Day: 12/15/2016

The Sun is slowing down, and scientists think they finally know why.

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Nothing lasts forever.

Astronomers think they might have finally solved the mystery of how and why the Sun’s rotation is slowing down.

The Sun, on average, rotates on its axis roughly once per month, but two decades ago, scientists made the baffling discovery that its outer 5 percent spins more slowly than the rest of its interior. And a new study might have finally figured out why.

“The Sun won’t stop spinning anytime soon, but we’ve discovered that the same solar radiation that heats the Earth is ‘braking’ the Sun, because of Einstein’s Special Relativity, causing it to gradually slow down, starting from its surface,” writes lead researcher Jeff Kuhn from the Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaii.

The Sun doesn’t spin as a solid mass like Earth does – instead, its parts rotate at different rates depending on their latitude and how far they are from the centre of the Sun. So the poles will spin at a different rate to the equator.

That’s something we’ve known for a long time, but what scientists couldn’t figure out was why the outer 5 percent of the Sun was rotating slower compared to its interior.

To figure out what was going on, the team looked at 3.5 years of data from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory satellite, which has been observing the Sun since 2010.

Their data was taken from the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager, which looks at solar oscillations in the Sun’s magnetic field.

They noticed that there had been a sharp slow-down in the Sun’s rotation rate in its very outer 150 km layer, which they predict is due to something called the photon-braking effect.

The team predicts that this braking effect is similar to something called the Poynting-Robertson effect, which is a process by which solar radiation causes a dust grain orbiting a star to lose angular momentum and slow down.

They suggest that same effect also acts like a brake on the rotation of the outer area of the Sun, and might also be in play around other stars in the Universe.

“This is a gentle torque that is slowing it down, but over the Sun’s 5 billion year lifetime it has had a very noticeable influence on its outer 35,000 km,” said Kuhn.

The big question now is how this slowing rotation at the Sun’s surface affects the solar magnetic field, which is what controls the solar flares that blast off the Sun and can affect Earth’s telecommunications.

That’s something the researchers hope to work on in future, but at least we now finally have a good idea about why the Sun’s spin is slowing down.

Amazon Makes Its First Air Delivery Through Drone

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Today, everything is a stone’s throw away. From our pizzas to our headphones, we have our necessities at our doorsteps in no time. As if that wasn’t enough, Amazon has now delivered a package by a drone, just 13 minutes after the order was placed. The order, an Amazon Fire TV Box and a bag of popcorn, was delivered to a customer named Richard B near Cambridge, England.

Jeff Bezos, Amazon founder and chief executive, proudly shared the news on Twitter:

View image on Twitter

Jeff Bezos

✔@JeffBezos

First-ever customer delivery is in the books. 13 min—click to delivery. Check out the video: http://amzn.to/primeair 

7:28 PM – 14 Dec 2016

The delivery was done in the rural countryside near Cambridge, an area that has been authorized for drone test flights by British aviation.

Amazon published a video explaining how the fully autonomous delivery was made, without any human pilot.

The use of drones and autonomous machines is being eyed by companies like Amazon as a great way to not only expand their user base and increase efficiency but to also lower the cost of delivery of small packages. Amazon Prime Air aims at speedy delivery of packages through unmanned aerial vehicles.

Drone deliveries have been made by companies like Flirtey and Project Wing in the past, and it remains to be seen how effective the system proves to be, considering the vehicles are unmanned.

Twitterati had its doubts though: 

Steve T-S

✔ @stroughtonsmith

@ivanandriollo @JeffBezos …alternatively, plot a path that avoids dangerous or sensitive areas? 😛 Silly thing to get worked up about

Ivan Andriollo @ivanandriollo

@stroughtonsmith @JeffBezos unfortunately drones are the worst idea of the millennium. They will break and kill people. Software is buggy.

2:49 AM – 15 Dec 2016

Ivan Andriollo @ivanandriollo

@stroughtonsmith @JeffBezos unfortunately drones are the worst idea of the millennium. They will break and kill people. Software is buggy.

