Tag: holding (page 2 of 10)

New research shows billions of habitable planets exist in our galaxy

March 18, 2015 / / 0 Comments



CGI of how the Milky Way galaxy may appear from deep space


Excerpt from thespacereporter.com


Analysis of data collected by NASA’s Kepler space telescope has led researchers at the Australian National University and the Niels Bohr Institute to conclude that Earth is only one of billions of potentially life-sustaining planets in our galaxy.

In order for a planet to sustain life, it must orbit its star at just the right distance to provide sufficient light and warmth to maintain liquid water without too much radiation. This perfect orbital distance is considered to be the habitable zone.

According to a Weather Channel report, there are an average of two planets per star in the Milky Way Galaxy orbiting within their habitable zones. That brings the total number of planets with the potential for holding liquid water to 100 billion.

Scientists assume that water would be an essential ingredient for life to evolve on other planets, but it is not a certainty.

“If you have liquid water, then you should have better conditions for life, we think,” said Steffen Jacobsen of Niels Bohr. “Of course, we don’t know this yet. We can’t say for certain.”

To reach their conclusion, the researchers studied 151 planetary systems and focused on those with four or more planets. They used a concept called the Titus-Bode law to calculate where unseen planets might be located in a system based on the placements of other planets around the star. The Titus-Bode law suggested the existence of Uranus before it was actually seen.

The data will require further analysis and the sky will require further searching to yield a more accurate number of potentially life-harboring planets.
“Some of these planets are so small the Kepler team will probably have missed them in the first attempt because the signals we get are so weak. They may be hidden in the noise,” Jacobsen said.

The initial analysis, however, is extremely promising in the possibility of finding habitable planets. “Our research indicates that there are a lot of planets in the habitable zone and we know there are a lot of stars like the one we’re looking at. We know that means we’re going to have many billions of planets in the habitable zone,” said Jacobsen, who considers that “very good news for the search for life.”

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What our ancient ancestors found beautiful 50,000 years ago

March 15, 2015 / / 0 Comments






Excerpt from news.discovery.com

The geode (above), described in the latest issue of Comptes Rendus Palevol, was found in the Cioarei-Boroşteni Cave, Romania. A Neanderthal had painted it with ochre.

"The Neanderthal man must have certainly attached an aesthetic importance to it, while its having been painted with ochre was an addition meant to confer symbolic value," said Marin Cârciumaru of Valahia University and colleagues.

The researchers also noted that "the geode was undoubtedly introduced into the cave by the Neanderthal," since they ruled out that it could have originated in the cave itself.

Was the geode used in rituals, or was it just a treasured object of beauty? Its precise meaning to the Neanderthal remains a mystery for now.




Based on archaeological finds, necklaces made out of Spondylus (a spiky, colorful mollusk) were all the rage. (Above)

This specimen has more of a reddish hue, but Michel Louis Séfériadès of CNRS notes that most are "a highly colored, very attractive purplish crimson." Séfériadès added that the shells were valued, early trade items and that they are now "found in the archaeological remains of settlements and cemeteries, in graves, and as isolated finds."

Some of the shells were made into jewelry, including necklaces and bracelets.

 

We sing about "five gold rings," but the rings would more likely have been ivory back in the day -- as in around 50,000 years ago, before ivory-producing animals were mostly hunted to extinction.
Early humans in northern regions, for example, made rings out of mammoth ivory. A Neanderthal site at Grotte du Renne, France yielded a carefully crafted ivory ring (above), as well as grooved and perforated "personal ornaments," according to archaeologist Paul Mellars of Cambridge University.



Charcoal (shown avove), ochre and other materials were applied to the face by early Homo sapiens as well as by other human subspecies. 

The ochre, used to paint the geode, mentioned earlier, was also used as makeup, hair dye, paint (to create rock and cave art), as well as to color garments.


Early humans used combs made out of shells and fish bones to both comb their hair and as personal decoration. (Above)

The shell from the Venus comb murex, a large predatory sea snail, is just one species that seems perfect for this purpose. Gibraltar Museum researchers Clive Finlayson and Kimberley Brown also found evidence that Neanderthals valued large, elaborate feathers, which the scientists suspect were worn by the individuals. 

Nearly all early cultures had coveted figurines holding probable symbolic value. Some of the earliest carved objects are known as "Venus" figurines. They present women with exaggerated sexual features. Their exact meaning remains unclear. (Above)

Pendants made of animal teeth were common and probably served many different functions, such as showing the hunter's success, offering symbolic protection, and just as fashion. 

