Tag: moving (page 4 of 16)

Albert Einstein Letter Concerning Haters & How To Deal With Them

Albert Einstein is a man that has been seen not only as a genius, but as someone that knew how to have a good time and just enjoy life. Sure, he’s also been known as a man that’s far ahead of his time, but no-one may have ever realized just how far his brilliance reached.

The man actually wrote a letter to Marie Curie back on November 23, 1911, that advised her how to deal with haters and can even be used as a way to deal with Internet trolls.

Yes, a full 80 years before the Internet was even invented.
The Guardian revealed that a treasure trove of Einstein’s old letters were released, and they all show his genius and wit. One of them was the true gem though, and it was a letter to Curie, who was a rising science phenomenon at the time. He simply let her know that haters gonna hate and she need not bother with them.

“Highly esteemed Mrs. Curie,
“Do not laugh at me for writing you without having anything sensible to say. But I am so enraged by the base manner in which the public is presently daring to concern itself with you that I absolutely must give vent to this feeling. However, I am convinced that you consistently despise this rabble, whether it obsequiously lavishes respect on you or whether it attempts to satiate its lust for sensationalism!

“I am impelled to tell you how much I have come to admire your intellect, your drive, and your honesty, and that I consider myself lucky to have made your personal acquaintance in Brussels. Anyone who does not number among these reptiles is certainly happy, now as before, that we have such personages among us as you, and Langevin too, real people with whom one feels privileged to be in contact. If the rabble continues to occupy itself with you, then simply don’t read that hogwash, but rather leave it to the reptile for whom it has been fabricated.
“With most amicable regards to you, Langevin, and Perrin, yours very truly,
A. Einstein”

To the untrained eye, it may seem just like a very sweet letter from Albert Einstein to Marie Curie on how to keep moving forward in life and ignore those that criticize her. In reality, the letter can be applied to today’s world and ward off trolls.

Curie had her application to the French Academy of Sciences denied, and it was rumored that it happened because she was Jewish. Others said it was due to her possibly having an affair with physicist Paul Langevin, a married man.

According to Pop Sugar, Einstein even added a small P.S. to the letter that may then go over the heads of everyone.

“P.S. I have determined the statistical law of motion of the diatomic molecule in Planck’s radiation field by means of a comical witticism, naturally under the constraint that the structure’s motion follows the laws of standard mechanics. My hope that this law is valid in reality is very small, though.”

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Top 10 Ridiculously Common Science Myths

November 30, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

listverse.com
There is nothing better than a bit of mythbusting (which accounts for the popularity of the television program of the same name), so here we are again, presenting you with a new list of terribly common misconceptions and myths – this time about science.

Evolutionary Improvements

The Myth: Evolution causes something to go from “lower” to “higher”
While it is a fact that natural selection weeds out unhealthy genes from the gene pool, there are many cases where an imperfect organism has survived. Some examples of this are fungi, sharks, crayfish, and mosses – these have all remained essentially the same over a great period of time. These organisms are all sufficiently adapted to their environment to survive without improvement.
Other taxa have changed a lot, but not necessarily for the better. Some creatures have had their environments changed and their adaptations may not be as well suited to their new situation. Fitness is linked to their environment, not to progress.

Humans Pop In Space

The Myth: When exposed to the vacuum of space, the human body pops
This myth is the result of science fiction movies which use it to add excitement or drama to the plot. In fact, a human can survive for 15 – 30 seconds in outer space as long as they breathe out before the exposure (this prevents the lungs from bursting and sending air into the bloodstream). After 15 or so seconds, the lack of oxygen causes unconsciousness which eventually leads to death by asphyxiation.

Brightest Star

The Myth: Polaris is the brightest star in the northern hemisphere night sky
Sirius is actually brighter with a magnitude of ?1.47 compared to Polaris’ 1.97 (the lower the number the brighter the star). The importance of Polaris is that its position in the sky marks North – and for that reason it is also called the “North Star”. Polaris is the brightest star in the constellation Ursa Minor and, interestingly, is only the current North Star as pole stars change over time because stars exhibit a slow continuous drift with respect to the Earth’s axis.

