Written by Bryan Nelson

The current rate of extinction is 100 to 1000 times higher than the average, or background rate, making our current period the 6th major mass extinction in the planet’s history.

Although fossil reconstructions or pictorial representations can sometimes be difficult to connect with, it’s impossible to ignore the experience of seeing a photograph of an animal on the brink of extinction.

Thus, what follows is a list of 11 extinct animals that were photographed while still alive.

Tasmanian Tiger

The last Tasmanian Tiger, or Thylacine, known to have existed died in the Hobart Zoo, in Tasmania, Australia, on September 7th, 1936. Read the full story

WASHINGTON — Whistleblower website WikiLeaks has temporarily shut down because of financial difficulties.

WikiLeaks.org announced it was suspending operations in a message on its homepage that included an appeal to the public for donations. Read the full story

Scientists have detected a flash of light from across the Galaxy so powerful that it bounced off the Moon and lit up the Earth’s upper atmosphere. The flash was brighter than anything ever detected from beyond our Solar System and lasted over a tenth of a second. NASA and European satellites and many radio telescopes detected the flash and its aftermath on December 27, 2004. Two science teams report about this event at a special press event today at NASA headquarters. A multitude of papers are planned for publication.

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The Federal Government will introduce compulsory internet filtering to block overseas sites which contain criminal content, including child sex abuse and sexual violence.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced the changes today following a controversial trial to filter the internet which was conducted earlier this year.

Senator Conroy says some internet content is simply not suitable in a civilised society.

“It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material,” he said. Read the full story

The mammoth chunk of ice, which measures 12 miles long and five miles wide, was spotted floating close to the mainland by scientists at the Australian Antarctic Division (ADD).

Known as B17B, it is currently drifting 1,000 miles from Australia’s west coast and is moving gradually north with the ocean current and prevailing wind.

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We have found video of Al Gore being confronted by a group known as We Are Change Chicago at a signing for his new book – “Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis” (which has been proven to use fraudulent images via Photoshop to help his cause). Reports have surfaced that scientists involved with global warming have used fraudulent or incorrect data have added new twists to claims that global warming is caused by man and increased CO2 emissions.

What do you think?

Content from links above can be found below. Read the full story

The Netherlands were the surprise beneficiary of FIFA’s late decision to abandon the principles of the 2002, 2006 World Cup draw’s seeding formula.

In those cycles, FIFA assigned weights to the two preceding World Cup finishes along with the end-of-year FIFA World Rankings from the last three years.

Today, when announcing the eight seeded teams that will be draw into separate groups for World Cup 2010, FIFA disclosed that the only factor in this year’s seeding was the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking.  The top seven nations from that last will join host nation South Africa as seeds for Friday’s draw. Read the full story

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***BULLETIN — PACIFIC TSUNAMI WARNING CENTER CONFIRMS A TSUNAMI HAS BEEN GENERATED. ***

http://earthquake.usgs.gov/eqcenter/recenteqsww/Quakes/quakes_all.php

Update time = Thu Oct 8 1:02:47 UTC 2009

Tsunami Warning After Quakes In Pacific

A tsunami warning has been issued in the south-west Pacific after two huge undersea earthquakes struck the region.

It comes just one week after a series of tsunamis devastated the Samoa islands, killing over 170 people.

The warning covered 11 nations, including Papua New Guinea and the popular resort islands of Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre, based in Hawaii, also issued a tsunami watch for the wider western Pacific.

This incuded Australia, New Zealand, Indonesia and the nations of American Samoa and Samoa.

Authorities in New Caledonia, a French territory, were evacuating people from the island’s eastern shore and from the nearby Loyalty Islands to higher ground, police said.

A police spokesman in the capital, Noumea, said residents were bracing for a tsunami to strike at around 11.15am local time on Thursday (0015 GMT).

The tsunami warning centre said it was still evaluating whether to issue a Pacific-wide warning after two quakes between Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands.

One had a magnitude of 7.8 and the other 7.3.

“An evaluation of the Pacific-wide tsunami threat is underway and there is a possibility that Hawaii could be elevated to a watch or warning status,” the centre said.

A spokesman for New Zealand’s Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management said it was issuing a tsunami advisory for people not to be on beaches or boats near the coast.

The ministry is awaiting further information before taking further steps, the spokesman said.

http://news.sky.com/

VANUATU (BNO NEWS) – A massive earthquake rocked the Pacific Ocean on Thursday morning, according to seismologists, followed by another huge tremor about fifteen minutes later.

The initial earthquake, which struck about 232 miles north-northwest of Vanuatu’s Santo, had a preliminary magnitude of 8.1, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. The United States Geological Survey reported it as a 7.8-magnitude.

The first quake happened at 9.03 a.m. local time (22.03 UTC Wednesday). A spokeswoman for the United States Geological Survey told BNO News that an aftershock, with a preliminary 7.3-magnitude, struck about 15 minutes later. The epicenter of the second tremor was located about 205 miles northwest of Luganville on Vanuatu’s Espiritu.

A third earthquake happened around 10.13 a.m. local time (23.13 UTC Wednesday) about 180 miles north-northwest of Vanuatu’s Santo. It had a preliminary magnitude of 6.2, according to the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center.

