Hasta La Gadget!

Scientists have long known that the Earth’s crust consists of at least 15 tectonic plates–continent-sized slabs of rock on the surface of the Earth that shift about to create mountains, volcanoes, and earthquake zones. But the exact mechanism by which the plates move has remained a mystery.

Until now.

A new study suggests that the plates glide about on a six-mile-thick hidden channel of “soft” rock located between the base of the plates and the upper portion of the Earth’s mantle (the layer of molten rock above the planet’s core), Live Science reported.

“The idea that Earth’s surface consists of a mosaic of moving plates is a well-established scientific paradigm, but it had never been clear about what actually moves the plates around,” study co-author Dr. Tim Stern, a professor of geography, environment and earth sciences at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, said in a written statement. “To work this out requires an understanding of what happens at the bottom of a tectonic plate.”

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This map shows 15 of the largest plates.

To glimpse the underbelly of a tectonic plate, the researchers used dynamite explosions to generate seismic waves across the southern part of New Zealand’s North Island, which sits above the so-called Pacific Plate. The researchers mapped the waves as they traveled through the plate and then used the data to create what Stern called “the most detailed image yet of an oceanic tectonic plate.”

The data showed that the seismic waves slowed abruptly at the base of the plate–which suggests that they must have hit a hidden layer of jelly-like rock, Cosmos magazine reported.

The researchers hypothesize that the soft rock creates a slippery base upon which plates drift when they are pushed or pulled–though exactly what is doing the pushing or pulling is still up for debate.

According to Cosmos magazine, some scientists think that extruding magma or slowly creeping convection currents may push the plates apart. Others think that as a thick, heavy plate dives beneath a thinner plate, it pulls on the plate behind it–and the jelly-like rock found at the base of a tectonic plate may lend support to the pulling theory.

“Understanding this boundary between the base of cold, rigid tectonic plates and the underlying hot, convecting mantle underneath is central to our knowledge of plate tectonics and the very formation and evolution of our planet,” Stern said in the statement.

The study was published online Feb. 5, 2015 in the journal Nature.

What else is happening beneath Earth’s surface? Take a subterranean tour in the “Talk Nerdy To Me” video below.

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Separatist rebels fired on Ukrainian positions nearly 50 times in the past 24 hours and Russia is sending more tanks into Ukraine despite a cease-fire that was supposed to take effect five days ago, a Ukrainian military spokesman said Friday.

The report, which came a day after the Russian-backed rebels captured the key rail hub of Debaltseve, raises the question of whether weeks of high-level diplomacy aimed at producing a cease-fire and peace plan for eastern Ukraine simply allowed the rebels to redouble efforts to grab more territory. The village of Kurakhovo, west of the rebel stronghold of Donetsk, was hit by fire from Grad rockets and the village of Berdyansk, near the key port city of Mariupol, was hit overnight by artillery and mortar fire, Lt. Col. Anatoliy Stelmakh said Friday.

He said Russia was still moving military equipment into Ukraine, including 10 tanks brought into Novoazovsk, near Mariupol.

Concerns have risen that the rebels are still gunning to take Mariupol, a government-held city on the Sea of Azov between mainland Russia and the Crimean Peninsula, which Russia annexed last March. Taking the city could allow the rebels to create a land bridge between Russia and Crimea, which now have no direct links.

On Thursday, the rebels celebrated their victory over Ukrainian forces in Debaltseve, a key transport hub linking the two largest rebel strongholds. Rebel fighters roamed the town’s debris-littered streets, laughing, hugging and posing for photos, although the death of one fighter when his vehicle hit a land mine was a reminder of dangers still lurking.

Ukrainian soldiers who made it out of Debaltseve alive on Thursday described weeks of harrowing rebel shelling, followed by a chaotic, hasty retreat. Ukrainian officials said 13 soldiers had been killed, 157 wounded in the fighting, with 90 taken prisoner and 82 missing — but the shell-shocked soldiers themselves spoke of many more casualties.

“Starting at night, they would fire at us just to stop us from sleeping. They did this all night,” a Ukrainian soldier named Andrei said Thursday after fleeing Debaltseve. “Then in the morning, they would attack, wave after wave. They did this constantly for three weeks.”

The war in eastern Ukraine has killed more than 5,600 people and forced over a million to flee their homes since fighting began in April, a month after Russia annexed Crimea. Russia denies arming the rebels or supplying fighters, but Western nations and NATO point to satellite pictures of Russian military equipment in eastern Ukraine.

French and German leaders, who oversaw marathon peace talks last week between the presidents of Russia and Ukraine, signaled Thursday they were determined to salvage the cease-fire agreement and keep the two sides talking despite the fall of Debaltseve.

In Kiev, nationalists criticized the government for allowing the town to fall and not supporting its defenders enough.

Battlefield 4 is one of the most popular shooters on the market and hoards of players battle it out on BF4 servers every day. The makers of BF4- DICE- have announced that it wants help from gamers to build the next map for the game. BF4 Premium members will test the new map using the Community Test Environment (CTE). Once … Continue reading

Robotic birds are notoriously difficult to make, because the complex motion required brings mechanical weight penalties that are difficult to balance with the modest thrust of the flapping wings. But this new avian bot uses lightweight 3D-printed parts to reduce weight and turn it into an acrobat.