Five Second Rule

The Myth: Food that drops on the floor is safe to eat if you pick it up within five seconds
This is utter bunkum which should be obvious to most readers. If there are germs on the floor and the food lands on them, they will immediately stick to the food. Having said that, eating germs and dirt is not always a bad thing as it helps us to develop a robust immune system. I prefer to have a “how-tasty-is-it” rule: if it is something really tasty, it can sit there for ten minutes for all I care – I will still eat it.

Dark side of the Moon

The Myth: There is a dark side of the moon
Actually – every part of the moon is illuminated at sometime by the sun. This misconception has come about because there is a side of the moon which is never visible to the earth. This is due to tidal locking; this is due to the fact that Earth’s gravitational pull on the moon is so immense that it can only show one face to us. Wikipedia puts it rather smartly thus: “Tidal locking occurs when the gravitational gradient makes one side of an astronomical body always face another; for example, one side of the Earth’s Moon always faces the Earth. A tidally locked body takes just as long to rotate around its own axis as it does to revolve around its partner. This synchronous rotation causes one hemisphere constantly to face the partner body.”

Brain Cells

The Myth: Brain cells can’t regenerate – if you kill a brain cell, it is never replaced
The reason for this myth being so common is that it was believed and taught by the science community for a very long time. But in 1998, scientists at the Sweden and the Salk Institute in La Jolla, California discovered that brain cells in mature humans can regenerate. It had previously been long believed that complex brains would be severely disrupted by new cell growth, but the study found that the memory and learning center of the brain can create new cells – giving hope for an eventual cure for illnesses like Alzheimer’s.

Pennies from Heaven

The Myth: A penny dropped from a very high building can kill a pedestrian below
This myth is so common it has even become a bit of a cliche in movies. The idea is that if you drop a penny from the top of a tall building (such as the Empire State Building) – it will pick up enough speed to kill a person if it lands on them on the ground. But the fact is, the aerodynamics of a penny are not sufficient to make it dangerous. What would happen in reality is that the person who gets hit would feel a sting – but they would certainly survive the impact.

Friction Heat

The Myth: Meteors are heated by friction when entering the atmosphere
When a meteoroid enters the atmosphere of the earth (becoming a meteor), it is actually the speed compressing the air in front of the object that causes it to heat up. It is the pressure on the air that generates a heat intense enough to make the rock so hot that is glows brilliantly for our viewing pleasure (if we are lucky enough to be looking in the sky at the right time). We should also dispel the myth about meteors being hot when they hit the earth – becoming meteorites. Meteorites are almost always cold when they hit – and in fact they are often found covered in frost. This is because they are so cold from their journey through space that the entry heat is not sufficient to do more than burn off the outer layers.

Lightning

The Myth: Lightning never strikes the same place twice
Next time you see lightning strike and you consider running to the spot to protect yourself from the next bolt, remember this item! Lightning does strike the same place twice – in fact it is very common. Lightning obviously favors certain areas such as high trees or buildings. In a large field, the tallest object is likely to be struck multiple times until the lightning moves sufficiently far away to find a new target. The Empire State Building gets struck around 25 times a year.

Gravity in Space

The Myth: There is no gravity in space
In fact, there is gravity in space – a lot of it. The reason that astronauts appear to be weightless because they are orbiting the earth. They are falling towards the earth but moving sufficiently sideways to miss it. So they are basically always falling but never landing. Gravity exists in virtually all areas of space. When a shuttle reaches orbit height (around 250 miles above the earth), gravity is reduced by only 10%.
Inspired by an excellent LiveScience Article. This article is licensed under the GFDL because it contains quotations from Wikipedia.

