Excerpt from cnn.com It's enough to make Mulder and Scully seethe with envy.Nearly 130,000 pages of declassified Air Force files on UFO investigations and sightings are now available in one place online.Declassified government records about UFOs ...
Excerpt from sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Man is about to reach closer to Pluto than ever before as the NASA New Horizons spacecraft begins the first of several approach phases toward the dwarf planet at the edge of our solar system.
When the mission was in the planning phases, Pluto was still considered a planet, but in 2006 it was reclassified as a dwarf planet. That same year, the New Horizons spacecraft blasted off as the fastest ever, shooting out off on a 4.6 billion mile journey to the distant sphere.
The piano-size New Horizons craft was in a hibernation phase as it traveled the first 3 billion miles toward Pluto. It woke up last month and is now getting ready for the first photo shoot.
“NASA first mission to distant Pluto will also be humankind’s first close up view of this cold, unexplored world in our solar system,” said Jim Green, director of NASA’s Planetary Science Division at the agency’s Headquarters in Washington.
Beginning January 25th, the probe will begin snapping photos of Pluto, which is the 10th largest celestial body orbiting our sun. The later stages of approach will require steering the craft closer to Pluto by using photo information to steer around five known moons and other potential perils.
View Article Here
Read More
Skywatchers should enjoy a good view of the Comet Lovejoy, or C/2014 Q2, which should be visible to the unaided eye under good conditions for the next few nights.
“Should we get a clear sky, Comet Lovejoy should appear to the right side of the constellations Orion and Taurus, now visible in the southern sky,” Bruce Palmquist, Central Washington University professor of physics and science education, said in a news release.
To see the comet, viewers should face due south, and look to the three stars that make up Orion’s belt.
“The comet should appear a little to the right of Orion’s belt or the snout of Taurus the bull,” Palmquist said. “With binoculars or a small telescope, you should be able to see it clearly.
“The best time to see the comet should be after 8 p.m.,” he continued. “And its best to find a place away from any city lights.”
The comet head has a vivid green color, due to carbon molecules fluorescing in the sun’s ultraviolet light.
The next time it will be visible to anyone on Earth will be roughly 10,000 years from now.
View Article Here
Read More
NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has been hunting the cosmos for exoplanets since March of 2009. In its nearly five years of searching the stars, it has found thousands of possible candidates. Scientists recently verified the thousandth planet Kepler had found, and even more exciting, they announced that Kepler had found three more Earth-like planets. Those three planets bring Kepler's Earth-like planet count to a total of eight. In order to qualify as "Earth-like," these exoplanets must be less than twice the size of the Earth and orbit their own sun within the habitable zone. This "Goldilocks zone" is a belt in solar systems where it's neither too hot nor too cold for liquid water to exist.
"Each result from the planet-hunting Kepler mission's treasure trove of data takes us another step closer to answering the question of whether we are alone in the Universe," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of NASA’s Science Mission Directorate at the agency’s headquarters in Washington. “The Kepler team and its science community continue to produce impressive results with the data from this venerable explorer."
The Kepler team has also found super-Earths and gas giants like Jupiter around other stars. NASA artists compiled retro-style travel posters from three discovered planets.
Kepler finds planets by watching distant stars for fluctuation in light. If the light hitting the telescope drops dramatically and then returns to normal levels, chances are a planet came in between the star and Kepler. Scientists can analyze the data and light filtered by the candidate planet's atmosphere to make guesses at the size, mass and composition.
"With each new discovery of these small, possibly rocky worlds, our confidence strengthens in the determination of the true frequency of planets like Earth," said co-author Doug Caldwell, SETI Institute Kepler scientist at NASA's Ames Research Center at Moffett Field, California. "The day is on the horizon when we’ll know how common temperate, rocky planets like Earth are.”
The space telescope actually has two crippled stabilizing gyros. But instead of giving up on the mission, engineers are using pressure from photons emitted by the sun to stabilize the telescope. The first space telescope looking for alien worlds is literally balancing on a sunbeam to continue its mission, and that's not science fiction, that's science fact.
Citizen scientists can also participate in the mission. The website PlanetHunters.org contains catalogs of data from K1, the original Kepler mission, and K2, the extended mission making use of the sun to balance the telescope. The K2 data has been sorted through, but Planet Hunters still needs help sifting through the K1 data. The website's instructions read:
"As the planet passes in front of (or transits) a star, it blocks out a small amount of the star’s light, making the star appear a little bit dimmer. You’re looking for points on the light curve that appear lower than the rest. When you spot a potential transit, mark each one on the light curve."