Some of the funkiest-looking teeth were made into worn objects.
Animal teeth could be on a gift list dated to 540,000 years ago, and possibly earlier, as a recent study in the journal Nature found that a population of Homo erectus at Java, Indonesia, was collecting shark teeth and using them as tools and possibly as ornamentation.

 

The world's oldest known musical instrument is a bone flute (Above). While the earliest excavated flute dates to about 42,000 years ago, comparable flutes were probably made much earlier.

Flutes, like most of the items on this list, were not essential to survival, but yet they somehow contributed to the prehistoric peoples' quality of life.

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Let There Be Light! Photo Shows Light As Wave And Particle For First Time

March 2, 2015 / / 0 Comments


Light as a particle and a wave


Excerpt from escapistmagazine.com

According to quantum mechanics light acts as both a particle and a wave, but now we can finally see what that looks like.

Quantum mechanics is an incredibly complex field for a simple reason: So much of what it studies can be two different things at the exact same time. Light is a great example since it behaves like both a particle and a wave, but only appears in one state during experiments. Mathematically speaking, we have to treat light as both ways for the universe to make sense but actually confirming it visually has been impossible. Or at least that was the case until scientists from Switzerland's École polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne developed their own unique photography method.
The image was created by shooting a pulse of laser light at a metallic nanowire to make its charged particles vibrate. Next the scientists fired a stream of electrons past the wire holding the trapped light. When the two collided, it created an energy exchange that could be photographed from the electron microscope.

So what does this mean when looking at the photograph? When the photons and electrons collide, they either slow down or speed up, which creates a visualization of a light wave. At the same time the speed change appears as a quanta - packets of energy - transferred between the electrons and photons as particles. In other words, it's the first case of observing light particles and waves simultaneously.

"This experiment demonstrates that, for the first time ever, we can film quantum mechanics - and its paradoxical nature - directly," research leader Fabrizio Carbone explained. This has enormous implications not only for quantum research, but also quantum-based technologies still in development. "Being able to image and control quantum phenomena at the nanometer scale like this opens up a new route towards quantum computing," he continued.

The experiment results were posted in today's Nature Communications, which will help other scientists build on this research with further studies. After all, it's not like we've unlocked all of light's secrets yet - we can barely even tell what color a dress is sometimes.

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Will new ruling finally free Lolita after 40 years in captivity at Miami Seaquarium?

February 5, 2015 / / 0 Comments



Excerpt from seattletimes.com

A decision to list the captive orca Lolita for federal protection is expected to set the stage for a lawsuit from advocates seeking the whale’s release.

Seattle Times staff reporter
A Puget Sound orca held for decades at Miami’s Seaquarium will gain the protection of the federal Endangered Species Act, a move expected to set the stage for a lawsuit from advocates seeking the whale’s release.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced Wednesday the decision to list Lolita as part of the southern resident killer whales of Puget Sound, which already are considered endangered under the federal act. 

Whale activists, who petitioned for this status, have long campaigned for Lolita’s return to Puget Sound. They hope the listing will provide a stronger legal case to release Lolita than did a previous lawsuit that centered on alleged violations of the federal Animal Welfare Act.

“This gives leverage under a much stronger law,” said Howard Garrett of the Whidbey Island based Orca Network, which hopes a San Juan Island cove will one day serve as the site for Lolita to re-enter the wild.

NOAA Fisheries officials on Wednesday described their decision in narrow terms, which set no broader precedents. It does not address whether Lolita should be released from the Seaquarium.
“This is a listing decision,” said Will Stelle, the NOAA Fisheries regional administrator for the West Coast. “It is not a decision to free Lolita.” 

Aquarium officials have repeatedly said they have no intention of releasing the orca. 

“Lolita has been part of the Miami Seaquarium family for 44 years,” said Andrew Hertz, Seaquarium general manager, in a statement. 

“Lolita is healthy and thriving in her home where she shares habitat with Pacific white-sided dolphins. There is no scientific evidence that ... Lolita could survive in a sea pen or the open waters of the Pacific Northwest, and we are not willing to treat her life as an experiment.”

Orcas, also known as killer whales, are found in many of the world’s oceans. The southern resident population, which spends several months each year in Puget Sound, is the only group listed in the U.S. under the Endangered Species. 

The three pods in the population were reduced by captures by marine parks between 1965 and 1975, NOAA says. Among them was a roundup in Penn Cove where seven whales were captured, including Lolita. 

