World's beaches being washed away due to coastal development

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Heavy surf from Hurricane Sandy crashes on to the sand. All beaches with defences ... are in danger. When you build the sea wall, that is the end of the beach. Photograph: Mark Wilson/Getty Images

The worlds beaches are being washed away as coastal developments increase in size and engineers build ever higher sea walls to defend against fierce winter storms and rising sea levels, according to two of the worlds leading marine geologists.

The warning comes as violent Atlantic and Pacific storms this week sent massive 50ft waves crashing over sea defences, washed away beaches and destroyed concrete walls in Europe, north America and the Philippines.

Most natural sand beaches are disappearing, due partly to rising sea levels and increased storm action, but also to massive erosion caused by the human development of the shore, said Andrew Cooper, professor of coastal studies at the University of Ulster.

The widespread damage on western Europes storm-battered shores, the devastation caused by hurricane Sandy along the northeastern US seaboard, the deaths brought on by typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines all exemplify the total inadequacy of [coastal] infrastructure and the vulnerability of cities built on the edge of coastlines, said Orrin Pilkey, professor of earth and ocean sciences at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.

Pilkey and Cooper say in a new book, The Last Beach, that sea walls, which are widely believed by many local authorities to protect developments from erosion and sea level rise, in fact lead to the destruction of beaches and sea defences and require constant rebuilding at increasing cost.

Dunes and wide beaches protect buildings from storms far better than sea walls, say the authors. The beach is a wonderful, free natural defence against the forces of the ocean. Beaches absorb the power of the ocean waves reducing them to a gentle swash that laps on the shoreline. Storms do not destroy beaches. They change their shape and location, moving sand around to maximise the absorption of wave energy and then recover in the days, months and years to follow, said Pilkey .

Beaches in nature are almost indestructible, but seawall construction disrupts the natural movement of sand and waves, hindering the process of sand deposition along the shorelines, said Cooper.

The wall itself is the problem. If you build a sea wall to protect the shore, the inevitable consequence is that the beach will disappear. The wall cannot absorb the energy of the sea. All beaches with defences ... are in danger. When you build the sea wall, that is the end of the beach, he said.

Beaches have become long, narrow engineering projects sustained only by constant maintenance and ongoing expenditures. Ugly seawalls have removed beaches altogether. Trying to hold the shoreline in position makes a flexible response to sea level rise more difficult, said Pilkey.

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World's beaches being washed away due to coastal development

Nasa Astronomy Video Phases of the moon 2015 : 4k ULTRA HD Video Of The Moon – Video

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Nasa Astronomy Video Phases of the moon 2015 : 4k ULTRA HD Video Of The Moon
Bringing you the BEST Space and Astronomy videos online. Showcasing videos and images from the likes of NASA,ESA,Hubble etc. Join me on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/spaceisamazing ...

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Science funding snarled by stalled education bill

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Astronomy under a cloud - and much else besides.

Scientists in fields ranging from astronomy to nanotechnology and cancer research face an uncertain few months with at least $150 million in funding tied to the Abbott government's blocked higher education reform bill.

The Senate's move earlier this month to stymie the government's controversial higher education package has had collateral impact of threatening to halt funding for the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy (NCRIS) and other key research, scientists said.

The NCRIS funding of $150 million for the 2015-16 year was announced in the May budget, extending the annual expenditure for another year. Scientists were banking on the government being able to arrange multi-year funding for future programs to avoid the annual threat of disruption that comes with each budget. Instead, that threat has come early this year.

Education Minister Christopher Pyne has warned that Labor's actions could cause up to 1500 researchers to lose their jobs in the years ahead. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

"All we want to get is some certainty, so we can do some planning," Tim Clancy, director of the Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, said. "It would be a massive tragedy if we lost the underlying capability."

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NCRIS helps underwrite everything from biosecurity intelligence, the Synchrotron in Melbourne and the Integrated Marine Observing System which researches climate change in the Southern Ocean and elsewhere.

Nobel laureate and Astronomy Australia's chair Brian Schmidt said that without the money promised to them for the next financial year the not-for-profit company - which partly funds most of the country's telescopes, including the precursor to the Square Kilometre Array, ASKAP, and the Murchison Widefield Array -would likely shut down.

"Australia has been at the forefront of astronomy since the 1940s, [and] we're on the threshold of throwing that away," said Professor Schmidt.

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Science funding snarled by stalled education bill

Artificial intelligence still has more to offer

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At a recent conference hosted by Silicon Valley Forum, industry experts shared their insights as to where artificial intelligence, machine learning and deep learning are headed. A number of insights are pointing to the significant contribution AI will bring to the table when its true potential is unleashed.

"This notion that evolution ends with humans is silly," stated keynoter Steve Jurvetson, partner and managing director of DFJ. "I think what humans really mean is we don't want to compete with something smarter than us in our lifetime. I think you can shift our selfish sense of supremacy to a symbolic trajectory of progress."

