Sitting Prime Minister Vladimir Putin won the presidential election in Russia. He received the votes from 63.82 percent of electors, who took part in the voting on March 4th. Gennady Zyuganov, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, comes second with 17.18 percent. Ninety-nine percent of ballot papers have been processed so far.
Mikhail Prokhorov takes the third place with 7.77 percent. Vladimir Zhirinovsky comes next with 6.23 percent. Sergei Mironov comes last with only 3.84 percent. (more…)
*Findings further efforts to better predict geomagnetic storms in space*
UCLA researchers have explained the puzzling disappearing act of energetic electrons in Earth’s outer radiation belt, using data collected from a fleet of orbiting spacecraft.
In a paper published Jan. 29 in the advance online edition of the journal Nature Physics, the team shows that the missing electrons are swept away from the planet by a tide of solar wind particles during periods of heightened solar activity. (more…)
*Facebook Audience Triples in the Past Year while Engagement Grows Nearly Sevenfold*
São Paulo, Brazil, January 17, 2012 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released data showing that Facebook assumed the top position in the Brazilian social networking market following a year of exceptional growth. In December 2011, Facebook.com attracted 36.1 million visitors – representing an increase of 192 percent in the past twelve months – to surpass Orkut as the leading social networking destination in the market.
“Facebook’s rapid ascent in the Brazilian market has certainly been one of the most interesting stories to develop during the course of 2011,” said Alex Banks, comScore managing director for Brazil. “Brazil has always been a particularly social market and currently owns the fifth largest social networking population in the world. But despite the cultural affinity for social media, Facebook adoption had traditionally lagged in the market. That has all changed in the past year, during which the site has tripled in audience size as engagement has grown sevenfold to assume the leadership position in the market.” (more…)
A hemispherewide phenomenon – and not just regional forces – has caused record-breaking amounts of freshwater to accumulate in the Arctic’s Beaufort Sea.
Frigid freshwater flowing into the Arctic Ocean from three of Russia’s mighty rivers was diverted hundreds of miles to a completely different part of the ocean in response to a decades-long shift in atmospheric pressure associated with the phenomenon called the Arctic Oscillation, according to findings published in the Jan. 5 issue of Nature. (more…)
Latest indications are this relatively small comet has broken into even smaller, even less significant, chunks of dust and ice. This trail of piffling particles will remain on the same path as the original comet, completing its unexceptional swing through the inner solar system this fall.
“Elenin did as new comets passing close by the sun do about two percent of the time: It broke apart,” said Don Yeomans of NASA’s Near-Earth Object Program Office at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. “Elenin’s remnants will also act as other broken-up comets act. They will trail along in a debris cloud that will follow a well-understood path out of the inner solar system. After that, we won’t see the scraps of comet Elenin around these parts for almost 12 millennia.”(more…)
PASADENA, Calif. – A NASA-led study has documented an unprecedented depletion of Earth’s protective ozone layer above the Arctic last winter and spring caused by an unusually prolonged period of extremely low temperatures in the stratosphere.
The study, published online Sunday, Oct. 2, in the journal Nature, finds the amount of ozone destroyed in the Arctic in 2011 was comparable to that seen in some years in the Antarctic, where an ozone “hole” has formed each spring since the mid-1980s. The stratospheric ozone layer, extending from about 10 to 20 miles (15 to 35 kilometers) above the surface, protects life on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. (more…)
ANCHORAGE, Alaska — USGS Alaska Science Center researchers, in cooperation with the Native Village of Point Lay, will attempt to attach 35 satellite radio-tags to walruses on the northwestern Alaska coast in August as part of their ongoing study of how the Pacific walrus are responding to reduced sea ice conditions in late summer and fall. (more…)
*comScore Releases Overview of European Internet Usage for June 2011*
LONDON, UK, 18 August 2011 – comScore, Inc., a leader in measuring the digital world, today released an overview of Internet usage in Europe, showing 368.6 million unique visitors went online in June 2011 for an average of 26.1 hours per person. This release highlights Internet usage in 49 European markets aggregated under the European region and provides individual reporting on 18 markets. Among the reportable markets, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, and Turkey continued to show the highest average engagement, with users from these markets spending an average of more than 31 hours online in the past month. (more…)
