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Jupiter, that blustery ball of noxious gas, is probably the last place that comes to mind when you hear the words “life supporting.” But for twenty years, astronomers have suspected Jupiter of doing just that: supporting life on Earth, by shielding us from destructive comets. Now, one scientist is saying that’s dead wrong.

“It’s been taught somewhat dogmatically, that Jupiter protects our solar system,” astrophysicist Kevin Grazier told Gizmodo. “But that’s just not how it works at all.” Indeed, the so-called Jupiter shield hypothesis hasn’t held up under scientific scrutiny, and Grazier’s, which appears next month in the journal Astrobiology, may lay the idea to rest once and for all. His models show that Jupiter doesn’t—and never has—protected Earth from unruly space rocks. Rather, the prodigious gravity of Jupiter and Saturn has been slinging icy material our way for eons.

What’s more, those comets probably delivered the water, oxygen, and other volatiles that are essential to life as we know it. Without Jupiter’s rain of cometary terror, life on Earth may never have evolved. Jupiter: Friend or Foe? The idea that Earth’s largest neighbor protects us from deadly impacts traces back decades, to models published by astronomer George Wetherill in 1994. Curious to learn how Jupiter influences the distribution of planet-forming material in its cosmic neighborhood and the ejection of comets from the solar system, Wetherill performed a series of numerical simulations. “He put thousands of particles between Jupiter and Saturn, and let them run,” Grazier explained.

“Then he did the same thing for embryos, or ‘failed Jupiters,’ and asked, how many objects leak into interstellar space?” Wetherill’s models showed that if Jupiter didn’t grow into a fully-fledged gas giant, but instead devolved into a “failed” core—which would still weigh an impressive 15 Earth masses—there’d be a thousand times more icy material whizzing about the inner solar system today. He didn’t conclude that Jupiter shields Earth from deadly impactors, simply that the gas giant helped sweep stray, planet-forming particles out of the ancient inner solar system. Nevertheless, some astronomers took his models as evidence that Jupiter is our planet’s cosmic barrier, and the idea stuck. For the past fifteen years, models by and have debunked pieces of the Jupiter shield hypothesis. To lay the matter to rest once and for all, Grazier decided to revisit Wetherill’s original models and give them a 21st century upgrade. He put 30,000 hypothetical particles on orbits between Jupiter and Neptune, and tracked their fate over 100 million years.

Simulations of this magnitude weren’t possible in the 90s, but, Grazier says, thousands of particles and millions of years are needed to come to robust conclusions. The new simulations show that significant fraction of particles evolve into Earth-crossing orbits over time when gas giants are present — flipping the Jupiter shield hypothesis on its head.

Grazier’s models also demonstrate that Jupiter and Saturn “assist” one another in delivering material to the inner solar system, in a way that wasn’t appreciated before. “To look at relative influences, I took out Saturn in some instances,” Grazier said. “Without Saturn, a lot of that material stays put, becoming an asteroid belt between Jupiter and Uranus. Likewise if you take out Jupiter, you end up with a planetesimal belt, and a lot of stuff stays put.” It’s the complex gravitational dance of the two gas giants that hurls icy material onto our cosmic turf. And strangely enough, that might be a good thing when it comes to habitability. “These models show that a lot of material gets kicked into the inner solar system—material that can form atmospheres and hydrospheres,” Grazier said.

Many astronomers have suggested that icy comets could have delivered Earth its water, a hypothesis which a new study supports. Image: What’s more, as Jupiter shepherds comets into the inner solar system, its gravitational tug appears to slow them down. “If something hits Earth really fast, it can be erosional, and blow off atmosphere,” Grazier said. “If it hits slower, it can be accretion event. Ideally, to accrete an atmosphere, you want slower impacts from comets.” Astrophysicist Konstantin Batygin of Caltech agrees with Grazier’s main conclusion — that Jupiter doesn’t protect terrestrial planets from comet impacts — but offers one caveat. His work shows that during the very early Solar System, when a thick nebula of gas still surrounded our Sun, Jupiter’s inward migration swept rocky planetesimals into the Sun, effectively clearing out the inner solar system.

Not only could Jupiter’s violent primordial dust-busting activity have, it might have set the stage for the formation of Mercury, Venus, Earth and Mars, as earlier this year. Jupiter’s relationship to the terrestrial planets is undeniably complex, but from the perspective of a life form on Earth, it seems to have been a positive one — overall. And as we peer into distant star systems in search of other habitable worlds, that knowledge could help guide us. Strangely enough, stars harboring tempestuous, somewhat vindictive gas giants might be the right places to search for a second home.

[Read the at Astrobiology] Follow the author. There’s already a ton of great Kylo Ren cosplay out there, but I haven’t seen one go the extra mile. The outfit is great, but it’s the location that makes these shots so fantastic; he went outside in a “Minnesota blizzard”, which not only gets him a nice dusty effect on the black costume, but is as close as he’s going to get to the.

*VERY MILD SPOILER*.end of Force Awakens without travelling to Starkiller Base (or the inside of a Hollywood effects studio). Well.except for the baseball field fence there in the background. Today, new futuristic-looking technologies often attract investors hoping to make gobs of money. And airships of the past were no different. In the first few decades of the 20th century people scrambled to figure out how they might cash in on these exciting new inventions, which were slowly beginning to prove themselves technologically reliable. But not everyone thought that commercial flight was a good investment. The January 2, 1909, issue of re-published portions of a December 10, 1908 editorial in Engineering News under the headline, “A Warning to Air-Ship Investors.” The article spells out the various ways people of the era thought there may be money in flight — transporting freight, passenger travel, warfare — but the author remains extremely skeptical that any of those applications would pay off financially anytime soon.

Literary Digest explains that “companies to build, sell, and operate new types of flying-machines will before long be seeking stock subscriptions in every city in the country. How shall we distinguish the false from the true?

