MY WRITING JOURNAL

Wednesday, September 1

Our planet’s magnetic field is “singing.” The European Space Agency just released a recording of the frequencies generated as a solar storm collided with Earth’s magnetic field. It was released alongside new findings published in Geophysical Research Letters this week.

What is it? Solar storms are the eruption of electrically charged particles ejected from the sun. When those particles reach Earth, they come into contact with the planet’s magnetic field. The first region of the magnetic field they hit is called the foreshock. The interactions of the particles with the foreshock causes the release of complex magnetic waves.

How was it recorded? ESA’s Cluster mission was able to record these magnetic waves as they scatter into higher frequencies. When scientists covert these frequencies into audible signals, the result is the ghostly sound that you can hear below. When there are no solar particles to contend with, these magnetic waves oscillate on a single frequency and so would convert into a very different, mellower “song.”

Cluster (technically Cluster II, as the first mission was lost in a launch failure) is a set of four spacecraft launched in 2000 and positioned out in Earth’s magnetosphere to study its interaction with solar wind. The spacecraft regularly venture out into the foreshock. The new findings and recordings were made from an analysis of data collected during six solar storm collisions observed from 2001 to 2005.

So what? Earth’s magnetic field is the planet’s primary line of defense against harmful solar activity that could knock out many orbital and terrestrial instruments and power grids. The authors of the latest study used computer simulations created by a model called Vlasiator to illustrate how changes in the foreshock affects how the energy generated by solar storm interactions propagates down to Earth.

As it turns out, the disturbances felt at the foreshock are much more complex than the research team anticipated, presenting another uncertainty that could affect how we forecast potential space weather threats. As usual, we need better data. Turns out these eerie recordings are less a novelty soundtrack and more an urgent alarm for us to do more to study these processes.

COVID vs VOTING

A Colonizing Space Mindset

An artist’s rendition of a future space colony. Credit: Shutterstock

It was a time of political uncertainty, cultural conflict and social change. Private ventures exploited technological advances and natural resources, generating unprecedented fortunes while wreaking havoc on local communities and environments. The working poor crowded cities, spurring property-holders to develop increased surveillance and incarceration regimes. Rural areas lay desolate, buildings vacant, churches empty—the stuff of moralistic elegies.

Epidemics raged, forcing quarantines in the ports and lockdowns in the streets. Mortality data was the stuff of weekly news and commentary.

Depending on the perspective, mobility—chosen or compelled—was either the cause or the consequence of general disorder. Uncontrolled mobility was associated with political instability, moral degeneracy and social breakdown. However, one form of planned mobility promised to solve these problems: colonization.

Europe and its former empires have changed a lot since the 17th century. But the persistence of colonialism as a supposed panacea suggests we are not as far from the early modern period as we think.

Colonial promise of limitless growth
Seventeenth-century colonial schemes involved plantations around the Atlantic, and motivations that now sound archaic. Advocates of expansion such as the English writer Richard Hakluyt, whose Discourse of Western Planting (1584) outlined the benefits of empire for Queen Elizabeth: the colonization of the New World would prevent Spanish Catholic hegemony and provide a chance to claim Indigenous souls for Protestantism. READ MORE

Cat Tease

Tuesday, August 31

INTJ - The Genius

A few Funnies

Childhood obesity is on the increase...

Fewer Cars

What if your car could drop you off and then find parking by itself? According to electric vehicle entrepreneur Freeman H. Shen, this technology already exists. He shares his vision for a future where AI-powered electric vehicles will solve many of the problems cars currently cause, like smog, traffic congestion, accidents and, yes, endlessly circling the block looking for somewhere to park.

Let's Get WOKE

Stupidly Silly

PAUL SIMON: Apartheid South Africa

Paul Simon’s album placed South African music centre stage in western culture for the first time – and would also land the musician in the eye of a political storm that would result in violence and assassination threats. Mark Beaumont explores the album’s tempestuous journey

Weekends in Soweto, South Africa, circa 1985, were the best time to be a musician. The police stayed home for a few days, so they weren’t out patrolling, following the sounds of music to unlicensed rehearsal sessions to confiscate instruments and throw them in the sea.

There was no need for black artists to hide under blankets in the back of cars to get to gigs with white players in Johannesburg; the township itself came alive with music and colour. Bands struck up in every corner. Church choirs would gather in neighbours’ homes. Tribes would parade the streets singing the songs of their native tongues.

