Original story reprinted with permission from Quanta Magazine, an editorially independent publication of the Simons Foundation whose mission is to enhance public understanding of science by covering research developments and trends in mathematics and the physical and life sciences.
ON OCTOBER 9, 2009, a 2-ton rocket smashed into the moon traveling at 9,000 kilometers per hour. As it exploded in a shower of dust and heated the lunar surface to hundreds of degrees Celsius, the jet-black crater into which it plummeted, called Cabeus, briefly filled with light for the first time in billions of years.
The crash was no accident. NASA’s Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission aimed to see what would be kicked up from the lunar shadows by the impact. A spacecraft trailing the rocket flew through the dust plume to sample it, while NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter observed from afar. The results of the experiment were astonishing: Scientists detected 155 kilograms of water vapor mixed into the dust plume. They had, for the first time, found water on the moon. “It was absolutely definitive,” said Anthony Colaprete of NASA’s Ames Research Center, the principal investigator of LCROSS.
The moon isn’t an obvious reservoir of water. “It’s really weird when you stop to think about it,” said Mark Robinson, a planetary scientist at Arizona State University. Its lack of atmosphere and extreme temperatures should cause any water to almost instantly evaporate. Yet about 25 years ago, spacecraft began to detect signatures of hydrogen around the moon’s poles, hinting that water might be trapped there as ice. LCROSS proved this theory. Scientists now think there’s not just a bit of water ice on the moon; there are 6 trillion kilograms of it. READ MORE...
Thursday, July 7
King Arthur's Tomb
According to popular lore, Arthur’s Stone, a roughly 5,000-year-old tomb in the West Midlands of England, boasts ties to King Arthur, the mythical leader of Camelot. One legend holds that Arthur found a pebble in his shoe while marching to battle and threw it aside, at which point it grew in size out of “pride [at] having been touched by [him],” per Atlas Obscura. Another story suggests that Arthur clashed with a giant whose elbows left massive impressions in the earth when he fell in battle.
Myths aside, the Neolithic tomb has long mystified experts and the public alike. Now, reports James Thomas for the Hereford Times, the first-ever excavation of the site is poised to shed light on its enigmatic history.
Researchers from the University of Manchester and English Heritage, the charity that cares for the monument, are unlikely to unearth the remains of the legendary king. But they do hope to find traces of the actual Neolithic Britons who built and used the chambered tomb. Though archaeologists initially suspected that Arthur’s Stone formed part of a wedge-shaped stone cairn like those found in South Wales and the Cotswolds, recent excavations indicate otherwise.
“I think it has considerable potential,” Julian Thomas, an archaeologist at the University of Manchester, tells the London Times’ Jack Blackburn. “It’s a monument of an entirely different kind to the one that we’d imagined.”
Per a statement, only the inner chamber of the tomb—made up of nine upright stones topped by a massive capstone weighing more than 25 tons—survives today. A previous dig conducted outside of the monument showed that Arthur’s Stone extended into a field to the south and underwent two distinct phases of construction. READ MORE...
Wednesday, July 6
Twice as Much
For those who are wealthy, it is not even annoying because they are comfortable with paying more than something is really worth and expect to be over-charged for goods and services...
But for the rest of us, inflation is a problem and has a negative impact on every single member of our families... and yet, those in power and/or those in a leadership position, don't seem to give a shit about how inflation may be harming some Americans...
- We want to BITCH about ABORTION
- We want to BITCH about the gays and lesbians and trans not getting what they deserve
- We want to BITCH about slavery and how blacks were treated
- We want to BITCH about WHITE SUPREMACY and advantage
BUT WE DON'T GIVE A RAT'S ASS ABOUT THE POOR PEOPLE
88% of Americans Say US On The Wrong Track
Nearly 9 in 10 Americans say the country is headed on the wrong track, according to a survey from Monmouth University Poll released on Tuesday.
The survey found that just 10 percent said the country is headed in the right direction — an all-time low since the pollster began asking the question in 2013 — while 88 percent said it is on the wrong track.
The proportion of respondents who said the country is on the wrong track jumped by 9 percentage points from when the question was asked in May, which was also a record at the time.
Only 6 percent of Republicans said the country is headed in the right direction, compared to 18 percent of Democrats. Ninety-two percent of Republicans said the country has gotten off on the wrong track, as do 91 percent of independents and 8 in 10 Democrats.
Older Americans were more likely to believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Sixteen percent of those aged 55 and older said the U.S. is headed in the right direction, compared to 8 percent of those aged 35 to 54 and 5 percent of those aged 18 to 34.
Monmouth conducted interviews both before and after the Supreme Court voted late last month to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, ending the constitutional right to abortion. READ MORE...
Are You Experienced?
How in the hell does one go about finding peace within one's self? Some people find it with drugs, some find it with alcohol, some find it with sex, some find it with faith and religion, some find it through meditating, and there are others who find it through working 18+ hours a week.
