

The Earth's core: the enigma 1,800 miles below us  - ValentineC
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/29/science/earths-core-the-enigma-1800-miles-below-us.html

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politician
"It’s a place where pressures bear down with the weight of 3.5 million
atmospheres, like 3.5 million skies falling at once on your head."

I shouldn't be overly critical, but, well, that one's not working for me.

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trafficlight
Yeah, what exactly does the weight of 1 sky falling on your head feel like?
Feels pretty decent to me.

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MPSimmons
The author of this piece REALLY wants to write fiction. I can appreciate the
florid tones in a human interest piece, or in an epic tale, but time and time
again, I found myself wanting more information where instead, I got a bit of
fluff.

It was well-written fluff, but still. Facts, please!

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mistercow
>As if the inside story of our planet weren’t already the ultimate potboiler,
a host of new findings has just turned the heat up past Stygian.

I hope, when old media finally dies, that this sort of "clever" news-writing
dies with it.

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draggnar
It is funny how regarding the polarity flip they just say "don't worry, you'll
be dead.". Ok that may be true, but what would happen? If the rate of polarity
switch is exponential, 10% in the last century could end up being, oh dec 12
2012? Even if that is just a silly mayan thing, what would theoretically
happen? We get pelted by radiation?

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ChuckMcM
Generally the models have it becoming fairly distorted in various ways and
then strengthening again in the opposite polarity. It never goes to 'zero'
because there isn't a model where the core stops moving. But there could be
some 'local' poles in addition the primary poles. Think of it 'aurora borealis
at the equator' kind of weird but not 'sleeting sheets of coronal mass ejecta
raining death on helpless flora and fauna.'

Of course nobody really knows, we have models, we have guesses, we have
theories. I've not seen any credible theories that result in the field going
away but it doesn't mean they aren't out there.

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Retric
Also, your ancestors went though this millions of times while living long
enough to have kids. So, while it may be unpleasant chances are it's just
going end up with lightly different lights in the sky and at worse a small
increase in cancer risk.

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__alexs
The last one was about 780,000 years ago, sometime around the start of the
Middle Pleistocene. The earliest known _Neanderthals_ are about 300,000 years
old.

So no, none of our vaguely recent ancestors have lived through one. Plenty of
Mammals have though!

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Retric
Mammals are _also_ your ancestors. And, the reversal takes 1,000-10,000 years
so /20 and you get 50 to 500 generations per reversal.

More importantly, the magnetic field can only stop charged particles which
don't travel vary far though the atmosphere anyway as in a few feet and they
hit something.*

PS: Someone mentioned OMG particles, however they ignore the magnetic field
anyway.

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JonnieCache
The BBC did a great Horizon documentary on The Core recently where they
visited some researchers and looked at some shiny machines which attempted to
replicate the conditions at the core and grow iron crystals or something. It
talks about local variations in the earth's magnetic field as well. I
recommend it.

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cnbeuiwx
I would go for D) Scientists dont have a clue.

Because despite all human hubris, we are pretty much in the dark ages. When we
have learned how to sustain ourselves without raping the planet, then maybe we
can at least be called civilized. Although still a very primitive species.

Humans dont like viewing themselves as primitive and limited, but we very much
are. We are unaware of the alien species constantly being around us, we think
90% of the DNA is "junk" because we dont understand what it does, we call
space "empty" because we dont see whats there, etc.

Its all very much based on hubris and ego. Very very primitive. I often feel
like Im watching a society that is completely nuts. Valuing paper more than
the planet that is giving us life every second of every day (!).

Ok, rant over... its just mind boggling...

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lukifer
Everything is primitive, in that it is the origin for the things to come. The
way I think of the situation is that our species and its civilization are
frightfully _young_ , with all the arrogance and naïveté that entails. Here's
hoping we're not the kind of teenager that kills ourselves by crashing the
family car.

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redwood
If heat is coming up 3x faster than expected, isn't there a good chance that
this could have a material affect on global climate? Perhaps this is yet
another significant piece of the chaotic climate record.