The advice of the [ Engineering News] is to keep clear of the whole business.” From the December 10, 1908 Engineering News: So far as the possibilities of freight transportation are concerned, it may be passed with a word. Wherever ordinary methods of transportation on land are available, it will be absurd to carry goods of any sort through the air. The cost of such transport would be measured not in mills per ton mile, as in rail or water carriage, or cents per ton mile, as in wagon haulage, but in dollars or hundreds of dollars per ton. It is true that for exploration in difficult country, as over the Arctic ice or in rough mountain regions, there are possibilities in the air-ship. But such use, of course, is rather scientific than commercial. The article continues by laying out the impracticality of passenger air travel, seeing it as more of an amusement that might be useful at fairs, rather than as a practical means of transportation. Interestingly, the author also calls out the high-speed automobile as a toy of the rich which allows them to “vent their surplus energies.” For the carriage of passengers, the necessary risks attendant upon flight through the air, either with the dirigible balloon or the aeroplane, are certain to limit passenger traffic to the field of sport and amusement.

This is, of course, a much more considerable field than is often realized. The public is willing to pay very high prices for mere amusement, and it is altogether probable that a few years hence aeroplane flights will be a drawing card at county fairs and other public occasions, just as ordinary balloon ascensions have been for a century past. The experience of the high-speed automobile, too, has proved the existence of a very large leisure class of wealthy men who find vent for their surplus energies in undertaking all sorts of risky exploits. Flight through the air may very likely become as popular a fad a few years hence as automobile racing is to-day; but it will have just as little relation to the serious, practical, every-day business of carrying freight and passengers for the great workaday world as have the hundred-horsepower automobiles that break speed records in France or America.

Warfare of the future isn’t even seen as a possible use for airships. As Engineering News explains, flying machines are far too vulnerable to bullets from the ground. It is said that the leading military nations are vying with each other at the present time in the development of military air-ships, but this does not prove that these structures can be made practically useful in the serious business of actual warfare. Of all the apparatus ever proposed for use on the battle-field, a flying-machine is beyond all question the most vulnerable. It offers an ideal mark to the bullets of the enemy. Its limitations of weight forbid its protection by any sort of armor.

Had the flying-machine been developed forty or fifty years ago, when projectiles were limited to small velocities and short ranges, it might have performed some service in observing the enemy’s forces; but with modern infantry rifles discharging projectiles with an initial velocity of 2,700 feet per second, and with light artillery fitted to discharge a perfect hail-storm of bullets having equal velocity and range, the rise of an air-ship at any point within several miles of a hostile army would be merely the signal for its immediate destruction. Engineering News was correct that military airships were being developed. These planes would advance considerably in the lead up to the First World War, where they were not only used for reconnaissance, but also mounted with machine guns and used for strategic bombing. In 1909, on July 27, the Wright Brothers tested a military airplane in Fort Meyer, Virginia. Film from the National Archives of the is embedded below.

This post originally appeared. Photo: Thomas Scott Baldwin’s airship at the St. Louis Exposition (Library of Congress, 1904).

Check out brand new looks at X-Men Apocalypse and Ghostbusters. Benedict Cumberbatch almost didn’t manage to star in Doctor Strange. Kristen Bell heads to iZombie. Plus, tons of new glimpses of Shadowhunters, and the return of Supergirl. Spoilers Now!

Star Wars Ever since The Force Awakens released, speculation has been rife about the true identity of the saga’s biggest new villain: Supreme Leader Snoke, the head of the First Order. The current prevailing theory sweeping the internet —and thus beginning to make its way into the Star Wars media cycle—is that Snoke is in fact Darth Plagueis, the Sith Lord who trained Palpatine and had allegedly discovered the key to holding back death through the force. Although Snoke does share some visual similarities with Plagueis, the “evidence” fans are turning to are a comparison of similarities between John William’s theme for Snoke in The Force Awakens and the music that plays during a scene in Revenge of the Sith where Palapatine discusses Plagueis with Anakin (via ): But so far discussion of Snoke’s identity from official sources has all but denied the link between the two characters. Andy Serkis has said that the character is completely new to the Star Wars universe, but more recently the art book that at some point the production team were considering that Snoke could be a female—which would rule out the male Plagueis pretty quickly, and the fact that it was under consideration does seem to imply that there isn’t any real link between the two villains. Star Wars Episode VIII Lawrence Kasdan discusses how Rian Johnson’s film will differ to The Force Awakens: These movies will all be so different.

[“Episode VIII” director] Rian Johnson is a friend of mine — he’s going to make some weird thing. If you’ve seen Rian’s work, you know it’s not going be like anything that’s ever been in Star Wars. You couldn’t have three more different people than J.J., Rian and Colin [Trevorrow, Episode IX director]. [] Doctor Strange Kevin Feige says that the movie nearly went ahead without Cumberbatch in the lead role: He was someone that we were very interested in for a very long time. [But] he kept getting more and more popular! He kept getting more popular, and more popular, and he kept getting busier, and busier, and it looked like the timing wasn’t going to work. So we looked at some other actors for a while and ultimately decided, ‘We have to try and make it work with Benedict and with his schedule.’ [] Ghostbusters have released a new image from the film, and a brief description hinting at some of the ghosts that the team will face: Dead criminals from all eras of New York’s under­belly past have returned to roost among the living in Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters reboot.

Pilgrims, old-­timey sailors, Revolutionary War spirits, and even a couple of zoot­-suited gangsters are ready to take on four formidable female busters looking to rid the city of its phantasmic filth. Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them has an exclusive new still of Eddie Redmayne in the movie: X-Men Apocalypse And back to, this time for a new piece of concept art of Magneto using some extremely enhanced versions of his abilities, as well as an explanation from Bryan Singer as to what Apocalypse does to his “Horsemen”: One of Apocalypse’s many powers is he can imbue other mutants with greater ones.