However, each of those ways is merely a crutch and a false sense of satisfaction that you have, in fact, found peace.
Peace can only be achieved through an inner awareness of self and how one's self interfaces and/or harmonizes with nature and the environment in which they currently exist. Meditation can relax you and eliminate stress but it does not necessarily result in finding an inner awareness.
Achieving inner awareness oftentimes requires a lifetime of preparation. Part of your preparation will come from acquiring all of the riches that life has to offer. Part of the preparation will come from realizing that you must give all of those up. Part of the preparation is learning how to void your mind and think of nothing at all... thinking of nothing at all is not as easy as it sounds. You cannot void your mind at a restaurant, a community center, or even at a beach resort as you stare out at the ocean waves coming into the shore.
Try thinking of nothing.
Close your eyes.
Plug your ears.
Put yourself inside a cardboard box an close the top.
OR...
lay in a pool of water on your back.
the water almost covers your face.
your body floats.
you disassociate yourself with time.
there is no movement of time.
YOU THINK OF NOTHING
But, the act of thinking of nothing means you are thinking of something...
Inner Awareness permeates your body without attraction
You experience the beginning and end of time
Your body no longer belongs to you
You move from one consciousness to another consciousness
You become united with the essence of life
You see inside your soul
You see inside your mind
You see inside your feelings and sensations even though you have none
You have nothing
You are nothing
You need nothing
You become nothing
You are inside the womb of your awareness seeing yourself as creation sees you
YOU ARE AT PEACE
Qualilty of Life - Part III
There are serveral key terms in the quality of life description from Part I... and, we explored three of them in Part II, and now we will explore the remaining ones:
- Position in life
- context of culture
- context of value systems
- goals
- expectations
- standards
- concerns
Note: Goals, expectations, standards, and concerns will change substantially over one's lifetime whether intended or not simply because of age and the condition of our health which could be altered immediately and without provocation.
Goals
Basically, goals are what one wants to achieve during one's lifetime. However, we seldom think about the goal of retirement when we are 20 years old. Initially our goals are to graduate from high school and pursue a career.
We might go into the military, college, trade school or simply attempt to find employment.
Our goals change when we get married and again when we have children and again if we were to experience a divorce.
Having goals is what motivates us each day to go to work in whatever capacity and strive to move up the ladder and generate more income for ourselves and for our families.
Middle age changes our goals both mentally and physically as we realize we cannot do those activities that were easily done before.
Consequently our Quality of Life changes...
Expectations
Similar to goals are our expectations and these change in direct relationship to our age.
When we are 20, we can double our age twice from 20 to 40 to 80 and our expectations for our quality of life are large and plentiful. but once we turn 4o, we can only double our age twice, and we begin to develop a different perspective of our expectations and whether or not they are even realistic or not.
At 50, 60, 70, 80 and above we can no longer double our age and our mental expectations begins to decline as well as our quality of life... we begin to measure our quality of life day by day... in other words, what is my quality of life today?
Standards
When we our young, our standards are high as we feel like we can mentally and physically do any damn thing we want to do... quality of life is therefore high as well... and life is seen not just as a dream but as a reality that we created.
Age changes those standards as we lose our physical and mental capabilities and that loss impacts our quality of life.
We no longer want to drive anywhere for a week's vacation like we used to do... it was commonplace to drive 8-12 hours in one day to get there and return. And, we may or may not have the finances to fly there... and if we did, we would still have to rent a vehicle...
Our quality of life changes dramatically when we look at our standards...
Additionally, we would be willing to spend the night in a motel room at 20 that we would not even consider once staying in at 40 or 50... if for no other reasons than for health concerns... which brings me to my last subtopic.
Concerns
Quality of life is directly related to concerns and concerns is directly related to finances and health.
- Do we have enough money to do this?
- Have we saved enough money?
- How healthy are we?
- What are COVID?
- What about terrorism?
- What about crime and violence?
TO BE CONTINUED...
China Buys North Dakota Farm
A Chinese company paid $2.6 million for 300 acres of farmland in Grand Forks, North Dakota,
sparking concerns about espionage.
A Chinese company’s purchase of farmland in North Dakota just down the road from a US Air Force base that houses sensitive drone technology has lawmakers on Capitol Hill worried about potential espionage by Beijing, according to a report.
Fufeng Group, a Shandong, China-based company that specializes in flavor enhancers and sugar substitutes, recently purchased 300 acres of farmland near Grand Forks, North Dakota, a rural area that lies about a 90-minute drive from the Canadian border.
Grand Forks is also 40 miles away from Grafton, North Dakota, where a limited liability company believed to be controlled by billionaire philanthropist Bill Gates recently paid $13 million for thousands of acres of potato farmland, causing a stir among locals.
