First contact... or the start of World War III? Amateur cameraman captures stunning glowing cloud in the skies over Russia

Not so long ago, an enormous fiery cloud in the skies above Russia could only mean one thing: The beginning of something very very bad indeed.

At the height of the Cold War, a vision like this would set off screams of terror and mass panic, rather than the soft gasps of wonder and awe-struck conversation that can be heard in the YouTube clip of this spectacular phenomenon.

But it's not the end of the world, nor is it the beginning of a fine friendship with alien neighbours.

Footage of the glowing circular formation - which hit YouTube yesterday - is one of the most stunning examples of a 'lenticular cloud'.

For obvious reasons, these rare cloud formations are also known as 'UFO clouds' - because of their spooky resemblance to the space ships we are all expecting to imminently arrive in the skies above us.

Sci-fi films as far back as Close Encounters Of The Third Kind (1977) - and more recently Independence Day (1996) - have depicted aliens camouflaging their craft in boiling cloud formations.

But this is little more than the wonder of nature creating an amazing sight.

The footage was taken in an unidentified city in Russia, and voices can be heard marveling at the awesome sight. You don't need to speak Russian to get the gist of the conversation.

What sets this footage apart from other examples of lenticular formations is the amazing glowing nature of the cloud.

Captured just at the right moment, when the sun is directly striking the bottom of the cloud - and light is refracted through the top of the cloud - it gives an amazing two-tone effect.
Lenticular clouds are usually formed by moist air rising over a mountain or range of mountains, forming standing waves of clouds as the air descends again.

The clouds are usually formed perpendicular to the direction of the airflow, and are usually avoided by aircraft pilots because of the turbulence associated with them.

Glider pilots, on the other hand, find lenticular clouds a welcome sight, because wave lift can produce high altitudes and long distances.

The clouds are formed by stable but moist air which has travelled across the Pennines, causing a standing wave to become established.

Lenticular clouds are said to be the single biggest explanation for UFO sightings across the world.
Bright colors (called Irisation) are sometimes seen along the edge of lenticular clouds.
These clouds have also been known to form in cases where a mountain does not exist, but rather as the result of shear winds created by a front.

Iran strike would be ‘catastrophic’: Putin

Russia is troubled by the growing threat of a military strike on Iran, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday, adding that fear of foreign intervention pushes other “nuclear threshold” states to acquire nuclear weapons, rather than dissuading them.

“Russia is alarmed by the growing threat of a military strike” against Iran, Putin said in a lengthy campaign article focusing on Russia’s foreign policy, published in the daily Moskovskiye Novosti newspaper ahead of presidential elections on March 4, which he is widely expected to win.
“If this happens, the consequences will be truly catastrophic, their real scope impossible to imagine,” Putin wrote.

Such a military strike is increasingly reported as being an option under consideration by Israeli and US military planners as Iran moves ahead with its uranium enrichment program. Western countries and Israel say Iran is trying to build atomic weapons. Tehran rejects that accusation and says its nuclear activities are solely for civilian purposes.

“We propose to recognize Iran’s right to develop a civilian nuclear program, including the right to enrich uranium” in exchange for placing the country’s nuclear activities under the tight control of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the international nuclear safety watchdog, Putin said.

If this is achieved, then all sanctions against Iran, including unilaterally imposed by individual countries, need to be lifted, Putin said in the 6,000-word article outlining his foreign policy vision ahead of the elections next Sunday.

In the article, Putin lashed out at the West for excessive pressure on sovereign countries by means of sanctions and military interventions, clearly referring to the NATO-led military operations in Iraq and Libya.

“There is a feeling that increasingly often cases of crude and even violent interventions from outside the internal affairs of other countries may stimulate certain authoritarian regimes, and not just them, to acquire nuclear weapons,” Putin said. “Say, ‘if I have an atomic bomb in my pocket, no one will touch me because the cost of it would be too high’. And if someone has no such a bomb, he can expect some kind of ‘humanitarian’ intervention.”

Thus, the number of the so-called “nuclear threshold” states, or countries that can quickly develop military nuclear technologies, is growing rather than shrinking, Putin argued, in what increases risks of nuclear proliferation.

Speaking of North Korea, which has already conducted two tests of its own nuclear bombs, Putin said that Russia calls for denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, which should be achieved only through diplomatic efforts.