The southern resident pods now number fewer than 80. Possible causes for the decline are reduced prey, pollutants that could cause reproductive problems and oil spills, according to NOAA Fisheries.
Under the Endangered Species Act, it is illegal to cause a “take” of a protected orca, which includes harming or harassing them.
Wednesday, NOAA officials said holding an animal captive, in and of itself, does not constitute a take. 

Orca activists are expected to argue in their lawsuit that Lolita's cramped conditions result in a prohibited take.

There is “rising public scorn for the whole idea of performing orcas,” said Garrett, who hopes Seaquarium will decide to release Lolita without a court order. 

But NOAA officials still have concerns about releasing captive whales, and any plan to move or release Lolita would require “rigorous scientific review,” the agency said in a statement.
The concerns include the possibility of disease transmission, the ability of a newly released orca to find food and behavior patterns from captivity that could impact wild whales.

NOAA said previous attempts to release captive orcas and dolphins have often been unsuccessful and some have ended in death.

Garrett said the plan for Lolita calls for her to be taken to a netted area of the cove, which could be enlarged later. She would be accompanied by familiar trainers who could “trust and reassure her every bit of the way,” he said. 

The controversy over releasing captive whales has been heightened by the experience of Keiko, a captive orca that starred in the 1993 movie “Free Willy,” about a boy who pushed for the release of a whale.

In 1998, Keiko was brought back to his native waters off Iceland to reintroduce him to life in the wild. That effort ended in 2003 when he died in a Norwegian fjord. 

Garrett, who visited Keiko in Iceland in 1999, said he was impressed by the reintroduction effort, and that there was plenty of evidence that Keiko was able to catch fish on his own.

“The naysayers predicted that as soon as he got into the (Icelandic) waters he would die, and wild orcas would kill him,” Garrett said. “He proved that 180-degrees wrong. He loved it.”

Mark Simmons, who for two years served as director of animal husbandry for the Keiko-release effort, has a different view. He says Keiko never was able to forage for fish on his own, and that he continued to seek out human contact at every opportunity. 

Simmons wrote a book called “Killing Keiko,” that accuses the release effort of leading to a long slow death for the orca, which he says lacked food and then succumbed to an infection.

“It’s not really the fact that Keiko died, but how he died,” Garrett said Wednesday.

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The Best Star Gazing Binoculars for 2015

January 24, 2015 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from space.com

Most people have two eyes. Humans evolved to use them together (not all animals do). People form a continuous, stereoscopic panorama movie of the world within in their minds. With your two eyes tilted upward on a clear night, there's nothing standing between you and the universe. The easiest way to enhance your enjoyment of the night sky is to paint your brain with two channels of stronger starlight with a pair of binoculars. Even if you live in — or near — a large, light-polluted city, you may be surprised at how much astronomical detail you'll see through the right binoculars!
Our editors have looked at the spectrum of current binocular offerings. Thanks to computer-aided design and manufacturing, there have never been more high-quality choices at reasonable prices. Sadly, there's also a bunch of junk out there masquerading as fine stargazing instrumentation. We've selected a few that we think will work for most skywatchers.
There was a lot to consider: magnification versus mass, field of view, prism type, optical quality ("sharpness"), light transmission, age of the user (to match "exit pupil" size, which changes as we grow older), shock resistance, waterproofing and more. 

The best binoculars for you

"Small" astronomy binoculars would probably be considered "medium" for bird watching, sports observation and other terrestrial purposes. This comes about as a consequence of optics (prism type and objective size, mostly). "Large" binoculars are difficult to use for terrestrial applications and have a narrow field of view. They begin to approach telescope quality in magnification, resolution and optical characteristics.

Most of our Editors' Choicesfor stargazing binoculars here are under $300. You can pay more than 10 times that for enormous binocular telescopes used by elite enthusiasts on special mounts! You'll also pay more for ruggedized ("mil spec," or military standard) binoculars, many of which suspend their prisms on shock mounts to keep the optics in precise alignment.

