Category: Science
08/05/10
Nigeria: We're Shocked - Falconets
Falconets left Nigeria unnoticed. Not even the Football Association took them seriously. But their strides up to the final of the FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup in Germany changed all that. And when they returned on Monday, the reception shocked them.
Defender Rebecca Kalu said that she never in her wildest dream thought that they were going to be showered with such outpouring of encomiums by a nation which barely cared to give them a shout-out when they were preparing and leaving for the competition in Germany.
"I am just shocked. I am still in shock that we are getting such a reception because nobody was at the airport to bid us farewell when we were travelling. But now, we are being celebrated. This is strange.
This is a strange country. I never in my life thought that such a day like this would come but I thank God that it is happening and pray thatit would continue to happen", said the fair-complexioned central defender.
Also speaking on their neglect before the tournament, Alaba Jonathan said that Nigerians must learn to encourage their athletes for them to excel in tournaments.
"They did not know that we existed before the tournament started but we told ourselves that we must fight for recognition and that helped us a lot. If not for the struggle, our people would not come out drumming for us. But it is not good that athletes are not celebrated before a tournament.
Nigerians must change their attitude", she said. Striker Ebere Orji, who scored the winner in the semifinal clash against Colombia, said that women in sports must be encouraged because of their recent exploits in football and athletics.
"We deserved better treatment from our people before our trip to Germany. We came second while our women also won seven of the eight gold medals that Nigeria won at the African Athletics Championships in Kenya.
If we were adequately supported before these two events, I am sure that we would have done better", said Orji, who has been invited to the Super Falcons camp ahead of October's African Women Championship in South Africa.
03/17/10
FaithCity Hospital Limited - Nigeria's Best Hospital
Profile
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The Corporate head office is a well-furnished facility designed to meet the out-patient and in-patient needs of our patients. Our services cover all fields of medicine, dentistry and surgery and much more. We have qualified consultants available to attend to our clients and in-house laboratory services are also available 24hrs a day.
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Mission Statement
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Corporate Head Office:
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03/06/10
It's official: An asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs
LONDON (Reuters) – A giant asteroid smashing into Earth is the only plausible explanation for the extinction of the dinosaurs, a global scientific team said on Thursday, hoping to settle a row that has divided experts for decades.
A panel of 41 scientists from across the world reviewed 20 years' worth of research to try to confirm the cause of the so-called Cretaceous-Tertiary (KT) extinction, which created a "hellish environment" around 65 million years ago and wiped out more than half of all species on the planet.
Scientific opinion was split over whether the extinction was caused by an asteroid or by volcanic activity in the Deccan Traps in what is now India, where there were a series of super volcanic eruptions that lasted around 1.5 million years.
The new study, conducted by scientists from Europe, the United States, Mexico, Canada and Japan and published in the journal Science, found that a 15-kilometre (9 miles) wide asteroid slamming into Earth at Chicxulub in what is now Mexico was the culprit.
"We now have great confidence that an asteroid was the cause of the KT extinction. This triggered large-scale fires, earthquakes measuring more than 10 on the Richter scale, and continental landslides, which created tsunamis," said Joanna Morgan of Imperial College London, a co-author of the review.
The asteroid is thought to have hit Earth with a force a billion times more powerful than the atomic bomb at Hiroshima.
Morgan said the "final nail in the coffin for the dinosaurs" came when blasted material flew into the atmosphere, shrouding the planet in darkness, causing a global winter and "killing off many species that couldn't adapt to this hellish environment."
Scientists working on the study analyzed the work of paleontologists, geochemists, climate modelers, geophysicists and sedimentologists who have been collecting evidence about the KT extinction over the last 20 years.
Geological records show the event that triggered the dinosaurs' demise rapidly destroyed marine and land ecosystems, they said, and the asteroid hit "is the only plausible explanation for this."
Peter Schulte of the University of Erlangen in Germany, a lead author on the study, said fossil records clearly show a mass extinction about 65.5 million years ago -- a time now known as the K-Pg boundary.
Despite evidence of active volcanism in India, marine and land ecosystems only showed minor changes in the 500,000 years before the K-Pg boundary, suggesting the extinction did not come earlier and was not prompted by eruptions.
The Deccan volcano theory is also thrown into doubt by models of atmospheric chemistry, the team said, which show the asteroid impact would have released much larger amounts of sulphur, dust and soot in a much shorter time than the volcanic eruptions could have, causing extreme darkening and cooling.
Gareth Collins, another co-author from Imperial College, said the asteroid impact created a "hellish day" that signaled the end of the 160-million-year reign of the dinosaurs, but also turned out to be a great day for mammals.
"The KT extinction was a pivotal moment in Earth's history, which ultimately paved the way for humans to become the dominant species on Earth," he wrote in a commentary on the study.
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