“But not all our partners share this approach… Any attempts to test the hardness of the new North Korean leader are not acceptable as they would essentially provoke counter-measures,” Putin said, referring to the 28-year-old Kim Jong-un who succeeded his deceased father Kim Jong-il at the helm of the Communist regime late last year.

Oil Price Rise Raises Spectre of Global Recession

By: Reuters

A jump in energy prices is jamming the slow-turning cogs of an economic recovery in the West, but that may be nothing compared to the economic shock an Israeli attack on Iran would cause.

Oil rose to a 10-month high above $125 a barrel on Friday, prompting responses from policymakers around the world including U.S. President Barack Obama, watching U.S. gasoline prices follow crude to push towards $4 a gallon in an election year.

Europe may have more to fear as its fragile economic growth falters and Greece, Italy and Spain look for alternative sources to the crude they currently import from Iran, where an EU oil embargo, intended to make Iran abandon what the West fears are efforts to develop nuclear weapons, comes into force in June.

In euro terms, Brent crude rose to an all-time high of 93.60 euros this week, topping its 2008 record.
"The West's determination to prevent Iran acquiring nuclear weapons is coming at a price - a price that might include a second global recession triggered by an oil shock," said David Hufton from the oil brokerage PVM. 

In dollar terms, oil prices are still some $20 a barrel short of their 2008 record of $147. But the latest Reuters monthly survey will on Monday show oil analysts revising up their predictions for Brent crude [LCOCV1  123.42    -0.75  (-0.6%)   ] by $3 since the previous month.  
Such a change is big in a poll of over 30 analysts, and last happened at the peak of the Libyan war in May. 

Ian Taylor, head of the world's biggest oil trading house Vitol, told Reuters this week prices could spike as high as $150 a barrel if Iran's arch-enemy Israel launched a strike at its nuclear facilities - an option Israel has declined to rule out. 

"I used to think this would never happen," Taylor said, "but everyone you speak to says the Israelis will have a go at striking at Iranian nuclear sites.  

"The day that happens, you have to believe the Iranians throw a few mines in the Strait of Hormuz and, for a few hours at least or maybe more, I cannot see a scenario where prices would not be at that sort of level ($150)."   

The U.N. nuclear watchdog said on Friday Iran had sharply stepped up its uranium enrichment, which Iran insists is solely for civilian purposes. 

Israel has warned that, by putting much of its nuclear programme underground, Iran is approaching a "zone of immunity", but it has also said any decision to attack is "very far off". 

Wall Street bank Merrill Lynch said this week that oil prices could climb to $200 over the next five years. 
So far this year, dollar prices for Brent crude have risen by more than 15 percent, pushed up mainly by fears about Iran. The loss of supply from three small and mid-sized producers suffering internal turmoil - Syria, Yemen and South Sudan - has added to the supply worries.
Weak Growth, High Prices

A stabilisation of the U.S. economy may explain some of the rise in oil prices, but the global economy is growing far more slowly now than at this time last year, yet crude prices are just as high. 
World equities and oil have typically been closely correlated since 2008 because both were driven by global demand. 

However, as oil prices start to respond to supply problems, the correlation is evaporating, and the global economy is already paying a high price. 

Data published this week showed unexpectedly weak activity in Europe's most powerful economy, Germany, and in France, sparking fresh worries that the region could tip into recession.

Few have forgotten that in 2008, within six months of hitting its all-time high, oil plunged as low as $35 a barrel with the onset of the global credit crisis. 

In the United States, demand for refined oil products is close to its lowest level in nearly 15 years, indicating that  motorists are cutting back their mileage.

"The price spike is going to be a challenge for politicians in the West running for re-election," said Olivier Jakob from the Petromatrix consultancy.  

He said developed countries would find it hard to justify a release of strategic oil stocks similar to what they did in 2011. 

Unlike a year ago, when Libyan oil exports were disrupted by a war, this year "there is ... instead a voluntary restriction on buying from a specific country", said Jakob. 

Other than a release of oil stocks, developed countries could resort to yet another round of monetary easing, to which  emerging markets will respond with quantitative tightening, price controls and subsidies, said analysts from HSBC.  

"In terms of fiscal health, it would seem that Asia is better placed than other regions to deal with an oil price shock," HSBC said in a note last week.