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Invisible shield in space protects Earth from ‘killer electrons’

November 29, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

A cloud of cold, charged gas around Earth, called the plasmasphere and seen here in purple, interacts with the particles in Earth’s radiation belts — shown in grey— to create an impenetrable barrier that blocks the fastest electrons from moving in closer to our planet. These findings were published in Nature magazine on Nov. 26, 2014. Image by NASA/Goddard

Excerpt from pbs.org

A team led by professors and scientists from the University of Colorado at Boulder have discovered an invisible shield in space that blocks Earth from so-called “killer electrons,” according to findings published in Nature on Thursday.

“Somewhat like the shields created by force fields on Star Trek that were used to repel alien weapons, we are seeing an invisible shield blocking these electrons,” said Professor Daniel N. Baker, the lead author of the study in a press release.

“It’s an extremely puzzling phenomenon.”

According to NASA, “killer electrons” are the devilish doppelgangers of Earth’s subatomic allies.

While the flow of electrons is used as electricity to power everything from cell phones to light bulbs, when electrons reach high speeds like that of more than 100,000 miles per second in space, they can become dangerous and have been known to destroy satellites and even injure astronauts.

The shield, said to be located some 7,200 miles from Earth and impenetrable, lies within the Van Allen radiation belts, two rings around Earth containing potent electrons and protons trapped by the Earth’s magnetic field.

In 2008, NASA’s STEREO spacecraft, discovered that electrons turn into speedy, destructive “killer electrons” in part when picked up in the Belts by powerful radio waves known as whistlers.

Luckily though: “It’s almost like theses electrons are running into a glass wall in space,” said Baker of the shield, which was discovered using data collected by NASA’s Van Allen probes.

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MIT Scientists Found an Invisible Force Field Protecting Earth

November 27, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Excerpt from

wallstreetotc.com

The invisible force field seems to be taken from a Star-Trek movie script – it’s invisible, it’s steady, and it doesn’t allow harmful cosmic radiation penetrating into our planet’s atmosphere. Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers say it was first noticed by two NASA spacecrafts orbiting the Van Allen radiation belt on a 7,200 miles (11,000 km) altitude.

This new invisible force field protecting Earth does a very good job at blocking highly radioactive electrons populating Earth’s upper atmospheric region. NASA said these “ultrarelativistic” electrons were extremely aggressive and they easily circulate in space at speeds very close to the speed of light. They also fry everything on their way from spacecrafts to communication satellites. NASA launched two probe crafts, the Van Allen probes, for the sole purpose of studying these electrons and improving the safety level of their spacecrafts and crew.

NASA says although these electrons are attracted towards Earth by its magnetic field, they cannot get closer than 7,200 miles to it due an invisible shield-like barrier, never detected before. This barrier protects Earth from harmful cosmic radiation and has already done a good job in the past by deflecting several solar blows directed towards Earth. It seems that this mysterious force field operates on low frequency electromagnetism, but its source is still uncertain.

In the end, researchers found out that the barrier was probably generated by the plasmaspheric hiss, a phenomenon occurring in the upper parts of the atmosphere. This plasmaspheric hiss deviates from orbit the fast-moving dangerous particles, and sets them on a parallel plan to one of the Earth’s magnetic field lines, forcing them to fall into the atmosphere, collide with neutrally charged particles, and disappear.

Mary Hudson, professor of physics, said the new NASA observations made over more than two years through its Van Allen probes confirmed the inner barrier’s existence, and brought invaluable new information to the particle acceleration theory.

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Earth ‘has Star Trek force fields’

November 26, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Excerpt frombelfasttelegraph.co.ukA US team discovered the barrier, some 7,200 miles above the Earth's surface, that blocks high energy electrons threatening astronauts and satellites.Scientists identified an "extremely sharp" boundary within the Van...

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Asteroid Mining: Not as Crazy as it Sounds

November 21, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

https://i0.wp.com/www.geologyforinvestors.com/wp-content/uploads/DSI-Firefly-concept_BV-21-01-13.jpg?resize=640%2C360

Concept model of the FireFly Design (Image credit: Deep Space Industries / Bryan Versteeg.

