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Tourists Flock To See A Giant Flower That Smells Like Rotting Flesh

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Corpse flower

Time is running out to see one of the world's largest and smelliest flowers, the Titan Arum, now in full bloom at the National Botanic Garden in Belgium.

Also known as the "corpse flower" because it smells like rotting flesh, the giant plant began blooming on Monday. The bloom only lives for 72 hours. It's expected to close again on Wednesday.

The nasty-smelling plant is native to Sumatran rainforests. The tall center part of the plant uses its stink to attract flies and other pollinators.

The Titan Arum rarely flowers. This is only the third time this plant has bloomed since 2008, according to The Associated Press.

SEE ALSO: How Caviar Is Made In The Swiss Alps

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An Oil Well Is Leaking Into The Gulf Of Mexico

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Guld oil

The Coast Guard responded to a "loss of well control" in the Gulf of Mexico on Tuesday, The Times-Picayune reports

The natural gas and crude oil platform is owned by Energy Resources Technology (ERT), which was acquired by Talos Energy in February.

It is located about 74 miles southwest of Port Fourchon, Louisiana.

In an emailed statement to gCaptain, the U.S. Coast Guard said that "natural gas is flowing from the well and there is a rainbow sheen visible on the surface estimated to be more than four miles wide by three quarters of a mile long.”

The platform is mostly releasing natural gas, and unlike the BP oil well disaster, the platform is not a deepwater rig. According to FuelFix, the platform, located in Ship Shoal Block 225 platform 2B has been out of commission for 15 years, and the crew was in the process of permanently decommissioning it on Monday when the leak started.

Because of the age of the site, first tapped in the 1970s, the discharge is likely leaking slowly and at a low pressure.

"In an abundance of caution, we decided to evacuate the platform and mobilize our spill response team,"Talos Energy president Timothy Duncan told FuelFix. "We are focused on the safety of our personnel while taking all appropriate measures to limit any environmental impact."

Duncan speculated that the age of the tubing may have contributed to the incident.

All employees were evacuated safely and efforts to plug the well continue. The two other wells on the platform have been plugged.

Check back for updates to this story.

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Air Pollution In Northern China Steals 5 Years Of Life From The Average Person

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China coal pollution

A new report suggests that air pollution in Northern China has shaved 5.5 years off the lifespan of people who live there, compared to those who live in the south of China.

The study [PDF], published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Science on Monday, July 8, blames China's Huai River policy for the decrease in life expectancy.

The policy provided free coal for boilers to residents in cities North of the Huai River during the winter months between 1950 and 1980. Coal ash from the boilers led to an increased incidence of death from heart and lung problems due to pollution.

The researchers found that total suspended particulates are 55% higher in the north. Poor air quality is "causing 500 million residents of Northern China to lose more than 2.5 billion life years of life expectancy," the authors write.

SEE ALSO: If You Think China's Air Is Bad, You Should See The Water

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Rare Giant Jellyfish Sting Swimmers In California

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Black Jellyfish

A rare, massive jellyfish stung several beach-goers in Southern California over the holiday weekend, leaving swimmers with dark membranes clinging to their bodies as they came ashore, The Orange County Register reported.

The incident occurred at "Thousand Steps Beach" in south Laguna.

The jellyfish are believed to black jellies, or Black Sea Nettles, based on the color of the sea animal. Their sting is painful but not lethal to humans, but the tentacles may break off if a swimmer bumps into them.

Black jellies are huge. Their purplish bells can reach over five feet, while their stinging tentacles can grow to over 30 feet, according to Monterey Bay Aquarium.

Black Sea Nettles live in deep waters off North America's Pacific Coast. Warming ocean temperatures bring the jellies closer to the shore. The last invasion of Black Sea Nettles happened in August 2012 along San Diego's coast.

Little is known about these giant jellyfish as they were only recognized as a new species in 1997.

