New Clues on the Origins of Life

Research suggests that all complex life forms, including humans, plants, and animals, trace their roots to a common Asgard archaean ancestor. This discovery aids in understanding the evolutionary step from microbes to eukaryotes and reveals that the Asgard archaea, evolving over 2 billion years ago, appear to be the progenitors of eukaryotic organisms.


The mythological Norse god Thor hails from the celestial city of Asgard, and according to revolutionary research published in the scientific journal, Nature, he’s not the only Asgardian. 

This new research suggests that we humans — along with eagles, starfish, daisies, and every complex organism on Earth — are, in a sense, Asgardians.

The research team at The University of Texas at Austin, along with collaborators from different institutions, conducted a genomic analysis of several hundreds of microorganisms known as archaea. 

Their findings revealed that eukaryotes – complex life forms with nuclei in their cells, including all flora, fauna, insects, and fungi across the globe – can trace their origins back to a common Asgard archaean ancestor.

That means eukaryotes are, in the parlance of evolutionary biologists, a “well-nested clade” within Asgard archaea, similar to how birds are one of several groups within a larger group called dinosaurs, sharing a common ancestor. 

The team has found that all eukaryotes share a common ancestor among the Asgards.  READ MORE...

Landing an Airbus

 

Digging a Home

 

Supply and Demand Economics for Beginners

 From 1979 to 1981, I was enrolled in an MBA Executive Program at Wake Forest University.  We went to class on the weekends (all day Friday and Saturday).  We had 2 classes in the morning and 2 classes in the afternoon.  Each class lasted 2 hours.  12 hours of education each semester for 4 semesters (48 hours) and 2 classes in the summer (6 hours) and we were given 6 hours credit for our executive employment positions for a total of 60 hours.

My undergraduate degree was English so I was not very prepared to study Business Administration.  Most of my fellow classmates had some sort of business undergraduate degree.  So, I had to teach myself what they already knew.

Oddly enough, one of my favorite courses (outside of strategic planning and management) was Economics.

Basic economics is fairly easy to understand and is best described by using graphs.  The first graph we will be exploring will be the demand graph or curve with illustrates consumer buying habits and what they are willing to pay for an item.  The graph starts with price on the left and quantity on the bottom. Price gets higher as it moves up and quanity increases as it moves out to the right. 

As you can see below, the demand curve moves down from right to left.  This indicates that the consumer is willing to pay a high price one item but if they buy many of the same items, they expect a lower price.

Next, is the supply curve.  This represents what the supply is willing to manufacture and put in the marketplace for sale.  This lines moves up as it moves right to left, and indicates that the suppler is willing to sell one item for a lesser price but a higher price for multiple copies of that same item.

This makes sense because it does not take much labor or raw materials or electricity to produce one item, but it would take a lot of those 3 items to produce 100 of the same item.

When you put the supply and demand curves together, the result can be seen below.  Where these two lines intersect is the ideal price for the ideal quantity of items.  This is the market equilibrium for that one particular item.  In order to consider all items being sold, one would have to do a chart for each individual item, them average them all together.

Here is where it really gets interesting.  Our economy does not remain fixed forever.  Consumer demand changes (based upon all sorts of factors which I will discuss later) and companies may decide to manufacture more or less of a specific item for one reason or another.

When there is a shift in demand (below right chart) then the demand curve shifts out to the right and prices will automatically increase.  When this happens and under ideal circumstances, the suppler will increase supply and the price will drop but NOT BELOW its original price.  A good example of this is gasoline price increases and decreases.

This last chart shows how prices rise because of consumer demand and then lower because of the supplier's response to the increase demand.

Under ideal circumstances this rise and fall of prices will gradually continue year after year which is an indication that the country has experience POSITIVE ECONOMIC GROWTH.

Bear in mind these charts only reflect an increase in wages when there is a demand increase.  A demand increase typically occurs after a pay raise or after the government sends out its IRS refund checks.

Logic and historical data indicates that when the consumer gets more money, they spend that excess money rather than saving it.  Ironically, when this happens, prices will always increase.  If supply does not increase shortly afterwards, we experience inflation.

SOURCE:  Alex Hutchins' Education

Ordering Coffee

 

Perovskite Will Change the World

What is a perovskite?

A perovskite is a material that has the same crystal structure as the mineral calcium titanium oxide, the first-discovered perovskite crystal. Generally, perovskite compounds have a chemical formula ABX3, where ‘A’ and ‘B’ represent cations and X is an anion that bonds to both. A large number of different elements can be combined together to form perovskite structures. Using this compositional flexibility, scientists can design perovskite crystals to have a wide variety of physical, optical, and electrical characteristics. Perovskite crystals are found today in ultrasound machines, memory chips, and now – solar cells.