Three North Dakotans sold the land to Fufeng Group for $2.6 million, according to CNBC.
Like the Gates-linked purchase, the sale of local farmland to a Chinese company sparked a visceral reaction, according to one of the sellers, Gary Bridgeford.
That’s because the land is just a 20-minute drive from Grand Forks Air Force Base, which is believed to be the home of some of the country’s most sophisticated military drone technology.
Bridgeford told CNBC that some locals planted signs on his front yard condemning the transaction. READ MORE...
Operating an Electric Lawn Mower
Between the increasing cost of gas and the wide variety of electric lawn mowers on the market now, you might be curious how much it costs to own and operate one compared to a gas model. Here’s what you need to know.
What We’re Comparing: Push Mower vs. Push Mower
Electric mowers have come a long way in just a short few years and there is quite a variety of them on the market. You can find everything from petite and inexpensive 13″ push mowers all the way up to 54″ zero-turn riding mowers suitable for mowing multiple acres.
As much as we’d love to compare everything across the whole range of the electric lawn mower market, that would make this article a wee bit long to read in a sitting. Instead, we’re going to focus on comparing the most common kind of lawn mower when used on an average lawn. For American readers, the most common mower type is the push mower, and the average lawn size is around a quarter of an acre.
On top of that, we’re also limiting our comparison to battery-powered electric mowers and excluding corded electric mowers. Even in small yards, corded mowers are an unbelievable hassle and battery-powered mowers are now so cheap and efficient that there’s just no reason to bother with the nonsense of being tethered to the wall of your garage.
If you’re curious about larger mowers and larger lawns, don’t worry. The way we’re comparing gasoline-powered push mowers to electric push mowers can be easily adapted to other sizes. The general concepts are the same.
How Operating Costs Compare Over Time
When comparing operating costs, it’s not just about how much it costs to charge an electric mower’s batteries vs. filling the gas tank on a traditional mower. There are quite a few extra variables at play that tip the scales in favor of the electric mower—especially for folks with small urban and suburban lawns. READ MORE...
When comparing operating costs, it’s not just about how much it costs to charge an electric mower’s batteries vs. filling the gas tank on a traditional mower. There are quite a few extra variables at play that tip the scales in favor of the electric mower—especially for folks with small urban and suburban lawns. READ MORE...
Where Do Our Minds Go?
After experimenting on a hen, his dog, his goldfish, and himself, dentist William Morton was ready. On Oct. 16, 1846, he hurried to the Massachusetts General Hospital surgical theater for what would be the first successful public test of a general anesthetic.
His concoction of sulfuric ether and oil from an orange (just for the fragrance) knocked a young man unconscious while a surgeon cut a tumor from his neck. To the onlooking students and clinicians, it was like a miracle.
Some alchemical reaction between the ether and the man’s brain allowed him to slip into a state akin to light sleep, to undergo what should have been a painful surgery with little discomfort, and then to return to himself with only a hazy memory of the experience.
Monitoring patients’ brains still isn’t something that medical boards require.
General anesthesia redefined surgery and medicine, but over a century later it still carries significant risks. Too much sedation can lead to neurocognitive disorders and may even shorten lifespan; too little can lead to traumatic and painful wakefulness during surgery.
Monitoring patients’ brains still isn’t something that medical boards require.
General anesthesia redefined surgery and medicine, but over a century later it still carries significant risks. Too much sedation can lead to neurocognitive disorders and may even shorten lifespan; too little can lead to traumatic and painful wakefulness during surgery.
So far, scientists have learned that, generally speaking, anesthetic drugs render people unconscious by altering how parts of the brain communicate. But they still don’t fully understand why. Although anesthesia works primarily on the brain, anesthesiologists do not regularly monitor the brain when they put patients under.
And it is only in the past decade that neuroscientists interested in altered states of consciousness have begun taking advantage of anesthesia as a research tool. “It’s the central irony,” of anesthesiology, says George Mashour, a University of Michigan neuroanesthesiologist, whose work entails keeping patients unconscious during neurosurgery and providing appropriate pain management.
Mashour is one of a small set of clinicians and scientists trying to change that. They are increasingly bringing the tools of neuroscience into the operating room to track the brain activity of patients, and testing out anesthesia on healthy study participants.
Mashour is one of a small set of clinicians and scientists trying to change that. They are increasingly bringing the tools of neuroscience into the operating room to track the brain activity of patients, and testing out anesthesia on healthy study participants.
These pioneers aim to learn how to more safely anesthetize their patients, tailoring the dose to individual patients and adjusting during surgery. They also want to better understand what governs the transitions between states of consciousness and even hope to crack the code of coma. READ MORE...
Tuesday, July 5
An Open Society
The idea of an open society was further developed during World War II by the Austrian-born British philosopher Karl Popper. Popper saw it as part of a historical continuum reaching from the organic, tribal, or closed society, through the open society (marked by a critical attitude to tradition) to the abstract or depersonalized society lacking all face-to-face interaction transactions.
