Author Archives: marcia

Another Reason to Visit Texas

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Want to Shoot Bigfoot? It’s Legal in Texas

Life’s Little Mysteries Staff
Date: 11 May 2012 Time: 01:42 PM ET
An artist's interpretation of Bigfoot.
An artist’s interpretation of Bigfoot.
CREDIT: Karl Tate, LiveScience Infographic Artist

Anyone seeking ultimate proof of the existence of Bigfoot should head south. In Texas, it is legal to shoot and kill this legendary giant ape, known in other parts of the world as Sasquatch or Yeti, which has never been discovered.

According to an official with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission, Bigfoot isn’t listed as an endangered species, so you’re free to kill as many as you want.

“If the Commission does not specifically list an indigenous, nongame species, then the species is considered nonprotected nongame wildlife,” David Sinclair, direction of the law enforcement division at Texas Parks and Wildlife, wrote in an email response to a curious Bigfoot believer. “A nonprotected nongame animal may be hunted on private property with landowner consent by any means, at any time and there is no bag limit or possession limit.”

John Lloyd Sharf of Salem, Ore., contacted Texas Parks and Wildlife to inquire whether Bigfoot was protected in Texas. As one of the 29 percent of Americans who believe Bigfoot inhabits the country’s remote woodland areas and is just really difficult to find, Sharf was apparently motivated by the concern that the as-yet-undiscovered creature could face extermination in the state.

“So, it is the case all individuals of an unknown species … could be exterminated without criminal or civil repercussions — essentially causing extinction?” Sharf said he replied to Sinclair. At Cryptomundo, a popular “cryptozoology” discussion forum and blog, Bigfoot believers are forming a plan of action to deal with what they see as the potentially disastrous outcome of this loophole in the Texas hunting laws, which would allow Bigfoot to be hunted to extinction before a living specimen could be studied. [Hunter Captures UFO in Nevada]

“I would advocate a small group of trained hunters, under close supervision and observing all necessary safety precautions shooting a SINGLE individual to provide a type specimen,” wrote a user who goes by the name AreWeThereYeti. “Then, once the existence of Sasquatch was proven, immediate steps could be taken to attach an endangered/protected status to both the species and its habitat.”

What do you think? Would you shoot Bigfoot? [Vote here]

from:   http://www.livescience.com/20248-shooting-bigfoot-legal-texas.html

How to Walk Safely Coffee in Hand

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(I am just so glad that the scientists have addressed this ever so critical issue. )

Science Reveals How Not to Spill Your Coffee When Walking

Natalie Wolchover, Life’s Little Mysteries Staff Writer
Date: 11 May 2012 Time: 01:02 PM ET

 

how to keep from spilling
CREDIT: H.C. Mayer and R. Krechetnikov

Ever wondered why it’s so hard to walk with a cup of coffee without spilling? It just so happens that the human stride has almost exactly the right frequency to drive the natural oscillations of coffee, when the fluid is in a typically sized coffee mug. New research shows that the properties of mugs, legs and liquid conspire to cause spills, most often at some point between your seventh and tenth step.

So says a pair of fluid physicists at the University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB). They investigated the science of sloshing in a new study published in the journal Physical Review Letters E, and calculated the natural frequency at which coffee sloshes back and forth when held in mugs of a variety of sizes, from a dainty espresso cup to a cappuccino behemoth. They found that a normal human gait moves at nearly the same frequency, so each step amplifies the coffee’s heave-ho motion. Stumbling or changing pace — common occurrences when you’re low on caffeine — make matters worse by causing chaos in your cup, increasing the chance of a splash over the rim.

But now, there’s hope. By modeling the fluid and walking dynamics of the situation, and comparing the math with some real-world walking-with-coffee experiments, the UCSB scientists have uncovered a few tips for bleary-eyed coffee cup carriers.