A schematic of a perovskite crystal structure. (Wikimedia Commons)

Clean energy applications of perovskites

All photovoltaic solar cells rely on semiconductors — materials in the middle ground between electrical insulators such as glass and metallic conductors such as copper — to turn the energy from light into electricity. Light from the sun excites electrons in the semiconductor material, which flow into conducting electrodes and produce electric current.

Silicon has been the primary semiconductor material used in solar cells since the 1950s, as its semiconducting properties align well with the spectrum of the sun’s rays and it is relatively abundant and stable. However, the large silicon crystals used in conventional solar panels require an expensive, multi-step manufacturing process that utilizes a lot of energy. In the search for an alternative, scientists have harnessed the tunability of perovskites to create semiconductors with similar properties to silicon. Perovskite solar cells can be manufactured using simple, additive deposition techniques, like printing, for a fraction of the cost and energy. Because of the compositional flexibility of perovskites, they can also be tuned to ideally match the sun’s spectrum.

In 2012, researchers first discovered how to make a stable, thin-film perovskite solar cell with light photon-to-electron conversion efficiencies over 10%, using lead halide perovskites as the light-absorbing layer. Since then, the sunlight-to-electrical-power conversion efficiency of perovskite solar cells has skyrocketed, with the laboratory record standing at 25.2%. Researchers are also combining perovskite solar cells with conventional silicon solar cells – record efficiencies for these “perovskite on silicon” tandem cells are currently 29.1% (surpassing the record of 27% for conventional silicon cells) and rising rapidly. With this rapid surge in cell efficiency, perovskite solar cells and perovskite tandem solar cells may soon become cheap, highly efficient alternatives to conventional silicon solar cells.




A cross-section of a perovskite solar cell. (Clean Energy Institute)

What are some current research objectives?

While perovskite solar cells, including perovskite on silicon tandems, are being commercialized by dozens of companies worldwide, there are still basic science and engineering challenges to address that can improve their performance, reliability, and manufacturability.

Some perovskite researchers continue to push conversion efficiencies by characterizing defects in the perovskite. While perovskite semiconductors are remarkably defect-tolerant, defects still –negatively affect performance — especially those occurring at the surface of the active layer. Other researchers are exploring new perovskite chemical formulations, both to tune their electronic properties for specific applications (like tandem cell stacks), or further improve their stability and lifetime.  READ MORE...

Cocoon

 

End of July

When I was growing up (before high school), we had 3 months of summer as school ended in May and began in September after Labor Day.  When July 4th came, summer was about half over and at the end of July, summer had one month left.  But over a span of 30-50 years, the educational calendar has changed, and students are out in June and back in August.  I am sure that the change was not meant to benefit the students but so that they could pay teachers more.

With that in mind, our educational leaders are more concerned with their salaries than they are with educating our students.  Perhaps this is why American education has fallen from FIRST PLACE to FIFTEENTH PLACE among all major countries in the world.

While I no longer believe that one should have a college education in order to enjoy a quality life, I do think some kind of training is absolutely necessary in order to have a quality life.

That education could be in the trades (plumber, electrician, carpenter, masonry, builder) or it could be in the military or in could be in hospitality which would include hotels, motels, and restaurants.

In 1995, I met the owner of PERKINS Restaurant who told me he started out bussing tables then worked his way up to a cook, waiter, assistant manager, manager, and finally owner/manager.  Twenty years later, his salary was commensurate with a person who had a master's degree.   Perkins had trained him in several different areas, so he was very much aware that some sort of training was necessary.

Our education system has failed students in both those areas:  academics and the trades.  Although, some schools offer auto mechanics classes; still, that falls short of actually teaching the trades.

It is very difficult to lure teachers into high school because teachers can make so much more money in the private sector.  However, that leaves us with the bottom of the barrel applicants to teach our children.

I am reminded of the following:

THOSE THAT CAN...  DO

THOSE THAT CANNOT DO...  TEACH

THOSE THAT CANNOT TEACH...  CONSULT

Attitude

 

Limitless Energy is Possible

Editor’s note: “Nuclear Power Breakthrough Makes “Limitless” Energy Possible” was previously published in May 2023. It has since been updated to include the most relevant information available.

For a moment, imagine a world of limitless energy – one where energy is so abundant that everyone can power their homes and businesses for mere pennies.

These days, it’s tough to imagine a world like that. Last winter, the average U.S. heating bill was $1,000.

