A Hole in the Sun

A giant, black region of the sun — called a coronal hole — was spotted on Monday by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory.

Despite the name, however, this isn't a physical hole in the solar surface; coronal holes are cooler in temperature, so they don't glow as bright as other areas of the sun and therefore look black.

"The current coronal hole, the big one right now, is about 300,000 to 400,000 kilometers across," Alex Young, the associate director for science at NASA Goddard's Heliophysics Science Division, told Insider over email. "That is about 20-30 Earths lined up back-to-back."

Coronal holes are common; there is "nothing unusual here," Scott McIntosh, a solar physicist and the deputy director of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, told Insider in an email.

Holes like this are part of the sun's normal activity, but McIntosh said that they are "not well understood" and called these events "the 'dark side' of solar activity."

Coronal holes are the source of rapid solar winds, which reach speeds of about 500-800 km per second, Young wrote — The solar winds from this coronal hole are scheduled to reach Earth by the end of this week.  READ MORE...

A Brief History of America

 

Dueling Banjos

 

A White Southerner's Perspective

The end of March has finally arrived and instead of walking at the Community Center and paying a $1 for each visit, I can walk outside and enjoy the fresh air.

The end of March has also put me into a position where I had to mow the lawn which might be a couple of weeks early this year.  But again, more outside time.

Before I got as old as I am, I preferred warm weather to cold but the heat of humidity forces me inside...  except when I am at Myrtle Beach as there is always a breeze and the humidity does not bother me...

It is hard to say how many Americans prefer warm to cold weather as there are still tons of people living up north...  and, as far as I am concerned they can stay up north.

I guess I am prejudice when it comes to northerners and southerners as my preference is with the latter.  The former are typically impolite and very rude and more often than not, are egotistical and stuck up with theirselves...

Does that make me racist?  Or, is being a racist just between blacks and whites?  For what it's worth, I think we have more blacks down south than in the north...  and, I wonder if making that statement makes me a racist?

Someone, not too long ago said Blacks could not be racist...  ONLY WHITES...  blacks act the way they do because it is a white society in the US of A...

Well, that shit got me to wondering...  and, it appears that Blacks only represent 12% of the population and whites represent 60%...  That breakdown has nothing to do with slavery...  what it means is that less blacks were brought to America than whites...   ERGO - it will always be a white society...   until the black population becomes greater than the white population...

Right now, Hispanics at 18% are more likely to challenge the whites than blacks are.  Then, we have the Asians who are building up their ranks as well...

HOWEVER, due to illegal immigration, Hispanics will now grow substantially faster than blacks...  so, I will be really interested in the new demographics data.

I know more northern whites than northern blacks so I am not really sure that the negative feeling held towards northerners actually applies to blacks.   What is interestingly curious is that I have no feeling at all towards southern blacks.

The only time I ever think about blacks at all is when BLM is bitching about whites not doing what they are demanding whites to do fast enough.  Personally, I am not going to do a damn thing for blacks, except be nice and respectful to them.

Will I ever invite them over to dinner?  Probably not.

Will I ever want to go to a black church with them?  Probably not.

Will I ever go vacationing with them?  Probably not.

Will I ever play golf with them?  I don't play golf.

When my wife gets a tan in the summer and changes her skin color from white to a dark tan, is she being a RACIST?

I never thought about it being a black face...  but I suppose one could argue that it is...

Is she making fun of  blacks when she gets a summer tan?

 

Classic Sunday Morning Newspaper Cartoons

 

Generating New Brain Neurons

Recently biologists discovered how to generate new neurons in the adult brain. This is an incredible breakthrough that has enormous potential to revolutionize neurodegenerative disease research. By generating genetically-mutated mice with a unique gene that activates dormant neural stem cells, scientists were able to generate new neurons in the brain. 

For years, scientists have been searching for ways to promote the growth of new neurons in the brain, especially in individuals with neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s. This new discovery could lead to new treatments and therapies that could help to restore brain function and improve the quality of life for millions of people around the world.