PHOTOS: How Caviar Is Made In The Swiss Alps

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A New Map Shows All Of The World's Plants

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Proba V_first_global_map of the world's vegetation

The European Space Agency (ESA) has released on Wednesday a high-resolution map of all of the planet's vegetation from it's recently launched Proba-V satellite. 

It is beautiful.  

The boxy Proba-V — the "V" stands for "Vegetation"— is designed specifically for the purpose of capturing images of Earth's land cover and plant life.  Measuring less than one cubic meter and weighing around 300 pounds, it is the smallest satellite in ESA's fleet. 

However, it has extremely powerful equipment on board. It has a viewing range of 2225KM, enabling it "to revisit virtually all locations on Earth on a daily basis," according to the ESA's Proba-V mission website. For the next five years, the Proba-V will take daily images of Earth's plant life, letting scientists examine even the most gradual environmental changes.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration also recently released some gorgeous maps of plant life on Earth taken by the Suomi NPP satellite, which serve similar purposes.   

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This Film Will Convince Every Skeptic That Climate Change Is Real

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iceberg Photographer James Balog went from being a climate-change skeptic to documenting our planet's rapidly melting glaciers. In the 2012 film"Chasing Ice" he gathers irrefutable evidence that climate change is real. 

Until recently, Balog thought climate change was only based on computer models and hyperbole. "I didn't think that humans were capable of changing the basic physics and chemistry of this entire, huge planet," he said in the film. "It didn't seem probable, it didn't seem possible."

The turning point came when Balog was sent to the Arctic on an assignment for National Geographic to capture the Earth's changing landscape. This spawned a bigger project — the Expedition Ice Survey — where Balog and his team used time-lapse cameras pointed at glaciers in Europe and North America to document the effects of climate change. 

The pictures are gorgeous, but the outlook is bleak: Glaciers are consistently receding every year, and atmospheric carbon dioxide levels continue to rise. The film convinced Balog — and many viewers— that humans are largely to blame for rising temperatures.

You can watch the video online through NetflixAmazon, or iTunes or checkout the highlights in our slideshow version. 

Nature photographer James Balog used to be a climate-change skeptic. He is now convinced that global warming is a true crisis.



The turning point came when Balog was assigned to photograph several glaciers for the National Geographic's June 2007 cover story "The Big Thaw."



Glaciers naturally melt and retreat in the summer, and advance again in the winter. But most of the world's glaciers are steadily shrinking.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

How Giant Mirrors Will Bring Winter Sunlight To A Norwegian Town For The First Time

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The Mirror Project

Rjukan, a small town in Southern Norway, does not receive any sunlight during the winter between September and March.

The former industrial center is surrounded by high mountains that block the sun from striking the valley floor.

But with the help of giant mirrors, installed on the side of mountains to reflect sun down into Rjukan's main square, the town's 3,000 inhabitants will be able to soak up the winter sun for the first time in history.

"The square will become a sunny meetingplace in a town otherwise in shadow," a webpage devoted to the project writes.

Rjukan telemarkThe Mirror Project was suggested by a Norwegian engineer at least century ago, according to The Daily Mail, but the city's planners decided to build a cable car instead.

Vast technical advances over the last 100 years have made the project more feasible. The town finally decided to funnel about $825,000 into the mirror system, which is currently being installed high in the mountains using helicopters.

The mirrors are equipped with sensors and automatically adjust to follow the sun, The Independent reports.

The project should be complete by end of July, but the first proper test will come this September before the start of the longer winter.

PHOTOS: Tour The Gorgeous Florida Estate Where Thomas Edison Spent His Winters

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A New Dinosaur Has Been Discovered

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Nasutoceratops skull reconstruction on black by Rob Gaston

A new species of horned dinosaur, Nasutoceratops titusi, was dug up in southern Utah's Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument.

It looks a lot like the infamous Triceratops, but has a narrower, more beak-like horn over its nose.

The finding was announced on Wednesday, July 17, in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

During the Late Cretaceous Period, which ended around 65 million years ago with the extinction of dinosaurs, this horned creature roamed Laramidia, the western landmass formed when rising global sea levels flooded and divided North America.