But thanks to a potential world-changing scientific breakthrough, the ostensibly utopian world of limitless energy could soon become a reality.

Prescient investors who place the right bets on the right stocks in this industry could mint fortunes over the next few years.

That’s why both Microsoft (MSFT) – the world’s second-most valuable company – and ChatGPT’s creator Sam Altman are both betting big on this very limitless energy breakthrough right now.

Just last week, Microsoft announced a huge deal to start buying a ton of this limitless energy as soon as 2028.

Interested? You should be…

We’re talking about arguably the biggest scientific breakthrough of our lifetimes. And it could be the biggest investment opportunity of our lifetimes, too.

And it all has to do with nuclear power.
The Power of the Sun

Nuclear power has a bad reputation – and I get it. It has been used to create bombs that have decimated cities and destroyed lives. And when the world tried to capture that power in nuclear power plants, it often ended in catastrophe. And not once, not twice, but time and time again.

Nuclear power deserves its bad rep.

However, not all nuclear power is created equal.

Specifically, there are two types: nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.

To date, everything achieved with nuclear power has revolved around nuclear fission. That involves splitting apart atoms to capture and use the energy produced from the division.

And it’s a very risky and dangerous science for two big reasons.

First, splitting atoms creates chain reactions that must be controlled very carefully. Otherwise, they could cause meltdowns and explosions. Second, fission produces radioactive waste, which needs to be stored correctly to avoid contaminating the surrounding environment.

Nuclear fission is dangerous stuff.

But nuclear fusion is not.

TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

W. C. Fields

 

Ober Gatlinburg

Ober Gatlinburg Ski Area and Amusement Park offers a variety of year-round family fun at the top of Mount Harrison. Spring, Summer and Fall, the amusement park is a family-oriented theme park offering “snowless” Summer Tubing, Ski Mountain Coaster, Ice Skating, Ice Bumper Cars, Alpine Slide, Scenic Chairlift and Wildlife Encounter. The Ober Shops, full-service restaurant & lounge round out the offerings.

After Thanksgiving, Ober Gatlinburg transforms into the only ski area in the state of Tennessee. Winter sports enthusiasts will enjoy snow skiing, snowboarding, ice skating and snow tubing in Gatlinburg, made possible by state-of-the-art snowmaking systems.

Along with Smoky Mountain skiing and all season family-fun, Ober Gatlinburg is home to festivals that round out the calendar with MayFest and Oktoberfest each spring and fall. 

Early Impressions of Being Alone

 

Above, you have the opportunity to listen to I AM A ROCK by Simon and Garfunkel...  released in 1966...  the same year that I graduated from high school and entered college in North Carolina.

My parents were living overseas with my younger brother and my sister was in college and not really near enough to visit as were my parents relatives.  For all intents and purposes, I was by myself, and without a vehicle.  As a result of an administrative screw up, I had no roommate with whom to establish a friendship.

Feeling alone and lonely, the lyrics of the I am a Rock song resonated with me because in order for me to protect myself, I too had to put up walls.  

I remember after going to class, I would return to my dorm room and spend the rest of the day inside that small room rather than venture around campus by myself.

In high school, I was never alone.  There was always someone around to hang out with.

I did not try and talk with anyone and no one tried to talk with me.  It was like everyone was an unfriendly stranger to me.

As time passed, I did meet people and make friends with several of the people I met which made my life more bearable...  but, the time spent alone will never be forgotten and as a result still impacts my behavior to some degree.

Now that I am retired, I really enjoy my time alone and prefer being alone than being with people making superficial conversation.  

It is odd how I have come full circle.

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Health and Life

I was 60 years old when I was diagnosed with non-Hodgkins B cell lymphoma...

I was 60 years old when I discovered that I had experienced a severe heart attack while walking on the treadmill downstairs...

No one knew where the Lymphoma had come from, perhaps an Epstein Bar virus that had been hiding.  I was the only one in my immediate family to ever have gotten cancer or have a heart attack for that matter.  It was crazy because I had not smoked for 20 years, I had not eaten red meat on a regular basis for 20 years, I ate no fried foods, and seldom had any sugar.

The only issue left was that I had not managed my stress properly.  My cardiologist did not believe stress was the culprit.  I was supposed to have a triple bypass but had my arteries cleaned out and stents inserted.  15 years later, my stents are still pristine.

At the age of 65, I was told that I also had melanoma that could have been caused by the treatment I had gotten for Lymphoma.  The melanoma went from my foot to my groin to my neck and was stopped by a combination of Opdivo and radiation.

Now, after 15 years, my melanoma is relatively dormant but my lymphoma is changing into something that it was not before.  So far, the doctors have not been able to identify what that change is.  It could be serious or it could be something of concern where meds are changed.

