vendredi 20 juillet 2018

Fertility, DNA Studies and Disease Therapy Research on Station Today

ISS - Expedition 56 Mission patch.

July 20, 2018

The Expedition 56 crew members continued their work Friday on more fertility research and microbe studies aboard the International Space Station. They also worked on science gear for a study seeking advanced therapies for diseases such as Alzheimer’s and diabetes.

Commander Drew Feustel and Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor examined biological samples for the Micro-11 fertility study. They looked at the samples through a microscope which were later stowed in a science freezer. The experiment seeks to determine if human reproduction would be possible off the Earth.

Image above: NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold works on gear inside the International Space Station. Image Credit: NASA.

Feustel also spent some time in the morning working on the Amyloid experiment to help doctors develop advanced treatments for Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes. He collected amyloid fibril samples from the Cell Biology Experiment Facility and stowed them in a science freezer for spectroscopy and microscopic analysis back on Earth.

European astronaut Alexander Gerst and NASA astronaut Ricky Arnold were sampling the station’s atmosphere and surfaces for a pair of microbe investigations today. Gerst collected microbe samples and stowed them in a freezer for molecular analysis on Earth to identify potential pathogens on the station. Arnold processed microbial DNA using the Biomolecule Sequencer, a device that enables DNA sequencing in microgravity, to identify microbes able to survive in microgravity.

Related links:

Microbe samples:

Microbial DNA:

Biomolecule Sequencer:

Expedition 56:

Space Station Research and Technology:

International Space Station (ISS):

Best regards,

High-Altitude Jovian Clouds

NASA - JUNO Mission logo.

July 20, 2018

More information about Juno is at and

Image, Text, Credits: NASA/Jon Nelson/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS/Jason Major.

'Storm Chasers' on Mars Searching for Dusty Secrets

NASA logo.

July 20, 2018

Storm chasing takes luck and patience on Earth -- and even more so on Mars.

Image above: Side-by-side movies shows how dust has enveloped the Red Planet, courtesy of the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) wide-angle camera onboard NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO). Image Credits:NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS.

Mars Before and After Dust Storm

When the skies begin to clear, Opportunity's solar panels may be covered by a fine film of dust. That could delay a recovery of the rover as it gathers energy to recharge its batteries. A gust of wind would help, but isn't a requirement for a full recovery.

Mars Before and After Dust Storm. Animation Credits: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS

While the Opportunity team waits in earnest to hear from the rover, scientists on other Mars missions have gotten a rare chance to study this head-scratching phenomenon.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, Mars Odyssey, and Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN (MAVEN) orbiters are all tailoring their observations of the Red Planet to study this global storm and learn more about Mars' weather patterns. Meanwhile, the Curiosity rover is studying the dust storm from the Martian surface.

Here's Here's how each mission is currently studying the dust storm, and what we might learn from it:

Mars Odyssey

With the THEMIS instrument (Thermal Emission Imaging System), scientists can track Mars' surface temperature, atmospheric temperature, and the amount of dust in the atmosphere. This allows them to watch the dust storm grow, evolve, and dissipate over time.

"This is one of the largest weather events that we've seen on Mars," since spacecraft observations began in the 1960s, said Michael Smith, a scientist at NASA's Goddard Spaceflight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland who works on the THEMIS instrument. "Having another example of a dust storm really helps us to understand what's going on."

Since the dust storm began, the THEMIS team has increased the frequency of global atmospheric observations from every 10 days to twice per week, Smith said. One mystery they're still trying to solve: How these dust storms go global. "Every Mars year, during the dusty season, there are a lot of local- or regional-scale storms that cover one area of the planet," Smith said. But scientists aren't yet sure how these smaller storms sometimes grow to end up encircling the entire planet.

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO)

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter has two instruments studying the dust storm. Each day, the Mars Color Imager (MARCI) maps the entire planet in mid-afternoon to track the evolution of the storm. Meanwhile, MRO's Mars Climate Sounder (MCS) instrument measures how the atmosphere's temperature changes with altitude. Since the end of May, the instruments have observed the onset and rapid expansion of a dust storm on Mars.

With these data, scientists are studying how the dust storm changes the planet's atmospheric temperatures. Just as in Earth's atmosphere, changing temperature on Mars can affect wind patterns and even the circulation of the entire atmosphere. This provides a powerful feedback: Solar heating of the dust lofted into the atmosphere changes temperatures, which changes winds, which may amplify the storm by lifting more dust from the surface.

Scientists want to know the details of the storm -- where is the air rising or falling? How do the atmospheric temperatures now compare to a storm-less year? And as with Mars Odyssey, the MRO team wants to know how these dust storms go global.

"The very fact that you can start with something that's a local storm, no bigger than a small [U.S.] state, and then trigger something that raises more dust and produces a haze that covers almost the entire planet is remarkable," said Rich Zurek of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, California, the project scientist for MRO.

Scientists want to find out why these storms arise every few years, which is hard to do without a long record of such events. It'd be as if aliens were observing Earth and seeing the climate effects of El Niño over many years of observations -- they'd wonder why some regions get extra rainy and some areas get extra dry in a seemingly regular pattern.

Ever since the MAVEN orbiter entered Mars' orbit, "one of the things we've been waiting for is a global dust storm," said Bruce Jakosky, the MAVEN orbiter's principle investigator.

But MAVEN isn't studying the dust storm itself. Rather, the MAVEN team wants to study how the dust storm affects Mars' upper atmosphere, about 62 miles (more than 100 kilometers) above the surface -- where the dust doesn't even reach. MAVEN's mission is to figure out what happened to Mars' early atmosphere. We know that at some point billions of years ago, liquid water pooled and ran along Mars' surface, which means that its atmosphere must have been thicker and more insulating, similar to Earth's. Since MAVEN arrived at Mars in 2014, its investigations have found that this atmosphere may have been stripped away by a torrent of solar wind over several hundred million years, between 3.5 and 4.0 billion years ago.

But there are still nuances to figure out, such as how dust storms like the current one affect how atmospheric molecules escape into space, Jakosky said. For instance, the dust storm acts as an atmospheric insulator, trapping heat from the Sun. Does this heating change the way molecules escape the atmosphere? It is also likely that, as the atmosphere warms, more water vapor rises high enough to be broken down by sunlight, with the solar wind sweeping the hydrogen atoms into space, Jakosky said.

The team won't have answers for a while yet, but each of MAVEN's five orbits per day will continue to provide invaluable data.

Most of NASA's spacecraft are studying the dust storm from above. The Mars Science Laboratory mission's Curiosity rover has a unique perspective: the nuclear-powered science machine is largely immune to the darkened skies, allowing it to collect science from within the beige veil enveloping the planet.

"We're working double-duty right now," said JPL's Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity's project scientist. "Our newly recommissioned drill is acquiring a fresh rock sample. But we are also using instruments to study how the dust storm evolves."

Curiosity has a number of "eyes" that can determine the abundance and size of dust particles based on how they scatter and absorb light. That includes its Mastcam, ChemCam, and an ultraviolet sensor on REMS, its suite of weather instruments. REMS can also help study atmospheric tides -- shifts in pressure that move as waves across the entire planet's thin air. These tides change drastically based on where the dust is globally, not just inside Gale crater.

The global storm may also reveal secrets about Martian dust devils and winds. Dust devils can occur when the planet's surface is hotter than the air above it. Heating generates whirls of air, some of which pick up dust and become dust devils. During a dust storm, there's less direct sunlight and lower daytime temperatures; this might mean fewer devils swirling across the surface.

Even new drilling can advance dust storm science: watching the small piles of loose material created by Curiosity's drill is the best way of monitoring winds.

Scientists think the dust storm will last at least a couple of months. Every time you spot Mars in the sky in the weeks ahead, remember how much data scientists are gathering to better understand the mysterious weather of the Red Planet.

Related article:

Martian Dust Storm Grows Global: Curiosity Captures Photos of Thickening Haze

Related links:

Mars Odyssey:

Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO):

Curiosity (Mars Science Laboratory or MSL):

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Video (NASA), Text, Credits: NASA/JoAnna Wendel/JPL/Andrew Good.

Blue Origin Mission 9: Safe Escape In Any Phase of Flight

Blue Origin logo.

July 20, 2018

New Shepard flew for the ninth time on July 18, 2018. During this mission, known as Mission 9 (M9), the escape motor was fired shortly after booster separation. The Crew Capsule was pushed hard by the escape test and we stressed the rocket to test that astronauts can get away from an anomaly at any time during flight. The mission was a success for both the booster and capsule. Most importantly, astronauts would have had an exhilarating ride and safe landing.