Utah is located in the southern part of Laramidia. It has historically been home to far fewer dinosaur fossils than northwestern parts of the continent, like Alberta, Montana, and Alaska, according to the study.

Nasutoceratops titusi on black by Lukas Panzarin

The previously unknown dinosaur belongs to the same family as the Triceratops — ceratopsids. These large-bodied herbivores are known to have giant skulls with a single horn over the nose and horns above each eye.

According to a press release: "The newly discovered species, Nasutoceratops titusi, possesses several unique features, including an oversized nose relative to other members of the family, and exceptionally long, curving, forward-oriented horns over the eyes. The bony frill, rather than possessing elaborate ornamentations such as hooks or spikes, is relatively unadorned, with a simple, scalloped margin."

The Nasutoceratops was about 15 meters (49 feet) long and weighed 2.5 tonnes (5,511 pounds).

The dinosaur lived about 76 million years ago during the Campanian stage of the Late Cretaceous period.

A skeletal reconstruction of the Nasutoceratops is shown below:

Nasutoceratops skeletal drawing by Lukas Panzarin

PHOTOS: Scientists Set Up A Fake Space Base In The Utah Desert

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Say Goodbye To The Iberian Lynx

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The Iberian lynx, the world's most endangered cat, will probably go extinct in 50 years as a result of climate change, a new study in the journal Nature Climate Change reports. 

The Iberian lynx looks like a bobcat. It has grayish fur covered in dark spots, long legs, a short black-tipped tail, and black-tufted ears. There are only an estimated 250 Iberian lynx left in the wild, which survive in two isolated breeding populations in Southern Spain. 

Iberian lynxDuring the twentieth century, populations sank to a catastrophic low because of dramatic reductions in the big cat's main food source — the European rabbit. The rabbit makes up more than 80% of the Iberian lynx diet, according to the study, but a mix of disease and over-hunting has made the rabbit scarce.  

Climate change will put the final nail in the coffin, says lead author Miguel Araújo and colleagues.

Researchers contend that current recovery plans — captive breeding programs that facilitate the reintroduction of the Iberian lynx into the wild — are not effective because they don't account for the impact of climate change, which will make Southern Spain and Portugal unsuitable habitats for the lynx by mid-century. The outcome is not likely to change even if strong efforts are made to reduce greenhouse gas emissions within this century, the report finds. 

"Survival of the species in the long term may require higher latitude and higher altitude regions on the Iberian Peninsula," according to a statement from the University of Adelaide's Environment Institute. 

The Iberian lynx can be saved, but it will require "a carefully planned reintroduction programme, accounting for the effects of climate change, prey abundance and habitat connectivity," the authors write. 

SEE ALSO: 10 Animals That Were Hunted To Extinction

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Student Survives 16 Hours Alone In The Middle Of The Ocean

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Heather Barnes

Battling heat, fatigue, and jellyfish, a marine biology student studying in Honduras spent 16 hours stranded in the middle of the ocean Friday.

"I feel like I cheated death or cheated the ocean out of something," New College of Florida student Heather Barnes told ABC.

When she couldn't fall asleep, Barnes went into the ocean at 4 a.m. Friday morning to collect coral samples. Once in the water, she began to experience cramps and the tide swept her out into the middle of the ocean.

Barnes quickly realized that she was in trouble. "I tried to stay in the same spot, thinking people would search for me soon ... But after two hours I still didn't see anyone. I realized if I was going to make it, I had to swim back myself," she told NBC.

According to NBC, even though Barnes was "exhausted, sunburned and suffering from dehydration and jellyfish stings" she began to swim towards land. 

Eight hours after Barnes went missing, the program notified her mother, Jennifer Dukelow, that she was missing. NBC reports that Dukelow quickly sprung her New Jersey community into action, reaching out to anyone that could possibly help.

Eventually, Dukelow told NBC, Senator Marco Rubio and Representative Vern Buchanan were pressuring the Honduran government to do all they could to find Barnes.