Ivan Andriollo @ivanandriollo

@stroughtonsmith @JeffBezos as soon as they proliferate, a sudden hailstorm would bring them down in droves. The tech is nowhere near there!

2:51 AM – 15 Dec 2016

Seientists reverse ageing in mammals.

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An end to grey hair and crows-feet could be just 10 years away after scientists showed it is possible to reverse ageing in animals.

Using a new technique which takes adult cells back to their embryonic form, US researchers at the Salk Institute in California, showed it was possible to reverse ageing in mice, allowing the animals to not only look younger, but live for 30 per cent longer.

The technique involves stimulating four genes which are particularly active during development in the womb. It was also found to work to turn the clock back on human skin cells in the lab, making them look and behave younger.

Scientists hope to eventually create a drug which can mimic the effect of the found genes which could be taken to slow down, and even reverse the ageing process. They say it will take around 10 years to get to human trials.

Ageing is a plastic process and more amenable to therapeutic interventions than we previously thoughtDr Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, Salk Institute

“Our study shows that ageing may not have to proceed in one single direction,” said Dr Juan Carlos Izpisua Belmonte, a professor in Salk’s Gene Expression Laboratory. “With careful modulation, aging might be reversed.

“Obviously, mice are not humans and we know it will be much more complex to rejuvenate a person. But this study shows that ageing is a very dynamic and plastic process, and therefore will be more amenable to therapeutic interventions than what we previously thought.”

Mice that had a premature ageing disease returned to a healthy state 
Mice that had a premature ageing disease returned to a healthy state 

Scientists have known for some time that the four genes, which are known collectively as the Yamanaka factors, could turn adult cells back to their stem cell state, where they can grow into any part of the body.

But it was always feared that allowing that to happen could damage organs made from the cells, and even trigger cancer.

However, it was discovered that stimulating the genes intermittently reversed ageing, without causing any damaging side effects.

In mice with a premature ageing disease, the treatment countered signs of ageing and increased their lifespan by 30 per cent. If it worked similarly in humans it could allow people to live until more than 100 years old. In healthy mice it also helped damaged organs to heal faster.

Beauty treatment illustration
In the future people could take a pill which turns their cells back to a much younger start, avoiding the need for cosmetic surgery 

“In other studies scientists have completely reprogrammed cells all the way back to a stem-cell-like state,” says co-first author Pradeep Reddy, also a Salk research associate.

“But we show, for the first time, that by expressing these factors for a short duration you can maintain the cell’s identity while reversing age-associated hallmarks.”

The breakthrough could also help people stay healthier for longer.  The ageing population means that the risk of developing age-related diseases, such as dementia, cancer and heart disease also rises. But if the body could be kept younger for longer then it could prevent many deadly diseases for decades.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Thinks Humans May Be Too Stupid For Aliens

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Famous scientist Neil deGrasse Tyson thinks you’re too stupid for aliens. He’s not insulting you; he’s actually making a good point about humanity. People wonder where all the aliens are if the universe is supposedly teeming with life, and Tyson has some hypotheses about this. The first? Humans aren’t advanced enough to even realize it if aliens were to be walking among us. Get more of his point of view in the video below.

Neil deGrasse Tyson Thinks Humans Are Too Dumb For Aliens

Tyson has what he considers “unorthodox” thoughts about where all the aliens are.

What Will Aliens Look Like?

Cartoons give us an idea with the green skin and big eyes, but would that make sense?

Where Are All The Aliens?

It’s the famously puzzling Fermi paradox.

This Is How Thoughts And Intentions Create Physical Reality

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What would you do if you could change your immediate reality into something even better, RIGHT NOW?

Every day, your thoughts and intentions are creating your reality, so why not make it something amazing?

Any reputable scientific experiment should be replicable under similar conditions. When Dr. Masaru Emoto proved that thoughts and intentions create reality, the experiment has been replicated numerous times with similar results. The bottom line is that the words we use, in conjunction with the intent behind them and the emotion we are feeling while saying these words, will conclusively shape the reality around us.

