Rethinking Happiness

Finland is consistently ranked as the happiest country in the world. The basis for this is the annual World Happiness Report, which is based on a simple question about happiness asked to people around the world. 

However, a new study led by Lund University in Sweden suggests that it makes people think more about power and wealth.

Using the same question to measure happiness over time and cultures, is arguably a simple and fair way to compare results on a global scale – no easy task, after all. How happy are countries around the world really? 

The question at the center of the World Happiness Report is known as The Cantril Ladder: Please imagine a ladder with steps numbered from 0 at the bottom to 10 at the top. The top of the ladder represents the best possible life for you and the bottom of the ladder represents the worst possible life for you. 

On which step of the ladder would you say you personally feel you stand at this time?  READ MORE...

Where People Live

 

5,000-Year-Old Map of America

 

Terracotta Solar Panels

The Roman city of Pompeii is one of the most impressive archaeological sites in the world. It’s visited by millions of people who want to see the still intact elements of architecture from Roman times. But for all this, you need electricity and lighting. 

Conventional lighting systems are pretty expensive for such a large area and they also take away some of the charm of the site. So instead, the team managing the site is opting for a new solution: photovoltaic (PV) tiles that look just like the Roman ones.

“Pompeii is an ancient city which in some spots is fully preserved. Since we needed an extensive lightning system, we could either keep consuming energy, leaving poles and cables around and disfiguring the landscape, or choose to respect it and save millions of euros,” says Gabriel Zuchtriegel, Director of the Archaeological Park of Pompeii.  TO READ MORE, CLICK HERE...

Somewhat Political

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> The 2024 Tribeca Film Festival (June 5-16) lineup revealed; includes 103 feature films from filmmakers across 48 countries (More) | Sundance Film Festival looking for new permanent venue; Park City, Utah, has hosted the festival since 1981 (More)

> Real Madrid and Bayern Munich advance from UEFA Champions League quarterfinals, will join Borussia Dortmund and Paris Saint-Germain in semifinals set to begin April 30 (More)

> US Justice Department to pay $100M to around 100 victims of former Team USA gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar over FBI's mishandling of the sexual abuse allegations against Nassar (More)


Science & Technology
> New AI-powered algorithm traces metastatic cancer cells—those that have left their original tumor and traveled through the body—to their original site; assistive tool will help provide tailored treatment for patients (More)

> Evolutionary study finds the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for the fight-or-flight response, developed in the earliest known vertebrates roughly 550 million years ago (More)

> Bitcoin halving event, which cuts the reward for validating new bitcoins, expected to happen by end of week (More) | Halving 101 (More)



Business & Markets
> US stock markets close lower (S&P 500 -0.6%, Dow -0.1%, Nasdaq -1.2%); S&P 500, Nasdaq close down for fourth day as stocks are dragged down by tech giants, including Nvidia, which fell nearly 4% (More)

> Boeing faces scrutiny in two Senate hearings on aircraft safety and quality; whistleblower alleges Boeing cut corners on 787 and 777 models, panel of experts discuss previous findings on flaws in Boeing's safety culture (More) | Telehealth firm Cerebral fined $7M over privacy violations (More)

> Tesla asks shareholders to reapprove CEO Elon Musk's $56B pay package, less than three months after a judge invalidated the same package; shareholders also asked to approve moving Tesla's incorporation from Delaware to Texas (More)



Politics & World Affairs
> Democratic-led Senate votes to dismiss articles of impeachment against Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas (More) | Columbia University president testifies at House hearing on antisemitism (More)

> National Public Radio editor Uri Berliner resigns following five-day suspension; announcement comes after Berliner accused NPR last week of liberal bias in essay for Free Press (More) | See Berliner's essay (More) | See NPR's response (More)

> Hawaii's attorney general releases report on lack of preparedness in advance of August 2023 wildfire that killed 101 people; Maui Fire Department had limited equipment, poorly stocked fire engines while fire hydrants lost water supply (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

Existence and Purpose

 

Can you prove that mankind exists?

Descartes, the philosopher said, "I think, therefore I am."

The movie The Matrix speculated that our life was a simulation, and that our real bodies were in some kind of pod, draining us of our energy to keep the simulation up and running.

Religious people believe that we were created by God to serve Him - so that His will in heaven would be carried out on earth.

Other cultures believe that we are continually reincarnated into another life here on earth after we die.

HOWEVER, none of these examples above, actually PROVE OUR EXISTENCE.

Yet,

• We feel pain
• We think and plan
• We draw conclusions
• We problem solve
• We feel emotions
• We feel sickness
• We can be damaged
• We ultimately die

NONE OF US are born as equals in the sense that we are all different.

