Three large explosions from the Sun over the past few days have prompted U.S. government scientists to caution users of satellite, telecommunications and electric equipment to prepare for possible disruptions over the next few days.

"The magnetic storm that is soon to develop probably will be in the moderate to strong level," said Joseph Kunches, a space weather scientist at the Space Weather Prediction Center, a division of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
He said solar storms this week could affect communications and global positioning system (GPS) satellites and might even produce an aurora visible as far south as Minnesota and Wisconsin.

An aurora, called aurora borealis or the northern lights in northern latitudes, is a natural light display in the sky in the Arctic and Antarctic regions caused by the collision of energetic charged particles with atoms in the high altitude atmosphere.
Major disruptions from solar activity are rare but have had serious impacts in the past.
In 1989, a solar storm took down the power grid in Quebec, Canada, leaving about six million people without power for several hours.
The largest solar storm ever recorded was in 1859 when communications infrastructure was limited to telegraphs.

The 1859 solar storm hit telegraph offices around the world and caused a giant aurora visible as far south as the Caribbean Islands.

Some telegraph operators reported electric shocks. Papers caught fire. And many telegraph systems continued to send and receive signals even after operators disconnected batteries, NOAA said on its website.

A storm of similar magnitude today could cause up to $2 trillion in damage globally, according to a 2008 report by the National Research Council.

"I don't think this week's solar storms will be anywhere near that. This will be a two or three out of five on the NOAA Space Weather Scale," said Kunches.

SOLAR SCALE
The NOAA Space Weather Scale measures the intensity of a solar storm from one being the lowest intensity to five being the highest, similar to scales that measure the severity of hurricanes, tornadoes and earthquakes.

The first of the three solar explosions from the sun this week already passed the Earth on Thursday with little impact, Kunches said, noting, the second was passing the Earth now and "seems to be stronger."

And the third, he said, "We'll have to see what happens over the next few days. It could exacerbate the disturbance in the Earth's magnetic field caused by the second (storm) or do nothing at all."

Power grid managers receive alerts from the Space Weather Prediction Center to tell them to prepare for solar events, which peak about every 12 years, Tom Bogdan, director of the center said.

He said the next peak, called a solar maximum, was expected in 2013.
"We're coming up to the next solar maximum, so we expect to see more of these storms coming from the sun over the next three to five years," Bogdan said.

"C'mon Sun!!!" In my Ed Lover voice

An Iowa man admitted that he threw a cat down from a seventh-floor apartment – after he tried to have sex with the defenseless feline.

KCCI-TV reported that witnesses said they saw Gerardo Martinez, 30, expose himself from an apartment building and then throw the defenseless animal out the window.

Police went to his door and found him shirtless and with his pants down, according to the report.

After denying he had a cat, Martinez told cops he had been using meth. Then he tried to pin the cat’s death on his boyfriend, before fessing up that he was the one who killed the animal.

He was charged with animal torture, bestiality and indecent exposure. He faces five years in prison.

These days most people know former rapper Vanilla Ice from reality TV shows like “The Vanilla Ice Project” and MTV’s “The Surreal Life.” But back in 1990, his hit single “Ice Ice Baby” brought the Dallas-native enormous levels of fame and helped To The Extreme, his debut album, sell upwards of 11 million copies.

Unfortunately for Ice, though, in the midst of the song shooting up the charts, he gave up a portion of the song’s copyright to Suge Knight and lost out on millions in royalties. In an interview with Interview magazine, Ice says Knight used the money he earned from “Ice Ice Baby” to form Death Row Records.

“From the money that Suge got from To the Extreme from me, he started Dr. Dre,” he says. “The Chronic record came from the funding from my record; Tupac came from the funding of my record; Snoop Dogg came from the funding from my record.”

Music industry lore has it that Knight hung him upside down from a hotel balcony in order to get him to agree to make the deal.

“That’s a lie,” says Ice. “I read the story, and I heard it, and I had to defend it nine million times, but he never took me to the balcony, threatened to hang me over, or anything.”

Ice says there is some truth to the story, but indicates that Knight was largely a gentleman about things, and infers that he didn’t need to be hung from a balcony to understand it was a shakedown.

