Terraforming

Transplanting seas to inland ocean lakes? A good idea for the Middle East? The two century-old and highly respected Japanese engineering giant Shimizu has hatched a wild and crazy proposal to rehabilitate the desert for human use. Their idea is to move vast amounts of seawater along canals that would track deep into desert landmasses to create a series of connected huge inland seas measuring 30 km (18 miles) across. Small cities could then be created within the gigantic seawater “lakes,” on artificial islands. Each seawater lake with its city would spaced apart along connecting canals measuring 150 km (93 miles) between each seawater lake city. A similarly massive water project initiated by Libya transfers fresh water from a distant underground aquifer. By contrast, this project uses seawater, already on the surface. The seawater itself in the lakes could support fish farming, which would bring a source of protein into arid deserts. Image:Shimizu Corporation ::Shimizu Corporation

Your Sky by John Walker Welcome to Your Sky, the interactive planetarium of the Web. You can produce maps in the forms described below for any time and date, viewpoint, and observing location. If you enter the orbital elements of an asteroid or comet, Your Sky will compute its current position and plot it on the map. Your Sky provides three ways to view the sky with links, where appropriate, among the various presentations. Sky Map The sky map shows the entire sky as viewed from a given location at a specified time and date. To make a sky map, enter the latitude and longitude of your observing site in the boxes below (be sure to check the correct “North/South” and “East/West” settings) and press the “Make Sky Map” button below the form. Horizon Views Horizon Views, showing the stars above the horizon as seen from a specified observing site at a given date and time. The Virtual Telescope Your Sky's Virtual Telescope is your Humble Soft Telescope of the Web. Your Sky help Related Software On the Web:

Surprising Sea Slug Is Half-plant, Half-animal A green sea slug appears to be part animal, part plant. It's the first critter discovered to produce the plant pigment chlorophyll. The sneaky slugs seem to have stolen the genes that enable this skill from algae that they've eaten. "They can make their energy-containing molecules without having to eat anything," said Sidney Pierce, a biologist at the University of South Florida in Tampa. Pierce has been studying the unique creatures, officially called Elysia chlorotica, for about 20 years. "This is the first time that multicellar animals have been able to produce chlorophyll," Pierce told LiveScience. The sea slugs live in salt marshes in New England and Canada. "We collect them and we keep them in aquaria for months," Pierce said. The researchers used a radioactive tracer to be sure that the slugs are actually producing the chlorophyll themselves, as opposed to just stealing the ready-made pigment from algae.