Tag: Los Angeles (page 1 of 5)

When was the Galactic Federation First Introduced to the Public? ~ Greg Giles

January 26, 2016 / / 0 Comments

One of the many headquarters of the Church of Scientology,this one located in Los Angeles, CaliforniaThe name Galactic Federation and this alleged space fleet's mythology was not first reported to humanity through 'channels' or so-called 'psychic med...

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California Shrugged: No One Knows What’s Up With Frack Water

July 17, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Heather CallaghanSomething fishy is going on with California’s assessments and so-called fracking regulations…It is an unfortunate reality that good jobs are intertwined with what might be later construed as not only an environmental devastation but America’s next personal health devastation – hydraulic fracking.It is also unfortunate that while Americans flock to so-called “boom towns” for those good jobs, the jobs themselves are tied into the eb [...]

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Vitamin B17: The Greatest Cover-Up In The History Of Cancer

June 25, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Daud Scott, Reset.MeThe phrase ‘Let food be thy medicine and medicine be thy food’ could not hit any harder, especially when it comes to the present discussion related to cancer and our present state of nutrition and health. I do understand that venturing into this discussion may be touchy due to the fact that we have only allowed medical doctors to dictate the present cases, acceptable cures and latest treatments regarding cancer; while the everyday citizen wit [...]

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Pipeline Spill Dumps 105,000 Gallons of Oil on California’s Coastline

May 22, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Oil from a broken pipeline coats miles of the Pacific Ocean and shoreline near Goleta, Calif., May 20, 2015, after a 24-inch underground pipeline broke May 19th and leaked into a culvert leading to the ocean. Houston-based Plains All American Pipeline said an thousands of gallons of oil were released before the pipeline was shut down. Photos by Jonathan Alcorn/Greenpeace. Steve Horn, DeSmog BlogUp to 105,000 gallons of oil obtained via offshore drilling have spilled from a p [...]

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Major Lawsuit Targets Monsanto for Selling Cancer-Linked Herbicide

May 21, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Christina Sarich, GuestGlyphosate is harmful to humans and animals…Those claims that Monsanto made – that glyphosate was harmless to humans – well, the company is about to pay for that ‘false advertising’ in the form of a class action lawsuit put forth by the offices of T. Matthew Phillips in Los Angeles, California.In the lawsuit filed in California, Monsanto is accused of:The deliberate falsification to conceal the fact that glyphosate is harmful [...]

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5 Signs the California Drought Could Get Worse

May 19, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Anastasia Pantsios, EcoWatchCalifornia is entering its fourth year of drought, with high temperatures, water shortages and increased wildfires. The state has taken some steps to address the impacts of that, including addressing greenhouse gas emissions and rationing its diminishing water supply. But there are signs that the impacts of drought on the state could get even worse.1. A new study shows that if greenhouse gas emissions continue to ris [...]

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Abandoned Uranium Mines Plague Navajo Nation

May 16, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Sonia Luokkala, Earth Island JournalWaking TimesThe mesas of Monument Valley rise deep red on the horizon. We are in Diné Bikéyah, land of the Navajo.“This is John Wayne country,” trained Navajo guide Gregory Holiday repeats his lines for an enchanted group of tourists. The view opens boundless to the sacred land of the Diné people, but for visitors it is presented as the iconic west of cowboys and Americana.The sun sets and the last traveler boards t [...]

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Dying With Dignity

May 13, 2015 / / 0 Comments

 Excerpt from huffingtonpost.comBy Debbie FinkCo-authored by Karen Bloch MorseThere is nothing easy or natural about watching your 41-year-old friend (of 41 years) -- who, by all counts, looks healthy -- ...

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NASA Releases New Pictures of Ceres

May 12, 2015 / / 0 Comments

Bright spots on Ceres continue to puzzle astronomersExcerpt from sciencetimes.com NASA has released the most brilliant images of Ceres to date, truly showcasing the surface of the dwarf planet located in the asteroid belt.  The new images could...