Also, our Editors' Choices use Porro prism optics. Compact binoculars usually employ "roof" prisms, which can be cast more cheaply, but whose quality can vary widely. [There's much more about Porro prisms in our Buyer's Guide.]
We think your needs are best served by reviewing in three categories.
  • Small, highly portable binoculars can be hand-held for viewing ease.
  • Medium binoculars offer higher powers of magnification, but still can be hand-held, if firmly braced.
  • Large binoculars have bigger "objective" lenses but must be mounted on a tripod or counterweighted arm for stability.
Here's a detailed look at our Editor's Choice selections for stargazing binoculars:

Best Small Binoculars 

Editor's Choice: Oberwerk Mariner 8x40 (Cost: $150)

Oberwerk in German means "above work." The brand does indeed perform high-level optical work, perfect for looking at objects above, as well as on the ground or water. Founder Kevin Busarow's Mariner series is not his top of the line, but it benefits greatly from engineering developed for his pricier models. The Oberwerk 8x40’s treat your eyes to an extremely wide field, at very high contrast, with razor-sharp focus; they are superb for observing the broad starscapes of the Milky Way. Just 5.5 inches (14 cm) from front to back and 6.5 inches wide (16.5 cm), the Mariners are compact and rugged enough to be your favorite "grab and go binoculars." But at 37 ounces, they may be more than a small person wants to carry for a long time.


Runner-Up: Celestron Cometron 7x50 (Cost: $30)

Yes, you read that price correctly! These Celestron lightweight, wide-field binoculars bring honest quality at a remarkably low price point. The compromise comes in the optics, particularly the prism's glass type (you might see a little more chromatic aberration around the edges of the moon, and the exit pupil isn't a nice, round circle). Optimized for "almost infinitely distant" celestial objects, these Cometrons won't focus closer than about 30 feet (9.1 meters).  But that's fine for most sports and other outdoor use. If you're gift-buying for multiple young astronomers – or you want an inexpensive second set for yourself – these binoculars could be your answer. Just maybe remind those young folks to be a little careful around water; Celestron claims only that the Cometrons are "water resistant," not waterproof. 


Honorable Mention: Swarovski Habicht 8x30 (Cost: $1,050)

From the legendary Austrian firm of Swarovski Optik, these "bins" are perfect. Really. Very sharp. Very lightweight. Very wide field. Very versatile. And very expensive! Our editors would have picked them if we could have afforded them. 

Honorable Mention: Nikon Aculon 7x50 (Cost: $110) 

Nikon's legendary optical quality and the large, 7mm exit pupil diameter make these appropriate as a gift for younger skywatchers. 

Best Medium Binoculars

Editor's Choice: Celestron SkyMaster 8x56 (Cost: $210)

A solid, chunky-feeling set of quality prisms and lenses makes these binoculars a pleasant, 38oz. handful. A medium wide 5.8 degrees filed of view and large 7mm exit pupil brings you gently into a sweet sky of bright, though perhaps not totally brilliant, stars. Fully dressed in a rubber wetsuit, these SkyMasters are waterproof. Feel free to take them boating or birding on a moist morning. Their optical tubes were blown out with dry nitrogen at the factory, then sealed. So you can expect them not to fog up, at least not from the inside. Celestron's strap-mounting points on the Skymaster 8x56 are recessed, so they don't bother your thumbs, but that location makes them hard to fasten. 


Runner-Up: Oberwerk Ultra 15x70 (Cost: $380)

The most rugged pair we evaluated, these 15x70s are optically outstanding. Seen through the Ultra's exquisitely multi-coated glass, you may find yourself falling in love with the sky all over again. Oberwerk's method of suspending their BAK4 glass Porro prisms offers greater shock-resistance than most competitors’ designs. While more costly than some comparable binoculars, they deliver superior value. Our only complaint is with their mass: At 5.5 lbs., these guys are heavy!  You can hand-hold them for a short while, if you’re lying down. But they are best placed on a tripod, or on a counterweighted arm, unless you like shaky squiggles where your point-source stars are supposed to be. Like most truly big binoculars, the eyepieces focus independently; there’s no center focus wheel. These "binos" are for true astronomers. 


Honorable Mention: Vixen Ascot 10x50 (Cost:$165)

These quirky binoculars present you with an extremely wide field. But they are not crash-worthy – don't drop them in the dark – nor are they waterproof, and the focus knob is not conveniently located. So care is needed if you opt for these Vixen optics. 

Best Large Binoculars

Don't even think about hand-holding this 156-ounce beast! The SkyMaster 25x100 is really a pair of side-by-side 100mm short-tube refractor telescopes. Factor the cost of a sturdy tripod into your purchase decision, if you want to go this big.  The monster Celestron comes with a sturdy support spar for mounting. Its properly multi-coated optics will haul in surprising detail from the sky.  Just make sure your skies are dark; with this much magnification, light pollution can render your images dingy. As with many in the giant and super-giant class of binoculars, the oculars (non-removable eyepieces) focus separately, each rotating through an unusually long 450 degrees.  Getting to critical focus can be challenging, but the view is worth it. You can resolve a bit of detail on face of the new moon (lit by "Earthshine") and pick out cloud bands on Jupiter; tha's pretty astonishing for binoculars. 