Leslie Samuel, founder of Interactive Biology, gives some context for the importance of genetic trading between organisms for scientific research, and notes how the loss of nerve cells in the brain is one of the hallmarks of neurodegenerative diseases. The ability to generate new neurons in the adult brain could be a game-changer in the field of neurology.

Leslie’s Thoughts
“Anytime you have a situation where extracts from one organism can have beneficial effects on another organism, especially if that other organism is a human, I think it’s an exciting thing. In my last video I spoke about how certain cordyceps fungi can have anti-cancer effects. But it doesn’t stop there.  READ MORE...

Egypt

 

Morning Reflections

 LIFE IS SHORT...  or, so it seems.  As we get older, each days seems to get shorter, when in reality it just moves by faster, basically because we are busy...  and, do not take the time to reflect upon its passing.

• At 25 years of age, we look back and wonder what took us so long to get here.
• At 40 years of age, we feel that we will probably live another 40 years.
• At 50 years of age, we can no longer double our age and begin to wonder if we can accomplish all that we set out to do.
• At 60 years of age, our physical body and sometimes our minds begin to betray us, as we experience health issues.
• At 70 years of age (67 for some) we see the need to retire unless we are not experiencing any work related issues, then we work as long as we can.
• At 80 years of age, we see each additinal year as living on borrowed time, even though some of us will live well into our 90s.

The common theme here is that time passes by quickly but we don't think about it until it is half over...  which is probably good because it keeps us from needless worrying.

Wars can end a life early as can illegal drugs, car accidents, and unexpected illnesses.  Most of us don't think about that unless it happens to us, a family member, or a close friend.  We are oblivious to the fragility of life.

Battle

 

A Bermuda Triangle of Financial Risks

The economy is headed into a "Bermuda Triangle" of danger, and markets should brace for a crisis that could rival the 2008, according to economist Nouriel Roubini.

In a recent interview on the McKinsey Global Institute's "Forward Thinking" podcast, the top economist warned that the economy was risking another financial crisis as central bankers continue to tighten monetary policy.

Federal Reserve officials raised interest rates another 25 basis-points this week, and have hiked rates 475 basis-points over the last year to control inflation. That marks one of the most aggressive Fed tightening cycles in history, and could place the economy under three different kinds of stress, Roubini warned.

First, high interest rates could easily overtighten the economy into a recession, experts say, which reduces income for households and corporations.

Second, high interest rates means firms are battling higher costs of borrowing and waning liquidity, which weighs on asset prices. Last year, US stocks plunged 20% amid the Fed's rate hikes, with warnings from other market commentators of an even steeper crash in equities this year.

Finally, high interest rates are pressuring the mountain of debt, both private and public, that was amassed during the years of low rates, Roubini said. He pointed to bankrupt "zombies", which include households, corporations, and governments.

"It's got like, a Bermuda Triangle. You have a hit to your income, to your asset values, and then to the burden of financing your liabilities. And then you end up in a situation of distress if you're a highly leveraged household or business firm. And when many of them are having these problems, then you have a systemic household debt crisis like [2008]," he warned.

Roubini, one of the experts who called the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis, has repeatedly sounded the alarm for another crisis to strike the US economy. The scenario he envisions combines the worst aspects of 70s-style stagflation with something like the 2008 crisis, with a severe recession, stubborn inflation, and mounting debt levels bludgeoning economic growth.   READ MORE...

Strictly Political

 

Paul Simon

 

Guess Who

 

On Being Informed

I watch the news each morning on FOX News...  it is always depressing...  I used to watch the news on CNN and CBS, but discovered they were not sharing all of the news, just what suited their liberal agendas...

For me, that is called CENSORSHIP

I want to know the news good, bad, or indifferent.  I want to know the news whether it supports my political views or not...  it is up to me, not network news agency to decide what I should or should not know...

The Liberals say that Black Lives Matter...  and, I agree but what about all the other lives?  Do they not matter?  Only Blacks?

Is this how we want to stay informed?

The Liberals say that ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION is ok, despite what our laws say...

Does this mean that we should just ignore all the laws with which we disagree?

And what of all the UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCS of all this ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION, should we just ignore that as well?

Do we even know what those consequences might entail?  Do we really care?

The Liberal say that CHINA is just a friendly competitor and that we should treat this with kindness...