Excerpt from geologyforinvestors.com

At first glance it sounds ridiculous. Why would anyone consider mining in space when even the largest Earth-based mining operations seem to have trouble managing costs? After all, mid-grade and marginal deposits seem to have trouble finding any money and the process of moving a project from prospect to mine can take decades and cost hundreds of million of dollars. I’ll be the first to admit that the whole idea of asteroid mining was initially right up there with Star Trek-style transporters and desktop cold fusion, but a few recent events have piqued my curiosity on the subject. Allow me to elaborate.

First, one of the many items that was lost back in October, 2014 when the Antares rocket was destroyed was the Arkyd 3 satellite. Arkyd 3 is a testing platform designed by Planetary Resources, otherwise known as “the asteroid mining company”. Apparently these guys aren’t just doing interviews: There is actual work going on here. A re-built Arkyd 3 is scheduled for launch in about 9 months.
Second, the recent landing of the Philae spacecraft on comet 67P stirred all of our imaginations in a way that was reminiscent of the moon landing, first shuttle launch or first Mars rover. If we can effectively land a bullet on a bullet 500 million miles away from Earth, then the idea of grabbing a near-earth asteroid doesn’t sound nearly as crazy. The economics might still seem crazy, but the technology – not so much.

As it turns out, there are three groups currently working on a long term strategy to gather resources from space. Two are private companies and the third is NASA. All have different approaches, but their end games are largely the same.

What Asteroids? What Resources?

Asteroid miners are seeking out near-earth asteroids. There are over 11,000 known near-earth asteroids which are considered to be left-overs from the formation of the solar system. These bodies can be composed of ice, silicate minerals, carbonaceous minerals and metals.

Ice or water on these bodies is one of the most significant potential resources. Solar panels on spacecraft can provide the power to simply convert water to hydrogen and oxygen for fuel. Considering that it costs from $5,000-25,000+ per kg to ferry items into space, the idea of harvesting resources needed in space doesn’t sound like such a bad idea. In fact, the groups involved are primarily focused on gathering the resources needed for space exploration and development. Gathering resources to send back to earth is a much longer term goal and arguably may never be economic.

Groups Involved

Currently there are two private companies pursuing asteroid mining; Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries. NASA is also involved on several levels and has awarded contracts to several companies including both Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries for studies relating to relating to asteroid redirection.

Deep Space Industries – Fire Fly/DragonFly/Harvestor

Deep Space Industries’ approach includes a series of compact spacecraft known as FireFlies (not to be confused with NASA’s FireFly Cubesat). The company plans to send them on one-way missions to gather information such as size, shape, density and composition of asteroids of interest. Their longer term plan includes the development of a spacecraft known as the “Dragonfly” which will capture asteroids to return for analysis and to test processing methods and the “Harvestors” which will collect material for return to Earth’s orbit. The Harvestor class is meant for full-scale production for initial customers in space from collecting propellant for future space missions, manufacturing materials using extracted metals and radiation shielding. If costs begin to decrease over time they hope to be able to return these extracted commodities back to earth. DSI recently made the news when it partnered with another firm to build Bitcoin satellites as part of a proposed Bitcoin orbital satellite network.

NASA

NASA has commissioned a number of studies on the potential for asteroid mining and interactions as part of it’s Early Stage Innovation and Innovative Advanced Concepts (NIAC) directives. The Robotic Asteroid Prospector study determined that water and possibly Platinum Group Metals had the most economic potential for asteroid mining operations and presented some preliminary designed for water extraction.

NASA’s OSIRIS REx spacecraft is designed study the the near-Earth “Bennu” asteroid for more than a year with the primary goal of landing on the asteroid and retrieving a sample for return to Earth. OSIRIS-REx is scheduled for launch in September 2016.
NASA has been also been studying robotic mining for several years and holds annual competition where university students can build a mining robot.