However, Barnes made the trip back to land on her own. After 16 hours in the water, "I made it to Lion's Head on our island and collapsed on the shore ... Two locals carried me and gave me water. They kayaked me back to the resort where people poured from every building and hugged and kissed me," Barnes told NBC.

Barnes is currently back in the United States, healing from a severe sunburn and some jellyfish stings. She told NBC that she is "ready to take a break from the beach for awhile."

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72 Million-Year-Old Dinosaur Tail Found In Mexican Desert

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Dinosaur tail

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - A team of archaeologists have discovered the fossilized remains of a 72 million-year-old dinosaur tail in a desert in northern Mexico, the country's National Institute for Anthropology and History (INAH) said on Monday.

Apart from being unusually well preserved, the 5 meter (16 foot) tail was the first ever found in Mexico, said Francisco Aguilar, INAH's director in the border state of Coahuila.

The team, made up of archaeologists and students from INAH and the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), identified the fossil as a hadrosaur, or duck-billed dinosaur.

The tail, found near the small town of General Cepeda, likely made up half the dinosaur's length, Aguilar said.

Archaeologists found the 50 vertebrae of the tail completely intact after spending 20 days in the desert slowly lifting a sedimentary rock covering the creature's bones.

Strewn around the tail were other fossilized bones, including one of the dinosaur's hips, INAH said.

Dinosaur tail finds are relatively rare, according to INAH. The new discovery could further understanding of the hadrosaur family and aid research on diseases that afflicted dinosaur bones, which resembled those of humans, Aguilar said.

Scientists have already determined that dinosaurs suffered from tumors and arthritis, for example.

Dinosaur remains have been found in many parts of the state of Coahuila, in addition to Mexico's other northern desert states.

"We have a very rich history of paleontology," Aguilar said.

He noted that during the Cretaceous period, which ended about 65 million years ago, much of what is now central northern Mexico was on the coast. This has enabled researchers to unearth remains of both marine and land-based dinosaurs.

The presence of the remains was reported to INAH by locals in June 2012. After initial inspections, excavation began earlier this month. The remains of the tail will be transferred to General Cepeda for cleaning and further investigation.

(Editing by Dave Graham and Philip Barbara)

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People Are Baffled And Angry At Google's Fundraiser For A Climate Change Denier (GOOG)

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Larry Page

Silicon Valley's forays into Washington, D.C., lobbying are getting clumsier. First it was Facebook, which ended up supporting oil drilling in the Alaska wilderness (because it needed allies for its immigration reform push).

Now it's Google, which held a fundraiser earlier this month for Republican Oklahoma Sen. James Inhofe, who believes that climate change is a "hoax" and a "conspiracy."

By amazing coincidence, Inhofe has also received a perfect rating from the Big Oil lobby group the American Petroleum Institute, and he has received $2.4 million in campaign contributions from the energy industry over the course of his career, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Some people — environmentalists, obviously — are furious. This blogger has "quit" Google in protest.

Google told the San Francisco Chronicle that it wanted to cement its relationship with the state because it has operations in Oklahoma:

We regularly host fundraisers for candidates, on both sides of the aisle, but that doesn't mean we endorse all of their positions. And while we disagree on climate change policy, we share an interest with Senator Inhofe in the employees and data center we have in Oklahoma.

It told Time:

“While we don’t agree with Senator Inhofe on several issues, we agree with him on many, such as open and free competition for defense contracts, for enterprise services,” says the spokesperson. “We engage on Google issues because we are a home-state employer.”

But it's drawn attention to just how strange Google and Inhofe make as bedfellows. Google's corporate motto is "Don't be evil." Inhofe most recently made headlines for suggesting that the families of victims of the Newtown, Conn., school massacre should not debate gun control. ("See, I think it’s so unfair of the administration to hurt these families, to make them think this has something to do with them when, in fact, it doesn’t,” he said.)

He has also suggested that the Obama Administration has been buying up bullets to keep them out of the hands of gun owners.