“Rap music is gangster, it’s been gangster from the beginning,” he says. “Yes, Suge Knight took some money from me, and he did take me to the balcony, explained it to me. He was actually nice to me … … [people think] I’m so bitter about it—I never went to the police, I never did anything like that. I knew better … [But] it’s funny how this story has evolved and been polished up and changed around to make him a monster and everything— hell, I’m still friends with Suge Knight … I look at it like I’ve invested in some of the greatest hip-hop music in the world.”

If you own a flip phone and still scared of Suge Knight in 2011 then your life serves absolutely no purpose.

A college professor in Pennsylvania killed himself in shocking fashion Wednesday - skipping out in the middle of class and taking a fatal leap as students and his wife watched helplessly.

Rudolf Alexandrov bolted from his Chestnut Hill College classroom, ran to a second floor veranda and plunged headfirst to his death on the marble floor below, police said.

"He had a history of depression," police Lt. Robert Zaffino told the Philadelphia Daily News. "He had been having suicidal thoughts, and mentioned harming himself in the past."

The 71-year-old adjunct professor became perturbed during his Wednesday afternoon math class, running in and out of the classroom in bizarre fashion, the newspaper reported.

He finally shouted a few words before heading up to the second floor of St. Joseph's Hall.

Colleagues - including his wife Olga, a fellow professor at the college - frantically called for campus security, police said.

But Alexandrov dove over a railing and fell about 30 feet to his death. Students who witnessed the fatal fall were offered counseling through the college.

It was unclear what triggered the suicide. The college issued a statement confirming Alexandrov's death and expressing its sympathy for his family.

Getting tested for STDs used to mean a doctor's visit, vials of blood, and days, weeks, or even months of anxiously waiting for results. mChip aims to change all that, while simultaneously ridding your brain of viable excuses not to get tested. It works as such: one drop of blood goes on the microfluidics-based optical chip, 15 minutes pass, and boom, the AmEx-sized device will confirm whether or not you have syphilis and / or HIV. The bantam gizmo is practically foolproof, as reading the results doesn't require any human interpretation whatsoever. Plus, it's cheap -- cheaper than a coffee at Starbucks. One dollar cheap. Researchers at Columbia University claim the mChip has a 100 percent detection rate, although there's a four to six percent chance of getting a false positive -- a stat similar to traditional lab tests. As you'd likely expect, there's hope that the inexpensive mChip will help testing efforts in places like Africa to detect HIV before it turns into AIDS. Next stop: the self-service pharmacy at CVS?

condom sales are going to plummet.

Marc Anthony wasn't exactly the perfect husband, but now he wants Jennifer Lopez back.

Jennifer Lopez has moved on, but Marc Anthony is begging her to take him back. JLo and Marc separated last month, and apparently Anthony can't stand that Lopez is happier without him in her life.

"His mood shifts from blaming her to begging her to take him back to telling her she is destroying his life," a source tells US Weekly. It seems Anthony can't make up his mind, yet it's apparent that while Lopez feels guilty for leaving the father of her children, she's over Anthony's rumored cheating. Plus, supposedly Marc was controlling and didn't approve of his wife's sex symbol image.

So far, fireworks haven't gone off in terms of their legal parting of ways, but all that may change soon. Anthony is reportedly "being difficult on every little point ... He wants to prolong things so she reconsiders." It seems unrealistic to expect that dragging out their separation will result in Lopez having a change of heart, but Marc sounds like he's a desperate man clinging to whatever chance with Lopez he has left.

And Jennifer? She's already moved on. Anthony's fits are "hard for Jennifer to take," but, "She is very happy," a source says. "She is surrounded by love."

Marc she is gone. She's at Diddy's house!

2Pac Back—and on the cover XXL. On the 15th anniversary of his death, XXL reaches out to the people that knew him best, including his father, Bill Garland. Issue on stands August 16th.

“[Tupac] cared for people,” he said. “That was his main thing. He really cared for people. I think that’s why he would get so upset when people tried to question his commitment, his love for Black women or Black men. The East Coast/West Coast, you know, that’s a fabrication. I don’t have to begin to tell you that. So when that was questioned, it bothered him. Because he would give his heart or soul. He was a giving person. He would give anything to people. He would go in a store. [If there was a] Black man who couldn’t afford a $1,500 pair of boots, he would buy ’em for him. Think that Black man would ever forget Tupac? That’s just the way he is. But I don’t think that he did it for that. He did it because he had it, and he didn’t. That’s the way he is.”