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Extraordinary’ 5,000-Year-Old Human Footprints Discovered

November 13, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

A 5,000-year-old human footprint discovered on the Danish island of Lolland.
Credit: Lars Ewald Jensen/Museum Lolland-Falster

Excerpt from livescience.com

When a pair of fishermen waded into the frigid waters of the southern Baltic Sea about 5,000 years ago, they probably didn't realize that the shifting seabed beneath their feet was recording their every move. But it was.

The long-lost evidence of that prehistoric fishing trip — two sets of human footprints and some Stone Age fishing gear — was recently discovered in a dried up fjord, or inlet, on the island of Lolland in Denmark. There, archaeologists uncovered the prints alongside a so-called fishing fence, a tool that dates back to around 3,000 B.C.

Archaeologists have found fishing fences before, but the footprints are the first of their kind discovered in Denmark, according to Terje Stafseth, an archaeologist with the Museum Lolland-Falster, who helped excavate the ancient prints.

"This is really quite extraordinary, finding footprints from humans," Stafseth said in a statement. "Normally, what we find is their rubbish in the form of tools and pottery, but here, we suddenly have a completely different type of trace from the past, footprints left by a human being."

The Stone Age footprints were likely formed sometime between 5,000 B.C. and 2,000 B.C., Jensen said. At that time, the water level of the Baltic Sea was rising due to melting glaciers in northern Europe. Also at that time, prehistoric people were using these inlets as fishing grounds.

These individuals constructed elaborate traps, called fishing fences, to catch their prey. The wooden fences were built in sections several feet wide — thin switches of hazel suspended between two larger sticks — and the sections were lined up consecutively to form one long, continuous trap. The trap was placed in the shallow water of the fjord, which would be flooded with the incoming tide, the archaeologists said. When the fishermen wanted to move their gear, they would pluck the sections of the fence from the claylike floor of the fjord and move the whole apparatus to a new location.

"What seems to have happened was that at some point they were moving out to the [fish fence], perhaps to recover it before a storm," Jensen said. "At one of the posts, there are footprints on each side of the post, where someone had been trying to remove it from the sea bottom."

The archaeologists said the footprints must have been made by two different people, since one set of prints is significantly smaller than the other. Jensen and his team are now making imprints, or flat molds, of the footprints to preserve these ancient signs of life.

In addition to the human tracks, the team uncovered several skulls belonging to domestic and wild animals on the beach near the fjord.

The researchers said the skulls were likely part of offerings made by local farmers, who inhabited the region from around 4,000 B.C.

"They put fragments of skulls from different kinds of animals [on the sea floor], and then around that they put craniums from cows and sheep," Jensen said. "At the outermost of this area, they put shafts from axes. All in all, it covers about 70 square meters [83 square yards]. It's rather peculiar."

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Rosetta mission: Philae lander bounces twice, lands on side ~ Cliff face blocking solar power

November 13, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

How Esa scientists believe Philae has landed on the comet – on its side. Photograph: European Space Agency/Reuters

Excerpt from
theguardian.com

Rosetta mission controllers must decide whether to risk making lander hop from shadow of cliff blocking sunlight to its solar panels.

The robotic lander that touched down on a comet on Wednesday came to rest on its side in the shadow of a cliff, according to the first data beamed home from the probe.

Pictures from cameras on board the European Space Agency’s Philae lander show the machine with one foot in the sky and lodged against a high cliff face that is blocking sunlight to its solar panels.
The precarious resting place means mission controllers are faced with some tough decisions over whether to try and nudge the spacecraft into a sunnier spot. If successful, that would allow Philae to fully recharge its batteries and do more science on the comet, but any sudden move could risk toppling the lander over, or worse, knock it off the comet completely.

The washing machine-sized lander was released by its Rosetta mother ship at 0835am GMT on Wednesday morning and touched down at a perfect spot on the comet’s surface. But when anchoring harpoons failed to fire, the probe bounced back off into space. So weak is the gravitational pull of the comet that Philae soared 1km into the sky and did not come down again until two hours later. “We made quite a leap,” said Stephan Ulamec, the Philae lander manager.