Magneto [Michael Fassbender] is demonstrating a small taste of what he can do now. Magneto is already enormously powerful Now Apocalypse gives him powers far beyond what we’ve seen before. Deadpool And now to both Empire and Entertainment Weekly! First up, has a new promo picture of Deadpool on their January cover, alongside a promo for the issue featuring Ryan Reynolds in character: Meanwhile, has two new pictures from the movie: Deadpool fighting Ajax (Ed Skrein), and Ryan Reynold’s abs. IZombie Kristen Bell will be teaming up with former Veronica Mars creator Rob Thomas on the show, but only for a cameo—Bell will lend her voice in a currently undisclosed role to Episode 11, titled “Fifty Shades of Grey Matter,” an episode where Liv easts the brain of a secret erotic fiction novelist. [] Agents of SHIELD Jed Whedon teases how Daisy’s relationship with Ward will have left an impact on the Inhuman creature inhabiting the former SHIELD/Hydra Agent’s dead body: It could be, that’s a good theory. We know that Will’s memories lived on, so some of that could carry.

As I’m sure you have guessed, it’s going to get complicated. Spoiler alert, it’s going to get complicated. [] Supergirl Here’s a new promo for the show’s midseason return, “Blood Bonds”, teasing Kara discovering Hank’s true identity and Cat Grant needling Kara about her own secret identity: The Expanse A gallery of pictures for episode six, “Retrofit”, has been released—more at the link. [] Galavant Even more promo pictures, this time for “Bewitched, Bothered, and Belittled” and “Giants vs Dwarves”—go for more from the former, and for more from the latter. Shadowhunters Finally, a bevy of videos for the series have been released, introducing the main characters on the show: Add itional reporting by Gordon Jackson and Charlie Jane Anders. Image: Star Wars: The Force Awakens.

We’re in the middle of that already weird limbo-week between Christmas holidays and New Years celebrations. Are you stuck at work with nothing to do? Stuck at home and wanting to unwind after all that family togetherness? DC Comics’ might be able to help. Every January release from the company will have one “Adult Coloring Book” uncolored variant cover from a host of DC regular artists—Mike Allred, Cully Hammer, Scott Kolins, Timothy Green II, and many more. Each is ready for you to take a crayon to and try a hand at coloring in.

Adult coloring books are all the rage these days. They’re meant to help people relax in a creative exercise, and pop culture has latched on to the idea with eager abandon. There’s books for, Sherlock,, even crazy 3D app-enabled efforts like.

Now DC’s getting in on the fun. Here’s a selection of the covers, in all their black-and-white glory: Green Lantern #48 variant by Mike Allred Superman/ Wonder Woman #25 variant by Aaron Lopresti G reen Arrow #48 variant by Cully Hamner Flash #48 variant by Derec Donovan Detective Comics#48 variant by Timothy Green II Wonder Woman #48 variant by Emanuella Luppicino Action Comics #48 variant by Scott Kolins Seeing all these plain covers makes you appreciate the work of comic colorists a little bit more, when you see how much of a comics visuals, the style and texture of amazing art work, is left to them. So if you’re looking for something to do today, grab some pencils and print a few of these out.

Or paste them into something like GIMP or Photoshop and give it a go digitally. If you do, share them in the comments—who knows, you might awaken the budding comic book colorist within you! Header Image Credit: JLA #8 variant by Cully Hamner. A, and highlight today’s best deals.

Bookmark and follow us on to never miss a deal. Commerce Content is independent of Editorial and Advertising, and if you buy something through our posts, we may get a small share of the sale.

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There are faster thermometers out there, but this should get the job done for most amateur cooks. [, $8 with code Q4DYSNZY] Now isn’t this clever? [, $7] Amazon will sell you all six Rocky films today for $3 each, plus a ton of bonus features. [, $18] External hard drive enclosures are a great way to repurpose old hard drives and SSDs into external storage, and we’ve found great deals on two today. One even includes a built-in USB hub, so you can plug in even more storage devices. [, $22 with code XNOJRLNE] Anker’s ubiquitous Astro series of USB battery packs are, but today we have a great deal on the smallest member of their newer, more powerful PowerCore line. [, $15 with code G5B9OMSC] Start the new year with a hefty iTunes balance.

It’s almost impossible to think of Back to the Future and not instantly conjure thoughts of Drew Struzan’s iconic poster of Marty McFly stepping out of the Delorean. But we almost had a poster where the amazing time-traveling car wasn’t the star. Hell, it was barely even on the poster.

This unused poster concept recently came to light after a former employee at Lonsdale Advertising in England found it in their collection, offering it to for a series of movie poster auctions taking place in February 2016. The artist of the poster remains unidentified, all these years later. Partially because Struzan’s artwork is burned so fiercely into our minds, it’s almost bizarre to see a Back to the Future poster where the DeLorean is pushed way into the background. You can also imagine a path where the retro 50s element of the first movie would have been the focus of the advertising, rather than the technical aspects of the time travel process. Decades of pop culture success has perhaps proven that the better poster won out. After all, Struzan’s art was so beloved the concept was reused and tweaked for the main posters for Back to the Future Part II and Part III. This newly discovered post is still a very nifty, rarely seen piece of Back to the Future history.

Part of history you can own, too: is estimating the sale of the 27 x 40 inch poster at £200-£400 (that’s around $300-$600) ahead of its sale in a few months. [] Image via Ewbanks. There seems to be two occasions when people most enjoy making predictions: anniversaries (think the, New Year’s, etc) and dates that include round numbers (any year ending in zero). Such was the case in 1950 when many people halfway through the 20th century enjoyed predicting what life would be like in the year 2000 — obviously the roundest numbered year of our modern age. The January 1950 issue of magazine asked, “What will the world of 2000 A.D. Will the machine replace man? How will our children and grandchildren spend their leisure?

How, indeed, will they look?” The mag asked four experts — curiously all men, given that Redbook was and is a magazine aimed at women — about what the world may look like fifty years hence., author of the 1931 dystopian novel, looked at working life in the year 2000. Specifically, how people might work in the home, in the laboratory, in the office, in the factory and on the farm. Aldous Huxley began his article by describing the major challenges that would confront the world at the dawn of the 21st century. He predicted that the global population would swell to 3 billion people — a figure less than half of the 6.1 billion that would prove to be a reality by 2000. During the next fifty years mankind will face three great problems: the problem of avoiding war; the problem of feeding and clothing a population of two and a quarter billions which, by 2000 A.D., will have grown to upward of three billions, and the problem of supplying these billions without ruining the planet’s irreplaceable resources.