It can be a crime to leave pets outside in extreme temperatures without food and shelter
Cold weather can be deadly for pets. As the temperature plummets in many parts of the country, The Humane Society of the United States sees a marked increase in the number of complaints about dogs and cats who have been left outside with no food or shelter.
We encourage you to contact local law enforcement agencies because pets left outside in extreme temperatures, especially without food and shelter, are at risk of hypothermia, frostbite and even death. Their owners are at risk of facing criminal charges.
The act of leaving a pet outside without food or adequate shelter often receives less attention than a violent attack against an animal, but neglect is a crime. "Especially in these cold months, it is important for people to bring their pets inside and for others to report neglected animals to law enforcement,” says Ashley Mauceri, HSUS manager for cruelty response, who fields these calls.
One of the most common forms of animal cruelty, cases of animals left outside in dangerous weather are investigated more by police and animal control agencies than any other form of animal abuse. Our most constant companions—dogs and cats—feel the effects of winter weather as much as we do, only they are often cast outside to weather the cold or a storm owing to a misconception that the fur on their backs will insulate them from suffering. Without proper shelter, food and water, these domesticated animals’ chances of survival in frigid temperatures is greatly decreased. Any pet owners who aren't sure what protections their pets need during cold weather can read our cold-weather advice for keeping pets safe.
While views on animal welfare vary from region to region, there are laws in place in every state to prevent needless suffering. Callers to The HSUS report numerous cases across the country of animals left out in the cold, but the organization is also working with an increasing number of law enforcement agencies that recognize the importance of intervention in these cases.
Animal neglect is considered a misdemeanor crime in all 50 states and Washington, D.C.
Felony penalties can be levied in Massachusetts and Oklahoma for any animal neglect case.
Felony charges can be applied in animal neglect resulting in death in California, Connecticut, Florida and Washington, D.C.
How you can help
Report what you see: Take note of the date, time, exact location and the type of animal(s) involved and write down as many details as possible about the situation. Video and photographic documentation of the animal, the location, the surrounding area, etc. (even a cell phone photo) will help bolster your case.
If you need advice, call The HSUS or email us. Because we aren't a law-enforcement agency, we cannot take legal action, but we can provide expert counsel.
The Orion spacecraft’s almost flawless debut flight set the stage for the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s next challenge: finding the funding to carry humans to Mars in the 2030s.
The Apollo-like capsule orbited Earth twice yesterday to test critical functions, a 4 1/2-hour trip for the first U.S. vehicle built to transport humans to space since the shuttle in 1981. Now NASA must find political allies to keep championing a program that has already cost $7.4 billion.
The voyage, less than two months after a pair of disasters stunned the commercial space industry, helps bolster NASA’s case for its biggest-ever expedition. Spending over 20 years for a Mars mission would dwarf outlays for the $100 billion International Space Station, the most expensive structure ever built.
“We have a new Congress in January -- let’s see what happens,” said Henry Hertzfeld, research professor of space policy and international affairs at George Washington University. At the very least, “anytime you have a success like that on something new, it’s great.”
The NASA exploration budget that finances Orion and a new heavy-lift rocket is one of the few non-defense budget accounts for which House Republicans have proposed an increase from President Barack Obama’s request for fiscal 2015, said Brian Friel, a government fiscal analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence.
Spending Projections
Spending would rise 5 percent to $4.17 billion under the House bill, while the Senate proposes a 10 percent increase to $4.37 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The largest beneficiaries from more spending would be Lockheed Martin Corp. (LMT:US), which manufactured the Orion, and Boeing Co. (BA:US), the contractor’s co-owner of the venture building the new rocket.
Orion is the first spaceship developed to carry humans beyond the moon, and later versions will be fine-tuned to travel to asteroids next decade and to Mars in the 2030s. NASA is targeting an Orion trip with astronauts by 2021.
While Orion was among the top trending topics worldwide on Twitter.com, NASA’s new ambitions are unfolding amid a federal budget squeeze and the short attention spans of the social-media era, not the race-for-the-moon competition of the Cold War.
At Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida, where a Delta IV Heavy rocket carried Orion aloft, some of the weather-worn buildings displayed faded signs from news organizations that once camped out to chronicle the Apollo program. They were a reminder that interest in NASA diminished after the U.S. won the race to the moon.