Meanwhile I wait...

I have lost about 10-12 unexpected pounds and I feel more fatigued than usual and sometimes nauseous, but if I lay down it passes.

Each day is precious to me even though I do not take advantage of each day like I should.  I stay busy which keeps me from worrying but I don't spend that much time appreciating MY LIFE.

I am a spiritual person not necessarily a religious one but do believe in a Creator; however, it is possible that our Creator is an extraterrestrial...  and, I don't really have a problem with that as some people do.

These people want to see our Creator as HUMAN...  and logic tells us that is and was never a possibility, just by the fact that this entity is the Creator.  Making us in his image, I think is responsible for that.

With our universe as big as it is and with the possibility that there might be multiple universes, it is highly UNLIKELY that we are they only living creatures around.

What seems to be a fact to me is that someone with superior intelligence altered our DNA in order to create human beings and the human race.  It is simply illogical for our COMPLEX BODIES to have just evolved into who we are today...

For me, that concept is more spiritual than religious.

Plea Deal

 

Earth's Atmosphere Has a Hole

A space physicist has said it's "quite possible" that a SpaceX rocket launched earlier this month made a hole in the Earth's ionosphere.

The ionosphere is where Earth's atmosphere meets space and stretches roughly 50 to 400 miles above Earth's surface, Nasa said.

Jeff Baumgardner, a senior research scientist from Boston University, made the comments to Spaceweather. Ionospheric holes have become more common as record numbers of rockets are launched, the report said. The holes are temporary as reionization occurs when the sun rises.

A picture of the incident was captured by photographer Jeremy Perez on July 19 after SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket from a base in California. SpaceX's Falcon 9 is a reusable, two-stage rocket designed to reliably transport people and cargo into orbit.  READ MORE...

The Sixties

 

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park

Great Smoky Mountains

Cascading waterfalls, roaming wildlife and a view that stretches out over 500,000 acres – this is the country’s most-visited national park. Vacationers often start in Gatlinburg and make their way to one of the park’s famous paths where they can find everything they’ve been looking for. A hike through the Great Smoky Mountains – whether it be on the Appalachian Trail itself, a wildflower walk, or a trip to one of the many waterfalls – will leave you with a smile and a lasting impression. Because the experience changes season to season, there’s always a new scene to come explore.


Hiking And Waterfalls
800 Miles Of Perfect

The best way to experience the Smoky Mountains is to do what the original settlers and explorers did: hit the trails. From the original Appalachian Trail to breathtaking wildflower walks, there are 150 Smoky Mountain trails covering 800 miles of pristine backcountry. Waterfalls, wildlife, valleys and vistas are everywhere. Learn more


Wildlife & Nature
Undisturbed For Over A Million Years

Thousands of species of plant and animal life have been documented in the Smokies, and more are being discovered every year. Because the last Ice Age didn’t get this far south, and the sea never came this far inland, flora and fauna have been thriving and diversifying here for millennia. When you venture into one of the world’s few International Biosphere Reserves, black bears and wildflower blooms are only the beginning. Bring your binoculars, enjoy the show, and read more about what to expect in our Guide.


Scenic Drives
This Is Why Sunday Drives Were Invented.

There are three entrances to Great Smoky Mountains National Park from Gatlinburg, and every one takes you into a section of the 800 square miles of unspoiled Appalachia. Every trip to the Smokies begins with a drive on the Newfound Gap Road, so pack a picnic and see highlights along the way, including the Sugarlands Visitor Center, Newfound Gap, Clingman’s Dome Road, Ocanaluftee Valley and Mingus Mill. Wildflower watchers love exploring the Greenbrier, a six-mile road featuring the most colorful flora in the Park. Porter’s Creek is particularly vibrant in March and April. If you’re feeling adventurous, hop out, hike four miles, and witness the tallest falls in the Smokies at Ramsey Cascades. Whether you arrive during the rich, green days of spring and summer, the crazy quilt of autumn color or the sparkling white of winter, your drive through the roads of Great Smoky Mountains National Park is guaranteed to be an adventure in itself.


Picnic In The Park
Break Bread With Family And Friends.

Gatlinburg is home to many scenic and accessible spots that are just perfect for bringing back the lost joys of picnicking. Admire the antique architecture of century-old cabins and mills at Cades Cove picnic area. Soak up the scenery of the Little Pigeon River or share a meal at one of several other designated picnic spots near Gatlinburg, including Metcalf Bottoms. It’s a great way to relax and unwind during your vacation.

Somewhat Political