Inhofe has enjoyed the attention he's gotten from the Google event. He sent an email that says, "Apparently this upset a few liberals ... Join our fundraiser and upset the environmentalists by donating $25."

We've asked Google for further comment. We'll update this post when we get a response.

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Humpback Whales Almost Swallow Divers By Accident

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Two divers were nearly swallowed by a couple of Humpback whales as the men were swimming at Souza Rock off the California coast.

The whales, which were coming up out of the water to eat some fish, missed the unsuspecting divers by just a few feet.

Phew.

You can see the fish starting to jump out of the water just seconds before the whales surface.

Humpback whales, which feed on krill, plankton, and small fish, can weigh up to 40 tons and measure up to 60 feet long (equal to one and a half school buses).

Watch the close encounter in the video below, uploaded to YouTube by Shawn Stamback:

SEE ALSO: 9 Powerful Men Who Don't Eat Meat

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Researchers Warn Of Catastrophic Methane Release From The Thawing Arctic

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Arctic Ice

Thawing of just part of the Arctic due to global warming could cost the world up to $60 trillion as the warming seabed and melting ice release methane into the atmosphere, warming the Earth more.

"The imminent disappearance of the summer sea ice in the Arctic will have enormous implications for both the acceleration of climate change, and the release of methane from off-shore waters which are now able to warm up in the summer," study researcher Peter Wadhams, of Cambridge University, told The Guardian.

Arctic sea ice extent october from 1979 to 2012The event, which scientists are calling a "methane burp" could advance global warming by 15 to 35 years at any moment. Arctic researcher Natalia Shakohova of the University of Alaska at Fairbanks, told New Scientist that this release is "highly possible at any time."

More than a trillion tonnes of methane are trapped under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, and much more could be under the entire Arctic. A decade of ice melt and warming seas will trigger a climate catastrophe, the researchers said, releasing up to 50 billion tonnes of the potent greenhouse gas.

Methane release in the Arctic

Large vents are already spewing methane, researchers report. Research cruises in 2012 found huge plumes of methane up to a kilometer wide bubbling to the surface, according to New Scientist.

This release of methane would raise global temperatures by 1.3 degrees Celsius, contributing to increased melt. The Arctic ice minimum in 2012 was less than 40% of the average ice cover during the 1970s.

To figure out the economic cost of a decade of extreme methane release — say from 2015 to 2025 — the researchers added the extra methane and temperature increases to the climate models through to 2200 — that's how they got the $60 trillion cost globally from just the East Siberian Arctic Shelf.

These financial impacts will mostly be felt in the poorest parts of Africa, Asia, and South America — causing loss of crops, droughts and other extreme weather, and increasing sea level rise. This continued methane release could completely undermine the global financial system, the researchers said in commentary published today, July 24, in the journal Nature.

This is in contrast to other, sunnier reports on Arctic melt, which detail the possible "good" this melt will have — opening up shipping lanes, increasing fishing, and even allowing us to access minerals, natural gas, and oil in the ocean bed.

Meanwhile the devastating effects are being ignored. Neither the World Economic Forum in its Global Risk Report nor the International Monetary Fund in its World Economic Outlook have recognized the potential that increased warming in the Arctic poses, the authors note.

SEE ALSO: This Film Will Convince Every Skeptic That Climate Change Is Real

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One Woman's Horrifying Shark Attack Captured On Rare Home Video

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Shark Week

Heather Boswell was only a teenager when she lost her leg to a shark. That was in 1994. And it was all recorded on home video. 

Boswell's harrowing shark-survival story, and others who suffered a similar trauma, are told as part of Discovery Channel's "Shark Week," which premieres Sunday, August 4.

Only a small percentage of shark species are considered dangerous to humans. In fact, more people die from bees, wasps, and snakes each year than sharks, according to the International Shark Attack file.

But run-ins between humans and sharks do happen — whether by accident or provoked.

All of these shark attack victims lived to tell their stories, but not without injuries.

