputy Director Hauser

Seeing spots: Tracking a solar storm

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REXBURG Former astronomy teacher Allan Morton is still keeping an eye on the skies and he recently spotted a large sunspot group on the sun.

The sunspot group first cropped up early in January and reached its maximum around Jan. 8, Morton said.

He said the main sunspot was so large, estimated at about 40,000 miles across, that it could be seen without a telescope if the viewer used the proper filter.

I could see it through a filter with the naked eye, he said.

It was part of a larger group of about 45 sunspots around 120,000 miles across.

Morton has long had an interest in astronomy, even building his own observatory as a young man.

Now retired for several years, and back in Rexburg where he grew up, Morton taught beginning classes in astronomy and geology at Central Arizona College from 1974 to 2003 and was in charge of the Central Arizona College observatory during that time.

Morton said the recent sunspot group had the potential to send disruptive radiation our way, but when it pulsed last week it did not amount to anything extraordinary.

It was kind of eerie because it can be thought of as a large solar cannon pointed toward the earth capable of doing us harm, he said.

Steady solar radiation occurs constantly, but sunspot activity can trigger large geomagnetic storms affecting electrical grids, satellite and radio communication and navigation aids.

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Seeing spots: Tracking a solar storm

R.I.P. John Dobson

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Ever heard of the Dobsonian telescope? Or of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers? The amateur astronomer John Dobson who founded the Sidewalk Astronomers and did so much more besides died on January 15, 2014, leaving a legacy thats sure to endure.

John Dobson is a hero to all who love astronomy, telescopes, and astronomy for the public. Hes been called the Pied Piper of Astronomy, and the Star Monk. As described in his bio on the website of the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, he is:

arguably one the most influential personalities in amateur astronomy in the last 50 years. He has almost single-handedly revolutionized backyard astronomy by bringing it out to the street, making it accessible for anyone who has ever looked up in wonder, and asked Why?

Born in Peking (Beijing), China in 1915 to a family of musicians and intellectuals, Dobson joined the Vedanta Monastery in San Francisco in 1944, becoming a monk of the Ramakrishna Order. He built his first telescope in 1956 and was said to be so fascinated with what he saw that he said to himself:

Everybodys got to see this.

Telescopes at the time were complicated and expensive pieces of equipment, and Dobson was a monk, with no money. He ultimately developed what has come to be known as the Dobsonian telescope with an inexpensive mounting thats unique is its simplicity, moving up and down, left and right. The design for these telescope mounting has been duplicated by countless amateur astronomers who wanted to find an inexpensive way to build what they needed to peer up at the night sky.

But Dobson didnt stop there. In 1968, he founded the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers, who began bringing astronomy to the streets and to parks. His efforts inspired amateur astronomers around the world to share their equipment and their knowledge with the public at regular star parties. If youve ever attended a star party, its perhaps thanks to John Dobsons early efforts.

A note at John Dobsons Facebook page yesterday said:

It is with great sadness and heavy hearts that we have to report the passing of Mr John L. Dobson. He died peacefully this morning, January 15th, 2014, in Burbank, California. He was 98. John leaves behind a son, many close friends, and legions of friends, fans, and admirers around the globe.

ISAN 7 (International Sidewalk Astronomy Night) will be held in honor of John on March 8th. Amateur astronomers worldwide can join in and celebrate his life by carrying the torch that John lit back in 1968 when he co-founded the San Francisco Sidewalk Astronomers.

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R.I.P. John Dobson