“From Zulu to Sotho to Xhosa to Shangaan…every weekend everybody dressed up with some colourful clothes,” remembers Bakithi Kumalo, a local session bassist at the time, who’d grown up learning how to mimic the tribes’ melodies on his bass. “They pass by, they sing the language and that was a good time to relax, the weekend, because there’s no government control.”

Between sessions for South African singers, recording 20 songs a day for a $5 fee, Kumalo was working as a mechanic to help buy medicine for his sick mother – one of the 16 family members sharing his four-bedroom house – when the call came from the unknown American.

His boss relayed a message from his regular producer Hendrick Lebone that an out-of-towner was coming to Johannesburg for “a big project” and his playing was requested. At first, Kumalo was nervous, an almost perpetual state for the people of Soweto under apartheid. READ MORE

Sharing

Introverts Understand Better

Many of us tend to think of personality traits as either good or bad. Being anxious, for instance, is somewhere between unpleasant and debilitating. Extroversion generally helps people enjoy life and get ahead. But studies suggest things aren't nearly that simple. Almost every "good" trait also has drawbacks, and every "negative" one confers benefits.

Anxiety, for instance, can keep you from enjoying life and taking healthy risks. It also keeps you safe and improves your memory. Introversion is similar. Being quieter is definitely a handicap when it comes to standing out in a noisy world -- studies show that just talking a lot leads people to assume you're leadership material -- but as recent Yale research underlines, being an introvert also has big upsides.

Introverted folks, the study found, may not enjoy people as much as extroverts, but they understand them better. The shy and retiring actually have a much more accurate understanding of the psychology of others than those who spend more time socializing.

Introverts are better "natural psychologists"
Psychologists spend huge amounts of energy developing and carrying out studies to better understand the intricacies of human behavior. It turns out they could probably save themselves a lot of time just by asking the wallflower observing everyone from the corner at parties.

First, the Yale team tested nearly a thousand volunteers to see how accurately they could answer questions about well-established psychological truths -- questions like "Do people work harder in groups or individually?" or "Does taking out your frustrations on a pillow or stuffed toy make you feel better when you're angry?" (The research validated answers are "individually" and "no," if you're curious). Then they gave the volunteers a battery of personality tests. The shy and melancholy definitively outperformed the jovial and friendly. READ MORE

Rocky Horrow Picture Show

During The American Revolution

A new book highlights the writings of Jane Strachey, a middle-class woman whose husband worked for the famed Howe family.

hear the bell at the gate, or the door open.”These lines, written a month after the United States declared its independence from Britain, evoke the letters written by Abigail Adams to her husband, John, while he was at the Continental Congress. Between 1774 and 1777, the couple exchanged over 300 letters celebrated for their poignant blending of war and politics with domestic concerns and heartfelt devotion.

Yet the words above came from the pen of Englishwoman Jane Strachey, who was separated from her husband by 3,000 miles of ocean. In August 1776, English Member of Parliament Henry Strachey was at the epicenter of the looming confrontation between the British and American armies in New York, serving on the administrative staff of Admiral Richard Lord Howe and General William Howe.

Jane’s letters, composed between 1776 and 1778, are buried in the Strachey family papers at the Somerset Archives in England. The private correspondence of a middle-class English wife, they have been virtually ignored by historians of the home front in Britain during the American Revolution. Yet they open a unique window into the experience of ordinary British women. And their intimate tone, everyday detail and authentic chronicling of wartime events provide a fascinating parallel to Adams’ letters. READ MORE

Jump Down

Monday, August 30

It's Just Joe Biden

Independent Press

Two Laughs

Moon Walk

Gut Bacteria

Flavonoid-rich foods, including berries, apples, pears and wine, appear to have a positive effect on blood pressure levels, an association that is partially explained by characteristics of the gut microbiome, according to new research published today in Hypertension, an American Heart Association journal.

"Our gut microbiome plays a key role in metabolizing flavonoids to enhance their cardioprotective effects, and this study provides evidence to suggest these blood pressure-lowering effects are achievable with simple changes to the daily diet," said lead investigator of the study Aedín Cassidy, Ph.D., chair and professor in nutrition and preventive medicine at the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen's University in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

Flavonoids are compounds found naturally in fruits, vegetables and plant-based foods such as tea, chocolate and wine, and have been shown in previous research to offer a variety of health benefits to the body. Flavonoids are broken down by the body's gut microbiome—the bacteria found in the digestive tract.

Recent studies found a link between gut microbiota, the microorganisms in the human digestive tract, and cardiovascular disease (CVD), which is the leading cause of death worldwide. Gut microbiota is highly variable between individuals, and there are reported differences in gut microbial compositions among people with and without CVD.