In the time it took the probe to land for the second time, the comet had rotated, bringing more treacherous terrain underneath. The spacecraft bounced a second time and finally came to a standstill on its side at what may be the rim of an enormous crater.

“We bounced twice and stopped in a place we’ve not entirely located,” said Jean-Pierre Bibring, Philae’s lead scientist. Teams of scientists are now trying to work out where the probe is. What mission controllers do know is that they are not where they hoped to be. “We are exactly below a cliff, so we are in a shadow permanently,” Bibring added.

With most of Philae in the dark, the lander will receive only a fraction of the solar energy that Esa had hoped for. The spacecraft needs six or seven hours of sunlight a day but is expected to receive just one and a half. Though it can operate for 60 hours on primary batteries, the probe must then switch to its main batteries which need to be recharged through its solar arrays. If Philae’s batteries run out it will go into a hibernation mode until they have more power.

The spacecraft was designed with landing gear that could hop the probe around, but from its awkward position on its side the option is considered too risky.

Though caught in a tight spot, the Philae lander’s systems appear to be working well. The Rosetta spacecraft picked up the lander’s signal on Thursday morning and received the first images and more instrument data from the surface of the comet.

One of Philae’s major scientific goals is to analyse the comet for organic molecules. To do that, the lander must get samples from the comet into several different instruments, named Ptolemy, Cosac and Civa. There are two ways to do this: sniffing and drilling. Sniffing involves opening the instruments to allow molecules from the surface to drift inside. The instruments are already doing this and returning data.

Panoramic view around the point of Philae's final touchdown on the surface of comet 67P, taken when Rosetta was about 18km from centre of comet. Parts of Philae's landing gear can be seen in this picture. — Panoramic view around the point of Philae’s final touchdown on the surface of comet 67P, taken when Rosetta was about 18km from centre of comet. Parts of Philae’s landing gear can be seen in this picture.Photograph: European Space Agency/AFP/Getty Images

Drilling is much riskier because it could make the lander topple over... Pushing down into the surface will push the lander off again. “We don’t want to start drilling and end the mission,” said Bibring.
But the team has decided to operate another moving instrument, named Mupus, on Thursday evening. This could cause Philae to shift, but calculations show that it would be in a direction that could improve the amount of sunlight falling on the probe. A change in angle of only a few degrees could help. A new panoramic image will be taken after the Mupus deployment to see if there has been any movement.

Meanwhile, the Rosetta orbiter team will continue to try to pinpoint Philae’s position.

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Pilot mystery at heart of Virgin Galactic spaceship crash probe

November 4, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Sheriffs' deputies look at wreckage from the crash of Virgin Galactic's SpaceShipTwo near Cantil, California November 2, 2014.