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It’s all my fault. I’m not like Ana, an innocent accidentally falling in love with a dominant man. No, not me. I’m over 50. I knew exactly who I was messing with the moment that I met him. Oh, I might have uttered “holy cow” a few times. But if there was any blush in my cheeks, it was there because he put the color just where he wanted it. I didn’t flee my sadist, as Ana fled hers in Fifty Shades of Grey. Instead, every day since I met him, I’ve put on a beautiful necklace made of rhinestones and silver. Not a day goes by without someone noticing it and telling me how lovely it is. Every time they do, my fingers wander up to the clear, sparkling crystals and I smile. They think it’s simply jewelry, but for me it’s my beautiful secret. When they compliment it, I feel like they are telling me that my surrender is beautiful. That my commitment is beautiful. Of course they don’t know that it is my “day collar,” placed there by my Shihan, the man who Dominants me.

Shihan has a lot in common with Christian Grey. No, he is not a mega-millionaire, but he understands what he wants from a woman. These words that Christian utters to Ana so beautifully could easily have been spoken by my Shihan to me: “I’m not a sadist, I’m a dominant man. I want you to want to please me. I have rules, and I want you to follow and comply with them. They are for your benefit and for my pleasure. If you follow these rules to my satisfaction, I shall reward you. If you don’t, I shall punish you and you will learn.”

My friends don’t know that every morning when I put it my necklace on, it reminds me of my submission to him — this man who lives across the country and is not mine except for this agreement that we have. They don’t know that every night when I take it off before I go to sleep, my mind flashes to bits of memory of my visits with him: Sitting at a sushi bar with his ropes tied into a harness under my dress. His arm around me, gently tugging on them through my clothing. My body yielding to the push-pull of the ropes. The pleasure that I feel in my body when I please him. Me, on my belly, tied to a four-poster bed, completely open to him. The necklace is my constant reminder, the trigger of sense memories that feed me between the long stretches of separation, that stitch our visits together. The memories can hit like a smooth wooden paddle. They can land soft and smooth with a gentle caress or strike so hard that I lose all of my breath. Because, for me, being with Shihan is all of those things.

Domination and submission, power and surrender, mean different things for different people. For some it’s about having a chance to trust someone else to take control. For others it’s the pure physical sensation — spanking, flogging, licking, restraints — that bends the mind, the antithesis of thinking in straight hard lines.

Being held in just the way you need to be by someone stronger than you are in that moment, being told what to do in the safe context of a mutually agreed upon power exchange, is pretty damn intoxicating. That is what Christian was trying to offer Ana. But she had too much resistance to truly understand the gift that he was offering. For her, it was an aberration — something that seemed broken and disturbed. For me, it is nothing less than perfection.

No one would guess that I am a submissive woman, that I take pleasure in serving. After all, in most of my life I am the one giving the orders or, at the very least, taking charge. Perhaps that is why surrender calls to me. It is the path not taken, or perhaps it is the path that, as an American woman, I was taught was beneath me. Something to be avoided at all costs. Yet I would risk a lot to have this.

There is a transformation that comes over me in surrender. A softening of the hard intellect and practicality that is my usual way of being in the world. I love my yielding woman. I find her bewitching. My collar leads me to her.

There is ritual to mark this time of my submission. He always pulls the collar very tight at first before he settles it into a comfortable snugness. This always startles me, almost as unexpected as me finding myself on my knees. Yet I hunger for this, as much as my hunger embarrasses me.

I feel so self-conscious every time I participate in this ritual. Imagine, me kneeling. Kissing his hands in gratitude for whatever they will offer me in these moments. My eagerness to do this even though I almost have to force myself to my knees is unyielding. The freedom I feel in this physical expression of giving myself to this man so wantonly, the pleasure of my submission, rushes my body like a river overflowing a dam. And at the same time, I know that this scene would make some feminist somewhere completely crazy. Women getting spanked and men loving to do it? It’s scary for a lot of people. Miss Steele is not alone in her fear. It’s not politically correct, but it’s my desire. And that’s where decades of feminism should have brought us — to every woman being able to speak and have her own true desire. And I was claiming mine.

For all the pockets of sexual freedom in which people can and do have their desires met, there are vast expanses where people live blunted lives because this deep, dark stuff must be relegated to porn or fiction or TV or freak shows. Why is that? Is it because we conflate BDSM with abuse? Unfortunately, it is even linked there in Fifty Shades of Grey — and that is where the book fell short for me. We are once again hiding desire and sexual instinct behind a veil. The story that somehow Christian became a dominant man because of abuse is so unfortunate in that it perpetuates the myth that BDSM is a psychological disorder.

But that is not my experience with men who dominate women and the women who enjoy surrendering to them. BDSM and abuse are not the same, and we can’t intellectualize sexual desire away. Public discussion by “sensible” people inevitably harkens back to what a woman will put up with for “love” (especially if the guy is loaded and handsome with a buried broken heart just yearning to be held). I’m so sick of hearing that women do “this” to please their man, that they submit for love. They may. We do lots of things for love. But I think we hide behind “love” so we don’t have to take responsibility for our desire, which may have nothing at all to do with gushy emotion and everything to do with raw sexual pleasure. That is Ana’s story. It’s not mine.

How about the fact that lots of women want to feel dominated because it feels good. Period. And I was now on my knees and loving it even if I was debating my right to be on my knees in that very moment with my unseen critics. In this place, my pleasure comes from serving this man.
I think of Anastasia fleeing, and how I stay. Well, she is a girl who doesn’t really understand her desires yet and shouts no as she flees from herself and her lover. I am a woman, and I whisper, “Yes, please Sir. Thank you, Sir,” as I learn to stay.

Earlier on Huff/Post50:

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