Tall - Short - Thin - Fat - Smart - Dumb - Athletic, etc.

• Science cannot make us equal
• Education cannot make us equal
• Faith cannot make us equal

AND...  the question remains:  How do we prove that we exist?

Let's go one step further...

1. Who/What created the universe?
2. How did something from nothing happen?
3. Why is the universe still expanding and INTO WHAT is it expanding?

What is it about PROOF that is so elusive, I keep asking myself.  Do I really need proof, I wonder.  If I had proof what would I do with it, I ask as if proof creates reality and reality creates TRUTH.  

Proof of existence is one question but then if that was ever to be answered, then we would want to know what our purpose is here and why we live only 80-100 years...   when death is for an eternity.

I would speculate that most of us, at least 99%, don't give a damn about our existence or our purpose - they just want to live their lives as best as they can, given the circumstances of their environment and their parents.

Philosophy is just a class that some have to take in order to graduate from school and that is the depth of their understanding or desire to understand.  It does not really matter if we exist or not as long as we have a life to live.  How we lived that life never becomes an issue until very much later in life when there is nothing else for us to think about.

Cat Under Bed

 

Minerals Found on the Moon

A panoramic photo of the lunar surface captured by China’s Chang’e 5 as it landed on the Moon in 2020. Credit: China National Space Administration




China’s Chang’e 5 lander returned to Earth on 16 December 2020 with the first sample brought back from the Moon since 1976. Within the roughly 1.7 kg sample, researchers found a glass bead with a pit about 9 µm across, formed by the impact of a piece of fast-traveling space dust known as a micrometeorite. On the rim of the tiny crater they found two titanium-based minerals—trigonal and triclinic Ti2O—that had not been found on the Moon before and do not occur naturally on Earth. Those are now the seventh and eighth new minerals discovered on the Moon to date, as described in a recent Nature Astronomy paper by Xiaojia Zeng, Yanxue Wu, and colleagues.

Above Earth, the friction generated by meteors moving through the atmosphere slows them down and can burn them up, depending on their incoming size and speed. Above the Moon and other airless bodies, though, there is no atmospheric buffer between the debris of space and the rocky surface. The Moon is thus bombarded not only with the large meteors and asteroids that have given rise to its iconic cratered surface but also with tiny dust-sized meteors that travel at high speeds—as fast as 20 km/s, about 30 times as fast as an F-16 jet. Those micrometeorite impacts are crucial to the weathering of the lunar surface.     READ MORE...

China's Mega Project

 

Ted Cruz Mocks

 

Physics of Complex Fluids

The shearing of fluids—meaning the sliding of fluid layers over each other under shear forces—is an important concept in nature and in rheology, the science that studies the flow behavior of matter, including liquids and soft solids. 

Shear forces are lateral forces applied parallel to a material, inducing deformation or slippage between its layers.

Fluid shear experiments allow the characterization of important rheological properties such as viscosity (resistance to deformation or flow) and thixotropy (decrease in viscosity under the influence of shear), which are important in applications ranging from industrial processes to medicine. 

Studies on the shear behavior of viscoelastic fluids created by introducing polymers into Newtonian fluids have already been conducted in recent years.     READ MORE...

Somewhat Political

 

In The NEWS

Sports, Entertainment, & Culture
> Music by ABBA, Notorious BIG, and Green Day among 25 recordings added to the Library of Congress' National Recording Registry (More) | See complete Library of Congress registry list (More)

> Whitey Herzog, Baseball Hall of Famer and influential manager, dies at age 92 (More) | Carl Erskine, last surviving member of iconic Brooklyn Dodgers' "Boys of Summer," dies at age 97 (More)

> The 2024 Paris Olympics flame lit in Greece as 3,000-mile torch relay begins (More) | Team USA men's basketball roster headlined by LeBron James and Steph Curry (More)


Science & Technology
In partnership with hear.com

> NASA scraps current plans to return rocks collected by the Perseverance Mars rover to Earth, citing cost and complexity; agency to seek new proposals for the mission (More)

> Meta Oversight Board to review policies governing the spread of sexualized deepfake images on Facebook and Instagram following two high-profile incidents involving female celebrities (More)

> Researchers develop new pigment chemistry to produce a range of magentas for use in energy-efficient coatings; discovery was inspired by lunar minerals and similar pigment formulation used by ancient Egyptians (More)


Business & Markets
> US stock markets close mixed (S&P 500 -0.2%, Dow +0.2%, Nasdaq -0.1%) after Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell says inflation remains stubborn, reducing expectations for any imminent interest rate cuts (More)