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Hubble’s Other Telescope And The Day It Rocked Our World

April 30, 2015 / / 0 Comments

The Hooker 100-inch reflecting telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, just outside Los Angeles. Edwin Hubble's chair, on an elevating platform, is visible at left. A view from this scope first told Hubble our galaxy isn't the only one.
The Hooker 100-inch reflecting telescope at the Mount Wilson Observatory, just outside Los Angeles. Edwin Hubble's chair, on an elevating platform, is visible at left. A view from this scope first told Hubble our galaxy isn't the only one.
Courtesy of The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science Collection at the Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.


Excerpt from hnpr.org

The Hubble Space Telescope this week celebrates 25 years in Earth's orbit. In that time the telescope has studied distant galaxies, star nurseries, planets in our solar system and planets orbiting other stars.

But, even with all that, you could argue that the astronomer for whom the telescope is named made even more important discoveries — with far less sophisticated equipment.

A young Edwin Hubble at Mount Wilson's 100-inch telescope circa 1922, ready to make history.i
A young Edwin Hubble at Mount Wilson's 100-inch telescope circa 1922, ready to make history.
Edwin Hubble Papers/Courtesy of Huntington Library, San Marino, Calif.


In the 1920s, Edwin Hubble was working with the 100-inch Hooker telescope on Mount Wilson, just outside Los Angeles. At the time, it was the largest telescope in the world.

On a chilly evening, I climb up to the dome of that telescope with operator Nik Arkimovich and ask him to show me where Hubble would sit when he was using the telescope. Arkimovich points to a platform near the top of the telescope frame.

"He's got an eyepiece with crosshairs on it," Arkimovich explains. The telescope has gears and motors that let it track a star as it moves across the sky. "He's got a paddle that allows him to make minor adjustments. And his job is to keep the star in the crosshairs for maybe eight hours."

"It's certainly much, much easier today," says John Mulchaey, acting director of the observatories at Carnegie Institution of Science. "Now we sit in control rooms. The telescopes operate brilliantly on their own, so we don't have to worry about tracking and things like this."

Today, astronomers use digital cameras to catch the light from stars and other celestial objects. In Hubble's day, Mulchaey says, they used glass plates.

"At the focus of the telescope you would put a glass plate that has an emulsion layer on it that is actually sensitive to light," he says. At the end of an observing run, the plates would be developed, much like the film in a camera.

The headquarters of the Carnegie observatories is at the foot of Mount Wilson, in the city of Pasadena. It's where Hubble worked during the day.

A century's worth of plates are stored here in the basement. Mulchaey opens a large steel door and ushers me into a room filled with dozens of file cabinets.

"Why don't we go take a look at Hubble's famous Andromeda plates," Mulchaey suggests.

The plates are famous for a reason: They completely changed our view of the universe. Mulchaey points to a plate mounted on a light stand.

"This is a rare treat for you," he says. "This plate doesn't see the light of day very often."


This glass side of a photographic plate shows where Hubble marked novas. The red VAR! in the upper right corner marks his discovery of the first Cepheid variable star — a star that told him the Andromeda galaxy isn't part of our Milky Way.i
This glass side of a photographic plate shows where Hubble marked novas. The red VAR! in the upper right corner marks his discovery of the first Cepheid variable star — a star that told him the Andromeda galaxy isn't part of our Milky Way.
Courtesy of the Carnegie Observatories 
To the untrained eye, there's nothing terribly remarkable about the plate. But Mulchaey says what it represents is the most important discovery in astronomy since Galileo.

The plate shows the spiral shape of the Andromeda galaxy. Hubble was looking for exploding stars called novas in Andromeda. Hubble marked these on the plate with the letter "N."

"The really interesting thing here," Mulchaey says, "is there's one with the N crossed out in red — and he's changed the N to VAR with an exclamation point."

Hubble had realized that what he was seeing wasn't a nova. VAR stands for a type of star known as a Cepheid variable. It's a kind of star that allows you to make an accurate determination of how far away something is. This Cepheid variable showed that the Andromeda galaxy isn't a part of our galaxy.

At the time, most people thought the Milky Way was it — the only galaxy in existence.

"And what this really shows is that the universe is much, much bigger than anybody realizes," Mulchaey says.
It was another blow to our human conceit that we are the center of the universe.

Hubble went on to use the Mount Wilson telescope to show the universe was expanding, a discovery so astonishing that Hubble had a hard time believing it himself.