This Is How Thoughts And Intentions Create Physical Reality 0

Water Crystal Proof

In 1994, Dr. Emoto studied the differences in the crystals of frozen tap water, river water, and lake water but to no avail, he did not see any differences between tap water and the water from lakes and stream by nearby cities. What he did notice, however, is that water crystals from pristine lakes and streams created “beautiful crystals with each one having its own uniqueness”.

Related Article: Proof That Consciousness Creates Reality: Welcome to the Matrix

The observation was done in various ways:

  1. Observe the crystal of frozen water after showing letters to water
  2. Showing pictures to water
  3. Playing music to water
  4. Praying to water

This Is How Thoughts And Intentions Create Physical Reality 1

This Is How Thoughts And Intentions Create Physical Reality 2

This Is How Thoughts And Intentions Create Physical Reality 3

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Long Distance Proof

On November 16, 2005 Parapsychologist Dean Radin conducted a long distance experiment with Dr. Emoto and approximately 2,000 participants who focused long-distance positive intentions on water samples contained in “a double-steel-walled, electromagnetically shielded room” at the Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) in Petaluma, California nearly 5,000 away from Emoto. The participants were shown digital images of the bottles of water, and gave focused prayers of gratitude for approximately five minutes.

The treated (prayer and intention) and untreated samples were sent to Emoto’s lab in Japan where 40 unique water molecules were photographed. 100 volunteers evaluated the photographs and rated them on aesthetic appeal. The results showed that the water with prayer and intention resulted in “more pleasing crystal shapes” than water that did not receive this treatment (Radin et al., 2006).

The Rice Experiment

In another experiment to prove how words, thoughts and intentions affect our reality, Dr. Emoto placed cook rice into three containers. On one container, the words “Thank You” were written. On the second container, he wrote, “You Fool” while the third container was completely ignored. Children were instructed to speak aloud the words on each jar, daily, when they walked by them each day. At the end of 30 days, the rice with the words, “Thank You” was relatively unchanged while the rice with the words, “You Fool” turned black. The rice in the ignored container began to rot.

This experiment has been replicated many times. The following video is one of them:

Words, Intentions, Thoughts and Fear

Perhaps intentions, thought, written and spoken words are the reasons why the mainstream media continuously pounds us with fear-related stories because ultimately, when we live in fear, we eventually lose even more civil liberties.

Why do commercials always show extroverts? Why doesn’t anyone on TV recommend looking within?

Every ad shows some extrovert with his or her group of friends living the fictitious life that you should be living (through their eyes). And these people have above average looks and portray success, which subconsciously tell us that we are not good enough the way we are and if we want to be successful, beautiful and have friends like them, then we need to purchase whatever product they are selling.

Related Article: Awakening The Third Eye – Be Careful What You Wish For

Social visionary Duane Elgin sums it up for us:

“The average person in the U.S. watches about four hours of television each day. Over the course of a year, we see roughly twenty-five thousand commercials, many of them produced by the world’s highest-paid cognitive psychologists. Their job is to figure out how to grab our attention and make us feel deficient if we don’t own their clients’ products. And these heavily produced advertisements are not merely for products, but for a lifestyle based on a consumer mind-set. What they’re doing, day in and day out, twenty-five thousand times a year, is hypnotizing us into seeing ourselves as consumers who want to be entertained rather than as citizens who want to be informed and engaged.”

One must also consider the reasoning why certain governments continue putting fluoride into the drinking water, despite numerous studies on how fluoride is a neurotoxin and is a main contributor to the calcification of the pineal gland.

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Choose your thoughts and intentions carefully

What would happen if everyone used positive words, with positive thoughts and intentions? The answer is simple: the world would experience a global positive change in numerous ways.

One final thing to think about: Your body is 90% water. Water has been proven to be influenced by intention & thoughts. Can you imagine the possibilities that you are capable of achieving?

Watch the video.

URL:

Source: Body Mind Soul Spirit

 

Microsoft Is Developing a New JARVIS-Like Artificial Intelligence System

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IN BRIEF

Just A Rather Very Intelligent System, or as it is more commonly known, JARVIS, is a highly advanced personal digital assistant. And it could be your best friend of tomorrow.