Runner-Up: Orion Astronomy 20x80 (Cost: $150)

These big Orions distinguish themselves by price point; they're an excellent value. You could pay 10 times more for the comparably sized Steiners Military Observer 20x80 binoculars! Yes, the Orions are more delicate, a bit less bright and not quite as sharp. But they do offer amazingly high contrast; you'll catch significant detail in galaxies, comets and other "fuzzies." Unusually among such big rigs, the Astronomy 20x80 uses a center focus ring and one "diopter" (rather than independently focusing oculars); if you’re graduating from smaller binoculars, which commonly use that approach, this may be a comfort. These binoculars are almost lightweight enough to hold them by hand. But don't do that, at least not for long periods. And don't drop them. They will go out of alignment if handled roughly. 


Honorable Mention: Barska Cosmos 25x100 (Cost: $230)

They are not pretty, but you're in the dark, right? Built around a tripod-mountable truss tube, these Barskas equilibrate to temperature quickly and give you decent viewing at rational cost. They make for a cheaper version of our Editors' Choice Celestron SkyMasters. 

Honorable Mention: Steiner Observer 20x80 (Cost: $1,500)

Not at all a practical cost choice for a beginning stargazer, but you can dream, can't you? These Steiner binoculars are essentially military optics "plowshared" for peaceful celestial observing. 

Why we chose NOT to review certain types

Image stabilized?

Binoculars with active internal image stabilization are a growing breed. Most use battery-powered gyroscope/accelerometer-driven dynamic optical elements. We have left this type out of our evaluation because they are highly specialized and pricey ($1,250 and up). But if you are considering active stabilization, you can apply the same judgment methods detailed in our Buyer's Guide.

Comes with a camera?

A few binoculars are sold with built-in cameras. That seems like a good idea. But it isn't, at least not for skywatching. Other than Earth's moon, objects in the night sky are stingy with their photons. It takes a lengthy, rock-steady time exposure to collect enough light for a respectable image. By all means, consider these binocular-camera combos for snapping Facebook shots of little Jenny on the soccer field. But stay away from them for astronomy.

Mega monster-sized?

Take your new binoculars out under the night sky on clear nights, and you will fall in love with the universe. You will crave more ancient light from those distant suns. That may translate into a strong desire for bigger stereo-light buckets.

Caution: The next level up is a quantum jump of at least one financial order of magnitude. But if you have the disposable income and frequent access to dark skies, you may want to go REALLY big. Binocular telescopes in this class can feature interchangeable matching eyepieces, individually focusing oculars, more than 30x magnification and sturdy special-purpose tripods. Amateurs using these elite-level stereoscopes have discovered several prominent comets.

Enjoy your universe

If you are new to lens-assisted stargazing, you'll find excellent enhanced views among the binocular choices above. To get in deeper and to understand how we picked the ones we did, jump to our Buyer's Guide: How to Choose Binoculars for Sky Watching.

You have just taken the first step to lighting up your brain with star fire. May the photons be with you. Always. 

Skywatching Events 2015

Once you have your new binoculars, it's time to take them for a spin. This year intrepid stargazers will have plenty of good opportunities to use new gear.

On March 20, for example, the sun will go through a total solar eclipse. You can check out the celestial sight using the right sun-blocking filters for binoculars, but NEVER look at the sun directly, even during a solar eclipse. It's important to find the proper filters in order to observe the rare cosmic show. 

Observers can also take a look at the craggy face of the moon during a lunar eclipse on April 4. Stargazers using binoculars should be able to pick out some details not usually seen by the naked eye when looking at Earth's natural satellite.

Skywatchers should also peek out from behind the binoculars for a chance to see a series of annual meteor showers throughout the year.

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Get ready! NASA spacecraft soon to rendezvous with dwarf planet Ceres

January 1, 2015 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from latimes.com

After voyaging 2.4 billion miles through space, NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is finally in the home stretch of its journey to Ceres, the largest member of the asteroid belt and one of five dwarf planets in the solar system.
Dawn was launched in 2007 to study two very different asteroids and learn more about the building blocks of our solar system. Ceres is Dawn’s second stop; its first was Vesta, which the spacecraft circled from July 2011 to September 2012.

