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Is it Geological weathering or remains of ancient structure? by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi We live in a highly advanced, technical world, but there are nevertheless a great many mysteries all around us. Ancient places and mysterious beings, sunken worlds and cultures, landscapes imbued with symbolism, unexplained apparitions, and unbelievable finds from ancient times- all of these remain mysteries for human kind, despite intense investigation. Legendary ancient places tell stories that provide archaeologists and historians with information that is essential for the study of culture. In the past, we have often been less than careful with old buildings and religious sites, many of which were left to fall to pieces after their abandonment. Lack of repair and natural forces take care of the rest, leaving the large part of most ancient sites in ruins. These ruins can still give us a lot of information about the production, form, and quality of building materials. They can also tell us what led...

Scientists descend to a fiery lava lake to protect a Congolese city in its path. By Michael Finkel Photograph by Carsten Peter "excerpt comes from the April issue of National Geographic magazine" (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2011/04/nyiragongo-volcano/finkel-text) When? This is the question that has brought two of the world's leading volcano scientists to the center of Africa; it's the question that haunts a team of Congolese seismologists; it's the question that may determine the fate of close to one million people. When will Nyiragongo erupt? Nyiragongo is a two-mile-high volcano towering over the eastern edge of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC)—one of the most active volcanoes on the planet and also one of the least studied. The chief reason for the lack of research is that for the past 20 years the eastern DRC has seen nearly constant warfare, including a spillover of the massacres in neighboring Rwanda. One of the largest United Nations forces...

The scientists analyzed sedimentary rocks deposited in "Chaibasa Formation" in eastern India. by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi Scientists have found evidence that the oldest earthquake followed by tsunami traceable in the earth's history took place more than 1,600 million years ago in what is now Jharkhand. An international team of scientists from India, Japan and Poland has reported the discovery in a paper of the journal 'Sedimentary Geology’ in year 2006. This occurred long before the massive southern land mass called Gondwana land split up and the piece that now forms peninsular India floated north and crashed in the Asian land mass. The scientists analyzed sedimentary rocks deposited in "Chaibasa Formation" in eastern India. "The layers show deformations that have never been described before," Rajat Mazumder, lead author and a Humboldt Fellow in the university of Munich told. Mazumder and co-workers show that earthquakes caused the deformations ...

Canada continues to mine asbestos and export the fibers to this day, in spite of many health concerns. by Eric Stevenson Asbestos was a highly used and valuable mineral; now most countries consider it to be anything but that. It first mined in the great white north in the 1870’s and continued on to help cities thrive off the resource into the next century. Miners started to contract terminal illnesses such as lung cancer, mesothelioma , and asbestosis in the 1900’s after developing an initial shortness of breath on the mining sites. The exposure to asbestos has since been revealed as the main cause for some of these diseases. The asbestos exposure affects a thin lining of the lungs, chest, abdomen, and heart. Perhaps the worst part about this type of exposure is the fact that mesothelioma symptoms lay dormant in a latency period that can sometimes last up to 50 years. Diagnosis often comes late in life, with such a long latency period. The mesothelioma life expectancy is an...

The rapid disappearance of species was ranked as one of the planet's gravest environmental worries. by Dr. Nitish Priyadarshi. Extinction is defined as ‘wiping out’ or annihilation’: if a certain type of plant or animal becomes extinct, it simply no longer exists. This may occur on a local or regional scale or, in the most extreme cases, on a global scale. Nobody knows how many species exist on Earth today. About 1.82 million species have been given a specific name, but this is very incomplete sample of what is out there. In 1982, Terry Erwin of the Smithsonian Institute (Washington, DC, USA) publishes a report in which he proposed that estimates of biodiversity on Earth are seriously underestimated. He suggested that there might be 30 million species of insects alone. This conclusion was based largely on his finding that, in the tropical rainforest, insect species were often specific to individual trees. If any given tree in a tropical rainforest houses a number of unique insect ...