(Reuters) - The probe of Virgin Galactic’s space plane crash in California hinges on a central mystery: Why a seasoned test pilot would prematurely unlock the craft's moveable tail section, setting off a chain of events that led to destruction of the ship and his death.
The National Transportation Safety Board was expected this week to complete its initial field investigation into Friday's ill-fated test flight of SpaceShipTwo, a rocket-powered vehicle built to take paying passengers for rides into space.
The ship broke apart at an altitude of about 50,000 feet (15,000 meters) and crashed in the Mojave Desert, 95 miles (150 km) north of Los Angeles, moments after its separation from the special jet aircraft that carries the spacecraft aloft for its high-altitude launches.
The pilot, Pete Siebold, 43, survived the crash, parachuting to the ground with a shoulder injury. The co-pilot, Mike Alsbury, 39, was killed.
NTSB officials have said it was Alsbury, flying for the ninth time aboard SpaceShipTwo, who unlocked the tail section, designed to pivot upward during atmospheric re-entry to ease descent of the craft.
Alsbury was supposed to have waited until the ship was traveling at 1.4 times the speed of sound, fast enough for aerodynamic forces to hold the tail in place until time to actually move it into descent position, sources familiar with the spacecraft's operation told Reuters.
Instead, for reasons unknown, he released the locking mechanism roughly 9 seconds into a planned 20-second firing of the space plane's rocket engine, while the ship was moving at about Mach 1, the speed of sound, the sources said.
The result was disastrous. About 4 seconds after the tail was unlocked, it began to swivel out, and the vehicle was ripped apart, scattering debris over a 5-mile (8-km) swath of desert northeast of the Mojave Air and Space Port.
A second command to deliberately move the tail upward after unlocking it was never given.
The tail's so-called “feathering” system, developed and patented by aircraft designer Burt Rutan, is designed to increase the vehicle’s surface area and slow down the ship so it can fly like a badminton shuttlecock as it safely re-enters Earth’s atmosphere from space.
SpaceShipTwo’s feather mechanism had been operated extensively in previous atmospheric test flights, including two rocket-powered runs, officials said.
The NTSB expects it will take up to a year to piece together exactly what triggered the accident and recommend changes to equipment, procedures, operations and other factors that may have caused or contributed to the crash, safety board Chairman Christopher Hart said.
Initial interviews, collection of debris from the crash site and preliminary examination of evidence were expected to be wrapped up by the end of the week.
A human-factors expert joined the investigation team on Monday to look at cockpit displays, checklist design, training and other pilot operational issues. Siebold, the surviving pilot, had not yet been interviewed due to medical concerns, Hart said on Monday.
NTSB’s preliminary accident investigation report was expected in about 10 days.
(Reporting and writing by Irene Klotz; Editing by Steve Gorman and Mohammad Zargham)

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‘G2’ Gas Ball Survives Black Hole, and Researchers Say They Now Know Why

November 4, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Excerpt from sciencetimes.com For years, astronomers have pondered the origins and the contents of the mysterious G2 object floating in the center of the Milky Way galaxy. Drifting towards the galaxy's supermassive black hole, the passing ...

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Ramblings of an Insomniac Sagittarius ~ Virtual Reality & the Light at the End of the Tunnel ~ By Greg Giles

November 4, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Ramblings of an Insomniac Sagittarius

So what's keeping me up tonight?

Well, it's this light; you know the one, the bright light at the end of the tunnel that so many report after a near-death experience. I think about that light a lot, and it's no wonder really as, although our world is full of countless mysteries, there aren’t too many that are as incredible to think about then the question of life after death. One of my favorite pastimes is to try to picture just what it is exactly that awaits us at the end of our current lives, and at the end of that lighted tunnel.

Firstly, let's take a cursory look at the odds that there is something for us after this lifetime. At minimum it's a 50-50 shot, as either there is something after here or there isn't. But we can go beyond that and adjust those odds a bit by adding variables to our equation.

Let's consider the countless reports of an afterlife witnessed during a near-death experience. If just one of these reports is accurate-just one mind you, then the odds that something awaits us after this lifetime shifts dramatically, wouldn't you say?

Aside from that, we can add as a variable the incredible long shots necessary for life as we know it to come into being. These long shots certainly shift our odds considerably, and I must say it’s quite refreshing and enjoyable to stand on the short-shot side for once.

Another piece of evidence we would be remiss not to examine is a piece of evidence that is certainly the largest and for me, the most obvious, yet I believe it is the single piece of evidence that is more commonly overlooked when examining the life after death question; our visible universe itself. Just think about it for a moment; does this incredible, remarkable, miraculous, gorgeous, mysterious and seemingly boundless kingdom resemble in any way an accident? Or does it resemble more a product of conscious and purposeful creation?

When I look around, especially when I look up, I am left with absolutely no doubt that all and everything is a product of intelligent design. So for me, the odds are astoundingly good there awaits us something incredible, something miraculous, and for me, something so exciting to think about. I think a lot of us may lose sight of that sometimes.

So, what is it then that awaits us? Let's start off with what is, for me, but perhaps not you, the most hellish possibility. If the bright light at the end of the tunnel is a hospital delivery room and we are immediately born right back into this world, well then, I would have to say that all those biblical stories about hell are true.