Some speakers said progress in AI would give systems the ability to talk to each other quickly and simply, while others believe the ability to reason and make inferences will be the true differentiator in intelligence. Regardless, Citrix Startup Accelerator's CTO Michael Harries said, any entrepreneurs that aren't familiarising themselves with AI have "rocks in their heads."

According to Modar Alaoui, AI's immediate future lies in ambient intelligence in smartphones and smart cars. Alaoui is the founder and CEO of Eyeris, which develops artificial intelligence for facial recognition. Several speakers said they would like to see artificially intelligent robots or computers that learn without being told, then "self-tune" after solving a problem.

Flexibility is key to AI's future

"Robots have an ability to adapt to their environment; they have the ability to learn. But the ability to go on and extend that model is really intelligence. I think we will see that, but that's the jump we haven't made," Kevin Albert, CEO and co-founder of robotics startup Pneubotics, noted.

Jeff Hawkins, CEO and co-founder of Numenta, a firm that has developed a computational framework for AI, said: Intelligence shouldn't be measured by any particular task. What characterises intelligence is extreme flexibility building a flexible learning system. [Some AI is] focused on being human-like; our work here is not being human-like at all. It's about understanding the general principles of intelligence that we can apply to all kinds of problems.

While there is a variety of ways to attack the development and fine tuning of artificial intelligence, including training machines "like children," according to panellists, Hawkins believes reverse engineering the neural cortex is the fastest way to intelligent machines. Neuroscience has shown that language and touch work on the same principles, and Hawkins expects a machine's abilities to unfold in a similar way once scientists are able to tap inherent potential.

"Once we understand those principles of the neocortex, we can modify them, we don't need to be true to evolutionary biology," Hawkins said. "We still have so much to learn about the basics of how biology works. Progress is incremental but also exponential. We're going to finish this off in less than five years, I believe."

If the thought of enlightened machines in the next five years is too much, Hawkins assured attendees that artificial intelligence isn't inherently dangerous. The ability to self-replicate is dangerous, however.

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'Gwapang babaye' posibleng KSP: doktor

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February 21 2014 Dumaguete City Police adunay gibantayan nga mga armadong tawo nga posibleng may kal

Sa EXCLUSIVE REPORT ni Gregy Magdadaro naghisgut sa gihimong pagpaniid sa Dumaguete City Police sa armadong mga tawo nga posibleng may kalambigitan sa pagban...

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24 Oras is GMA Network's flagship newscast, anchored by Mike Enriquez and Mel Tiangco. It airs on GMA-7 Mondays to Fridays at 6:30 PM (PHL Time) and on weeke...

Matinding pinsala ang posibleng idulot ng ''storm surge'' o daluyong sa ilang lugar na natukoy ng Project NOAH. Paano nga mapaghahandaan o mababawasan ang epekto ng daluyong? TV Patrol, Nobyembre 11, 2014, Martes Subscribe to ABS-CBN News channel! - http://bit.ly/TheABSCBNNews Watch the full episodes of TV Patrol on TFC.TV http://bit.ly/TVP-TFCTV and on IWANT.TV for Philippine viewers, click: http://bit.ly/TVP-IWANTV Visit our website at http://www.abs-cbnnews.com Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/abscbnNEWS Twitter: https://twitter.com/abscbnnews

Saksi is GMA Network's late-night newscast hosted by Arnold Clavio and Vicky Morales. It airs Mondays to Fridays at 11:30 PM (PHL Time) on GMA-7. For more vi...

Balita Pilipinas Ngayon rounds up the top stories from around the Philippines GMA's regional stations in Luzon, Visayas, and Mindanao. It's hosted by Mark Salazar and Maki Pulido and airs at 3:30 PM (PHL Time), Mondays to Fridays on GMA News TV Channel 11. GMA News Online: http://www.gmanews.tv Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/gmanews Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/gmanews

24 Oras is GMA Network's flagship newscast, anchored by Mike Enriquez and Mel Tiangco. It airs on GMA-7 Mondays to Fridays at 6:30 PM (PHL Time) and on weeke...

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Video: NATO Jets vs Russian Warplanes Over Baltic – Kremlin accused of escalating air incursions – Video

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Video: NATO Jets vs Russian Warplanes Over Baltic - Kremlin accused of escalating air incursions
In a statement, NATO said over 30 types of Russian warplanes including bombers, fighters and transport aircraft were involved in the intercept carried out by...

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NATO Fighter Aircraft Intercept Russian Military Planes over Baltic Sea – Video

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NATO Fighter Aircraft Intercept Russian Military Planes over Baltic Sea
Video shot by the Dutch Royal airforce show fighter jets assigned to NATO #39;s Baltic Air Policing Mission making several intercepts of groups of Russian military aircraft over the Baltic Sea....

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NATO Fighter Aircraft Intercept Russian Military Planes over Baltic Sea - Video