The eye can detect light at wavelengths in the visual spectrum. Other wavelengths, such as infrared and ultraviolet, are supposed to be invisible to the human eye, but Washington University scientists have found that under certain conditions, it’s possible for us to see otherwise invisible infrared light. Image: Sara Dickherber
Excerpt from news.wustl.edu By Jim Dryden Any science textbook will tell you we can’t see infrared light. Like X-rays and radio waves, infrared light waves are outside the visual spectrum.
But an international team of researchers co-led by scientists at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis has found that under certain conditions, the retina can sense infrared light after all.
Using cells from the retinas of mice and people, and powerful lasers that emit pulses of infrared light, the researchers found that when laser light pulses rapidly, light-sensing cells in the retina sometimes get a double hit of infrared energy. When that happens, the eye is able to detect light that falls outside the visible spectrum.
The findings are published Dec. 1 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) Online Early Edition. The research was initiated after scientists on the research team reported seeing occasional flashes of green light while working with an infrared laser. Unlike the laser pointers used in lecture halls or as toys, the powerful infrared laser the scientists worked with emits light waves thought to be invisible to the human eye. “They were able to see the laser light, which was outside of the normal visible range, and we really wanted to figure out how they were able to sense light that was supposed to be invisible,” said Frans Vinberg, PhD, one of the study’s lead authors and a postdoctoral research associate in the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at Washington University.
Vinberg, Kefalov and their colleagues examined the scientific literature and revisited reports of people seeing infrared light. They repeated previous experiments in which infrared light had been seen, and they analyzed such light from several lasers to see what they could learn about how and why it sometimes is visible.
“We experimented with laser pulses of different durations that delivered the same total number of photons, and we found that the shorter the pulse, the more likely it was a person could see it,” Vinberg explained. “Although the length of time between pulses was so short that it couldn’t be noticed by the naked eye, the existence of those pulses was very important in allowing people to see this invisible light.”
Robert Boston
Kefalov’s team developed this adapter that allowed scientists to analyze retinal cells and photopigment molecules as they were exposed to infrared light. The device already is commercially available and in use at several vision research centers around the world.
“The visible spectrum includes waves of light that are 400-720 nanometers long,” explained Kefalov, an associate professor of ophthalmology and visual sciences. “But if a pigment molecule in the retina is hit in rapid succession by a pair of photons that are 1,000 nanometers long, those light particles will deliver the same amount of energy as a single hit from a 500-nanometer photon, which is well within the visible spectrum. That’s how we are able to see it.”
Robert Boston
Frans Vinberg, PhD (left), and Vladimir J. Kefalov, PhD, sit in front of a tool they developed that allows them to detect light responses from retinal cells and photopigment molecules.
Excerpt from sciencedaily.comNew findings by a Johns Hopkins University-led team reveal long unknown details about carbon deep beneath Earth's surface and suggest ways this subterranean carbon might have influenced the history of life on the planet....
Brittany Maynard, who became the public face of the controversial right-to-die movement over the last few weeks, ended her own life Saturday at her home in Portland, Oregon. She was 29.
"Goodbye to all my dear friends and family that I love. Today is the day I have chosen to pass away with dignity in the face of my terminal illness, this terrible brain cancer that has taken so much from me … but would have taken so much more," she wrote on Facebook. "The world is a beautiful place, travel has been my greatest teacher, my close friends and folks are the greatest givers. I even have a ring of support around my bed as I type … Goodbye world. Spread good energy. Pay it forward!"
Doctors told Maynard she had six months to live last spring after she was diagnosed with a likely stage 4 glioblastoma. She made headlines around the world when she announced she intended to die – under Oregon's Death with Dignity Act – by taking a fatal dose of barbiturates, prescribed to her by a doctor, when her suffering became too great.
"My glioblastoma is going to kill me and that's out of my control," she told PEOPLE last month. "I've discussed with many experts how I would die from it and it's a terrible, terrible way to die. So being able to choose to go with dignity is less terrifying."
On Oct. 6, she launched an online video campaign with Compassion & Choices, an end-of-life choice advocacy organization, to fight for expanding death-with-dignity laws nationwide.
"For people to argue against this choice for sick people really seems evil to me," she told PEOPLE. "They try to mix it up with suicide and that's really unfair, because there's not a single part of me that wants to die. But I am dying."
Brittany Maynard
Nigel Parry
A Heartbreaking Choice
Arriving at her decision was a gradual one, she said.
"It's not a decision you make one day and you snap your fingers," she told PEOPLE.
"Really, from the beginning, all the doctors said when you have a glioma you're going to die," she told PEOPLE. "You can just Google it. People don't survive this disease. Not yet."