Heather Boswell was 19 years old when she was attacked by a Great White Shark while swimming off the coast of Chile.

Watch more Shark Week clips here »



Boswell was working on a research ship, Discoverer, at the the time of the accident.



The attack happened as the young researcher and her crew members were swimming in the balmy waters of the Pacific Ocean, enjoying a day off from their environmental work.



See the rest of the story at Business Insider

Man Climbs Inside A Gutted Shark And Takes A Ridiculous Photo

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Screen Shot 2013 08 04 at 9.28.23 PM

An Australian fisherman crawled inside a gutted shark, shoved his hands through its gills, and pretended to stab the creature in between the eyes for a memorable photo.

The image was sent to an Australian radio station, 3AW, where hosts John Burns and Ross Stevenson jokingly crowned it "photo of the year."

The timing of the photo couldn't be better. Discovery Channel's highly anticipated Shark Week kicks off Sunday night.

For more about the "photo of the year," listen to the video below: 

SEE ALSO: One Woman's Horrifying Shark Attack Captured On Rare Home Video

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Discovery Channel Stands By Its Fake Documentary About A Giant Shark

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Screen Shot Sharkzilla

Discovery Channel is standing by its fake documentary about an ancient giant shark, Megalodon. The two-hour special, called "Megalodon: The Monster Shark Lives," aired on Sunday night to kick off Shark Week.  

Megalodon, a 60-foot-long relative of the Great White shark, is real. However, the creature went extinct 2 million years ago. The mockumentary used fake footage and storylines to convince viewers that Megalodon still roams the oceans today.

A disclaimer, confirming that the show was fantasy rather than fact, only ran at the end of the program.

It read: "None of the institutions or agencies that appear in the film are affiliated with it in any way, nor have approved its contents. Though certain events and characters in this film have been dramatized, sightings of 'Submarine' continue to this day. Megalodon was a real shark. Legends of giant sharks persist all over the world. There is still debate about what they might be.

Many Discovery Channel viewers felt duped and turned to Facebook and Twitter to express their anger. 

Michael Sorensen, the executive producer of Shark Week, defends the fake episode. He told FoxNews: “With a whole week of Shark Week programming ahead of us, we wanted to explore the possibilities of Megalodon. It’s one of the most debated shark discussions of all time, can Megalodon exist today? It’s Ultimate Shark Week fantasy. The stories have been out there for years and with 95% of the ocean unexplored, who really knows?”

Just a couple months ago, Animal Planet (also owned by Discovery Communications) received a similar backlash from viewers after it aired a fake documentary about mermaids

SEE ALSO: One Woman's Horrifying Shark Attack Captured On Rare Home Video

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This Tornado-Proof House Can Disappear Underground

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10DESIGN_Tornado_Image2

Hong Kong-based architecture firm 10 Design is attempting to prove that it is possible to build a tornado-proof home. It will be small, expensive, and made of concrete, but that's a small price to pay when compared to the cost of rebuilding after disasters or preventing loss of life.

More tornadoes occur in the United States than any other part of the world. Tornadoes don't cause near as much damage as a single earthquake or hurricane — partly because they tend to occur in areas of low population — but they do occur more frequently than other natural disasters. In August 2008, FEMA reported that tornadoes had resulted in insured losses of more than $1 billion and "caused an average of 57% of all U.S. insured catastrophic losses" since 1953.

Out of the 1,200 tornadoes that strike the nation on average each year, the majority touch down in "Tornado Alley." This region spans the Midwest and the South, including Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and northern Texas.

"There's nothing accidental about a tornado in the Midwest," said Ted Givens, a design partner at 10 Design. He's designed a house that lowers into the ground, out of harm's way from a deadly storm.

The latest prototype is a simple box with two bedrooms. The 900-square-foot home, which competes with the size of many New York City apartments, has concrete walls and a roof that is part concrete, part glass so that light can shine in even when the house slides into the earth.