Among all of the fictional artificial intelligence (AI) systems, by far, the coolest one has to be Tony Stark’s JARVIS—It can not only control everything for Iron Man, it’s also a highly intuitive and sentient entity that has become part and parcel of his Tony Stark’s way of life.

Now, Microsoft has announced that they are planning to create something similar—a highly advanced personal digital assistant—which will be available as smartphone application.

Find out more about what it can do by checking out this video, and dive into Just A Rather Very Intelligent System

URL:

Human Chromosomes Are Only Half DNA, And That Changes Everything

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Human Chromosomes Are Only Half DNA, And That Changes Everything https://m.curiosity.com/topics/human-chromosomes-are-only-half-dna-and-that-changes-everything-curiosity/?_e_pi_=7%2CPAGE_ID10%2C3443469100 — shared by UC Mini

Human Chromosomes Are Only Half DNA, And That Changes Everything

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For a long time, scientists thought that DNA was the only thing inside your chromosomes. A new study turns that assumption on its head.

Why It’s Important

Inside every one of your cells is a sort of control hub called the nucleus. Inside every nucleus are a bunch of thread-like structures called chromosomes. Chromosomes are what contain your DNA, that familiar double-helix structure that contains every one of your 25,000 or so genes, which determine everything from what color eyes you have to your likelihood of developing various diseases.

DNA was first identified nearly 150 years ago in 1869 by Swiss chemist Friedrich Miescher, though at the time he called it “nuclein” (which became “nucleic acid,” which then became “deoxyribonucleic acid,” or “DNA”). Other scientists, including Phoebus Levene, Erwin Chargaff, and famously, Rosalind Franklin, made their own important discoveries about the way DNA works before James Watson and Francis Crick published their seminal paper about the structure of DNA. One of those scientists was Walther Flemming, who in 1879 coined the term “chromatin” for the substance within the nucleus, which was later found to be the complex of DNA and proteins that makes up chromosomes. For the more than 100 years that followed Flemming’s discovery, scientists had naturally assumed that chromosomes contained nothing but DNA-containing chromatin.

Why People Are Talking About It

In 2016, a study published in the journal Molecular Cell found something startling: just a little over half of every chromosome is DNA. The rest—30 to 47 percent—is made up of an unidentified sheath-like structure. They were able to make such an earth-shattering discovery because of a super-precise imaging technique called 3D-CLEM, which combines light and electron microscopy with computer modeling to create detailed 3D images of all 46 human chromosomes.

The researchers aren’t sure what this sheath-like structure does, but they think it might keep chromosomes separated during cell division. That might protect DNA from the kinds of coding errors that cause birth defects and other genetic issues. Either way, this forces scientists to change the way they think about everything from the structure of chromosomes to the process of cell division.

The ‘Gateway Drug’ Is Alcohol, Not Marijuana.

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Researchers at the University of Florida have found that the theory of a “gateway drug” is not associated with marijuana – results from the Guttman scale indicated that alcohol represented the gateway drug, leading to the use of tobacco, marijuana, and other illicit substances.