After researching her options, she decided not to try chemotherapy or radiation.
"They didn't seem to make sense for me," she said, because of "the level of side effects I would suffer and it wouldn't save my life. I've been told pretty much no matter what, I'm going to die – and treatments would extend my life but affect the quality pretty negatively."
In June, she moved to Oregon with her husband, Dan Diaz, 43, her mother, Debbie Ziegler, 56 , and her stepfather, Gary Holmes, 72, so she could have access to the state's Death with Dignity Act, which allows physicians to prescribe life-ending medication to certain terminally ill patients.
"I still smile and laugh with my family and friends enough that it doesn't seem like the right time now," she said in the video recorded Oct. 13 and 14, "but it will come because I feel myself getting sicker; it's happening each week."
Brittany Maynard and Dan Diaz at Olympic National Park in Washington state in August
Courtesy Brittany Maynard
Her Final Months
Maynard spent the last months of her life making the most of the time she had left. She traveled to Alaska, British Columbia and Yellowstone National Park with her loved ones and explored more local attractions like Olympic National Park in Washington.
On Oct. 21, she and her family took a helicopter ride to the Grand Canyon, a place she'd been longing to see before she died.
"It was breathtakingly beautiful," she said in a statement.
The following morning, though, she had her "worst seizure" so far, she said: "The seizure was a harsh reminder that my symptoms continue to worsen as the tumor runs its course."
Maynard said she was deeply touched by the "outpouring of support" she got after going public with her diagnosis and her decision.
"I want to thank people for that, for the words of kindness, for the time they've taken in personal ways," she told PEOPLE.
"And then beyond that, to encourage people to make a difference," she said. "If they can relate to my story, if they agree with this issue on a philosophical level, to get out there and do what we need to do to make a change in this country."
Brittany Maynard and her mother, Debbie Ziegler, in Alaska in May
Courtesy Brittany Maynard
Maynard also talked to PEOPLE about her legacy.
"For me what matters most is the way I'm remembered by my family and my husband as a good woman who did my best to be a good wife and a good daughter," she said.
"Beyond that, getting involved with this campaign, I hope to be making a difference here," she said. "If I'm leaving a legacy, it's to change this health-care policy or be a part of this change of this health-care policy so it becomes available to all Americans. That would be an enormous contribution to make, even if I'm just a piece of it."
Before she died, Maynard asked her husband and her mother if they would carry on the work she started to get death with dignity passed in every state.
"I want to work on the cause," Ziegler told PEOPLE last month. "I have so much admiration for people who are terminally ill and just fight and fight. They are so dignified and brave. This is a different choice, but it is also brave and dignified."
She also shared with them her hopes and dreams for their future. Upstairs in the home she shares with her family are neatly wrapped Christmas and birthday gifts for her loved ones for the next year.
"She made it clear she wants me to live a good life," Ziegler says.
In her second video, Maynard, who is an only child, said she hoped her mother does not "break down" or "suffer from any kind of depression."
And for Diaz, "I hope he moves on and becomes a father," she said. "There's no part of me that wants him to live out the rest of his life just missing his wife."
Brittany Maynard (third from left) and her family at the Grand Canyon Oct. 21
This image provided by NOAA Wednesday Oct. 15, 2014 shows Hurricane Gonzalo, lower right, which forecasters said could become a powerful category 4 storm Wednesday as it heads toward Bermuda. The storm had top sustained winds of 125 mph (205 kph) and was centered about 665 miles (1,075 kilometers) south of Bermuda early Wednesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said. It was moving northwest at 13 mph (20 kph).
HAMILTON, Bermuda (AP) — People on this small British territory are hurrying to batten down for Hurricane Gonzalo, which is churning toward them as a major Category 3 storm just days after a tropical storm damaged homes and knocked down trees and power lines in Bermuda. Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami, said it was too early to tell whether the hurricane would actually hit Bermuda sometime Friday, but he warned residents to be prepared for severe weather. "The eye of the hurricane does not have to go over Bermuda for them not to experience severe conditions," he said in a phone interview Wednesday. Gonzalo had top sustained winds of 120 mph (195 kph) late Wednesday and it was centered about 580 miles (935 kilometers) south-southwest of Bermuda. It was moving north at 9 mph (15 kph), the hurricane center said. Gonzalo grew into a powerful Category 4 storm at one point Wednesday, but weakened a bit later in the day. A hurricane warning was in effect for Bermuda, and forecasters said a dangerous storm surge could cause significant flooding on the island, which has some 64 miles (103 kilometers) of shoreline and has an area about one-third the size of Washington, D.C. Some 3 to 6 inches (8 to 15 centimeters) of rain was predicted. The government said it would close the island's international airport Thursday night, when tropical storm conditions were first expected. Several airlines increased the number of flights departing Bermuda ahead of the storm.