BUT...

our own military says that China might be stronger than us and that they want to TAKE OVER THE WORLD...

Who do we believe?

Who cares if China takes over the world?  

China just might be a better GLOBAL LEADER than the USA?

You never thought of that, did you?

Is is because you are not INFORMED?

Our US Constitution and The Bill of Rights, provides us with the FIRST AMENDMENT...  which is bascially FREEDOM OF SPEECH....  that freedom entails knowing both sides of what is going on in the world today...   which means, we should know the LIBERAL SIDE as well as the CONSERVATIVE...  if one side is censored, then we are NOT INFORMED...

How ignorant do you want to be for the rest of your life?

A Second Big Bang

Dark matter, represented as blue light in this Hubble Telescope image of galaxy cluster Cl0024+1654, may have exploded into the universe one month after the Big Bang, new research suggests. (Image credit: European Space Agency, NASA and Jean-Paul Kneib (Observatoire Midi-Pyrénées, France/Caltech, USA))





The Big Bang may have been accompanied by a shadow, "Dark" Big Bang that flooded our cosmos with mysterious dark matter, cosmologists have proposed in a new study. And we may be able to see the evidence for that event by studying ripples in the fabric of space-time.


After the Big Bang, most cosmologists think, the universe underwent a period of rapid, remarkable expansion in its earliest moments, known as inflation. Nobody knows what triggered inflation, but it’s necessary to explain a variety of observations, like the extreme geometrical flatness of the universe at large scales.

Inflation was presumably driven by some exotic quantum field, which is a fundamental entity that soaks all of spacetime. At the end of inflation, that field decayed into a shower of particles and radiation, triggering the "Hot Big Bang" that physicists commonly associate with the beginning of the universe. Those particles would go on to coalesce into the first atoms when the cosmos was around 12 minutes old and — hundreds of millions of years later — begin clumping into stars and galaxies.  READ MORE...

Honesty

 

Negative Mind

 

Budget Thinking

Yesterday, I mowed my lawn for the first time in 2023...  last year, the first mowing was in April... as soon as you mow for the first time, it is once a week until October...  or about 6/7 months...  sometimes, the grass stops growing by the end of September and sometimes, it grows for another month.

My gas can is 5 gallons and it lasts about 3 tanks so I will fill it up about 8-10 times.  At $3/gallon, I will spend $150 mowing the lawn this spring-summer-fall.

While that may not seem like much money, for some people it is a lot of money.  It takes about an hour to mow and another hour to weed eat.  So, 26 weeks times 2 hours is a total of 52 hours spent on lawn maintenance.  If I paid myself $10/hour, I would spend another $500 and if I paid myself $20/hour, it would be $1,000+/-...

By thinking this through, I am able to prepare a budget that will incorporate lawn maintenance and gasoline...  Do I use the cost of labor or just the supplies? 

I ask this because the two hours that I spend working on lawn maintenance are two hours that physically impact my body negatively.  The riding lawn mower that I use, goes over rippled ground, so I am constantly bouncing up and down which is bad for the disks in my back.  When I weed eat, the eater is not long enough for my body and I must bend over just slightly and that puts a strain on my body as well.

My cancer treatments require that I stay out of the sun, so I must wear UV protective clothing, otherwise my skin turns pink and red and I am not sure what other impact it may have on my cancer cells that are trying to grow inside me.

So, several things must be taken into consideration when planning out a budget, just for lawn maintenance.  Of course, there is wear and tear on the riding lawn mower and each year of usage, the wear and tear increases just like with the human body.  Lawn mower maintenance cost is about $150 each year as well.

Then one must also consider grass seed, straw, fertilizer, and water.  Then there again is the labor when using these things as well as the labor watering the grass seed.

I don't rake leaves, I mow them up so I am saving myself some physical exertion there.  Many of my neighbors rake up their leaves...  not sure why they do that.

When you think about budgets, figure out your total annual cost for something, then prorate it over 12 months...  for example, car insurance comes out twice a year, but if you spread it out over 12 months, you will already have that money set aside.

More budget tips in future articles...

Illusion of Time

 

Yin Yang