Blue Origin Mission 9 landing

This isn’t the first time we’ve done this type of extreme testing on New Shepard. In October of 2012, we simulated a booster failure on the launch pad and had a successful escape. Then in October of 2016, we simulated a booster failure in-flight at Max Q, which is the most physically strenuous point in the flight for the rocket, and had a completely successful escape of the capsule.

Replay of Mission 9 Webcast

This test on M9 allowed us to finally characterize escape motor performance in the near-vacuum of space and guarantee that we can safely return our astronauts in any phase of flight.

Also on M9, New Shepard carried science and research payloads from commercial companies, universities and space agencies.

Learn more about the payloads on board:

For more information about Blue Origin, visit:

Image, Video, Text, Credit: Blue Origin.

mercredi 18 juillet 2018

Chandra May Have First Evidence of a Young Star Devouring a Planet

NASA - Chandra X-ray Observatory patch.

July 18, 2018

Scientists may have observed, for the first time, the destruction of a young planet or planets around a nearby star. Observations from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory indicate that the parent star is now in the process of devouring the planetary debris.  This discovery gives insight into the processes affecting the survival of infant planets.

Since 1937, astronomers have puzzled over the curious variability of a young star named RW Aur A, located about 450 light years from Earth. Every few decades, the star’s optical light has faded briefly before brightening again. In recent years, astronomers have observed the star dimming more frequently, and for longer periods.

Image above: This artist’s illustration depicts the destruction of a young planet or planets, which scientists may have witnessed for the first time using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Image Credits: Illustration: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss; X-ray spectrum: NASA/CXC/MIT/H. M.Günther.

Using Chandra, a team of scientists may have uncovered what caused the star's most recent dimming event: a collision of two infant planetary bodies, including at least one object large enough to be a planet. As the resulting planetary debris fell into the star, it would generate a thick veil of dust and gas, temporarily obscuring the star’s light.

RW Aur A is located in the Taurus-Auriga Dark Clouds, which host stellar nurseries containing thousands of infant stars. Very young stars, unlike our relatively mature sun, are still surrounded by a rotating disk of gas and clumps of material ranging in size from small dust grains to pebbles, and possibly fledgling planets. These disks last for about 5 million to 10 million years.

RW Aur A is estimated to be several million years old, and is still surrounded by a disk of dust and gas. This star and its binary companion star, RW Aur B, are both about the same mass as the sun.

The noticeable dips in the optical brightness of RW Aur A that occurred every few decades each lasted for about a month. Then, in 2011, the behavior changed. The star dimmed again, this time for about six months. The star eventually brightened, only to fade again in mid-2014. In November 2016, the star returned to its full brightness, and then in January 2017 it dimmed again.

Chandra was used to observe the star during an optically bright period in 2013, and then dim periods in 2015 and 2017, when a decrease in X-rays was also observed.

Because the X-rays come from the hot outer atmosphere of the star, changes in the X-ray spectrum – the intensity of X-rays measured at different wavelengths – over these three observations were used to probe the density and composition of the absorbing material around the star.

The team found that the dips in both optical and X-ray light are caused by dense gas obscuring the star’s light. The observation in 2017 showed strong emission from iron atoms, indicating that the disk contained at least 10 times more iron than in the 2013 observation during a bright period.

Guenther and colleagues suggest the excess iron was created when two planetesimals, or infant planetary bodies, collided. If one or both planetary bodies are made partly of iron, their smash-up could release a large amount of iron into the star’s disk and temporarily obscure its light as the material falls into the star.

Chandra X-ray Observatory. Animation Credits: NASA/CXC

A less favored explanation is that small grains or particles such as iron can become trapped in parts of a disk. If the disk’s structure changes suddenly, such as when the star’s partner star passes close by, the resulting tidal forces might release the trapped particles, creating an excess of iron that can fall into the star.

The scientists hope to make more observations of the star in the future, to see whether the amount of iron surrounding it has changed – a measure that could help researchers determine the size of the iron’s source. For example, if about the same amount of iron appears in a year or two that may indicate it comes from a relatively massive source.

Guenther is the lead author of a paper detailing the group’s results, which appears today in the Astronomical Journal.  NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, manages the Chandra program for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Cambridge, Massachusetts, controls Chandra's science and flight operations.

Read more from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory:

For more Chandra images, multimedia and related materials, visit:

Image (mentioned), Animation (mentioned), Text, Credits: NASA/Lee Mohon/Marshall Space Flight Center/Molly Porter/Chandra X-ray Center/Megan Watzke.

Mid-week Cancer Study and Emergency Drill Fill Station Schedule

ISS - Expedition 56 Mission patch.

July 18, 2018

Cancer and rodent studies were on the crew’s timeline today to help doctors and scientists improve the health of humans in space and on Earth. The crew also conducted an emergency drill aboard the International Space Station.

Image above: NASA astronauts Serena Auñón-Chancellor and Drew Feustel begin cargo operations shortly after the SpaceX Dragon cargo craft arrived at the International Space Station packed with more than 5,900 pounds of research, crew supplies and hardware. Image Credit: NASA.

Flight Engineer Serena Auñón-Chancellor examined endothelial cells through a microscope for the AngieX Cancer Therapy study. The new cancer research seeks to test a safer, more effective treatment that targets tumor cells and blood vessels. Commander Drew Feustel partnered with astronaut Alexander Gerst and checked on mice being observed for the Rodent Research-7 (RR-7) experiment. RR-7 is exploring how microgravity impacts microbes living inside organisms.

Astronaut Ricky Arnold and Gerst collected and stowed their blood samples for a pair of ongoing human research studies. Arnold went on to work a series of student investigations dubbed NanoRacks Module-9 exploring a variety of topics including botany, biology and physics.

Image above: Flying over South Pacific Ocean, seen by EarthCam on ISS, speed: 27'571 Km/h, altitude: 421,54 Km, image captured by Roland Berga (on Earth in Switzerland) from International Space Station (ISS) using ISS-HD Live application with EarthCam's from ISS on July 18, 2018 at 21:14 UTC. Image Credits: Aerospace/Roland Berga.

During the afternoon, all six Expedition 56 crew members joined forces to practice a simulated emergency. The orbital lab residents went over escape routes and safety procedures while coordinating communication and decision-making with mission controllers in Houston and Moscow.

Related links:

AngieX Cancer Therapy:

Rodent Research-7 (RR-7):

NanoRacks Module-9:

Expedition 56:

Space Station Research and Technology:

International Space Station (ISS):

Best regards,

Discovering Structure in the Outer Corona

NASA - STEREO Mission logo.

July 18, 2018

In 1610, Galileo redesigned the telescope and discovered Jupiter’s four largest moons. Nearly 400 years later, NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope used its powerful optics to look deep into space — enabling scientists to pin down the age of the universe.

Suffice it to say that getting a better look at things produces major scientific advances.

In a paper published on July 18 in The Astrophysical Journal, a team of scientists led by Craig DeForest — solar physicist at Southwest Research Institute’s branch in Boulder, Colorado — demonstrate that this historical trend still holds. Using advanced algorithms and data-cleaning techniques, the team discovered never-before-detected, fine-grained structures in the outer corona — the Sun’s million-degree atmosphere — by analyzing images taken by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft. The new results also provide foreshadowing of what might be seen by NASA’s Parker Solar Probe, which after its launch in the summer 2018 will orbit directly through that region.

STEREO spacecrafts. Image Credit: NASA

The outer corona is the source of the solar wind, the stream of charged particles that flow outward from the Sun in all directions. Measured near Earth, the magnetic fields embedded within the solar wind are intertwined and complex, but what causes this complexity remains unclear.

“In deep space, the solar wind is turbulent and gusty,” said DeForest. “But how did it get that way? Did it leave the Sun smooth, and become turbulent as it crossed the solar system, or are the gusts telling us about the Sun itself?”

Answering this question requires observing the outer corona — the source of the solar wind — in extreme detail. If the Sun itself causes the turbulence in the solar wind, then we should be able to see complex structures right from the beginning of the wind’s journey.

But existing data didn’t show such fine-grained structure — at least, until now.

“Previous images of the corona showed the region as a smooth, laminar structure,” said Nicki Viall, solar physicist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, and coauthor of the study. “It turns out, that apparent smoothness was just due to limitations in our image resolution.”

The study

To understand the corona, DeForest and his colleagues started with coronagraph images — pictures of the Sun’s atmosphere produced by a special telescope that blocks out light from the (much brighter) surface.

How to Read a NASA STEREO Image

Video above: This video shows a coronagraph image taken by the STEREO spacecraft in 2012, highlighting coronal streamers, the solar wind and a coronal mass ejection (CME). Video Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Joy Ng.

These images were generated by the COR2 coronagraph aboard NASA’s Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A, or STEREO-A, spacecraft, which circles the Sun between Earth and Venus.