Let us assume—and unhappily it is a large assumption—that the nations can agree to live in peace. In this event mankind will be free to devote all its energy and skill to the solution of its other major problems. Huxley’s predictions for food production in the year 2000 are largely a call for the conservation of resources. He correctly points out that meat production can be far less efficient than using agricultural lands for crops.

Moreover, he discusses the growing importance of synthetic materials (a reality we take for granted in so many ways today). His description of synthetics was incredibly prescient, if not very surprising, coming from a man whose most famous novel imagined a high-tech world built on mass production. By 2000, let us hope, the peoples of the world will have adopted a program to increase the planet’s output of food and other necessities, while conserving its resources. Because all available land will be needed for food production, concerted efforts will be made to derive all the fibers used for textiles from inorganic materials or vegetable wastes. Food crops will be cultivated on the land now devoted to cotton, flax, hemp and jute, and, since wool will no longer be used, the huge flocks of sheep which now menace Australian and North American watersheds will be greatly diminished. Because of the need to give overworked soil a rest and to extract the greatest possible number of calories from every acre under cultivation, meat production, which is fantastically wasteful of land, will be cut down, and increasing attention will be given to the products, vegetable no less than animal, of the ocean.

Landlocked inlets, lakes, ponds and swamps will be scientifically farmed. In many parts of the world forests are being recklessly destroyed. To conserve them we shall have to develop new types of synthetic building materials and new sources for paper. That the production of a comic supplement should entail the death of thousands of magnificent trees is a scandal which cannot much longer be tolerated. How will individuals be affected by all this? For many farmers the changes will mean a shift from one kind of production to another.

For many others they will entail a transfer to the chemical industry. For the chemical industry is bound to grow more important as world erosion compels us, for the sake of the land, to rely increasingly on synthetics derived from practically inexhaustible inorganic materials. The world of 2000 A.D. Was seen by many to be one of increased leisure. But Huxley sees that potential for better working conditions and increased standards of living as obtainable only through a sustained peace. These same predictions of a leisure-oriented society, by Huxley and others living mid-century, would inspire the push-button cliche later parodied in the 1962 TV show “.” Huxley rightly predicts that the world would have to face the challenges that go along with having an aging population. Huxley himself would only live to see the year 1963, but he acknowledged what life would be like for young people reading his article.

Perhaps Huxley’s most inaccurate prediction is his assumption that an increase in productivity will mean an increase in wages for the average worker. As we’ve seen over the last half a century, increased worker productivity has. That enormous technological advances will be recorded during the next fifty years is certain. But to the worker as a worker, such advances will not necessarily be of great significance. It makes very little difference to the textile worker whether the stuff he handles is the product of a worm, a plant, a mammal or a chemical laboratory.

Work is work, and what matters to the worker is neither the product nor the technical process, but the pay, the hours, the attitude of the boss, the physical environment. To most office and factory workers in 2000 the application of nuclear fission to industry will mean very little. What they will care about is what their fathers and mothers care about today—improvement in the conditions of labor. Given peace, it should be possible, within the next fifty years, to improve working conditions very considerably.

Better equipped, workers will produce more and therefore earn more. Meanwhile most of the hideous relics of the industrial Middle Ages will have been replaced by new factories, offices and homes. More and more factories and offices will be relocated in small country communities, where life is cheaper, pleasanter and more genuinely human than in those breeding-grounds of mass neurosis, the great metropolitan centers of today. Decentralization may help to check that march toward the asylum, which is a threat to our civilization hardly less grave than that of erosion and A-bomb. All in all, I’d say that Huxley’s predictions were fairly accurate in spirit. Like so many prominent people of mid-century, he fails to predict or consider the dramatic social changes that would occur which had a direct impact on the 21st century workforce. But his idea that “work is work” and people simply want to find the best work they can with the best conditions and pay seems to be a timeless observation.

If the finished product means little to the worker, it means much to the housewife. New synthetic building materials will be easier to keep clean.

New solar heating systems will be cheaper and less messy. Electronics in the kitchen will greatly simplify the task of the cook. In a word, by 2000 the business of living should have become decidedly less arduous than it is at present. But, though less arduous, it will last on the average a good deal longer. In 2000 there will be more elderly people in the world than at any previous time.

In many countries the citizens of sixty-five and over will outnumber the boys and girls of fifteen and under. Pensions and a pointless leisure offer no solution to the problems of an aging population. In 2000 the younger readers of this article, who will then be in their seventies, will probably be inhabiting a world in which the old are provided with opportunities for using their experience and remaining strength in ways satisfactory to themselves, and valuable to the community. What do you say? I’m by no means an expert on Huxley and would welcome the opinion of others who may be able to read between the lines and offer insight into his vision of the year 2000.

This post originally appeared. Axanar has attracted a lot of attention since its hugely successful and campaigns raised over a million dollars to make a movie set. But after over a year of tolerating the film’s existence, CBS and Paramount have cracked down. Axanar promised to be a lavish independent production, a movie that looked at the early days of the Federation’s conflict with the Klingon Empire in the years before the original Star Trek television series and that culminated in a bloody battle at the titular planet of Axanar. The story was uncovered ground in CBS’s official Star Trek work in both movies or live-action television. Meanwhile, CBS not only had a long-standing reputation of embracing the Star Trek fan film community and their projects but with Axanar executive producer Alec Peters in recent months to confirm that, as long as the new film wasn’t made for commercial purposes, CBS was fine with it.

Just revealed that CBS and Paramount filed a lawsuit on Christmas Day seeking an injunction against Axanar in an effort to get the movie scrapped as well as seek damages for “direct, contributory and vicarious copyright infringement.” The thrust of the suit seems to be that because of Axanar’s vast crowdfunding success, the project has evolved beyond the sort of fan film that CBS would tolerate into something that violates its copyright. And presumably, with, the thought of a wildly popular fan creation attracting attention and potential confusion is not something CBS wants. It’s a shame, but perhaps not a surprising turn of events for Axanar. The bigger it got, the more likely it seemed that CBS would intervene—and that day has finally come. [] Header image via. One of the worst environmental disasters of the decade is currently underway in a quiet community 25 miles northwest of Los Angeles.