If Hubble could make such important discoveries with century-old equipment, it makes you wonder what he might have turned up if he'd had a chance to use the space telescope that bears his name.

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Concorde Comeback? Two New Jets Plan to Take Air Passengers Supersonic Again

March 14, 2015 / / 0 Comments




Concorde Comeback? Two New Jets Plan to Take Air Passengers Supersonic Again
Lockheed Martin and NASA’s N+2 jet could cut cross-country flight times in half. (Photo: Lockheed Martin)



Excerpt from yahoo.com

Lockheed Martin and NASA’s N+2 jet could cut cross-country flight times in half. New York to Los Angeles in just over two hours? Passenger jets that fly faster than the speed of sound without that annoying sonic boom?  


That could become reality thanks to two projects that aim to bring supersonic planes back to commercial air travel.  Lockheed Martin is working with NASA on a design called the N+2, an 80-passenger jet capable of cruising at Mach 1.7 (1.7 times the speed of sound). 

But what about that loud sonic boom you get when an airplane exceeds the sound barrier? Lockheed Martin and NASA are working hard to lower the boom, so to speak. They say their proposed new jet will be 100 times quieter than the Concorde, the supersonic passenger jets that flew transatlantic routes from 1969 until they were grounded in 2003.

image
The supersonic Concorde flew from 1969 to 2003. (Photo: AP)


A quieter jet would allow the N+2 to fly at supersonic speeds on cross-country routes as the FAA, concerned about sonic booms going off over sleepy U.S. suburbs, currently bans civilian planes from going all “Danger Zone” in American airspace. Lockheed Martin says their new jet would cut cross-country flight times in half.  Related: Race for the First Windowless Plane Heats Up  A rival supersonic jet development project is underway in Reno, Nevada, where European aircraft maker Airbus is working with American firm Aerion on a new, fuel-efficient plane for business clients. The 12-passenger Aerion AS2 will fly at 1,217 mph (which is almost as fast as the Concorde, which flew at 1,350 mph). That would take you from New York to London in three hours and from Los Angeles to Tokyo in six.  

Since the AS2 would do most of its flying over oceans, its designers aren’t as concerned with loud sonic booms. The AS2’s big innovation is fuel efficiency, with new wings that are said to reduce drag by 20 percent.  The makers of the AS2 plan to deliver their first plane in 2022 while Lockheed Martin hopes to have the N+2 flying in 2025.  

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Gullies suggest comet Vesta once had flowing water on its surface

January 26, 2015 / / 0 Comments



This image of the giant asteroid Vesta was taken by NASA's Dawn spacecraft, as part of a rotation characterization sequence on July 24, 2011


Excerpt from natmonitor.com

NASA’s Dawn spacecraft is currently approaching the dwarf planet Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt that lies between Mars and Jupiter. However, from 2011 to 2013 Dawn collected extensive data on Vesta, the second largest object in the asteroid belt and one of the largest known comets in our solar system.

The data collected from Vesta is still being analyzed and will continue to be for years to come. As the data is examined interesting new information about the giant asteroid is coming to light. Vesta which is very cold and has no atmosphere has long thought to be dry. A new study published in the journal Earth and Planetary Science Letters casts doubt on that assumption.
While there are certainly no rivers and lakes on Vesta, photographs taken by Dawn show evidence of short lived flows of water mobilized material on the surface.

“Nobody expected to find evidence of water on Vesta. The surface is very cold and there is no atmosphere, so any water on the surface evaporates. However, Vesta is proving to be a very interesting and complex planetary body,” said Jennifer Scully, postgraduate researcher at the University of California, Los Angeles in a statement.

The research could change some basic assumptions in planetary science.

“These results, and many others from the Dawn mission, show that Vesta is home to many processes that were previously thought to be exclusive to planets. We look forward to uncovering even more insights and mysteries when Dawn studies Ceres,” said UCLA’s Christopher Russell, principal investigator for the Dawn mission.
The curved gullies on vesta are very different from what would be expected from dry material flows, say the researchers.