Now, after leaving Vesta and traveling through space for more than two years, the spacecraft is roughly 400,000 miles away from Ceres and speeding toward it at about 450 mph, with a rendezvous set for March 6.
Ceres is a dwarf planet, along with Haumea, Makemake, Pluto and Eris (whose discovery led to Pluto’s infamous planetary demotion). At 590 miles across and holding roughly a third of the mass of the asteroid belt, Ceres is large enough that its own gravity pulls it into a spherical shape – which is part of why it was once considered to be very planet-like. In fact, Ceres was listed as a planet for decades after its discovery in 1801, and was briefly reconsidered during the 2006 debate surrounding Pluto’s planetary status.
Ceres is the only dwarf planet in the inner solar system. Although it’s much larger than Vesta, it’s more of a mystery. Scientists have meteorites that they believe are from Vesta, which they can study and compare to Dawn’s observations of the asteroid; but no such fragments found on Earth have been linked to Ceres. Until now, fuzzy images taken by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have provided our best view of the icy dwarf planet. But that should change by the end of January, as Dawn approaches its target.


Why are these two "protoplanets" so different? Scientists think Vesta formed earlier, when radioactive material was more abundant and produced more heat, leaving the asteroid very dry. Ceres may have formed later. Some researchers also think that Ceres may have originated much farther out in the solar system, before being yanked into its current position during a dramatic upheaval earlier in the solar system’s development.

As building blocks of our solar system that never became full planets, these protoplanets’ divergent life stories could shed light on the early solar system’s history.


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Is wormhole travel possible?

November 26, 2014 / / 0 Comments




Excerpt from
foxnews.com


Wormholes are theoretical tunnels through the fabric of space-time that could potentially allow rapid travel between widely separated points — from one galaxy to another, for example, as depicted in Christopher Nolan's "Interstellar," which opened in theaters around the world earlier this month.

While wormholes are possible according to Einstein's theory of general relativity, such exotic voyages will likely remain in the realm of science fiction, said renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, who served as an adviser and executive producer on "Interstellar." 

"The jury is not in, so we just don't know," Thorne, one of the world's leading authorities on relativity, black holes and wormholes, told Space.com. "But there are very strong indications that wormholes that a human could travel through are forbidden by the laws of physics. That's sad, that's unfortunate, but that's the direction in which things are pointing."

The major barrier has to do with a wormhole's instability, he said.
"Wormholes — if you don't have something threading through them to hold them open — the walls will basically collapse so fast that nothing can go through them," Thorne said.

Holding wormholes open would require the insertion of something that anti-gravitates — namely, negative energy. Negative energy has been created in the lab via quantum effects, Thorne said: One region of space borrows energy from another region that didn't have any to begin with, creating a deficit.

"So it does happen in physics," he said. "But we have very strong, but not firm, indications that you can never get enough negative energy that repels and keeps the wormhole's walls open; you can never get enough to do that."

Furthermore, traversable wormholes — if they can exist at all — almost certainly cannot occur naturally, Thorne added. That is, they must be created by an advanced civilization.

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Has Amelia Earhart’s plane finally been found? Not so fast

November 4, 2014 / / 0 Comments


 


Excerpt from

A small group of wreckage hunters purports to have found a bit of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft. It’s a good story, but critics of the find are more vocal than ever.


A metal sheet, some small bones and an “ointment pot” may be the final artifacts of Amelia Earhart’s failed 1937 journey around the world, if a small group of wreckage hunters is to be believed. They could also be the remains of some other plane, a turtle and trash. 

But the International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery (Tighar), which first found the warped bit of aluminum on a 1991 trip to the tiny atoll of Nikumaroro, in the Republic of Kiribati, says the 19in-by-23in slab has to be part of Earhart’s Lockheed Electra aircraft, which disappeared while she was flying over the Pacific. 

Tighar’s executive director Ric Gillespie made headlines this week by announcing “new research” into the 1991 fragment that he says answers earlier critics and proves it is from Earhart’s plane. 

The story he proposes is not implausible: the metal’s rivets don’t match with the Electra’s design, but that’s because because it’s actually a patch made to repair the aircraft after a bad landing in Miami, earlier on Earhart’s trip. Gillespie’s team managed to find a Miami Herald photo from 1937 which shows, over the place where a window should be, a particularly shiny piece of metal. In fact, a lab tested the metal back in 1996 and found it to be “essentially the same” 24ST Alclad aluminum that was to cover most aircraft of the 30s, including Earhart’s Electra. Gillespie says that “the patch was as unique to her particular aircraft as a fingerprint is to an individual … [the aluminum] matches that fingerprint in many respects”.
Metal fragment believed to be from Amelia Earhart's plane
The aluminium fragment believed to be from Amelia Earhart’s aircraft.Photograph: Tighar/Reuters

Under Gillespie’s theory, Earhart made it to the island, sent radio signals “for at least five nights before the Electra was washed into the ocean”, and eventually died there.