Putrid, methane-rich natural gas has been spewing into the air at an rate of nearly 1,300 metric tons per day for over two months. Experts are calling it the, and. Natural gas is often touted as a cleaner energy source than oil or coal, because of the lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with burning it. But as this disaster highlights, there are insidious risk to natural gas production. Coupled with weak regulation, they can make this energy source as dirty as the fossil fuels it’s meant to replace. “The science is crystal clear: if you allow the methane to leak, you can wipe out its climate benefits,”, director of the Environmental Defense Fund’s Oil and Gas Program in California told Gizmodo.

In fact, everything about the leak is eerily reminiscent of the oil spills that have blackened oceans and beaches for over a century. These parallels underscore a hard truth: to fix our planet. Like 7 Million Cars On October 23rd, a natural gas leak erupted at a storage well beneath the community of Porter Ranch.

The well stores gas carried by pipelines from extraction operations hundreds of miles away in Texas, the Midwest, and the Rocky Mountains. The leak has taken a serious toll on Porter Ranch residents, who for weeks have reported headaches, nausea, dizziness, and other symptoms.

Methane is odorless and non-toxic, but natural gas producers inject it with trace quantities of sulfurous chemicals called mercaptans so that leaks can be detected by scent. According to Cyrus Rangan, director of the Toxics Epidemiology Program at LA County’s Department of Public Health, the stench from the leak is so foul that residents are having a physiologic response to it. “People are having very real responses, based on their own sensitivity,” Rangan told Gizmodo. “In terms of acute chemical exposures, this is a really, really big deal.” Rangan estimates that somewhere between four and five thousand families have filed for help, with 2,200 families temporarily relocated so far. As of this week, the leak has sent over 73,000 metric tons of methane gas skyward, according to estimates published by the Environmental Defense Fund, which is.

And that’s a big problem for our climate. Although short-lived in the atmosphere, methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with up to 80 times the global warming potential of CO2 in the first twenty years of its lifespan. 73,000 metric tons of methane is the global warming equivalent of over six million metric tons of CO2. Put another way, the daily emissions from Porter Ranch are essentially equivalent to sticking seven million additional cars on the road.

Plugging the Hole and Fixing the Problem The first order of business for California is getting this well plugged. After several failed attempts to stop the flow of gas using conventional methods, SoCalGas began drilling a secondary “relief well” on December 4th. This well will intersect the leaky one and plug it. “After we intercept the well at more than 8,500 feet of measured depth, we will pump heavy fluids and drilling mud into the bottom of the leaking well to stop the flow of gas up from its source, the reservoir,” a statement provided to Gizmodo by SoCalGas, which manages the well, reads. “Once the flow of gas has been stopped, we will pump cement into the well to permanently seal the leak.” Here’s what the entire operation will look like: Image via SoCalGas, the drilling operation had reached a depth of 3,850 feet, and—in an important milestone—workers have now identified the seven-inch wide leaky gas pipe using magnetic ranging technology. Still, SoCalGas warns that plugging the leak and stopping the flow of methane could take until the end of March.

Estimates from California’s Air and Resources Board show that total statewide methane emissions, dramatically diminishing any climate benefit natural gas industry offers. “SoCalGas recognizes the impact this incident is having on the environment,” SoCalGas spokesperson Anne Silva told Gizmodo in an email. “While working to stop the gas leak and alleviate its impact on the community, we also have been evaluating options to mitigate the environmental impact.” But whatever mitigation measures SoCalGas takes, the leak highlights the shortcomings of natural gas—and how it’s regulated. Nobody’s sure exactly how the Porter Ranch leak started, but a by the EDF paints a disturbing picture of the state of natural gas pipes around Los Angeles. Nearly 40 percent of the pipes in SoCalGas’ jurisdiction are over 50 years old, and they’re leaking everywhere. The EDF reports an average of one methane leak every four to five miles across Pasadena, Inglewood, and Chino, three geographically disparate neighborhoods. Half Life 3 Free Download Pc Torrent. These leaks vary from less than 1,000 to over 60,000 liters of natural gas per day.

That means tens of thousands more cars worth of carbon emissions thanks to crappy infrastructure. But this isn’t just an LA problem.

By the EDF estimated over 13 million metric tones of natural gas leakage on federal and tribal lands in 2013 alone. “Globally, we know that more methane is leaked into the air from oil and gas infrastructure than the entire gas production of Norway—which is one of the world’s leading gas producers,” O’Connor said.

“Methane is a significant problem, and in the US, it can erode the climate benefit of the gas industry.” Nationwide, O’Connor estimates there are approximately 400 underground methane storage areas subject to little to no federal regulation—other Porter Ranch disasters waiting to happen. “These facilities are exempt from federal requirements for underground injections, and they fly under the radar until catastrophes strike,” he said. And that’s not to mention leaks during drilling, transportation through pipelines, and distribution. If we’re going to see a net climate benefit from natural gas production over fossil fuels, experts say percent of gas can leak during the entire production process.

In some parts of the country, we’re well beyond that figure. In other areas, the amount of leakage simply isn’t known. For the first time this year, the EPA has that would directly regulate methane emissions from oil and gas facilities built in the future. But as the, these rules say nothing about facilities already in operation. If the natural gas industry wants to sell an environmentally-friendly alternative to oil, all of its infrastructure needs to be air-tight. “We need to think of natural gas as a bridge fuel, “ O’Connor said.

“It’s an energy source that can have a benefit, but that benefit is only realized if you keep it in the pipes.” Follow the author Top image: Crews from SoCalGas and elsewhere work at a relief well located near Porter Ranch. Image via Dean Musgrove/Los Angeles Daily News/AP. Ever since Han, Luke, and Chewbacca, Star Wars fans have jokingly wondered why the poor Wookiee was left out. Well the final issue of Marvel’s Chewbacca miniseries has an answer, all these years later.