View Article Here
Read More
WASHINGTON — The US military’s mysterious robot space plane is expected to land this week after a 22-month orbit, officials said Tuesday, but the craft’s mission remains shrouded in secrecy. The unmanned X-37B, which looks like a miniature space shuttle, is due to glide back to Earth after having launched on Dec. 11, 2012, on a mission that military officers say is strictly top secret. “Preparations for the third landing of the X-37B are underway at Vandenberg Air Force Base” in California, said a US Air Force spokesman, Captain Chris Hoyler.
A defense official said that the space plane will likely touch down sometime this week and that future missions would seek to extend the vehicle’s technical capabilities and time in orbit.
“The specific parameters are unreleasable,” the official said. The Air Force says the X-37B can test technology for “reusable” spacecraft and conduct unspecified experiments that can be studied on Earth.
The X-37B, manufactured by aerospace giant Boeing, weighs five tonnes and measures about 29 feet (8.8 meters) long, with a wing span of roughly 15 feet across.
Traveling at speeds 25 times faster than the speed of sound, the vehicle is launched into space on the back of a rocket and, once its mission is complete, returns from orbit like a plane.
Valerie Tarico, AlterNetReligious labels help shore up identity. So what are some of the things non-believers can call themselves?Catholic, born-again, Reformed, Jew, Muslim, Shiite, Sunni, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist…religions give people labels. The downside can be tribalism, an assumption that insiders are better than outsiders, that they merit more compassion, integrity and generosity or even that violence toward “infidels” is acceptable. But the upside is that religious o [...]
Spreading seeds of awareness on this site and within its many forms since 2006.
14 Annual Spins rounds Sol 071120
thank U Mission Control with the way of gratitude for the co-creation and presentation of every piece of information needed in order to complete this mission to disarm dysfunctional patterns Thank you and I’m grateful that I was able to help provide this resource to me and myself and all those who may have you sit and understand it and made it one day find resonate within your field of Attraction so that we may need to maybe get a team there I decided to take another job occupation of your next transition or whatever you choose to focus on next but thank you so much to all the support world-wise that she my homeboys and homegirls over in the Netherlands and Gaia and dr. Diana loopy Philip from France, Alison Maclean, Tolosa Diane Abigail the gfol federation’s confederations and I’ll local Earth groups, dashiki Niro’s the Blu-rays anybody who has been a contributor on this site directly or indirectly providing you help spread through email a different means information that will help raise and lift anybody by not telling him what to do and I appreciate you that I’m not the only religion that may be planting seeds and invited them to investigate for themselves and come to their own understanding and then have the ability to take ownership of their own creation through their own understanding that’s the siren Divinity is about and that’s why we were created to be enough to human beings are it’s time we finish his transition and stop playing games with our probability feels acting like what maybe I’ll be able to work around it there isn’t all roads lead to Rome in the end so he was a program eyelash it’s not going to your face and this is the truth of your life except it start creating from it responsibility for every creation you make all the way down to the thought that’s truly what it’s about we’re about to make a tremendous leap and jump so to speak, was kind of like when the universe itself has created this imagine I can’t even put it into words cuz I don’t have words given no Credence but I invite you I’m honored to have this experience I have one things I cannot even comprehend could cheap or contemplated are received before and it will definitely have any impact in my next transition are eBay’s Road focus on my next project but anyways thank you grateful 14 years they playing and at times her moment of reflection in celebration anytime the turbulence and frequency shift and lots of communication because they’re over there and you’re over here and you’re just too far apart there’s too much interference in between you because of the separation that’s occurring in our own evolutionary stages so many ways to love you like Battlefield thank you president and of course feels cool tribe.net the new entry for fun and have to cancel our society and that’s all I can pull off the top of my head right now in New Zealand and Australia especially the code writers who wrote text eons ago to speak to us right now today and I first had conversation is Remembrance and everybody involved with integrating new variables and help me decide collectively let the new 0 0 1 0 1 1 0 reality in our new home everything will be like more sooner than from here to there were already here there’s nowhere to go nowhere to be no way that she the only thing we have to do is be there now. InJoY!
Comments