I still to this day remember where I was when they announced his death. SMH
RIP Tupar Shakur

A Texas lake that turned blood-red this summer may not be a sign of the End Times, but probably is the end of a popular fishing and recreation spot.

A drought has left the OC Fisher Reservoir in San Angelo State Park in West Texas almost entirely dry. The water that is left is stagnant, full of dead fish — and a deep, opaque red.

The color has some apocalypse believers suggesting that OC Fisher is an early sign of the end of the world, but Texas Parks and Wildlife Inland Fisheries officials say the bloody look is the result of Chromatiaceae bacteria, which thrive in oxygen-deprived water.

"It's just heartbreaking," said Charles Cruz, a fish and wildlife technician with Texas Parks and Wildlife in San Angelo, Tex.

Blood red reservoir
Texas is experiencing major drought this summer, with 75 percent of the state's area in an "exceptional" drought, the highest level, according to the National Drought Mitigation Center (NDMC). The state had hoped for some relief from Tropical Storm Don last week, but the system fizzled and brought only an inch or two of rain to areas near the coast.

The drought has taken its toll on a number of reservoirs in West Texas, Cruz told LiveScience. OC Fisher has never been completely full, Cruz said, but it was stocked with catfish, bass, sunfish and other popular targets for fishermen.

"We surveyed the lake, I believe it was last year, and we had a pretty good fish population out there," Cruz said. "It was pretty sickening going out there, watching lake levels just drop and drop and drop and seeing these nice trophy-sized bass just floating dead."

As of last week, all that remained of the lake was a small pond a few feet deep, Cruz said. There were thousands of dead fish, he said, but no sign of life.

Pictures of this blood-red pool circulated online in fishing forums and caught the notice of Indiana preacher Paul Begley, who said in a YouTube video that the lake might be evidence of the apocalypse as predicted by the Biblical book of Revelation.

"The second angel poured out his bowl on the sea, and it turned into blood like that of a dead person, and every living thing in the sea died," the passage Begley cited reads. "The third angel poured out his bowl on the rivers and springs of water, and they became blood."
Begley may not have any more luck at predicting the end of the world than did Harold Camping, the radio preacher who set the date for May 21, 2011. But for as long as the drought persists, the OC Fisher reservoir is a reservoir no longer.

"I don't know what's left in there now. We haven't been back," Cruz said. "But I would guess it's probably pretty much gone already."

You can follow LiveScience senior writer Stephanie Pappas on Twitter @sipappas. Follow LiveScience for the latest in science news and discoveries on Twitter @livescience and on Facebook.

A battle royal has broken out behind the scenes of Jay-Z and Kanye West’s new album, ”Watch the Throne.”

Sources say the rappers — who call themselves The Throne and are releasing their expected blockbuster collaboration Aug. 8 on iTunes and four days later everywhere else — are barely speaking to each other as they iron out the details of their upcoming tour.

Live Nation’s presale event on Thursday was delayed, but tickets for the tour are slated to go on sale today, with shows at the IZOD Center Sept. 27 and 28.

The sources say West wants flashy concerts with ”next-level production,” which would cost more than $400,000 per show. Jay-Z is said to be meticulous about costs and already has a larger, long-term advance from Live Nation that he has to pay back.

”Jay-Z can’t deal with Kanye,” an insider told Page Six. ”Jay is a stone-cold businessman. He wants to recoup all of his money from Live Nation. But Kanye wants to upstage rock stars with a blowout show. He doesn’t care about costs. He has a lot less to gain from the shows.”

West is expected to agree to the conditions of the tour next week, but the business brouhaha between the powerhouse artists might have affected their backstage relationship.

Industry insiders were shocked to see West and Jay-Z perform separately with Young Jeezy last Monday night at the Highline Ballroom. ”We were expecting them to come out together to perform a track from the album,” a source said. ”They didn’t even go out together after the show.”

”Jay-Z is fed up with West’s antics,” another source said. ”He doesn’t even want to be around him.” However, the two are expected to perform together at a listening party tonight at The Rose Planetarium in Central Park, according to The Post’s Dan Aquilante. A Live Nation rep said, ”No comment.” The rappers’ reps didn’t get back to us.