But Gillsepie’s been here before, and his critics are not quiet, with one saying: “Everybody should have facts to back up [their] opinions, and Mr Gillespie, well, he doesn’t.” (A second, more concisely, says: “He’s very creative.”) After discovering the metal, Gillespie gave a 1992 press conference to say that “every possibility has been checked, every alternative eliminated … We found a piece of Amelia Earhart’s aircraft.”

Objectors immediately pointed out that he had not checked the fragment’s rivets, which did not match Earhart’s Electra. Now, 22 years later, the photo could indeed explain the discrepancy – but Gillespie still lacks a wreck to compare the pattern to. As a substitute, Gillespie’s team went to a Kansas facility that’s restoring an Electra and claims to have found – by holding the patch up alongside the restored plane – that the rivets seemed consistent with the pattern. No independent researchers have confirmed their findings.

To be fair, Tighar realizes they know less about the scrap than they’d like: “If the artifact is not the scab patch from NR16020, then it is a random piece of aircraft wreckage from some unknown type involved in an unknown accident that just happens to match the dozens of material and dimensional requirements of the patch.”

Considering the vastness of the Pacific Ocean and the sheer amount of wreckage scattered across it over the past century, this actually seems pretty reasonable, but Tighar doubles down on its implication of certainty: “[That would mean] this incredibly specific, but random, piece of debris just happened to end up on Nikumaroro, the atoll where so much other evidence points to Earhart.”

What evidence does Tighar present? In 2011 they tested three bones found near a turtle shell, which could perhaps have been human or that of a turtle. DNA tests were inconclusive. (Gillespie says “the door is still open for it to be a human finger bone.”)

Gillespie told the Miami Herald earlier this year that “the key to it is her final message, where she says ‘line of position 157 dash 337’ … That’s a line that Noonan calculated from the sunrise, running 337 degrees to the north-west and 157 degrees to the south-east. And if you follow it far enough, there are two deserted islands on it, McKeon Island and Gardner Island.” 

It’s a good story, just like the one ex-marine Floyd Kilts used to tell about how a tribesman told him about a partial human skeleton and a woman’s shoe, which ended up with a British official and disappeared afterward. (Micronesians settled on the island a year after Earhart vanished.) But despite all the story and circumstantial evidence, no expedition in the past 70 years has found the Electra on or near either island.

But Tighar of course thinks it might. It found a “sonar streak” 600ft below the surface “the right size, the right shape … in the right place to be part of the Electra”, which the group has so far had neither the time nor funding to investigate. Gillespie admits it could also be part of a reef, a geological formation or any number of things once lodged into the seabed and now drifted away. He intends to explore the site in a 2015 expedition. Whether he turns up with Earhart’s lost Electra or something else entirely, he will have a new story.

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Have a Dream but Money is Holding You Back?

November 2, 2014 / / 0 Comments

GoodKarmaFunder.com   Making dreams come true for you & others too!

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BBC: Churchill ordered UFO cover-up, National Archives show

September 23, 2014 / / 0 Comments


Winston Churchill

bbc.com/news/uk


The government took the threat of UFOs so seriously in the 1950s that UK intelligence chiefs met to discuss the issue, newly-released files show.
Ministers even went on to commission weekly reports on UFO sightings from a committee of intelligence experts.
The papers also include a wartime account claiming prime minister Winston Churchill ordered a UFO sighting be kept secret to prevent "mass panic".
Drawing of UFO sighting
 Spotters often drew what they saw and sent pictures to the MoD