> China's economy expands more than expected with 5.3% growth year-over-year in first quarter, driven by increased exports (More) | International Monetary Fund raises US economic forecast to 2.7% growth this year, outpacing Europe; anticipates global growth of 3.2% (More)

> Morgan Stanley beats first quarter earnings and revenue expectations, with profit up 14% year-over-year, sending stock up 3% on the news; all three divisions (wealth management, trading, and investment banking) saw a jump (More)


Politics & World Affairs
> Bob Graham, former Democratic US senator and two-term Florida governor, dies at age 87; Graham chaired the Senate Intelligence Committee during and after the 2001 terrorist attacks and opposed the Iraq war (More)

> Columbia University President Minouche Shafik to testify about antisemitism today before House committee following December hearing with since-resigned University of Pennsylvania and Harvard presidents (More) | University of Southern California bars pro-Palestinian valedictorian from speaking at commencement, citing safety concerns (More)

> Oman flooding leaves at least 18 people dead with others missing (More) | Dubai International Airport—second busiest in the world—partially underwater as United Arab Emirates receives a year's worth of rainfall in a single day (More)

SOURCE:  1440 News

Changing America

 

It is easy, at my age, to live in the past especially since the past is so much better than the present.  However, if I had gotten cancer in the past, I would be dead by now because of the research that has been conducted on cancer research.

When I think of the past and what really impresses me about the past is not the cost of living or the quality of life but:

• we had a respect for American laws
• we had a respect for law enforcement
• we had a respect and trust in our legislatures
• democrats and republicans were willing to compromise
• we had a strong military presence
• we were leader of the world and respected by our enemies
• we had an outstanding educational system
• we had a strong set of values and morals 
• we had a strong work ethic
• we believed a little bit of profit was necessary
• males were males and females were females

All of that has been lost...  and that way of life is never coming back to America...   a new generation of Americans have been born, that believe that type of life was based upon WHITE SUPREMACY and that minorities would never be given a chance...  a new generation was born that believes in government handouts, social welfare, and socialism instead of capitalism.

While I am not a believer in their way of thinking, I do believe they have a right to take the country into the direction they believe is appropriate.  And who knows...  they may be right...  maybe the time is right for a STAR TREK type of UTOPIA.

America's enemies have based their HATRED on the old America that manipulated countries by force if necessary and by money when appropriate, trying to transform their culture into an American culture since it was perceived that American culture was the best in the world.

WE WERE WRONG...  But not many people are willing to admit that.  However, I doubt our enemies will believe this younger generation and it is they who will start manipulating us.

Our colleges and universities teach student HOW BAD AMERICA IS RIGHT NOW...  and, how out leaders need to be replaced and it is perceived that our enemies DO KNOW WHAT IS BEST FOR US.

An example of this is the PRO-PALESTINIAN & ANTI ISRAEL movement that is moving through this country like a hurricane and tornado combined.  American Females want to be governed by SHARIA LAW, not fully understanding what they really means.

BUT...  like everything else...  CHANGE is necessary for growth...  and America needs to grow into something that is different from that which it is currently.

Relax

 

An "Intelligent" Liquid

Harvard researchers have created a versatile programmable metafluid that can change its properties, including viscosity and optical transparency, in response to pressure. This new class of fluid has potential applications in robotics, optical devices, and energy dissipation, showcasing a significant breakthrough in metamaterial technology. (Artist’s concept). Credit: SciTechDaily.com

Scientists have developed a metafluid with programmable response.

Scientists at the Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences (SEAS) have developed a programmable metafluid with tunable springiness, optical properties, viscosity and even the ability to transition between a Newtonian and non-Newtonian fluid.

The first-of-its-kind metafluid uses a suspension of small, elastomer spheres — between 50 to 500 microns — that buckle under pressure, radically changing the characteristics of the fluid. The metafluid could be used in everything from hydraulic actuators to program robots, to intelligent shock absorbers that can dissipate energy depending on the intensity of the impact, to optical devices that can transition from clear to opaque.

The research is published in Nature.     READ MORE...

The Sun

 

The Smother's Brothers

 

Rare boson particle ‘triplets’

An extremely rare event in the world of particles has taken place during a Chinese-led study at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) near Geneva, Switzerland.

And the event has scored yet another victory for the Standard Model – our current best theory to describe how the basic building blocks of the universe interact.

Sifting through experimental data collected between 2016 and 2018, researchers from Peking University and their colleagues from around the world spotted the simultaneous appearance of three force-carrying particles, known as bosons, which had never been seen together before.  READ MORE...