North Magnetic Pole Racing Toward Siberia 187
RogerRoast sends along a backgrounder from Scientific American on the best current theory as to why the north magnetic pole drifts. "The NMP, also known as the dip pole, is the point on Earth where the planet's magnetic field points straight down into the ground. Scottish explorer James Clark Ross first located the NMP in 1831 on the Boothia Peninsula in what is now northern Canada... [T]he NMP drifts from year to year as geophysical processes within Earth change. For more than 150 years after Ross's measurement its movement was gradual, generally less than 15 kilometers per year. But then, in the 1990s, it picked up speed, ... bolting north–northwest into the Arctic Ocean at more than 55 kilometers per year. If it keeps going it could pass the geographic north pole in a decade or so and carry on toward Siberia."
We need a new treaty (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Our molten core is shifting (Score:1, Interesting)
PETA is one such group. They just want people to not kill animals. They don't really care why you don't kill animals, they just want you to not kill animals.
Not true. PETA wants to stop what they define as unethical treatment. The problem is that their definition includes things like enslaving animals, which includes my wife and I keeping two cats as pets. They're as happy and healthy as can be, but in PETA's eyes they're abused slaves who would be better off dead.
Seriously, PETA thinks all housepets should be slaughtered and if you give them pets in the hope that they'll find homes for them they kill them as a matter of policy.
In 2009, PETA killed 97.3% of the pets they were entrusted with.
I used to think they were just a bit overboard, but at least generally on the right side, but then I learned
a bit more about them [petakillsanimals.com].