In April 2014, STEREO-A would soon be passing behind the Sun, and scientists wanted to get some interesting data before communications were briefly interrupted.

So they ran a special three-day data collection campaign during which COR2 took longer and more frequent exposures of the corona than it usually does. These long exposures allow more time for light from faint sources to strike the instrument’s detector — allowing it to see details it would otherwise miss.

But the scientists didn’t just want longer-exposure images — they wanted them to be higher resolution. Options were limited. The instrument was already in space; unlike Galileo they couldn’t tinker with the hardware itself. Instead, they took a software approach, squeezing out the highest quality data possible by improving COR2’s signal-to-noise ratio.

What is signal-to-noise ratio?

The signal-to-noise ratio is an important concept in all scientific disciplines. It measures how well you can distinguish the thing you care about measuring — the signal — from the things you don’t — the noise.

For example, let’s say that you’re blessed with great hearing. You notice the tiniest of mouse-squeaks late at night; you can eavesdrop on the whispers of huddled schoolchildren twenty feet away. Your hearing is impeccable — when noise is low.

But it’s a whole different ball game when you’re standing in the front row of a rock concert. The other sounds in the environment are just too overpowering; no matter how carefully you listen, mouse-squeaks and whispers (the signal, in this case) can’t cut through the music (the noise).

The problem isn’t your hearing — it’s the poor signal-to-noise ratio.

COR2’s coronagraphs are like your hearing. The instrument is sensitive enough to image the corona in great detail, but in practice its measurements are polluted by noise — from the space environment and even the wiring of the instrument itself. DeForest and his colleagues’ key innovation was in identifying and separating out that noise, boosting the signal-to-noise ratio and revealing the outer corona in unprecedented detail.

The analysis

The first step towards improving signal-to-noise ratio had already been taken: longer-exposure images. Longer exposures allow more light into the detector and reduce the noise level — the team estimates noise reduction by a factor of 2.4 for each image, and a factor of 10 when combining them over a 20-minute period.

But the remaining steps were up to sophisticated algorithms, designed and tested to extract out the true corona from the noisy measurements.

They filtered out light from background stars (which create bright spots in the image that are not truly part of the corona). They corrected for small (few-millisecond) differences in how long the camera’s shutter was open. They removed the baseline brightness from all the images, and normalized it so brighter regions wouldn’t wash out dimmer ones.

But one of the most challenging obstacles is inherent to the corona: motion blur due to the solar wind. To overcome this source of noise, DeForest and colleagues ran a special algorithm to smooth their images in time.

Animations above: Views of the solar wind from NASA's STEREO spacecraft (left) and after computer processing (right). Scientists used an algorithm to dim the appearance of bright stars and dust in images of the faint solar wind. Animations Credits: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Craig DeForest, SwRI.

Smoothing in time — with a twist

If you’ve ever done a “double-take,” you know a thing or two about smoothing in time. A double-take — taking a second glance, to verify your first one — is just a low-tech way of combining two “measurements” taken at different times, into one measurement that you can be more confident in.

Smoothing in time turns this idea into an algorithm. The principle is simple: take two (or more) images, overlap them, and average their pixel values together. Random differences between the images will eventually cancel out, leaving behind only what is consistent between them.

But when it comes to the corona, there’s a problem: it’s a dynamic, persistently moving and changing structure. Solar material is always moving away from the Sun to become the solar wind. Smoothing in time would create motion blur — the same kind of blurring you see in photographs of moving objects. That’s a problem if your goal is to see fine detail.

To undo motion blur from the solar wind, the scientists used a novel procedure: while they did their smoothing, they estimated the speed of the solar wind and shifted the images along with it.

To understand how this approach works, think about taking snapshots of the freeway as cars drive past. If you simply overlapped your images, the result would be a big blurry mess — too much has changed between each snapshot.

But if you could figure out the speed of traffic and shift your images to follow along with it, suddenly the details of specific cars would become visible.

For DeForest and his coauthors, the cars were the fine-scale structures of the corona, and the freeway traffic was the solar wind.

Of course there are no speed limit signs in the corona to tell you how fast things are moving. To figure out exactly how much to shift the images before averaging, they scooted the images pixel-by-pixel, correlating them with one another to compute how similar they were. Eventually they found the sweet spot, where the overlapping parts of the images were as similar as possible. The amount of shift corresponded to an average solar wind speed of about 136 miles per second. Shifting each image by that amount, they lined up the images and smoothed, or averaged them together.

“We smoothed, not just in space, not just in time, but in a moving coordinate system,” DeForest said. “That allowed us to create motion blur that was determined not by the speed of the wind, but by how rapidly the features changed in the wind.”

Now DeForest and his collaborators had high-quality images of the corona — and a way to tell how much it was changing over time.

The results

The most surprising finding wasn’t a specific physical structure — it was the simple presence of physical structure in and of itself.

Compared with the dynamic, turbulent inner corona, scientists had considered the outer corona to be smooth and homogenous. But that smoothness was just an artifact of poor signal-to-noise ratio:

“When we removed as much noise as possible, we realized that the corona is structured, all the way down to the optical resolution of the instrument,” DeForest said.

Like the individual blades of grass you see only when you’re up close, the corona’s complex physical structure was revealed in unprecedented detail. And from among that physical detail, three key findings emerged.

The structure of coronal streamers

Coronal streamers — also known as helmet streamers, because they resemble a knight’s pointy helmet — are bright structures that develop over regions of the Sun with enhanced magnetic activity. Readily observed during solar eclipses, magnetic loops on the Sun’s surface are stretched out to pointy tips by the solar wind and can erupt into coronal mass ejections, or CMEs, the large explosions of matter that eject parts of the Sun into surrounding space.

Image above: Coronal streamers observed by the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft on Feb. 14, 2002. DeForest and his coauthors’ work indicates that these structures are actually composed of many individual fine strands. Image Credits: NASA/LASCO.

DeForest and his coauthors’ processing of STEREO observations reveals that streamers themselves are far more structured than previously thought.

“What we found is that there is no such thing as a single streamer,” DeForest said. “The streamers themselves are composed of myriad fine strands that together average to produce a brighter feature.”

The Alfvén zone

Where does the corona end and the solar wind begin? One definition points to the Alfvén surface, a theoretical boundary where the solar wind starts moving faster than waves can travel backward through it. At this boundary region, disturbances happening at a point farther away in the traveling solar material can never move backwards fast enough to reach the Sun.

“Material that flows out past the Alfvén surface is lost to the Sun forever,” DeForest said.

Physicists have long believed the Alfvén surface was just that — a surface, or sheet-like layer where the solar wind suddenly reached a critical speed. But that’s not what DeForest and colleagues found.

“What we conclude is that there isn’t a clean Alfvén surface,” DeForest said. “There’s a wide ‘no-man’s land’ or `Alfvén zone’ where the solar wind gradually disconnects from the Sun, rather than a single clear boundary.”

Animation above: A detailed view of the solar corona from the STEREO-A coronagraph after extensive data-cleaning. Animation Credits: Craig DeForest, SwRI.

The observations reveal a patchy framework where, at a given distance from the Sun, some plasma is moving fast enough to stop backward communication, and nearby streams are not. The streams are close enough, and fine enough, to jumble the natural boundary of the Alfvén surface to create a wide, partially-disconnected region between the corona and the solar wind.

Exploring the Unknown with Parker Solar Probe

The newly processed images from STEREO reveal evidence for a new, unsuspected “no-man’s land” between the corona and solar wind:  the so-called “Alfvén zone.”  This result arrives just in time for Parker Solar Probe, NASA’s mission to touch the Sun, which launches in August 2018. Parker Solar Probe will fly through this newly identified territory and directly explore the environment within it.

A mystery at 10 solar radii

But the close look at coronal structure also raised new questions.

The technique used to estimate the speed of the solar wind pinpointed the altitudes, or distances from the Sun’s surface, where things were changing rapidly. And that’s when the team noticed something funny.

“We found that there’s a correlation minimum around 10 solar radii,” DeForest said.

At a distance of 10 solar radii, even back-to-back images stopped matching up well. But they became more similar again at greater distances — meaning that it’s not just about getting farther away from the Sun. It’s as if things suddenly change once they hit 10 solar radii.

“The fact that the correlation is weaker at 10 solar radii means that some interesting physics is happening around there,” DeForest said. “We don’t know what it is yet, but we do know that it is going to be interesting.”

Where we go from here

The findings create headway in a long-standing debate over the source of the solar wind’s complexity. While the STEREO observations don’t settle the question, the team’s methodology opens up a missing link in the Sun-to-solar-wind chain.

“We see all of this variability in the solar wind just before it hits the Earth’s magnetosphere, and one of our goals was to ask if it was even possible that the variability was formed at the Sun. It turns out the answer is yes,” Viall said.