Four hydraulic lifts in each corner of the house make it go up and down. In good weather, the house sits level on the ground. When the wind speeds pick up, indicating a tornado is on the way, the home will retract 10 feet below the surface into an underground bunker that has 400 square of additional space for storage and a farm to produce food.

Initially, the home had an irregular structure and was raised off the ground by an arm. The conventional box-shaped house "will be more approachable," Givens said of the new design."It's like an ancient courtyard house and in-ground pool."

10DESIGN_Tornado_Image3In the event of a power outage, homeowners "can release the hydraulic fluid and [the lifts] will collapse," says Givens. Underground backup generators will keep electricity flowing to the subterranean shelter even when power lines are down. The house will also have multiple emergency hatches so dwellers can escape should one of the lifts fail, or the roof is blocked by debris.

The company just locked down a site in Utica, Kan., to build the first prototype. The property is owned by Darren McBee, who contacted Givens after reading about the disaster-resistant house on "The Weather Channel" in June.

This is the "hot spot of the hot spot," Givens said.

McBee, 50, can remember three very serious tornadoes that whacked the region in his lifetime. In 2008, a major storm ripped the roof off of a garage he had been working on for his tractors and cars. McBee had insurance, but it caused him a great deal of aggravation.

"It's like being violated," he told Business Insider over the phone. "It's upsetting. I don't know that you can put a price figure on that. It's just an inconvenience and a lot of headaches."

McBee has no reservations about living in a small, concrete house or temporarily being plunged underground at the first sign of a tornado.

"It's going to be different," he said, "but hopefully it will bring a lot of attention back to western Kansas."

There are obvious limitations to building an "indestructible" home. For starters, the plumbing will be complicated because the pipes would need to flex as the house moves. And because the house is a made of concrete, heating and cooling will also be harder to regulate.

Givens estimates the cost of the prototype house to be somewhere between $300,000 and $500,000, but expects that figure to drop once it becomes commercially viable.

"We won't know a lot of things until we build it and test it," said Givens.

He'll get that opportunity at the start of next year, when they are hoping to begin construction on the Kansas prototype.

SEE ALSO: Maine's Top Chef Shows Us The Right Way To Steam And Eat A Lobster

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70% Of People Still Believe Megalodon Exists After Watching Discovery Channel's Fake Documentary

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Does Megalodon still exist? 

71% of people think so after watching Discovery Channel's fake documentary about the massive prehistoric shark.

"YES! The evidence for Megalodon can't be ignored. This monster shark lives," the majority of responders agreed. 

(It's not clear whether these viewers are aware that the "evidence" presented in the film, including footage and interviews with scientists, was fake). 

The rest of viewers see eye-to-eye with scientists: Megalodon is dead. The shark went extinct roughly 2 million years ago after ruling the seas for about 15 million years. 

See the poll below:

Shark Week

SEE ALSO: One Woman's Horrifying Shark Attack Captured On Rare Home Video

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A Great White Shark's Tooth Looks Like A Peanut Compared To Megalodon's

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Megalodon was a humongous prehistoric shark that was 10 times bigger than a Tyrannosaurus rex and ate whales.

The marine beast first terrorized our oceans around 17 million years ago, according to a Discovery Channel "Shark Week" special about the predator.

In spite of Discovery's partly-fictionalized documentary— which asks viewers to believe that Megalodon is still alive — most scientists agree that Megalodon went extinct roughly 2 million years ago.

Consider us lucky.

With 276 teeth, each 7 inches in length, the film calls Megalodon's mouth "one of nature's most deadly creations."

Megalodon could crush a whale's skull, clamping down on its victim with more than 35,000 pounds of force, according to the film.

Below is a screen grab of a fossilized tooth from a Great White shark (left) compared to a fossilized tooth from Megalodon:

Megalodon

And here's a reconstruction of a Megalodon jaw, made by American zoologist Bashford Dean in 1909. An entire man can fit comfortably inside!

Carcharodon_megalodon

SEE ALSO: One Woman's Horrifying Shark Attack Captured On Rare Home Video

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