George SOROS who spends millions and millions of dollars on Democratic candidates in the US, believes in an open society... For the US this would mean that EVERYTHING is available to everyone with no exceptions... and, that we have no borders so that anyone who wants to enter the US can enter the US.
If one were to look at religion, then one can easily see that all religions operate on the basis of a closed society... in that only Christians can be Christians and only Muslims can be Muslims... so, in an open society there would be no need for religious classification... one either believes or one does not believe and there is nothing specific from one religion to another.
Laws would operate the same way as there would be no personal property... all land and personal property would simply belong to everyone...
In that same spirit of openness, the government would not keep any secrets from the people in an effort to protect trade deal negotiations... everyone would know everything.
Another example of an open society is that there would be no ethnic groups... no blacks, whites, Hispanics, Asians, etc... we would all be human beings belonging to the human race. The same would hold true for gender... no differentiation between male and female.
I personally don't think that this stands a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted 100% by the people of the United States or by the citizens of every single other country in the world... It is a philosophy that has been created for an intellectual debate among those who do not possess the intellect to have an intellectual debate on this topic or any other topic for that matter.
Quality of Life - Part II
There are several key terms in the quality of life description Part I... and, we will explore these one at at time:
- Position in life
- context of culture
- context of value systems
- goals
- expectations
- standards
- concerns
Position in Life
Basically this revolves around 4 areas:
- lower class
- middle class
- upper class
- wealthy 1%
Each one of these areas has its pros and cons with which we must come to terms and accept. And, as our economy grows and inflation continues, one day you could be in the middle class and by the end of the year, find yourself in the lower class.
Another interesting fact is that each one of the classes is again sub-divided into 3 classes of upper, middle, and lower.
And, most of the time, you are born into your class and very seldom are able to extract yourself from your position due to the interaction of forces around you over which you have minimal control.
Context of Culture
This is an interesting category because while it revolves around ethnic groups and race, it too is multi-faceted.
Aside from the ethnic groups in which you may belong, there are also regiligious groups as well as geographical groups such as: east, west, north, south, midwest, etc.
Each of these cultures are different. In addition, the cultures of each state are different as well including Alaska and Hawaii.
Context of Value Systems
The basic value systems of the United States of America are those that were embedded in our culture at the time of our independence from Great Britain but over time, those value systems have changed. They were:
- strength of family
- strength of faith and religion
- honesty and integrity
- hard work and loyalty
- respect and sincerity
- always striving forward
- not counting on the government
- no handouts, no welfare
- sense of community
- self defense but not aggression
- self-reliance
From our beginning of the aristocracy and the poor, we built a very strong and courageous middle class and it was the middle class that built this nation with the money from the wealthy... those who could not keep up with the growth and progress formed our lower class that the rest of us swore to protect.
TO BE CONTINUED...
Magical Road Trip
Just South of Knoxville, TN and on the way to Pigeon’s Forge and Gatlinburg, this is the perfect place to stay for a long weekend (or more!) while you explore all the area has to offer. I was traveling with four teenagers, so I booked a rental van and struck out for east Tennessee and headed towards the Great Smoky Mountains. The 3 hour, 45 minute drive was pretty scenic and took us through Chattanooga and a time zone change to Eastern Standard Time.
There are lots of places to stop along the way if you like, and we stopped at Goats On the Roof to ride the goat coaster, a one-person mountain coaster that flies an exhilarating 30mph down a 1-mile track. You control your cart using a hand brake and let gravity do the rest! The mountain views are so pretty, and since you can go as fast or as slow as you want it’s great for a variety of ages. Parents can ride with their littles in their lap too! There’s also a kitschy little gift shop, gem mining, ice cream, and a goat petting zoo to enjoy.
After our little pit stop, we headed over to Ancient Lore Village.
The owner and creator had a vision to create a world where people from different backgrounds could live together in peace and harmony in a place where only good, genuine goodness, exists. Sounds fantastic, right? Technically, Ancient Lore Village is a boutique resort and event facility, and the story of how it came to be is fascinating and inspiring.
The first thing you see as you drive through the gates is an enormous waterfall, Boyd Hollow Falls. It’s one of the largest man-made waterfalls in the country, and it’s a breathtaking backdrop. We were there during St. Patrick’s Day and the water was tinted green for the celebrations happening at the Village. All around the falls are places to sit for a meal or just to watch the sun set or rise. At the base is a valley with nature trails to explore.
Right next to the waterfall is Bokee’s Bungalow, a cozy 2-story house fit for a hobbit! This is where we stayed with our group of five, but it can house up to eight people. It’s nestled into the side of a hill, and even has charming grasses shipped in from Ireland growing on the rooftop. READ MORE...
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