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Mother Nature Does Nuclear Power

wjwlsn writes "Back in the day (2 billion years ago), even before the time of iron men and wooden reactors, Mother Nature had mastered nuclear power. She built a passively safe system at Oklo that had fully automatic control and built-in waste containment, and operated it safely for about 150 million years. Now researchers at Washington University in St. Louis have deduced the operational characteristics by examining the isotopic composition of xenon contained in rock samples taken from the reactor site. More details at Eurekalert."

4 of 62 comments (clear)

  1. Netcraft Confirms: Earth is DYING by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    WWF has now confirmed : Earth Is Dying

    Yet another crippling bombshell hit the beleaguered Earth community when the WWF confirmed that the Earth will be uninhabitable by 2050. Coming on the heels of a recent National Academy of Sciences report that the average temperature has risen yet again, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The Earth is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Galaxy-Wide species diversity test.

    You don't need to be a Kreskin [amdest.com] to predict Earth's future. The hand writing is on the wall: Earth faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for Earth because Earth is dying. Things are looking very bad for Earth. As many of us are already aware, Earth continues to lose species. Extinction flows like a river of blood.

    The rainforest habitats are the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of their area. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time species black rhino and tiger only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: Earth is dying.

    Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

    Earth leader Bush states that there are 7000 species left. How many mammals are there? Let's see. The number of mammal versus amphibian posts on Usenet is roughly in ratio of 5 to 1. Therefore there are about 7000/5 = 1400 mammal species. Rainforest reptile posts on Usenet are about half of the volume of amphibian posts. Therefore there are about 700 rainforest reptiles. A recent article put mammals at about 80 percent of the species market. Therefore there are (7000+1400+700)*4 = 36400 mammal species. This is consistent with the number of mammal Usenet posts.

    Due to the troubles of the rainforests, abysmal slash and burn agriculture, the drug war and so on, Columbian rainforests went out of business and was taken over by Brazilian rainforests who sell another troubled rainforests to international logging interests. Now Thai forests are also dead, its corpse turned over to yet another charnel house.

    All major surveys show that Earth has steadily declined in wilderness and species. Earth is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If Earth is to survive at all it will be among human dilettante dabblers. Earth continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, Earth is dead.

  2. I wish mother nature would... by Wisgary · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    ...create a clean burning natural nuclear fusion reactor right now... ...right on top of Il Jong Kim's place in North Korea

  3. Will someone please do something by Rares+Marian · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    about the X is DYING jokes? Maybe we can get the Dept of Homeland Security to sue the writers on Kreskin's behalf (that would be trademark law correct?)

    On another note, I wish X would die.

    --
    The message on the other side of this sig is false.
  4. Re:"Mother Nature"?! by aussie_a · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    However 2 wongs don't make a white though. That was a political campaign in Australia back in the day *shudder*