Minor Spoilers ahead for Chewbacca #5, by Gerry Duggan, Phil Noto, and Joe Caramagna. Chewbacca #5 serves as the culmination of a short adventure a crash-landed Chewbacca has had with a young girl named Zarro. The duo has freed Zarro’s father from a local thug’s mines and escaped the clutches of the Imperial troops said thug was working for. Following an explosive escape from a Star Destroyer, Chewbacca and Zarro make to go their separate ways. But not before the young girl says it would’ve been nice if they had some recognition of what they did to save the planet from the Empire.

Perhaps recognizing the same feeling fans have assumed Chewie had at the end of A New Hope, the wookiee turns around and clasps something around Zarro’s neck: His medal! Turns out Chewbacca had one after all, presumably given to him after the main ceremony. Maybe Princess Leia didn’t want to have to use a stool to get high enough to put one on him in front of so many Alliance soldiers? Or maybe Chewie was just being shy? Chewbacca goes on to tell Zarro that he’s not too keen on having the medal anyway.

It clashes with his “warrior vibe,” according to Zarro’s translation of his roars. Poor guy, but at least we know he wasn’t left out back on Yavin—or why we’ll never see him with the medal again. Marvel’s Star Wars comics have been doing a pretty fun job of filling in the gaps between the movies in Disney’s new canon. While it’s been nice to theorize all these years about whatever happened to Chewie’s medal (because that’s the sort of thing Star Wars fans love to do, let’s be honest), this is a pretty cute way to touch on it in Disney’s new official capacity as custodians of all things Star Wars. Images via Marvel.

A new study shows we’re still suckers for canny packaging of cigarette brands, especially those claiming to be slightly less bad for us than the usual variety. A team of Australian researchers investigated the effects of plain packaging laws, publishing their findings yesterday.

Plain packaging and warnings on cigarettes seem like a useless precaution. Who doesn’t know that smoking is bad for people? They found that Aboriginal and Torres Island people certainly did know that smoking was bad. What plain packaging did was reduce was the perception that certain kinds of cigarettes were “less bad” for people. Packages depicting healthy icons with words like “slim” and “light” gave the impression that certain kinds of cigarettes were healthier. Some packages even used the same word as the NICO card: mild.

There’s actually a long history of marketing efforts to lessen people’s anxiety over the adverse health effects of consumer products — and no more so than with cigarettes. In the 1960s, when it really started hitting home that smoking kills, companies adopted a popular marketing strategy that involved uranium. Radium skin cream and radioactive suppositories are well-known examples of historically bogus uses of radiation as a health tonic, but there are a number of bit players we don’t always hear about. One of them was the.

This card first appeared in Japan, and soon became a popular export, as Americans clamored for a way to keep on smoking without worrying about the health consequences. The card was small and blue and contained a shake or two of uranium. Smokers were to slip it into their packs of cigarettes, where the radiation from the uranium would somehow eliminate the poisons in the cigarettes. The packaging for the card claimed it was effective in “lowering tar and nicotine 17%,” that it allowed for “milder smoking with no sacrifice in taste,” and that it caused a 50% reduction in the “poisonous substance contained in tobacco smoke.” Needless to say, it did none of those things. While the card is a thing of the past, it’s still with us today in spirit. In health food stores and new agey places, it’s possible to purchase a metal medallion to attach to one’s cell phone to eliminate the harmful electromagnetic radiation given off by the phone.

Everyone has been suckered in by healthy packaging at some point, or tried to pick the least harmful of a slate of bad options. Tailoring marketing materials to promote the perception of a “least bad option” has never stopped being lucrative.

Do you love your hoverboard? They’ve become so popular, you’d think they could. Well, enjoy them while you can, because everyone seems to be banning them — from the smallest universities to entire countries. Below, we have a comprehensive list of every place in the world that has explicitly banned hoverboards. We expect this list to grow over the next year, so we’ll continually update it as we see more bans enacted around the world. (all), Ohio (pending) Cleveland, Ohio • Denmark • Public spaces theme parks Dubai, UAE • Humble, Texas • Legoland, California Los Angeles, California • Minneapolis, Minnesota • Netherlands, Australia, New York Ocean City, Maryland • (pending), Rhode Island Santa Clara University, California, Ohio, Connecticut If we’ve missed some place, don’t be shy about letting us know in the comments. Or give me a shout over email: novak@gizmodo.com Happy hoverboarding!

(While you still can.) Image via Getty. Sure, Star Wars fans might dream of igniting a lightsaber and calling on the force like a Jedi. But honestly, if we were in a galaxy far far away, we’d want to lock our S-Foils in attack position like the dashing X-Wing pilots of the Alliance and Republic. But who’s the best of them all? We ranked them to find out. Warning: There are some incredibly mild spoilers for The Force Awakens below.

View at your own discretion! 1) Wedge Antilles Sure, in the movies, at first Wedge might have been seen as an almost-sidekick to Luke’s superior piloting talent—but while Luke wandered off to be the hero and a Jedi, it was Wedge who transformed into the ultimate X-Wing pilot. There is, after all, only one pilot who survived two Death Star runs.

And it’s Wedge. From helping to found Rogue Squadron, to commanding Red squadron at Endor,—and then further exploits in the Expanded Universe as he lead the Rogues and founded a second elite pilot team in the Wraiths—Wedge is undoubtedly the most influential X-Wing commander. There was no one who could fly an X-Wing like Wedge to the point he was drawn out of retirement about three or four times, just to get him back commanding troops and flying ships whenever the galaxy was under threat. 2) Poe Dameron Sure, Poe might be new on the scene, but he really does deserve to be this high up—and his turn in The Force Awakens reignited our love of insanely charming X-Wing pilots all over again. Not only is Poe the best pilot in the Resistance, he displays something rarely seen in the starfighter battles of the Star Wars movies—a genuine joy for piloting. Most of the film’s pilots spend their time in a cockpit tense or relieved that they survived in victory.

