Lookout Below

Humans naturally have a short term view of things. We look forward to the weekend or our next vacation or maybe even retirement. But these events that may span our lifetime are just a blink of an eye in cosmic terms.

UniverseToday.com embarks on a journey to the end of time. Predictions include an end to humanity in about 10,000 years, end of life on Earth in about a half-million years, and destruction of our solar system (at left) in a few billion years. Eventually in about 10^100 years, the last black hole will evaporate, and all that will remain in the Universe are photons of radiation.

See the end at UniverseToday

Sadly, "Sharky" the dolphin died during a show at SeaWorld in Orlando, Florida.  The 30-year-old female dolphin was performing an aerial stunt about 50 feet from spectators when it collided mid-air with a second dolphin, who was also injured but is expected to survive.

SeaWorld managers describe the incident as a "freak accident" and plan to review training procedures.  This was the first fatal dolphin collision at SeaWorld.

An Australian hospital is closing temporarily because of serious infestation of poisonous spiders.  The Baralaba Multi Purpose Health Service has removed all patients so officials can fumigate the building to get rid of Redback spiders that overrun the building.

Redback spiders, common throughout most of Australia, have a painful bite and toxic venom, although anti-venom is available.  Warm weather had caused more Redback spider eggs to hatch than usual.

"We believe the best way to deal with them, and the safest option for staff and patients, is to have the whole building fumigated so both the spiders and their eggs are killed," said Ellen Palmer, Director of Nursing.

A Catholic priest floated away under hundreds of helium balloons in a bid to raise money for his parish and is now missing off the coast of Brazil.  Searchers for Reverend Adelir Antonio de Carli have found only pieces of the party balloons in the ocean.

Reverend de Carli lifted off from the coastal city of Paranagua wearing a helmet, thermal suit and a parachute.  He was trying to break a 19-hour record for flying with balloons to raise money for a spiritual rest-stop for truckers in Paranagua.  Officials reported him missing after they lost contact with the reverend 8 hours into the flight.

A video of the event shows the smiling 41-year-old priest soaring into the air to cheers from the crowd below.  He soared nearly 4 miles high, then descended to just over a mile to fly over the city of Dourados.  But winds then pushed him out to sea, and de Carli was 30 miles offshore when authorities lost contact.

From the Internet…

At times nature can be cruel, but there is also a raw beauty, and even a certain justice manifested within that cruelty.

The alligator, one of the oldest and ultimate predators, normally considered the “apex predator,” can still fall victim to implemented “teamwork strategy,” made possible due to the tight knit social structure and “survival of the pack” mentality bred into the canines.

See the remarkable photograph below courtesy of Nature Magazine. Note that the Alpha dog has a muzzle hold on the gator, preventing it from breathing, while another dog has a hold on the tail to keep it from thrashing. The third dog attacks the soft underbelly of the gator.

Warning: Not for the squeamish!
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Rocky the Grizzly Bear, who recently appeared in a Will Ferrell movie, killed his trainer with a bite to the neck Tuesday. 

Three experienced handlers were working with Rocky when the bear bit 39-year-old Stephan Miller on the neck.  The other handlers used pepper spray to subdue the bear, and there were no other injuries.

Rocky is a 5-year-old male grizzly, 7-1/2 feet tall, and weighs 700 pounds.  Rocky appeared in the movie "Semi-Pro" in which Will Ferrell’s character wrestles the bear to promote his basketball team.  In a February interview, Randy Miller, brother of the deceased trainer, called Rocky "the best working bear in the business," but also noted, "If one of these animals gets a hold of your throat, you’re finished."  Sad, but true.

More at FoxNews

A woman is suing PetSmart after her husband died from a liver transplant infected with a rodent virus.  The lawsuit alleges her husband and two other organ recipients died after receiving transplants from a woman who had contracted the virus from a hamster she bought at a PetSmart store in Rhode Island.

A PetSmart spokesman would not comment on the lawsuit but said the virus is rare.  "It’s not a common disease in pets. It’s not something that’s tested routinely by us or others."

The virus is found in mice, hamsters and other rodents and usually causes only flu-like symptoms in humans, but can be fatal in people with compromised immune systems.

More at FoxNews

Could a Welshman be responsible for bringing an early end to the universe?  As impossible as it sounds, that is what a U.S. federal court will have to decide in June.  Two Americans have filed a lawsuit to stop the £2 billion giant particle accelerator, which will begin smashing protons together this summer at Cern (The European Center for Nuclear Research) near Geneva, Switzerland. 

Former nuclear safety officer Walter Wagner and botanist Luis Sancho claim the giant accelerator could spit out a strangelet, which could shrink our planet to a dense lump of “strange matter” or produce a black hole that would immediately consume the Earth and continue until the entire universe is destroyed.

But Dr. Lyn Evans, in charge of designing and building Cern’s Large Hadron Collider (LHC), said yesterday the doomsday scenarios cannot happen.  He said the colliding protons at Cern will recreate energies and conditions last seen a trillionth of a second after the Big Bang.  But since the Earth has been bombarded with similar cosmic rays for millions of years and is still here, Evans says we all have nothing to worry about.  Isn’t that what the CEO of Bear-Stearns said just 24 hours before the largest investment bank implosion in history?

Read More at icWales

The unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) has become the weapon of choice for the U.S. military. The UAV is an unpiloted aircraft that is flown by remote control or pre-programmed flight plans. UAVs are deployed heavily in Iraq and Afghanistan and used primarily for reconnaissance and attack. UAVs are preferred for missions that are too “dull, dirty, or dangerous” for manned aircraft.

This video shows what happens when you arm a UAV with a 30mm cannon and point it at the enemy. Warning: the video is explicit.

A 5.2-magnitude earthquake centered in southern Illinois shook the Midwest early Friday, surprising residents unaccustomed to such a powerful temblor.  I woke up to a shaking bed, and my house shook and dishes rattled for about 30 seconds.  At left is an official seismograph of the quake.

The earthquake was one of the strongest ever recorded in Illinois and occurred just before 4:37 a.m. It was centered six miles southeast of West Salem, Ill., and 66 miles west of Evansville, Ind.  There was minor damage and no injuries reported.

The quake shook skyscrapers in Chicago, 230 miles north of the epicenter, and in downtown Indianapolis, about 160 miles northeast of the epicenter.  In Louisville, the quake caused bricks to fall off part of a building near downtown.

More at FoxNews