“It allows us for the first time to really probe the connectivity through the corona and adjust how tangled we think the magnetic field gets in the corona versus the solar wind,” DeForest added.

These first observations also provide key insight into what NASA’s upcoming Parker Solar Probe will find, as the first ever mission to gather measurements from within the outer solar corona. That spacecraft will travel to a distance of 8.86 solar radii, right into the region where interesting things may be found. DeForest and colleagues’ results allow them to make predictions of what Parker Solar Probe may observe in this region.

“We should expect steep fluctuations in density, magnetic fluctuations and reconnection everywhere, and no well-defined Alfvén surface,” DeForest said.

Complemented by Parker Solar Probe’s in situ measurements, long exposure imaging and noise reduction algorithms will become even more valuable to our understanding of our closest star.

The study was supported by a grant from NASA’s Living With a Star - Targeted Research and Technology program.

Related links:

Solar and Terrestrial Relations Observatory-A (STEREO-A):

Learn more about NASA’s STEREO mission:

Parker Solar Probe:


Around the a couple of years!

A few photos from a few places I’ve had the good fortune to travel to..

Feeding time at Safari World, BANGKOK

Tree adorned with balloons, GERMANY

Temple in lego colours Kathmandu, NEPAL

Hôtel des invalides, PARIS

Buddhist temple, BANGKOK

Louis Vuitton, PARIS

Notre Dame, PARIS

Donkeys ridden in Petra, JORDAN

Porcupine eating fries!

Camel handler, BAHRAIN

Ode to Autumn.

It’s funny how a single memory can trigger such vivid, potent recollections, that you almost feel like you are back there, in the place the memory was created. I was choosing scented candles in the supermarket the other day and suddenly I smelt home. Or more specifically home on a winter’s evening just as dinner is being prepared. The candle was a winter spicy type, and the fragrance instantly took me back to home and drinking mulled wine with all it’s spicy, fruity comfort in the winter. As Autumn is here and soon winter will be I started to think about how much I miss about this season in the UK. It is my favourite season, for so many reasons.

The smells are clearer and duller at the same time. There’s a fading freshness to the air that is both lingering and fleeting at the same time. The season won’t last long but it’s intransigence makes it all the more special. Bonfires, chimney smoke, dampness. And the weather! Admittedly, there are some horrible rainy days but when the sun is shining and the air has a chilly bite to it, and you can just about make out your own breath like a puff of hope to bid farewell to Summer, you know why this season is famously full of merry fruitfulness.

 Looking around you are dazzled by leaves of the most wonderful shades, browns, golden, olive, russet, ochre. It’s all so colourful, it’s hard to imagine that Nature is off on a well-earned rest. The trees gradually get barer and barer until all their bounty lies in rustling piles on the ground, or blowing around the fields, gardens, playgrounds.

The days are getting shorter and the nights spring upon you unexpectedly. Children come home from school and after tea and toast it will almost be time to close the curtains. With fewer hours of darkness it’s easy to see why people feel closed in and mourn the long, luxurious evenings of summer. But when you wake up and look ou of your frosty windows to see the mist rolling across the valley, separating you from the rest of the world like Gods atop their mountain you know this season is not one to feel sorry for it is the crowning glory of a perfect summer and the start of a promising winter’s journey.

Spot the camouflaged cat!

Stop shark sacrilege

I like sharks. I think they’re interesting, varied, nice looking and misunderstood.  But for people all over the world they are apparently delicious. I am no vegetarian, I love eating all of God’s creatures, tender medium rare steak, roast chicken, crispy duck..they are all wonderful, but I eat them knowing they are not half killed and put back into the wild. This is cruel and unnecessary.

Shark fins are used mainly for shark fin soup, predominantly in Chinese cuisine, but the trend is now seen on Asian menus all over the world. The soup is served at weddings and celebrations and is seen as a delicacy, and a sign of wealth and prestige.  Due to the booming middle-class in China the soup is becoming more sought after and also more commonplace. The fins are skinned and trimmed and then dried and sold like this or frozen. They have little to no flavour and are chewy in texture. Despite the fact they don’t sound very palatable, the delicacy has decreased in price with its growing popularity. Although you can still buy a bowl for over $100, buffets also serve it (and its variants) for just $10!

Courtesy of CNN: When sharks attack humans, it inevitably makes news – it is a sexy story. What is rarely reported is that worldwide, sharks kill an average of 10 people every year. It’s usually when people venture into a shark’s habitat and not the other way around. By contrast, humans kill around 100 million sharks every year – a number that has ballooned in recent years because of the enormous demand for shark fins to make shark fin soup.

The huge threat to the species has spawned countless environmental and animal rights campaigns. The WWF has an awareness campaign that aims to stop this (as yet) legal practice. ‘Shark Savers’ is an organisation that seeks to solve this problem by eliminating the market for shark fin soup. Their ‘Say “No” to shark fin soup’ campaign aims to reduce this demand by creating and continuing a revolutionary multi-media campaign, using celebrities and grass roots campaigns.

Follow this link to pledge your support to the Say NO to shark fin soup campaign.

Fins from up to 70 million sharks a year are used for shark fin soup often with the rest of the body dumped overboard dead or alive. Shark poaching is rife in marine protected areas, such as the Galapagos Islands and Cocos Island. A recent study by the world’s top shark scientists (IUCN Shark Specialist Group) reported that of 64 species of open ocean sharks and rays 32% are “threatened with extinction,” primarily due to overfishing. In addition, 24% were “near threatened,” while another 25% could not be assessed due to lack of data. Sharks are highly vulnerable to overfishing due to their late maturity and slow reproduction. Globally shark catches are unregulated or unsustainable. The shark fin trade is unregulated worldwide. (Shark savers website)

Clearly, something needs to be done. The damage to the marine ecosystem and the possible impact on global warming as a top predator is pushed to extinction is huge. If there are no sharks, the fish which eat plankton will balloon and the plankton will be hugely reduced. Like all plants, phytoplankton produce oxygen by reducing carbon dioxide from the air. Moves are being made to ban this practice, such as the bill passed in USA in 1993 that bans shark finning within 200 miles of the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. Educate yourselves on this wasteful and cruel practice, and make up your own mind.

Colour namer

I know how important it is to be happy in your job. I’ve always thought how much fun this job would be the person who creates the names behind colours. For example you want to redecorate your kitchen so you look for a nice yellow paint and doesn’t dusty sunshine just sound wonderful but maybe tuscan lemons is more you..

Here’s some I came up with during a  procrastinating session…

Raspberry fool

Winter’s day

Custard and cream

Christmas tree

Dorothy shoes

Dreamer’s dream

Tuscan olive

Rock chic

These are a few of my favourite things!

When the dog bites
When the bee stings
When I’m feeling sad
I simply remember my favorite things
And then I don’t feel so bad!

pink seahorses

French fancies!

Samoyed puppy

gingerbread house

Lucky Charms

I want a house with a pink door like this

Lemony shower gel

Christmas lights in trees

Rivendell, LOTR elven city

nice lip balms

creme eggs

Bonsai trees

white fur jackets

Coca Cola Christmas advert

Decisions, decisions..

What can you do though?

(by the way I went for straight hair)

Excited about my holiday..hopefully!

Nice looking twiga

Job searching.

Right now I know I am in a very crowded boat full of people all looking for jobs. In the UK unemployment is growing and growing. Well qualified graduates and people I know are having to take on jobs that 5 or 10 years ago they wouldn’t have needed to. But unfortunately many more people can’t even get a’s not for want of trying either, there are some lazy people out there but not the ones I refer to!

I am supremely lucky and grateful for my job and God above knows this. I have to keep searching for other opportunities though. Whilst doing this I have come to realise 3 things: firstly, you will only ever hear from a few applications, and these could be a NO. Secondly, you will start to feel a bit rejected and useless, and thirdly, you will get over feeling sorry for yourself and you will persevere.

Humans are lucky creatures indeed in that we have intellect, reasoning, morals and qualities such as perseverance ( beasts too-consider the beaver). Few people ever actually give up. This is something quite remarkable when you think about it. For me, I will keep trying. I applied today for something I really want, it would be so exciting to hear from this one! So fingers crossed for me please!

What is Life.

 I like this poem for inspiring you to live for today..

What is Life?

Life is a challenge-meet it.

Life is a gift-accept it.

Life is an adventure-dare it.

Life is a sorrow-face it.

Life is a duty-perform it.

Life is a game-paly it.

Life is a mystery-unfold it.

Life is a song-sing it.

Life is an opportunity-take it.

Life is a journey-complete it.

Life is a promise-complete it.

Life is a love-embrace it.

Life is a beauty-praise it.

Life is a spirit-release it.

Life is a struggle-fight it.

Life is a puzzle-solve it.

