Carly's Stuff: 07/27/09

The World's Largest Cave

son-doong cave largest cave in the world

Recently scientists discovered a huge cave in a Vietnamese jungle and they believe it is yet the biggest single cave in the world. In most places the cave, called the Son Doong, is 80 by 80 meters, which means that it is larger than the Deer Cave found in Borneo and previously considered to be world's largest.

The Song Doong cave is about 4.5km long (2.8 miles), but the explorers from the British Cave Research Association expedition believe that it could be much longer due to the fact that when they studied the cave in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park they were blocked by seasonal floodwaters. According to Adam Spillane, one of the expedition's members, for several miles the cave becomes more than 140 by 140 meters (460 by 460 feet).

The entrance to the Son Doong was discovered a few years ago by a local farmer. He led a team of explorers from UK and Vietnam to the cave in April. Back then the researchers managed to discover an underground river that flows through the first 2.5km of the cave and huge stalagmites that were over 70m (230 feet) high.

The size of the cavern was analyzed using extremely accurate laser-based measuring tools. Andy Eavis, president of the International Union of Speleology, confirmed that Son Doong is indeed larger than the Deer Cave. It is worth mentioning that previous expeditions did not manage to come across the cave, mainly because of the difficult terrain in the region, reports National Geographic. Researchers say that Son Doong is located deep in the jungle and there is almost no chance to see it on Google Earth. Explorers mentioned that local people were aware of the cave, but were scared to investigate it, because of the noise that was produced by the loud breeze and the river that runs from the cave entrance. You can read about other interesting discoveries here at www.InfoNIAC.com - check the links at the nottom of the story.

Researchers also managed to spot monkeys that went visited the cave through its top to eat snails. The team looks forward to come back to the cave with a biologist who will examine its subterranean wild life. Explorers believe that there are caves larger than the Son Doong. They think that extremely large caves can be spotted in the heart of the Amazon rainforest.

Dubai's Blue Crystal

Dubai decided for the first time to create the year-round ice lodge, called Blue Crystal. The construction claims to be sustainable, though it is hard to believe that a 6 story ice lodge with luxury apartments could be energy-saving, first of all because keeping such building under 32 degrees in the hot summers of the Persian Gulf would require a lot of energy.

Once again Dubai attempts to show that nothing is impossible in the world of architecture. The luxury entertainment in the lodge will include an underwater lounge and ballroom. The design of this absolutely incredible project is credited to Frank and Sven Sauer, a design studio from Germany.

The designers say that the Blue Crystal will take advantage of the natural energy sources, which would make the lodge self-sufficient. Most likely solar cells will generate power for the building, being fixed in the icy facade and making use of an energy recycling system. But at the moment it is yet not completely clear how much energy will the iceberg in the middle of the desert require.

Storm Virus Returns To Damage Blogs

Storm virus is back again to infect blogs, webmails and bulletin boards. British and Korean computer security scientists claim it's a new variant of malware that is extremely difficult to detect.

The Storm worm looks like a message that features news about Europe's storms. In fact, this virus can evaluate network traffic on the computer and later insert a link to malicious website into user's post, webmail or bulletin board. The text that will appear on user's blog will have a link to the website that holds the threat together with a note to attract readers' attention to visit a website with fun videos or e-card.

British computer security experts say Storm worm makes up more than 50 percent of all malicious computer software that infects another computer and can use personal data of the user sending it to third parties.

Storm virus presents a real danger as it interferes in social networks. A lot of people who visit blog journals are not aware of the threat that may come from the common discussion on related topics with the author they trust. A link that will appear in blog's author site will lure them to check out an interesting video.

One of Symantec engineers, Eric Chien, said that some bulletin boards were already spammed. The threat of the Storm worm is that it can mask spam under a real user's post.

Anti-virus programs are not always effective at detecting the dangerous malware as this virus is dynamically repackaged and is able to change its appearance and mislead anti-virus solutions.