With increased research suggesting flavonoids may reduce heart disease risk, this study assessed the role of the gut microbiome on the process. Researchers examined the association between eating flavonoid-rich foods with blood pressure and gut microbiome diversity. The study also investigated how much variance within the gut microbiome could explain the association between intake of flavonoid-rich foods and blood pressure. READ MORE

Ball Roller

Ten Quadrillion Power Watts

Scientists used an unconventional method of creating nuclear fusion to yield a record-breaking burst of energy of more than 10 quadrillion watts, by firing intense beams of light from the world's largest lasers at a tiny pellet of hydrogen.

Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California said they had focused 192 giant lasers at the National Ignition Facility (NIF) onto a pea-size pellet, resulting in the release of 1.3 megajoules of energy in 100 trillionths of a second — roughly 10% of the energy of the sunlight that hits Earth every moment, and about 70% of the energy that the pellet had absorbed from the lasers.

The scientists hope one day to reach the break-even or "ignition" point of the pellet, where it gives off 100% or more energy than it absorbs. The energy yield is significantly larger than the scientists expected and much greater than the previous record of 170 kilojoules they set in February.

The researchers hope the result will expand their ability to research nuclear fusion weapons, the NIF's core mission, and that it could lead to new ways to harness energy from nuclear fusion — the process that powers the sun and other stars. Some scientists hope that nuclear fusion could one day be a relatively safe and sustainable method for generating energy on Earth.

"This result is a historic step forward for inertial confinement fusion research, opening a fundamentally new regime for exploration and the advancement of our critical national security missions," Kim Budil, the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, said in a statement. READ MORE

Octopus Jar

Indestructible Ancient Material

The full moon sets behind Stonehenge on April 27, 2021 in Amesbury, England. Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images.

A long lost piece of England’s Stonehenge monument is helping experts understand the mysterious prehistoric structure.

Analysis of a core sample taken from one of the site’s massive slabs suggests that the stone’s geochemical composition may have made it uniquely well-equipped to stand the test of time.

Made from 99.7 percent quartz crystals, the stones are practically indestructible, according to a new study published in the journal Plos One.

“Now we’ve got a good idea why this stuff’s still standing there,” study co-author David Nash, a professor of physical geography at the University of Brighton, told Business Insider. “The stone is incredibly durable—it’s really resistant to erosion and weathering.”

The study was made possible thanks to a former diamond cutter, Robert Phillips, who died last year.

He did repair work at Stonehenge in 1958, drilling into Stone 58 to help re-erect a fallen trilithon of three stones. READ MORE

Toy Car Track

Sunday, August 29

Redneck Ramblings

I am a Vietnam Veteran and I am amazed at the lack of leadership of the present administration as far as withdrawing from Afghanistan is concerned.

Our current President withdrew US military troops and closed the military air base BEFORE he removed the US Embassy Personnel and other Americans living in Afghanistan which is ON THE SURFACE... a really stupid decision.

A former high ranking official in the Obama administration said that our current President has not been on the RIGHT SIDE of foreign policy for the last 4 decades... that's 40 years.

The USA did not just FAIL in Afghanistan but the USA Military was defeated and humiliated at the hands of the TALIBAN, a terrorist organization.

The Parliment of Great Britain announced that it would not longer support any future military operations by the USA as long as our current president remains president.

CAN YOU IMAGINE THE IMPACT of a statement like that???

CHINA AND RUSSIA are no doubt laughing at us...

AND... what do our Democrats say???

NOTHING...

NOTHING at all...

This redneck cannot believe what just happened...

Strutting Your Stuff

The Einstein Ring

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a stunning ‘Einstein Ring’ 3.4 billion light-years from Earth.

This cosmic display, formally known as gravitational lensing, occurs when the gravitational field from a massive object in space warps space and deflects light from a distant object behind it.

It then results in a bull’s-eye pattern, or ‘Einstein Ring.’ It was predicted by the famed physicist, Albert Einstein, in 1915.

The image shows six luminous spots of light clustered at the center, four of which are forming a circle around a central pair.

The formation, however, only consists of two galaxies and a single distant quasar that is magnified as it passes through the gravitational field of the galaxies.

The Hubble Space Telescope captured a stunning ‘Einstein Ring’ 3.4 billion light-years from Earth

The quasar, known as 2M1310-1714, sits farther away from Earth than the pair of galaxies.

A quasar is the extremely bright nucleus of an active galaxy and its powerful glow is created by the incredible amounts of energy released by gas falling toward the supermassive black hole at its center. READ MORE