Poe hoots and hollers with joy as he takes down enemy fighters and blows up Starkiller base, and we can’t help but root for him because of it. 3) Luke Skywalker Luke might have gone on to become much more than an X-Wing pilot—but even if he’s more famed as a Jedi, he’s still one of the finest pilots in Star Wars. A natural before he even knew he could tap into the Force, Luke’s years of training with the hopes of entering the Imperial Academy made him a keen shot behind the controls of a ship—and with the Force as his ally, he could do impossible things like blow up the Death Star with a one-in-a-million shot. Even though he went on to become a Jedi Master, Luke’s piloting legacy lived on thanks to his role in founding Rogue Squadron, the best of the best when it came to X-Wing pilots. 4) Tycho Celchu Like many of Star Wars’ best pilots, Tycho started his pilot career for the Empire—but witnessing the destruction of his home planet of Alderaan swayed him to the Rebellion’s cause.

Tycho’s skill was so great that Luke immediately recruited him into Rogue Squadron upon his defection, quickly becoming one of the most iconic members behind Luke and Wedge. Although a brief stint in an A-Wing tarnishes his X-Wing piloting record—he only used it because his X-Wing was damaged before the Battle of Endor—Tycho was considered by the Rogues, the Rebellion at large, and even his former allies in the Empire, as one of the greatest pilots in living history. 5) Corran Horn Corran Horn’s a triple threat: detective (he used to be a police officer), pilot, and Jedi. When Rogue Squadron was being reformed, Corran was at the top of an already elite group of rookies. As a member of Rogue Squadron, Corran flew into the middle of a storm to take down the shields around Coruscant and, for his trouble, was captured by the Empire.

He broke out in time to lead the Rogues in resigning from the New Republic so they could take down the current leader of the Empire, Ysane Isard. Although Horn became a Jedi Master later in life, he should always be best known for his exploits in the cockpit. 6) Derek “Hobbie” Klivian Infamously pessimistic and with a penchant for injuries, Hobbie was one of the original members of Rogue Squadron. Recruited for the squadron under Luke and Wedge, Hobbie flew in both the Battles of Hoth and Endor. Hobbie spent some time training other pilots, before being briefly put in charge of the official Rogue Squadron after Wedge’s reconstituted one resigned. As good as he might have been at training, Hobbie demanded to rejoin the Rogues, where he became one of the most famous X-Wing pilots in the galaxy. Wedge, Tycho, Hobbie, and Wes from the cover of Starfighters of Adumar 7) Wes Janson Of “Good shot, Janson,” fame, Wes was likewise an original Rogue-turned-trainer-turned-back-to-Rogue.

In addition to flying at Hoth and Endor, Wes is famous for his crack shot abilities and his irrepressible sense of humor. In addition to being a Rogue, Wedge made Wes his executive officer when he founded the Wraiths. Wes tried to retire twice, but was pulled back into service twice. The first time, he turned a group of volunteers into an elite piloting unit.

The second time was in support of Luke Skywalker’s fight against Jacen Solo. 8) Gavin Darklighter Despite starting out his career in the shadow of his cousin, Biggs, Gavin’s long period of service ranks him higher.

Gavin joined the New Republic where his skill in an X-Wing landed him in Wedge’s reformed Rogue Squadron. His leadership and flying skill were so good that he assumed command of the elite squadron when Wedge and Tycho retired. 9) Jaina Solo Jaina in her Rogue flightsuit with her brothers Jacen and Anakin, on the cover of The New Jedi Order: Dark Tide II: Ruin. Another Jedi and pilot, Jaina’s Force skills always tended to the mechanical and piloting. Although it was her mother’s, Leia, insistence that got her into Rogue Squadron, it was her own skill that kept her there and eventually led to her being in charge (along with her brother, but since he was turning evil at the time, he doesn’t get to be on this list). 10) Kasan Moor Another Imperial Alderaanian who defected after the Death Star destroyed the planet, Kasan was already one of the most elite TIE pilots in the Imperial Navy—but her skills flourished when Luke placed her into Rogue Squadron.

Over a series of months, Moor used her knowledge of Imperial plans to plot a campaign against her former superiors, even handing her TIE Interceptor over to the Rogues so they could learn more about the Imperial’s best starfighters. 11) Myn Donos Myn Donos: trained by Hobbie and Wes, put in charge of his own squadron right out of training, member of both the Wraiths and the Rogues.

If he doesn’t represent one of the best X-Wing pilots out there, no one does. 12) Bror Jace Bror was Corran’s competition for best new Rogue when Wedge rebuilt the squadron.

A skilled flyer, Bror left the Rogues to help found his home planet’s aerospace defense force. 13) Kell Tainer Kell was a skilled X-Wing pilot recruited and trained by Wedge for Wraith Squadron, ending up with the highest scores of his training group. He performed a series of terrifying and dangerous manuevers to try to save a fellow Wraith, earning him a commendation. Five kills in one fight made him an instant ace pilot, but Kell had to overcome his third panic attack while flying to do it.

14) Pash Cracken Son of General Airen Cracken, Pash led a whole wing of TIE fighter pilots to defect to the New Republic. He became a mythical pilot in his own time, eventually requesting a transfer to Rogue Squadron to make sure he was as good as everyone kept saying he was. He’s only this low on the list because he spent most his career in an A-Wing. 15) Asyr Sei’lar Corran Horn and Asyr Sei’lar, by Frank-Joseph Frelier for A Bothan who trained in the Bothan Martial Academy, where her skill was equal to that of pilots older than her.

Asyr stumbled into the Rogues while they were undercover on Coruscant, ending up a member. She spent years with the Rogues before faking her own death. 16) Ooryl Qrygg Corran’s wingman, Ooryl was a distinguished member of Rogue Squadron. His deeds gained him enough notice that his homeworld of Gand granted him the status of “Janwuine-jika,” which recognizes the most famous and successful Gands as folk-heroes and allows them to use the first person. 17) Inyri Forge Even though she started out loyal to her lover, a member of the Black Sun organized crime syndicate, Inyri eventually proved her loyalty to the Rogues by saving Corran’s life. Instead of being a member of the New Republic’s fighting force, Inyri was made a member by the Rogues themselves after her help when the New Republic took over Coruscant.