Life is a goal-achieve it.

Stop using Africa as a collective noun!!

Africa is a whole continent. It is three times the size of Europe and yet people still refer to the general ‘problem area’ of that part of the world as Africa. So some countries are bad. Some countries are very bad. But does Mugabe’s vicious land reclamation and consequent starving of his people mean all of Africa’s governments act the same way? Do the recent discoveries of mass rape in the DRC demonstrate all of Africa’s inhumanity and violence?

It has become common place to hear phrases such as ‘the problem of Africa…’ or ‘African leaders should concentrate on ….’ But is this the right way to refer to such an extensive land mass, variety of cultures, and variety of targets. Correct me if I’m wrong but Africa as a whole is still portrayed as a place with a number one goal of AID. The images coming from the continent are not so different to the harrowing images used during mass aid campaigns during the famines a few decades ago. These images did their job, and a certain amount of international aid arrived and to some extent I imagine, reached the people it was intended for. However, 20 years and the general public still receives the same message. Corruption, war, poverty, disease. Now we all know not all is rosy on the continent. But is it not time to send out a more true and positive message?

There are 2 problems addressed here. The generalization of ‘Africa’, and the negative images portraying the countries that make up this great continent.

Even if you switch on CNN you will hear the presenters in their ‘diversity advert’ referring to ‘I come from Africa’ or ‘my parents both come from developing countries’..yes! and so what! Tell us which one before we make assumptions and generalizations.  Some countries are economically, politically and socially more stable than others. Some a lot more so. The good examples should encourage the rest to change their attitudes. Nothing is going to happen over night and this is a land mass with countless obstacles but these are obstacles to be faced! The ‘West’ will not change their near neo-colonialism if the continent as a whole still accepts international aid with open and welcome arms. It’s time for strings to be cut. Immediate relief aid and sustainable development are 2 different things and each country should become responsible for their own continuing developement.

The majority of educated people will still panic over what they imagine Africa to be like. Sure, we all have to be P.C and say the right things but the vast majority will still have negative images. It’s to be expected, when every day the news reports feature some new trouble or atrocity from an African country. During the new Kenyan Constitutional celebrations the BBC coverage of Uhuru park featured about 30 seconds of innocent festivities and 3 minutes of flashbacks to the 2007 post-election violence.

Fortunately, there are a lot of positive ground breaking developments taking place. These should be focussed on by  the international press, much as in any developing country there should be a balance of the type of report covered. Of a country is to develop there needs to be foreign investment. There’s no getting around this. But what company will invest in a corrupt, self-doubting, unstable country. From the bottom up things need to change, starting now!

Previous Older Entries


A myomectomy is a surgical procedure to remove a myoma, or a fibroid tumor, from the wall of the uterus. Fibroid tumors are common, and when asymptomatic, they do not require treatment. However, if a woman’s fibroids are problematic, causing symptoms such as abnormal or heavy bleeding, pain, or rapid growth, surgical management may be indicated. Depending on the size, number, and location of the fibroids, the surgery can be accomplished several different ways, including hysteroscopically through the cervix, laparoscopically through several small abdominal incisions, abdominally with a traditional, larger abdominal incision.

Our providers share a common goal of delivering personal. Individualized care for each and every patient we see. That’s been our mission ever since we were formed in 1992.

Contact A Provider

Come visit our location in St. Louis to learn more.


Isaiah (Part 71): Offending God (Ch 59:15b-21)

06/28/2013 10:28

God was offended. Isaiah has just explained to his people that the prophecy he had just revealed over the last several chapters would befall the Jews because (1) although they had followed the Law, they did not care to look to God as Caregiver and (2) they didn’t concern themselves even with care for each other. God saw this condition—that there was no justice (a legal term meaning that they were failing in their covenant obligation), and he was offended. This offense was not as we may understand taking offense simply if our pride has been injured. The Hebrew literally says that the injustice “was evil in his eyes.” Translating this as offense is legitimate because it is not simply that God recognized evil, but rather that this evil was performed by people who were in covenant relationship with him, who were breaking their obligation to this agreement with him. This then was truly an offense against their covenant agreement and therefore an offense against him.

Verse 16 tells us that God was amazed. This may seem to be a strange expression for God. Doesn’t God know everything? Doesn’t he know the end from the beginning? Doesn’t God know us from the womb? Did God not expect that people would do wrong? Was he caught off guard? Interestingly, there is a school of thought that would answer yes. Open theists argue that it is not that God is limited but rather that the future is simply unknowable because it hasn’t yet occurred. God knows everything that exists. But the future is not something that exists, and therefore it is incoherent to think that someone—even God—could know it. Open theists do seem to have a good point. Traditional theologians have argued that God exists outside time, and therefore can actually see the end from the beginning, thus knowing the future. But even that statement cannot really be understood as meaningful. Since it is impossible for us to even imagine ourselves outside the constraint of time, how can we simply make up rules for that condition to say it is then possible to look into time from that outside perspective and see future events? We can’t know that! We’re just spewing plausible sounding explanations when we actually have no idea how that would work.

I believe I can accept the open theist’s idea that the nonexistent future is unknowable as one can know the present or past. However, I also believe the open theists actually limit God in what he does know. Here’s an example. I know my wife very well. I know what she likes and dislikes. I know what makes her happy or sad, excited or angry. If some circumstances occurred, I could pretty much guess with a high degree of accuracy what those influences would cause her to do. God knows each of us not just that well, not even really, really well. God knows us infinitely well. He knows infinitely well all the circumstances, influences, and strong and weak factors that touch our hearts and minds. He knows the almost infinite number of ways that we may react. He knows the combination of influences that have shaped our thoughts ever since we were first capable of thinking. Based on this infinite knowledge, God can predict with infinite success how we will respond among an infinite number of possibilities to an infinite number of factors all occurring at the same time. Thus, although God doesn’t see the future like watching a movie from his seat outside time, he does know the future based on his infinite knowledge of all factors that drive the past and present into the future.

Now, back to the verse. Isaiah writes that God is amazed. If God knows the future—expects exactly what then occurs, why would he be amazed? Consider the father of a newborn daughter. That father may, while holding his child, imagine what will occur in the years to come. He may imagine his daughter at three years old running to him, throwing her arms around his neck, and saying, “I love you.” It is a sweet thought, and one totally to be expected as one day coming true. When that day comes and that daughter is holding her father telling him she loves him, does the father feel simply complacent about it because, after all, he knew this would happen; he had already thought about it before. Of course not! His thrill is not diminished because he knew it this would occur! Relatives wait at airports for loved ones coming home, knowing they will embrace and cry for joy. Does that foreknowledge make the reunion less sweet or emotional? God rejoices in our joy with him. And his heart hurts in our sin.

The Jews had sinned. They broke their covenant with God. He was offended. And he was amazed and astonished, with all the sorrow and discouragement we can imagine from those words, that they would do such a thing. And yet, God did not turn away. Verse 16 says that he saw no man to intercede, and so God became that man.

God is Caregiver; that’s his obligation to the covenant. And so we see in verses 16 and 17 the chiastic placement of the words salvation and righteousness to emphasize his rescue and faithfulness. Notice also in 17 and 18 that judgment and rescue come together just as in 2 Thessalonians 1:5-10.

Isaiah 59 closes with a message from God. In it God says that his Spirit is on “you” and his words were put in “your” mouth. Who is God talking to? We could surmise it to be Isaiah because Isaiah did receive this message from God. But the last part of the verse says that these words would be in “your” children’s mouths as well. I think it is more likely that God is here speaking to the Messiah Servant by whom God rescued. The emphasis on the Word being in his mouth certainly fits. And that Messiah Servant did have children born to him in the transformation from Adam’s race to God’s.


Make your own free website on
    |  home  | back to Bread Crafts  |

Edible Bread Monsters
Store-bought bread dough
Concentrated food-coloring paste
1 egg white, optional
1 tbsp. water, optional

To begin, preheat the oven to 400° F. Divide the dough evenly among sculpters, reserving a chunk for colored dough. Divide the designated chunk into smaller balls, dip a toothpick in the coloring paste and dab one of the dough balls, then knead coloring into dough. Repeat this until the desired color is achieved. To create their monsters, kids can try a variety of techniques, such as rolling balls and snakes of dough, cutting out shapes, using scissors to snip a furry texture, or using a garlic press to create hair. Raisins also make great eyes, spots, collars, or buttons. When the monsters are done, carefully place them on a greased cookie sheet. Cover them with plastic wrap or a damp cloth and let them rise an additional 10 to 15 minutes before baking. If you want a shiny finish, whisk together the 1 egg white and 1 tablespoon of water and brush on just before baking. Bake for 15 to 20 minutes or until golden brown, then transfer to a wire rack to cool.