The files show reports of UFOs peaked in 1996 - when The X Files was popular.
The Joint Intelligence Committee is better known for providing briefings to the government on matters relating to security, defence and foreign affairs.
But the latest batch of UFO files released from the Ministry of Defence to the National Archives shows that, in 1957, the committee received reports detailing an average of one UFO sighting a week.
The files also include an account of a wartime meeting attended by Winston Churchill in which, it is claimed, the prime minister was so concerned about a reported encounter between a UFO and RAF bombers, that he ordered it be kept secret for at least 50 years to prevent "mass panic".
X Files
Nick Pope, who used to investigate UFO sightings for the MoD, said: "The interesting thing is that most of the UFO files from that period have been destroyed.
"But what happened is that a scientist whose grandfather was one of his [Churchill's] bodyguards, said look, Churchill and Eisenhower got together to cover up this phenomenal UFO sighting, that was witnessed by an RAF crew on their way back from a bombing raid.
"The reason apparently was because Churchill believed it would cause mass panic and it would shatter people's religious views."
Reports of sightings of UFOs peaked in 1996 in the UK - when science fiction drama The X Files was popular.
According to the files, there were more than 600 reports in 1996, compared with an average of 240 in the previous five years.

“Start Quote

UFOs have become the third-most popular subject for people to write to the ministry of defence saying please could you release this file”
Dr David Clarke National Archives UFO consultant

The figures for 1996 show 609 reported sightings of unidentified flying objects, 343 letters from the public to the MoD's UFO desk and 22 enquiries and questions from MPs.
But by 2009, the MoD's UFO inquiry desk -Sec(AS)2 - had been closed down.
The 18 files released on Thursday are the latest to come out as part of a three-year project between the MoD and the National Archives.
Dr David Clarke, a UFO consultant to the National Archives, explained why the papers are being made public now.
Dr Clarke told the BBC: "Since the Freedom of Information Act arrived in 2005, this subject - UFOs - have become the third-most popular subject for people to write to the Ministry of Defence saying 'please could you release this file, or papers that you hold on this particular case'.
"What they've decided to do is to be totally open and to say, 'look we're not holding any secrets back about this subject we've got all these files and we're going to make them available to the public'."
One includes details on "aerial phenomena" prepared for a meeting of the Cabinet Office's Joint Intelligence Committee in April 1957.
According to a note included in the Red Book, the weekly intelligence survey, four incidents involving UFOs tracked by RAF radars were "unexplained".
'Spaceman' The documents also include reports of a famous incident dubbed the "Welsh Roswell" in 1974, where members of the public reported seeing lights in the sky and feeling a tremor in the ground.
Other cases included in the files are:

  • A near-miss with an "unidentified object" reported by the captain and first officer of a 737 plane approaching Manchester Airport in 1995.
  • A mountain rescue team called to investigate a "crashed UFO" in the Berwyn Mountains in Wales in 1974.
  • Attempted break-ins at RAF Rudloe Manor in Wiltshire - sometimes referred to as Britain's "Area 51" - the US's secretive desert military base.
  • The Western Isles incident, when a loud explosion was reported in the sky over the Atlantic in the Outer Hebrides.
  • The 14-minutes of "missing" film relating to the Blue Streak missile test launch in 1964, believed by some to show a "spaceman".
  • A gambler from Leeds who held a 100-1 bet on alien life being discovered before the end of the 20th Century, and who approached the government for evidence to support his claim after the bookmakers refused to pay out. The MoD said it was open-minded about extra-terrestrial life but had no evidence of its existence.
The files come from more than 5,000 pages of UFO reports and letters and drawings from members of the public, as well as questions raised by MPs in Parliament.

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What is Enlightenment?

September 20, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Thomas Razzeto, GrahamHancock.comMy most passionate plea is for you to wake up to your true self as pure awareness. We have all heard it said that you are not a human being having a spiritual experience, but instead, you are a spiritual being having a human experience. Yet you are not a being of any kind, spiritual or physical. You are pure awareness! And most importantly, your awareness is the One Awareness – the Divine Awareness – and as such, it is the only reality tha [...]

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The Enlightenment Test

September 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments

Enlightenment. The moment we consciously connect to eternal truth. It’s when we see through the veil of this illusionary world, rising above ego, time, materialism, and our own emotions to see the bigger picture—that we are all one. It’s what all gurus, spiritualists, yogis, Buddhists, monks, meditators, shamans, artists, writers, and religious leaders strive for. It’s the state Neo reached at the end of The Matrix, the level Dorothy attained so she could surpa [...]

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Superfoods – The Future of Cellular Health

September 18, 2014 / / 0 Comments

In “She Used to Be In A Wheelchair – The TED Talk That Comes With a Warning” I showcase Dr. Terry Wahls who successfully reversed her debilitating multiple sclerosis with the application of nutrients and meditation. She talks about the importance “minding your mitochondria” and how lifestyle, diet and environment can switch genes on or off. Similarly, there are people reversing ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease using similar methods.What’s [...]

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