Tsunami warnings have immediately been issued for Vanuatu, the Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Kiribati, Kosrae, wallis-Futuna and Howland-Baker.

A tsunami watch is also in effect for the Marshall Islands, Tokelau, the Kermadec Islands, Pohnpei, New Zealand, Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, Australia, Niue, Cook Islands, Chuuk, Indonesia, Wake Island, Jarvis Island, Palmyra Island, Guam, North Marianas, Johnston Island, Yap, Marcus Island and Belau.

It is not yet known if a tsunami was created. The earthquake struck about 15 miles deep, making it an extremely shallow earthquake. Shallow earthquakes often tend to cause more damage, and increase the risk of a tsunami.

“An earthquake of this size has the potential to generate a destructive tsunami that can strike coastlines near the epicenter within minutes and more distant coastlines within hours,” a bulletin from the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center read.

A tsunami advisory has also been issued for the state of Hawaii and may be upgraded later when more information becomes available. “An evaluation of the Pacific-wide tsunami threat is underway and there is a possibility that Hawaii could be elevated to a watch or warning status,” a bulletin from the agency said.

An official at the Fiji Meteorological Service told BNO News that it is urging people to evacuate to higher ground, and fears that tsunami may hit coastal areas around 12.37 p.m. local time. The official said that mobile phone networks have sent messages to all phones to warn them and begin evacuations.

Residents in the low lying Pacific island state of Tuvalu were ordered to evacuate from areas close to the sea, police officials told the AFP news agency.

This breaking news story will be updated.

http://news.bnonews.com/n3ng

BREAKING NEWS: A 7.8 magnitude earthquake has struck off the northwest of Santo, Vanuatu, the US Geological Survey reports.

The quake hit at 11.03 NZ time and the epicentre was located 373 km north-northwest of Santo, Vanuatu, at a depth of 33 km, the agency said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

The Pacific Tsunami Warning Centre in Hawaii has issued a tsunami warning in effect for Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, Nauru, Papua New Guinea, Tuvalu, New Caledonia, Fiji, Kiribati, Kosrae, Wallis-Futuna and Howland-Baker.

A tsunami watch, a lower level of alert, has been advised for both New Zealand and Australia as well as Samoa, American Samoa, Tonga, the Cook Islands and Indonesia. Any wave would reach New Zealand around 2.34pm.

New Zealand Civil Defence national public information manager Vince Cholewa said an advisory would be released to broadcasters shortly.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/

Tsunami warning for Pacific islands

The epicentre of the quake was located 373 kilometres from Vanuatu at a depth of 3

3 kilometres, the US Geological Survey says.

There were no immediate reports of injuries or damage.

Earlier, a magnitude 6.7 quake struck south-east of the Sulu archipelago of the Philippines.

The quake was in the Celebes Sea, 320 kilometres south of Zamboanga in Mindanao, and occurred at 5:41am (local time). The depth was 582.8 kilometres, the USGS said.

The warning comes a week after an undersea 8.3-magnitude quake struck off Samoa, causing a devastating tsunami in Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga, which killed hundreds of people.

A deadly 7.6-magnitude earthquake also hit the Indonesia island of Sumatra, destroying entire villages and buying people alive. The death toll is expected to exceed 1,000.

http://www.abc.net.au/

JAKARTA, Indonesia — A disaster management official says at least 200 people have been killed by the powerful earthquake that struck western Indonesia. Priyadi Kardono, a spokesman for the National Disaster Management Agency, says the deaths were counted in the coastal Sumatran city of Padang, following Wednesday’s 7.6 magnitude quake. Read the full story

Google Wave to be released to 100,000 testers Wednesday

(CNN) — Google Wave, a product that promises to revolutionize online communication, will go out to about 100,000 beta testers Wednesday.

The Web application from Google Inc. combines elements of e-mail, chat, Wiki documents, blogs and photo-sharing sites to create a form of Internet communication called a “hosted conversation,” or a “wave.” Read the full story

LIVE VIDEO FEED!

Pittsburgh News Feed:

http://mfile.akamai.com/

CBS News Feed:

http://a123.g.akamai.net/ Read the full story

Walkout over Mahmoud Ahmadinejad Zionist rant

FRANCE today led a walkout of delegations, including Australia, to protest a fiery speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the UN General Assembly. Read the full story

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Sydneysiders have woken to a red haze unlike anything seen before by residents or weather experts, as the sun struggles to pierce a thick blanket of dust cloaking the city this morning.

Callers flooded talkback radio, others hit social networking sites and scores of emails were received from smh.com.au readers as Sydney residents expressed their amazement at this morning’s conditions.

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Google lets you custom-print millions of books

• Story Highlights
• Google Book Search is letting readers turn digitized texts back into paper copies
• Google scans millions of books and turns them into searchable documents
• Books can be printed on demand by a special machine in about 4 minutes
• The machine is only in a few dozen bookstores so far Read the full story

More than 1 1/2 years after discovering a race of ancient, “Hobbit”-like little people on a remote tropical island, scientists still do not know what to make of them. Are they a new species of human ancestor? Or were they modern humans suffering from a debilitating genetic deformity?

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