In paper citations

From the section above, you can see that titles can stand alone or they can sit in a container in MLA formatting.

MLA In-Text Citations - Roane State Community College

Create in-text citations - UW–Madison Writing Center

Performance by Macaulay Culkin, directed by Chris Columbus, 20th Century Fox, 1990.

In MLA citing, to cite a source with three or more authors, place the information in this MLA citing format.When citing a television episode, the first container is the name of the show and the second container is the name of the service that it could be streaming on, such as Netflix.Capitalize only the first letter of the first word or any proper nouns.You can search and cite literature directly from your Papers library when writing.So, if a person used a book, a website, a journal article, a newspaper article, and an e-book, all in one research project, they were required to look up how to cite each one of those sources because each was structured differently.

How to cite everything in APA format with our APA Citation Guide.

APA, MLA and Chicago citation generator: Citefast

For numerous specific examples, see chapters 14 and 15 of the 16th edition of The Chicago Manual of Style.List the author(s) of the article using the same format given.Learn how and when to cite, types of sources and specific style guides.

Citations Kennedy Library | Home

The following examples show the more formal versions of the citations.Citing Sources in the Text of your Paper: In-Text Citation and Notes. Page numbers are not required in APA in-text citation.

MLA STYLE IN-TEXT CITATIONS Print & Electronic Sources

APA In-Text Citation General Guide | APA Format

However, when citing part of a source, such as an article on a website, a chapter in a book, a song on an album, or an article in a scholarly journal, the part is written with quotation marks and then the titles of the sources that they are found in are written in italics.Survey, 7th edition, U. S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D. C..If no author is identified, begin the citation with the article title.

Citation - Definition and Examples - ThoughtCo

When quoting in your paper, if a direct quote is less than 40 words, incorporate it into your text and use quotation marks. APA 6th Edition - Citation Guide.For page numbers, when citing a source that sits on only one page, use p. Example: p. 6. When citing a source that has a page range, use pp. and then add the page numbers.

Research Guides: Citation Guide: How to cite NEWSPAPERS

The following example shows the more formal version of a note.They are also used when readers are attempting to locate the source themselves.

A research paper can be made stronger through the use of quotations when you need to cite a key piece of primary source material.To make the process of creating citations easier for researchers and scholars, the Modern Language Association decided to have one MLA citing format, which works for all source types.This section explains each individual component of regular MLA citations, with examples for each section.For internet sources without any identifiable author or date, simply use the.Such a source would be omitted from your References Cited or Bibliography section.Writing a paper, especially a research paper, requires you to cite your source for any information or thoughts that are not your own.A DOI is a permanent ID that, when appended to in the address bar of an Internet browser, will lead to the source.

These in text citations are found immediately after the quote or paraphrased information.The Chicago Manual of Style presents two basic documentation systems: (1) notes and bibliography and (2) author-date.Not only would it make it difficult to understand the source that was used, but it would also make it difficult for readers to locate it themselves.In MLA citing, the location generally refers to the place where the readers can find the source.


Sustainability in Construction

Lynelle Cameron, Vice President of Sustainability for Autodesk, gives her thoughts on sustainability in construction

Give us your thoughts on sustainability in construction; where it is and where is heading.

At the moment, an estimated 30 percent of every construction project is waste. This is waste before, during and after the construction project. From a sustainability perspective, this presents an incredible opportunity to both save materials and costs. In construction, we are always looking to do both those things. For buildings to be more sustainable, this should be one of the first things we think of.

We are definitely seeing a new trend in construction that involves circularity and circular construction. The idea is to design buildings with the materials and components that will be continually reused in future buildings. There is no waste and through the entire lifetime of the building, it generates zero waste. This is the future.

What do you mean by circular construction?

At AU Middle East 2018, we talked about Royal BAM, the team behind the design of a pavilion for ABN AMRO Bank. They discussed how they were designing the pavilion using the principles of circular construction by using materials that can be repurposed and reused instead of discarded. Components from another building, that was dismantled and demolished, went into the construction of the pavilion. Inner walls, doors, cables, fire hose reels have all been reused from other construction projects. In fact, they even used blue jeans that have been recycled from employees in the ceiling insulation, and some of the components of the building will have a second life after the pavilion is dismantled. This is circular construction and circularity, which we think is going to be the future of construction.

So, any waste that can be found on a construction site can be reused anywhere, essentially?

Ideally, yes. But if you start the design process itself with a goal to generate less waste, by reusing materials, for example, then you have less waste from the onset. But this leads to another important trend in construction. And that is 3D printing. Using this technology allows companies to robotically print building parts, like one of Autodesk’s clients who are currently 3D printing an entire bridge. This changes the waste equation because you only print what you need, with no waste. So there are two different sides to construction waste reduction.

What are net zero buildings?

A: Net zero buildings are buildings that generate as much energy as they consume. We’re seeing this trend emerge globally and we’re working together with an initiative called Architecture 2030 that many of our customers have signed up to as well. It is a commitment to have a net zero portfolio of buildings by 2030. The good news is that the technology available today as part of our AEC collection helps our customers achieve this goal. So, we’re working with them to put together an entire workflow that they can implement across the country to help design and make high performance buildings which are also net zero in terms of energy consumption.

Is there any other way we can reduce waste in construction sites?

A: I think we’ve hit on the two major ones, but the technology available today is enabling us to radically reduce the waste along the entire construction value chain, technology like cloud computing, robotics, and additive manufacturing.

What are the benefits of 3D printed buildings?

3D printing eliminates an enormous amount of waste. Autodesk, incidentally, does some work with a robot we call ASH. We have been training ASH to robotically 3D print in stainless steel, and she’s able to print only what she needs without polluting the environment or creating extra waste. That’s fundamentally going to change the industry going forward.

3D printing with stainless steel? Could you tell us more about it?

A: Yes! It might sound easy, but it is completely different from printing with plastic. However, it is happening and the technology is working. In fact, we are working with a client in the Netherlands, MX3D that is designing and robotically 3D printing a bridge. The robots (like ASH) have sensors that enable them to keep track of what they’re doing and understand how hot the metal is at any given point. This lets them adjust and correct while printing, which is very advanced.

What is the future of work?

People are curious and apprehensive about how automation, technology, AI and machine-learning will influence the future of work. It certainly is changing, not only how people work, but also changing what we are now able to design and make. From a sustainability perspective, we now have incredible technology that is enabling us to solve incredibly complex challenges that we haven’t been able to solve in the past. Smart and sustainable cities are now not just possible, but doable.

If you were to ask an economist, they will probably tell you that 47 percent of jobs are going away. If you ask a journalist, they will say that we’re being replaced by robots. And if you ask a technologist, they will say that technology will be our salvation in the future. The reality lies somewhere in between, but the important point is that technology is not only changing how we work, and the nature of jobs, but it is also changing what we are now able to make. It is augmenting and amplifying human abilities so that we can now design and make much better things than we have before.

When can we expect renewable energy to replace non-renewable energy?

I would say that I’m optimistic about the growth of renewable energy around the world. We at Autodesk power our operations with 100% renewable energy. That has been an important strategy for us. Not just by any renewable energy, but by local renewable energy that is additive to the market. We’ve been trying to use our own power strategy to catalyse demand in the places that we work, and it is very inspiring to see here in Dubai the development of one of the largest solar farms. I believe that is certainly exciting, but we have a long way to go to develop renewable energy at a scale to power these lifestyles.

One of the things I didn’t mention earlier is that we will be 10 billion people on the planet soon. Half of them (5 billion) will be living in what is considered the ‘global middle class’. So cars, computers, condominiums – all the things that we enjoy in this fine city – will take twice as much energy to produce and power the lifestyles that they will demand. We cannot rely on fossil fuel-based energy, so it will require that we create an incredible amount of energy which calls for a massive design change.

What are the challenges ahead?

 I want to commend the government in the UAE for setting truly bold and visionary goals around sustainability. I think that is really important, and I see governments around the world being really visionary when it comes to sustainability and addressing climate change. I think this is what will be needed to get the private sector to really innovate and leverage the technology that is suitable to get us to this future. It will have to be a combination between public sector leadership and private sector leadership that will help us capitalize on climate change and sustainability as a business opportunity.

The market for low carbon and circular products and services is US$5 trillion, so it’s a big market. If we can better our understanding of climate change, work on preventing further climate change, and also help cities, countries and communities to adapt to the climate change, that is a business opportunity. I believe that the companies that are going to be successful in the future are really thinking about how to use technology to design and make everything better – and better is about restorative communities. It’s about energy efficiency; it’s about material efficiency and productivity; it’s about circularity; it’s about net zero; many of the things we discussed at AU Middle East. I feel like we can now actually realize that future because of the access to technology that we currently have at our fingertips.