 
Furthermore, students who used alcohol “exhibited a significantly greater likelihood of using both licit and illicit drugs”.
In an interview with Raw Story, co-author Adam E. Barry said that his studies were intended to correct some of the propaganda that has infected American culture since the “Reefer Madness” era.
“Some of these earlier iterations needed to be fleshed out, that’s why we wanted to study this. The latest form of the gateway theory is that it begins with [cannabis] and moves on finally to what laypeople often call ‘harder drugs’. As you can see from the findings of our study, it confirmed this gateway hypothesis, but it follows progression from licit substances, specifically alcohol, and moves on to illicit substances,” Barry said. These findings walk hand-in-hand with a 2012 study from Yale that found that alcohol and cigarettes were much more likely than marijuana to precede opiate abuse.
Researchers used a nationally representative sample of high school seniors, evaluating data collected through the University of Michigan’s Monitoring the Future survey, which tracks drug use trends among youth in the US. Barry’s study focused on data collected from 14,577 high school seniors from 120 public and private schools in the United States.
By comparing substance abuse rates between drinkers and non-drinkers, the researchers found that seniors in high school who had consumed alcohol at least once in their lives “were 13 times more likely to use cigarettes, 16 times more likely to use marijuana and other narcotics, and 13 times more likely to use cocaine”.
In the sample of students, alcohol also represented the most commonly used substance, with 72.2 percent of students reporting alcohol consumption at some point in their lifetime. Comparatively, 45 percent of students reported using tobacco, and 43.3 percent cited marijuana use.
“The findings from this investigation support that alcohol should receive primary attention in school-based substance abuse prevention programming, as the use of other substances could be impacted by delaying or preventing alcohol use. Therefore, it seems prudent for school and public health officials to focus prevention efforts, policies, and monies, on addressing adolescent alcohol use,” the study concluded.
Scientists had earlier discovered that cannabis, a therapeutic healing herb, may actually reduce brain damage caused by alcohol. A 2013 study from the University of Kentucky and the University of Maryland concluded that a chemical in marijuana called cannabidiol could be used to treat alcohol-induced neuro-degeneration.
Results of a very recent study has led to the conclusion that ‘illegal’ marijuana is far and away the safest ‘legal’ drug. Based on the findings, the researchers agreed that weed is 114 times less deadly than alcohol.

Solar power becoming world’s cheapest form of electricity production, analysts say 

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Solar power is becoming the cheapest way to generate electricity, according to leading analysts.

Data produced by Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) showed the cost of solar in 58 lower-income countries – including China, Brazil and India – had fallen to about a third of levels in 2010 and was now slightly cheaper than wind energy.

In August, an auction to supply electricity in Chile achieved the record low price of $29.10 (£23.30) per megawatt-hour – a record low price and about half the price of a coal competitor.

 tau-island.jpgBNEF chairman Michael Liebreich said in a note to clients: “Renewables are robustly entering the era of undercutting [fossil fuel prices].”

Renewable energy is cheap in developing countries that are looking to add more electricity to their national grids.

“Renewable energy will beat any other technology in most of the world without subsidies,” Mr Liebreich said.

Nearly 50 countries vow to meet 100% renewable energy target

However, in rich nations where new renewable energy generators must compete with existing fossil fuel power stations the cost of carbon-free electricity can be higher.

The dramatic plunge in price had partly been produced by the economies of scale, with China in particular adding a vast amount of new solar capacity.

Ethan Zindler, head of US policy analysis at BNEF, said: “Solar investment has gone from nothing – literally nothing – like five years ago to quite a lot.

“A huge part of this story is China, which has been rapidly deploying solar.”

Beijing has also been helping other countries to pay for solar projects.

A BNEF report, called Climatescope, found China, Chile, Brazil, Uruguay, South Africa, and India were the emerging markets most likely to attract investors in low-carbon energy projects.

Solar power has proved a godsend for remote islands such as Ta’u, part of America Samoa, in the South Pacific.

Once reliant on imports of vast amounts of diesel, it is now powered completely by 5,000 solar panels and 60 Tesla batteries

BNEF chairman Michael Liebreich said in a note to clients: “Renewables are robustly entering the era of undercutting [fossil fuel prices].”

Renewable energy is cheap in developing countries that are looking to add more electricity to their national grids.

“Renewable energy will beat any other technology in most of the world without subsidies,” Mr Liebreich said.

Nearly 50 countries vow to meet 100% renewable energy target

However, in rich nations where new renewable energy generators must compete with existing fossil fuel power stations the cost of carbon-free electricity can be higher.

The dramatic plunge in price had partly been produced by the economies of scale, with China in particular adding a vast amount of new solar capacity.

Ethan Zindler, head of US policy analysis at BNEF, said: “Solar investment has gone from nothing – literally nothing – like five years ago to quite a lot.

“A huge part of this story is China, which has been rapidly deploying solar.”

Beijing has also been helping other countries to pay for solar projects.

Watch the video.URL:http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/solar-power-worlds-cheapest-electricity-production-energy-wind-farms-a7477096.html?cmpid=facebook-post