Since then, she was a constant and skilled member of Rogue Squadron. 18) Aril Nunb Sister to Nien Nunb, Aril was a member of Rogue Squadron who was captured and experimented on by Imperials. She escaped and rejoined her squadron, helping them defeat Ysane Isard. Aril rose through the ranks, eventually becoming an admiral. 19) Plourr Ilo You know how secret princesses are also brilliant pilots who quickly rise through the ranks in the most famous X-Wing squadron there is? Yeah, that’s Plourr, who continued to serve with the Rogues whenever she could.

Even though she was technically ruling a planet at the same time. 20) Biggs Darklighter Oh, Biggs. Out of the live action pilots except for Luke and Wedge, he’s probably the one we get to see the most actual flying of in A New Hope, and that was probably enough to make him one of the best. But even with his untimely demise, before the Death Star assault Biggs was a poster boy for the Alliance starfighter corps. Like many others he was a defecting Imperial, but even Wedge was impressed by Bigg’s innate skill and knowledge of Imperial tactics, speedily propelling him to the position of one of the Alliance’s best pilots.

He became an Ace—a pilot with five confirmed kills—in his first ever mission with the Rebels, and was a hero ever since. 21) Thane Kyrell The hero of Lost Stars, Claudia Gray’s, Thane lead Corona Squadron, in many space battles during the Galactic Civil War.

Although he never joined the Rogues, his X-Wing skills gave him a high estimation among his fellow pilots. But, Thane gets points knocked off because Lost Stars tries to claim that it was his decision to attack the engines of Darth Vader’s Super Star Destroyer Executor during the Battle of Endor that sent the ship crashing down into the second Death Star, not an A-Wing pilot luckily (and hilariously) exploding into the ship’s bridge. You don’t get to deny that, Thane! 22) Garvin Dreis The original leader of Red Squadron at the Battle of Yavin, Dreis was beloved by the pilots under his command for his fatherly nature and his keen eye for training Alliance pilots in the art of X-Wing flying.

Although he met his end at Vader’s hands at Yavin, Dreis’ skill was undeniable—after all, he nearly made the shot to destroy the Death Star, and that was without the Force to help him. 23) Riv Shiel Gavin’s original wingman in Rogue Squadron and a talented pilot, who was instrumental in the taking of Coruscant by the New Republic and fought with Rogue Squadron against Ysane Isard. It was in that fight that he died, during an ambush. 24) Falynn Sandskimmer Another brilliant pilot from Tantooine, Falynn’s career stalled for her tendency to insubordination.

She once ended up in a piloting contest against Wedge, which her pure skill brought her close to winning. Wedge’s tactical mind—AKA “cheating”—was what allowed him to win. 25) Voort “Piggy” saBinring Voort saBinring, by Brian Rood for The Essential Readers Companion, via. Another member of Wraith Squadron, Piggy was a Gammorean subject of horrifying Imperial experimentation, which resulted in a genius-level mathematical IQ. In addition to being a skilled pilot on his own, Piggy’s math abilities meant he acted as a sort of tactical computer for the rest of his squadron. 26) Ibtisam Ibtisam’s a weird one. A B-Wing pilot at Endor who miraculously survived the destruction of her ship, upon returning to service she was assigned to Rogue Squadron, an X-Wing group.

And she hated it, frequently disparaging the little ship in comparison to what else the Alliance, and then Republic, fleet had to offer. But the Mon Calamari grew to be one of the Rogue’s finest trainees, with dozens of simulated kills in her training already putting her up with the best of the Squadron even before she got her hands/flippers on an actual X-Wing. 27) Garik “Face” Loran Face Loran was a member of the original Wraith Squadron, eventually becoming its commander. While a semi-skilled pilot with a tendency towards getting ships destroyed, Face’s real skill was in lateral thinking and commanding an Intelligence group. 28) Jek “Piggy” Porkins Originally a bomber pilot, Porkins achieved sixteen kills in under forty hours of combat time. He eventually joined the precursor to the Rogues, Red Squadron, flying with them against the first Death Star, where he unfortunately perished. Yes, there were multiple X-Wing pilots nicknamed “Piggy!” 29) Shalla Nelprin Like so many of the Wraiths, Shalla eventually ended up working for New Republic Intelligence and shedding her X-Wing pilot status.

However, Shalla’s skill is undeniable. For her part as a member of a Wraith operation against Warlord Zsinj, Shalla was allowed to paint half a Super Star Destroyer on her X-Wing as recognition that half of that kill was hers. Wraith Squadron, on the cover of X-Wing: Wraith Squadron 30) Snap Wexley Aside from having an incredibly Star-Wars-ian name, Temmins “Snap” Wexley was one of the Resistance’s most valued pilots next to Poe Dameron: he single-handedly scouted out Starkiller Base undetected, allowing the Resistance to discover the planet-destroyer’s weaknesses. He was even one of the handful of X-Wing pilots to survive the attack on the Base, too. 31) Lujayne Forge A skilled pilot who joined Rogue Squadron when Wedge rebuilt it, Lujayne’s piloting abilities were the result of learning how to fix and fly landspeeders back home on Kessel.

She had some of the lower scores in her unit and died in an Imperial raid of their base. 32) Jesmin Ackbar Niece of the famous Admiral Gial Ackbar, Jesmin joined the Wraiths as other commanders feared putting her in harm’s way because of her uncle. Although she died in the Wraiths, she was an exemplary pilot during that time. 33) Elassar Targon A superstitious pilot, Targon transferred to the Wraiths right after he graduated the New Republic’s Fleet Command Academy. Whereas the first round of Wraiths were washouts and screwups, Elassar chose to join the unit for its elite reputation and fit in almost immediately. 34) Dia Passik Dia became a pilot out of necessity, getting anyone she could find to teach her so that she could escape her life as a slave. Finally getting free and shooting down the ship of her “owner,” Dia joined Wraith Squadron.

She served them well there, saving Kell, Face, and Shalla’s lives by recognizing a trick that was being played on them. 35) Gara Petothel/Lara Notsil Gara changed identities and sides a lot in her career, but she eventually proved to be totally loyal to the Wraiths.

The Empire had turned her into a spy, even though her desire was to be a pilot and she had the skills to back it up. She proved that it was where.