One of the customers that we heard from today is the team working on the Dubai Museum of the Future, which is a fantastic local example of sustainability in the region. They have used technologies to really do incredible innovation around energy and materials to come up with a beautiful example on sustainability, and it is going to be a fantastic landmark here in Dubai.

What is the difference between a regular building and a net zero building?

Net Zero Energy buildings are buildings that are producing/generating as much energy as they consume. So these are buildings that go beyond just being energy consumers, but as a source of energy. This is the future of energy, and there will be a need to design more of these buildings.

But can you convert existing buildings to net zero?

You can certainly add renewable energy to a building that has been fully converted to Net Zero Energy. I think that is something that probably would happen at the design stage. But the other trend with Net Zero Energy is we’re seeing companies that are building affordable Net Zero Energy buildings. One of our customers, Van Wijnen is building Net Zero affordable homes and neighbourhoods in the Netherlands, and that’s a great example where generative design is enabling the customers to weigh things like the sustainability, and affordability and profitability together.

No Comments Yet

Leave a Reply


the rain didn't stop latin superstars from attending the annual bmi latin music awards on tuesday (march 21) at the glamorous beverly wilshire hotel in beverly hills, where j balvin, horacio palancia, arbise `motiff` gonzález and josé `gocho` torres were among the top winners of the night. horacio palencia won regional mexican song of the year for his hit `solo con verte` (banda ms) and was also awarded with the regional mexican songwriter of the year for the sixth time. balvin won bmi contemporary latin song of the year for his chart-topping track `ginza.`both gocho and motiff received the bmi contemporary latin songwriter of the year honor for penning three of the year's top ranking tracks. the iconic east l.a. band los lobos, whose career spans more than four decades, was honored with the special bmi icon award and celebrated by taking the stage and performing a medley of their classic tunes. for the second year in a row, the bmi latin publisher of the year award went to sony/atv music publishing with 14 songs among the most popular of the year, including gente de zona's `la gozadera,` ricky martin's `la mordidita` and yandel's `encantadora.`


Theodor Herzl Reincarnated on the Moon

Latest News from MoonLand

To avoid religious strife and wars, all loonies have converted into Lubaviche Judaism by a visiting spirit of Theodor Herzl. Mr. Herzl’s spirit had been trapped in the 4th dimension for several decades as he had been looking, to no avail, for a safe and peaceful place to reincarnate. The grateful MoOn inhabitants reconstructed his body in their image and granted him the position of the Principal Priestess at the Sahara Temple. Herzl had to be explained that this was a more honorable title than his old earthly Chozeh HaMedinah, though it expressed a similar meaning.

Herzl announced that this was his 13th—and most successful— reincarnation and that he is now inhabiting a woman’s body and soul.

Following this planet-wide religious conversion,  A Yiddishe Momme became the national anthem on the MoOn. It had to be transcribed into Python, the native lunar language, using the latest advances in Digital Analytics, the gurus of which are residing in the very first Selenic Grand NanoDome in their capital city MaNo.

Frankfurt School Protests Neo-Nazi and Trump

News From The Moon

On Friday night Karl Marx who, following popular demand, was reconstructed last year, visited the Frankfurt school lunar habitat for dinner. His sidekick, Friedrich, did not follow him to dinner saying that he doesn’t feel comfortable in the company of only partially rehabilitated males. Engels, in fact, has completed his gender transition and rehabilitation in record time, and even started referring to himself as the Mother, rather than the father of feminism.

A meal started out in high spirits, however, by the time the dessert was served everyone moved into the telecasts dome and watched Donald Trump’s 3rd attempt to comment on the tragic Charlottesville events. The mood then quickly turned sour. Marx, especially, did not take the comparison to the Nazis in stride. He reminded his DWM comrades how often, after reading his so-called followers’ “mind-boggling claptrap,” he stated that he was “not a Marxist.”

Illustration by Patrick Bremer

That night he, Theodor W. Adorno, and Antonio Gramsci were overheard having a serious fight. Loonies were surprise to see Karl’s hair covered with what appeared from a distance as large amount of ashes. Since the Selenic atmosphere does not support the combustion process, this sighting gave rise to some wild speculations.

Marx was seen running around the dome in circles, tearing his clothes, and pouring more grey stuff on his head. He was overheard screaming: Schlimazl, moyshe kapoyer, gonif  and, Ich gehe plotz! Das ist alles fercockt, fercockt!

Gramci was sitting on the ground alternating between sobbing and screaming, Vaffanculo, stupido grande! Non è colpa mia! Non è colpa mia!

While Adorno appeared distraught and was overheard mumbling alter kocker and F-fucking Scale to no one in particular.

Adorno was later seen wondering into the Trump’s supporters camp, situated by the local watering hole, inhabited by the newest wave of the terrestrial DWM reconstructs, who had died mostly of natural causes, such as severe constipation, untreated due to the very high health insurance premiums blamed on the Obamacare. He was reported running around and yelling, F-fucking Scale, conventionalism, authoritarian submission, Unbewusste Emotionale Impulse, anti-intellectualism, authoritarian aggression, Allgemeine Feindseligkeit , anti-intraceptionsuperstition and stereotypy, Leistung und Zähheit, projectivity, Übertriebene Bedenken bezüglich sexueller Geschehnisse, and F-fucking impotent for several hours.

 The following day, he and Gramci were reported to appear in front of the city hall Nonagon, both weeping, with a huge banner saying Widerstandsfähigkeit Is Futile on the front and Hasta la Vista, Baby on the back.

Moon is populated by humanoid race of Loonies

Even though the experiments on human reconstruction have been carried out in secret for a long time through costly and prolonged experimentation, Da Costa and Delacourt’s remains were reconstructed into first ever embodied AI by a recently developed method of nanocrystallization of oxidized nanocelluloses which were electrospun into composite nanofibers. The inorganic-organic nature of these nanofibers, with their dramatically improved interfacial adhesion, allows them to be further spun into the fibers at regular human scale dimension. And these precisely were the fibers used to weave the new bodies of Jessica and Max. From a distance they resembled popular field constructions used by farmers the world over.

Max and Jessica’s children’s sexual orientation cannot be determined as they all lacked both the primary and the secondary sexual characteristics. On closer examination, however, they all resemble females. NASA scientist explained to our special correspondent, Boris Ridgeoff,  that the asexual reproduction can only produce this primitive primordial gender anyway. Boris was able to interview a prominent Reddit user, RabidTheropithecus, a close confidante of Alex Jones, who confided into him that the moon inhabitants, spawned by Da Costa and Delacourt, possess neither body fluids nor bone marrow, as the near vacuum selenian conditions would cause any body fluids to burst out.

At this point, it is not exactly clear who was involved in the reconstruction and who paid for it. However, RabidTheropithecus stated that everyone suspect that Queen Elizabeth and the Chinese Chapter of the order of Illuminati were involved. At the time of printing this has not been confirmed.

Alex Jones apologized about this previous “erroneous” statements regarding NASA’s juvenile slave colonies on Mars. Mr. Jones told the prominent British journalist, who wished to remain anonymous, that those children slave colonies were actually located not on Mars, but on the Moon. Alex Jones’ interview was published in Monday’s edition of the respectable Tuesday Post.

Consequently, it was further revealed that Max Da Costa and Jessica Delacourt, who we all witnessed to be blown to pieces on Elysium, did not, in fact, die. Their scattered remains were collected by advanced methods of Vacuum Harvesting and, occasionally, by hand. Da Costa’s and Delacourt’s cellular and tissue remains were separately reconstructed using positionally-controlled guided mechanosynthesis and placed on the Moon, as their new bodies could no longer sustain terrestrial gravity.

While being alone on the Moon, Max and Jessica, after the initial despair, fell in love, got married, and procreated thousands of progeny by methods of asexual reproduction. Due to the properties of lunar surface and atmospheric conditions, the children never reached their parents’ height and most grew up to be maximum 125 centimetre tall. Mr. Jones believes, it this particular outcome that got the observers misguided about the age of these extraterrestrial beings and to erroneously conclude that they were enslaved by the NASA scientists.

Life on the Moon Confirmed by North Korea

Millennia-old hopes and beliefs that there is life on the Moon have finally gained ground after Tyler Glockner and his associates discovered footage of sightings that show what appears to be buildings and highways on the surface of our only heavenly sputnik. Glockner stated last week that this footage had been kept secret and concealed by NASA for over two decades. Meanwhile, a prominent Russian former astronaut, who asked to remain anonymous, related in the interview with the RF news agency, New Normalnost’, that she has little doubts there is life on the Moon.

This scientific breakthrough, as our sources reveal, came during the recent Solar eclipse event on August 21, 2017. Using the highly advanced Nanoscale telescope lens, developed by the North Korean scientists, which on the day of the eclipse were focused on the certain spots on the Moon while it was directly in front of the Sun, the Maoist astrophysics were able to clearly discern not only the sophisticated structures on the Moon, but even its humanoid inhabitants.