“We’re not suggesting that there was a river-like flow of water. We’re suggesting a process similar to debris flows, where a small amount of water mobilizes the sandy and rocky particles into a flow. These features on Vesta share many characteristics with those formed by debris flows on Earth and Mars,“ said Scully.

The leading theory so far is that Vesta has small patches of ice beneath the surface, possibly deposited by impacts from other comets. Later impacts could have heated the ice enough to thaw some of the water, releasing it into the crater.

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California breaks ground on bullet train project despite opposition, as price tag soars

January 7, 2015 / / 0 Comments





Excerpt from foxnews.com

Despite cost overruns, lawsuits, public opposition and a projected completion date 13 years behind schedule, California Gov. Jerry Brown broke ground Tuesday on what is to become the most expensive public works project in U.S. history: the California bullet train. 

Over the next 1,000 days, California is estimated to spend roughly $4 million a day on the project. 

The high-speed train, set to be finished in 2033, originally was supposed to deliver passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two hours and 40 minutes. That was the promise when voters narrowly approved $10 billion in bonds for the project in 2008. Since then, however, the estimated trip time has grown considerably, and the train has encountered persistent problems -- as experts uncovered misrepresentations in the ballot proposition, and opponents sued to stop the project on environmental and fiscal grounds. 

"We're talking about real money here," said Kris Vosburgh, executive director of taxpayer watchdog group Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association. "This is money that's not available for health care or education, for public safety, or put back in taxpayers' pockets so they have something to spend. This is money being drawn out of the system for a program that is going to serve very few people." 

Much about the project has changed since it was sold to the public. 
Voters were told the project would cost just $33 billion. Once experts crunched the numbers, however, the price tag soared to $98 billion. It was supposed to whoosh riders from Southern California to the Bay Area in less than three hours, but now it’s more than four hours due to changing track configurations and route adjustments. The train was supposed to get people off the freeway and reduce carbon emissions, but a panel of experts now says any carbon savings will be nominal. (A drive by car takes just over 6 hours. Ed.) 

Further, ridership projections have been cut by two-thirds from a projected 90 million to 30 million a year. Fewer riders means higher prices. According to a panel of transportation experts hired by the Reason Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, tickets will exceed $80 -- not $50 -- and the system will require annual subsidies of more than $300 million annually. 

"The public has turned sour on this plan but the governor, to paraphrase Admiral Farragut, has taken a position of 'damn the people, full speed ahead'," Vosburgh said. 

Undaunted by critics, Brown broke ground in Fresno on Tuesday on the first 29-mile segment of the train's system. Under Brown's direction, the California High Speed Rail Authority has gone to court to seek an exemption from an environmental quality law the state imposes on other projects but not this one. Brown also convinced the state Legislature to dedicate an annual revenue stream from the state's carbon tax, to help pay for the bullet train. 
"It's a long project, a bold project and one that will transform the Central Valley," Brown said Monday as he began his fourth and final term as governor. 

Once construction begins, supporters say it will be harder to stop the project. Several lawsuits linger, but a bigger question concerns the money: Where will it come from? If every penny committed to the project is added up, the project is still more than $30 billion short. Republicans in Congress are vowing not to commit a dollar more than President Obama approved in 2012. 

"For years now, Governor Brown and the high-speed rail authority have turned the idea of high-speed rail into a public albatross far beyond what Californians envisioned or voted for," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement released Tuesday. "Sadly, today's groundbreaking is a political maneuver. Supporters of the railroad in Sacramento can't admit their project is deeply flawed, and they won't give up on it despite the cost. But these political tricks are exactly what the American people are tired of and what the new Republican Congress is committed to ending." 

Supporters don't see waste. They argue the project will reduce freeway gridlock, offer competition to air travel and provide an alternative to trucking freight. 

Environmentalists also have opposed the project, suing and claiming the construction project would harm 11 endangered species and worsen air quality in the already dirty Central Valley. They lost when a federal judge ruled the project did not have to adhere to the state Environmental Quality Act, unlike other projects. Additional legal challenges remain, but supporters believe once the train leaves the station and ground is broken, there's no going back. 

"The legacy of the Brown family is that they have been big thinkers, but also big builders," said Democratic state Assemblyman Henry Perea. "I think this is an opportunity for the legislature to step up, support Governor Brown. "

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