Atlantis still missing, says Google techs

Late last night this blog joined many other outlets in passing along the word that the Google Earth application had discovered something weird on the floor of the Atlantic Ocean west of Africa. And a lot of people were quick to suggest that perhaps this might be the sunken remains of mythic Atlantis.

Already we have an answer: no, it's not.

According to the eggheads at Google, the odd grid array is a visual artifact from the sonar process that spawned the undersea maps. In this case, the lines are caused by the paths of the boats on the surface as they went back and forth taking sonar measurements of the ocean floor.

So no Atlantis this time. But I'll bet Lemuria and Mu are still out there somewhere :-)

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Scientists find the hottest water on Earth

Just south of the equator and nearly two miles below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean, researchers have discovered the hottest liquid water ever found on Earth, in a state that has never before been observed in the natural world. Hydrothermal vents are discharging water in a "supercritical" state (I'm thinking it's analogous to plasma as a super-heated gas) that has been recorded to get as hot as 464 degrees Celsius. For us American folks, that's a whopping 867 degrees Fahrenheit for liquid water! The conditions are so adverse surrounding the vents that computer modeling is the only way to study them, since regular equipment would melt from the heat.

Interesting stuff. Great fodder for discussion for any science and physics teachers out there who want to get their students thinking about how things like temperature and pressure affect water's properties.

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Ballard: Titanic search was cover-up for U.S. Government mission

Robert Ballard has come forward with something very interesting: his successful 1985 search for the Titanic was only a cover story for a mission from the United States Government.

The deal was: Ballard would assist the U.S. Navy in examining the wreckage of two American nuclear submarines - the Thresher and the Scorpion - that were lost at sea in the Atlantic during the 1960s. At the time, there was concern that the Soviet Union might somehow find and exploit the sunken subs. The expedition was funded by the government and upon completion, Ballard would be free to continue his quest for the Titanic. All fine and dandy... except few people expected him to find the thing! Some in the Navy were alarmed that Ballard's discovery might arouse suspicion, but because of all the publicity about the Titanic itself nobody dared question the purpose of Ballard's mission.

Head over to the National Geographic website for more on the story.

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