Furthermore, Richard Hoagland—a former NASA consultant—confirmed to our special correspondent, Lunatic Ridge, that he personally has often observed “numerous geometric ground features,” such as colossal 3-D pyramidal and octagonal shapes, exhibiting highly unusual and evidently non-earth origin and nonregular polytope numbers. An occasional presence of such lunar non-Euclidean geometric structures as numerous, clearly discernible during the eclipse Poincaré hyperbolic disks, was further revealed by the application of that high-accuracy advanced telescopic nono-lens, installed on at the observatories in the mountainous regions of the Korean peninsula.

George Monbiot on system change

We need a radical change driven by the need to prevent this catastrophe, to both politics and economics. An economic system which depends which depends on the perpetual growth on a finite planet is destined to deliver disasters. We need a new economy built around the commons, built around community ownership of local resources, enabling ownership of those resources, which are not expected to deliver more, and more, and more money but is expected to deliver continued and steady prosperity to the people in those communities and the people of this planet. The system we have at the moment which is about the accumulation of capital, the continuation of growth on a planet that does not itself grow, that system is destined to push us over the cliff.

George Monbiot today on DemocracyNow! August 31/17


Lily's birthday/Rosaleen is arrested

The first key turning point in the Secret Life of Bees is when it is Lily's birthday, but in the Owen's household it is not a significant day, so Lily goes into town with Rosaleen. As they come into the shops they come across three older men who start calling Rosaleen names because of her colour and race. Rosaleen doesn't take one second of it and ends up tipping her snuff juice onto their shoes. When they try and force her to apologize, Rosaleen and Lily end up in jail, but Lily is soon picked up by her father, T-Ray. When Lily arrives home she is instantly heavily punished because of her actions and is then sent to her room. Lily then sits in her room and thinks that she has to get Rosaleen out, so she finally decides to stand up to T-Ray, but it doesn't go according to plan so when he leaves the house for a little while Lily packs some things and runs away to help set Rosaleen free.

Lily and Rosaleen fight

Another turning point in the novel is when Rosaleen and Lily are on their way to Tiburon to find out about Lily's mother. Rosaleen and Lily start to have a small argument about why Lily got Rosaleen out of jail but now does not have a plan to get them there. Rosaleen is then wondering why they both are not going back to the Owen's house as well. Lily then turns around and calls Rosaleen a 'Nigga' and some other racist names.
This is a turning point because Lily has always respected Rosaleen, and has also defended her whenever somebody has tries to put her down, so when Lily started calling her names it was a change in morals for Lily.

Lily meets Zach

Another turning point is when Lily first meets Zach, and the thoughts that Lily has when she first sees that Zach is black. Lily firstly looks at Zach and says "there's definitely no white on him', which made Lily think that maybe she was being a bit too prejudice and racist. She then had a though of when she was back at her old school, how she used to laugh and treat black people so she could just fit in.
She then learns to see past the colour of Zach and realizes that Zach is quite handsome, with his broad shoulders and tight chest.
Lily then realizes that Zach is so handsome that it doesn't matter one bit if he is black or white.

May's death

One of the last key turning points in the story is when May dies. This is a very sad moment because is changes a lot of lives. For August and June, who are May's sisters, they have known her their whole lives and have helped May through the good and the bad times. or May to die, it takes a lot out of August and June and it also takes a while for things to go back to normal, but that is understandable.
All of them are very sad , but is some way they now feel free and relieved to know that May will always be safe. So it is a very significant moment in the book.

By Steph and Bec


Programming Blog 15 – Pathfinding Solutions

Hi, it’s Stephanie here and today I’m going to talk about our pathfinding! (It was supposed to be Bean, but he forgot his password!)

The monsters in our game use a custom pathfinding solution to navigate the ship, allowing it to take the dynamic layout of the ship and a multitude of obstacles in to account. The pathfinding can sometimes take a short while to calculate, especially if it is from one side of the ship to the other with lots of twists and corridors in the way. The delay between starting the calculation and getting the path can cause issues with the monster – the monster will be following its old path whilst the new one is being calculated, so when it starts following the new one, the start of the path might not be at the monster’s feet. At best, the monster still lies on the new path. This usually happens during a chase. The worst case scenario is the monster is ‘far away’ from any part of the path, which can happen if the monster goes in one direction and the new path goes in another. We resolved this before by simply assuming the monster couldn’t get too far off the path in the time and making it follow the closest node on the new path. However, we wanted to correct this assumption, to ensure this wouldn’t cause a problem, and to fix the odd occasion the monster would turn around mid-chase when this didn’t quite work.

To explain how we improved this issue, an understanding of the pathfinding process is necessary. The current procedure is as follows:

Find a Path → String-Pull → Improve Path

The first step is to find a path. We are not concerned with this right now. Step 2 can be described in layman’s terms as placing a string along the path from the start to the end, and pulling until it is taut. In code, it actually just removes any nodes where the two nodes on either side can see each other, creating a similar effect. Step 3 is a collection of other algorithms that operate on the path to make it suitable for the monster and make the path better for following.

In order to reduce the problem stated, the game inserts a path back to the start node at the beginning the calculated path, just before the string-pull step. It does this by recording the monster’s position whilst calculating the path, instead of doing actual pathfinding. By inserting the extra path at this point in the process, it piggy-backs off the remaining pathfinding functions and undergoes the same algorithms as the calculated path. This means the string-pulling removes any surplus nodes from the extra path and ensures the path ends up heading in the right direction.

I hope this technique might be useful to someone for solving the same issue!

Steph (and Bean)


Adult dating silica ohio

In geology, rocks can be classified and identified as one of three different types: igneous, sedimentary or metamorphic, and the Rock Type Identification Key can be used to help you best determine which type a particular rock belongs to.

They are usually brown to gray in color and may have fossils and water or wind marks.The following 28 rocks are all considered igneous: Sedimentary rocks are born cool at the Earth's surface, mostly under water, and they usually consist of layers or strata; hence they are also called stratified rocks.The following list contains each commonly accepted type of sedimentary rock: Metamorphic rock formations occur when sedimentary and igneous rocks become changed, or metamorphosed, by conditions underground.Any good rockhound is bound to come across a rock that he or she has trouble identifying, especially if the location of where the rock was found is unknown.To identify a rock, think like a geologist and examine its physical characteristics for clues.


Indian, Indian-American plead guilty in call centre scam

Views: 60

Washington, July 20 (IANS) An Indian national and an Indian-American man pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy behind their roles in a massive telephone impersonation and money laundering fraud in the US perpetrated by India-based call centres.

Montu Barot, 30, an Indian national residing in Illinois and Indian-American Nilesh Pandya, 54, of Texas, pleaded guilty to one count each of conspiracy to commit fraud and money laundering offences, the US Department of Justice said on Wednesday.

Along with the two men, 54 other individuals and five India-based call centres were charged in the fraud.

Including this week’s pleas, a total of 13 defendants have pleaded guilty so far in this case. Co-defendants Bharatkumar Patel, Ashvinbhai Chaudhari, Harsh Patel, Nilam Parikh, Hardik Patel, Rajubhai Patel, Viraj Patel, Dilipkumar A. Patel, Fahad Ali, Bhavesh Patel and Asmitaben Patel previously pleaded guilty between April and July 2017.

ALSO READ:   UAE-based Indian undergoes amputation after minor infection

According to admissions made in the case, Barot, Pandya and their co-conspirators perpetrated a scheme in which individuals from call centres located in Ahmedabad impersonated officials from the Internal Revenue Service and US Citizenship and Immigration Services and engaged in telephone call scams, in a ruse designed to defraud victims located throughout the US.

Using information obtained from data brokers and other sources, call centre operators targeted US victims who were threatened with arrest, imprisonment, fines or deportation if they did not pay alleged monies owed to the government.

Victims who agreed to pay the scammers were instructed how to provide payment, including by purchasing stored value cards or wiring money. Upon payment, the call centres would immediately turn to a network of “runners” based in the US to liquidate and launder the fraudulently-obtained funds, the Department of Justice said.

ALSO READ:   How ablation may help treat atrial fibrillation

Barot communicated via phone, text and email in furtherance of the criminal scheme with both domestic and India-based associates.

Barot also admitted to sending financial ledgers to his conspirators, detailing the movement of scam victim funds.

According to the report, Pandya served as a runner liquidating victim scam funds within the southern district of Texas.

At the direction of two of his co-defendants, Pandya used stored value cards that had been loaded with victim funds to buy money orders and then deposit them into various bank accounts.

ALSO READ:   Indian wins lottery before leaving UAE

Comments: 0