Smartphone users give total access to spying apps

Every time you use your smartphone app your personal information – emails, phone numbers and even photos – is sent off to dozens of Internet companies all over the world. And you are the one who is allowing them access.

­Most users are aware that Internet companies like to collect information on their clients so that they can target their adverts better. But the sheer extent of their spying is shocking. And it’s all buried in the small print of the license agreement few bother to read. Often the information collected has nothing to do with function of the application.

Despite being a social network, Facebook reads your text messages, while photo application Flickr raids your contact book. In turn, video portal Youtube can access and download all of the users’ photographs.

While it is bigger companies that get flak for the privacy policies, at least they are usually careful not to lose or sell their users’ private information. For less reputable outfits, this may not be a concern.

Chris Brauer, co-director of the Centre for Creative and Social Technology at Goldsmiths, University of London, told the Sunday Times many apps are mere “fronts” for data mining companies. Their main source of profit is selling personal information to advertisers.

Once the information passes down the chain, it is almost impossible to trace who will end up with it leaving smartphone owners open to anything from unsolicited advertising to identity theft.

While iPhone maker Apple at least tries to bind its application programmers with a common license agreement, according to Nick Pickles, director of privacy and civil liberties campaign group Big Brother Watch, Android phone owners leave themselves in the greatest danger.

“Google’s name lends credibility to the Android market place, when in reality it is an unregulated Wild West with hugely intrusive applications being touted as innocent games,” he says.

Pickles points out that customer protection regulation lags years behind in a market that changes beyond recognition from year to year.

But even the most stringent regulation will not save users who voluntarily sign up to give away their most private data.

Scientists did not break speed of light - it was a faulty wire

Physicists who shocked the scientific world by claiming to have shown particles could move faster than the speed of light have admitted it was a mistake due to a faulty wire connection.

It was Albert Einstein who proposed more than 100 years ago that nothing could travel faster than the speed of light.

Einstein’s theory of special relativity, proposed in 1905, states that nothing in the universe can travel faster than the speed of light in a vacuum.

But researchers at the CERN lab near Geneva claimed they had recorded neutrinos, a type of tiny particle, travelling faster than the barrier of 186,282 miles (299,792 kilometers) per second.

Now it seems Einstein's reputation has been restored after a source close to the experiment told the US journal Science Insider that "A bad connection between a GPS unit and a computer may be to blame."

Scientists at CERN claimed that neutrinos arrived 60 nanoseconds earlier than the 2.3 milliseconds taken by light.

The report in Science Insider said the "60 nanoseconds discrepancy appears to come from a bad connection between a fiber optic cable that connects to the GPS receiver used to correct the timing of the neutrinos' flight and an electronic card in a computer. "

"After tightening the connection and then measuring the time it takes data to travel the length of the fiber, researchers found that the data arrive 60 nanoseconds earlier than assumed," it added.

"Since this time is subtracted from the overall time of flight, it appears to explain the early arrival of the neutrinos. New data, however, will be needed to confirm this hypothesis."

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers, said at the time: “We have high confidence in our results. We have checked and rechecked for anything that could have distorted our measurements but we found nothing.”

Scientists across the world agreed if the results were confirmed, that it would force a fundamental rethink of the laws of physics.

John Ellis, a theoretical physicist, said Einstein’s theory underlies “pretty much everything in modern physics”.

The first doubt was cast on the findings In November when a team of physicists in Itlay conducting a separate study on the same beam of neutrinos at Gran Sasso claimed their findings "refute a superluminal (faster than light) interpretation."

Rather than measuring the time it took the neutrinos to travel from CERN to Gran Sasso the second experiment, known as ICARUS, monitored how much energy they had when they arrived.

Tomasso Dorigo, a CERN physicist, wrote on the Scientific Blogging website that the ICARUS paper was "very simple and definitive."

He said it showed "that the difference between the speed of neutrinos and the speed of light cannot be as large as that seen by OPERA, and is certainly smaller than that by three orders of magnitude, and compatible with zero."

Prof Jim Al-Khalili, the University of Surrey, who threatened to eat his boxer shorts if the original OPERA result was proved right, said: "Usually we see this effect when particles go faster than light through transparent media like water, when light is considerably slowed down.

"So these neutrinos should have been spraying out particles like electrons and photons in a similar way if they were going superluminal – and in the process would be losing energy.

"But they seemed to have kept the energy they started from, which rules out faster-than-light travel."