But moving on to more positive possibilities of the white light at the end of the tunnel, I feel a very good possibility would be that the white light that we are seeing is actually our eyes filling with light as we remove a virtual reality headset. You may feel that this is kind of an odd possibility, but I feel it is a very real possible that all of us are playing an Earth-sized virtual reality game, an MMORPG, or massively multiplayer online role-playing game, not unlike World of Warcraft.

Playing World of Warcraft

Can you imagine that? Just imagine, at the end of your life here, you experience the sensation of someone somewhere helping you pull from your head a virtual reality headset as your eyes fill with the bright light of a room, possibly even your very own bedroom, somewhere, sometime. Where could that possibly be, and what can our reallives possibly be like?

Just think about for a moment. If our lives are constructs of a super advanced virtual reality game, just imagine what our genuine reality could be like. It could be absolutely unidentifiable to the lives we are now living. We could be living eternal and incredible lives humans currently reserve only for gods. Wouldn't that be wonderful? Wouldn't that be miraculous? And I see all this as a very plausible possibility. I even see this possibility as the most plausible, as amazing as that may seem.

Now, if we are currently living a reality that is completely removed from our true reality, then how would we have entered this virtual state? We must enter it somehow, and we aren’t getting hit over the head with a brick like in an Ignatz and Krazy Kat cartoon. No, there must be some kind of process we go through to enter this state of reality, and I feel it’s likely we utilize some kind of virtual reality technology, even if that technology is largely natural, meaning we utilize our minds more than we rely on technology. Nonetheless, I believe that we are using some kind of virtual reality to enter this reality, this MMORPG.

Ignatz & Krazy Kat ~ Probably one of the reasons we are playing this virtual reality game

Just sitting here at the computer sharing my thoughts about this with you causes my mind to stir, and I see I’m going to be up very late tonight as I lie in bed pondering all of this, but I can't think of a better reason to miss a little sleep.

Greg Giles

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Richard Branson: We owe it to test pilot to continue Virgin Galactic SpaceShipTwo

November 3, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Excerpt from smh.com.auThe Tony Blair grin was gone but Richard Branson was unbowed by disaster when he appeared on American breakfast television on Monday morning. He vowed his program to hurl paying customers into the...

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Researchers show Earth’s magnetic reversal occurs faster than previously thought

October 18, 2014 / Greg Giles / 0 Comments

Excerpt from dailycal.org

By Suhauna Hussain | Staff

A study by researchers from UC Berkeley, Columbia University, Italy and France shows that the most recent reversal of Earth’s magnetic field occurred in fewer than 100 years, which is much more rapidly than previously believed.

A magnetic field reversal is when the Earth’s magnetic poles are switched – a phenomenon that has occurred many times in history. Magnetic fields usually remain at a certain intensity but weaken significantly before reversing.

Previously, researchers believed reversals occurred over thousands of years. The discovery that reversals can happen in such a short time is significant because it can help scientists further understand how magnetic reversals behave.

In the most recent magnetic reversal, the Earth’s field reversed a few times over several thousand years before it finally “snapped,” making its final reversal into its current orientation in fewer than 100 years, Renne said.

Researchers don’t have clear-enough records of other reversals to know whether this behavior is normal, he added.

Bruce Buffett, campus earth and planetary sciences chair and professor, unaffiliated with the project, questioned the study’s definition of a reversal, arguing that a complete magnetic reversal takes much longer.

According to Buffett, it’s true that the field can switch direction within 100 years, but when that rapid switch occurs, the field is still relatively weak. It actually takes thousands of years for the field to regain its normal intensity in its reversed direction, he said.
“I can tell you that a reversal can’t (take) place in a 100 years, but something that goes from very weak to very weak in another direction can take place in that amount of time,” Buffett said.

Yet the study was “remarkable” for obtaining such a detailed and accurate record, he said.

Moving forward, the researchers will continue the study and further analyze sediment samples.

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Researchers show Earth’s magnetic reversal occurs faster than previously thought

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