“Of course, there are ways to control coffee spilling,” study co-author Rouslan Krechetnikov told Life’s Little Mysteries.

Coffee drinkers often attempt to walk quickly with their cups, as if they might manage to reach their destination before their sloshing java waves reach a critical height. This method is scientifically flawed. It turns out that the faster you walk, the closer your gait comes to the natural sloshing frequency of coffee. To avoid driving the oscillations that lead to a spillage, walk slowly. [Why Does Room-Temperature Coffee Taste So Bad?]

Secondly, watch your cup, not your feet. The researchers found that when study participants focused on their cups, the average number of steps they took before spilling coffee increased greatly. Krechetnikov and his graduate student Hans Mayer, the primary author of the study, suggested two explanations for this result: First, focusing on one’s cup tends to engender slower walking, and second, it dampens the noise, or chaotic sloshing, in the cup. Whether focused carrying decreases the amount of noise because we perform “targeted suppression,” automatically counteracting the sloshing of the liquid with small flicks of our wrists, or because we simply hold the cup more steadily when we’re looking at it, the researchers could not say.

Third, accelerate gradually. If you take off suddenly, a huge coffee wave will build up almost instantly, and it will crash over the rim after just a few steps.

But the best way to prevent coffee spilling might be to find an unusual cup. According to Krechetnikov, ideas from liquid sloshing engineering studies, which historically were done to stabilize fuel tanks inside missiles, indicate three possibilities for spill-free cup designs: “a flexible container to act as a sloshing absorber in suppressing liquid oscillations, a series of annular ring baffles arranged around the inner wall of the container to achieve sloshing suppression, or a different shape cup.”

from:    http://www.livescience.com/20246-coffee-spill-walking.html

Sleep, Metabolism, Weight Gain

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Is Your Alarm Clock Making You Fat?

Wynne Parry, LiveScience Senior Writer
Date: 10 May 2012
Alarm Clock
CREDIT: Alarm clock image via Shutterstock

In the industrialized world, a conflict between two opposing forces — biology and the alarm clock — is helping to make people fat, new research suggests.

A discrepancy between the natural timing of sleep and work or school schedules leads to sleep deprivation, since people forced into schedules unnatural to them don’t get enough sleep. And survey data indicates people with larger discrepancies are more likely to carry extra weight, according to the researchers.

“We are biological beings, and we have a biological clock, and what society — and I don’t mean the bad guys, I mean all of us — is ignoring is the biological clock,” said study researcher Till Roenneberg of the University of Munich. “We think we can do whatever we want with the social clock.”

There is a well-established link between sleep and metabolism. Previous studies have linked shorter sleep to obesity, and some have even linked longer sleep to obesity, although this link is less well established, said Jamie Zeitzer, an assistant professor at Stanford University who studies circadian rhythms and sleep. Zeitzer was not involved with the current study.

Different people need different amounts of sleep; this is a separate phenomenon from discrepancy in sleep timing, or as Roenneberg calls it, social jetlag. He and colleagues measured the timing discrepancy by looking at changes in the timing of the midpoint of a person’s night sleep between work and free days.

Other research has pointed to health hazards, from accidents to diabetes and obesity, associated with shift-work schedules, which move work into the nighttime hours.

“If you are awake at night, there is a good reason from an evolutionary perspective, something has to be going on,” Zeitzer said.

As a result, the body behaves as if it is going to need more energy, and people who are awake at night crave higher-fat and sugary foods, and have a greater appetite, he said.

Roenneberg points out that a gene linked to the amount of sleep people need, ABCC9, also plays a role in energy metabolism, or how fast our body uses energy from the food eaten and, in turn, a person’s appetite.

Alarming results

Roenneberg and his colleagues drew on survey data from more than 65,000 people, primarily in central Europe, on their waking and sleep behavior during work and free days. The results were published online May 10 in the journal Current Biology.

Their analysis indicated that for each hour of sleep discrepancy someone experienced, they were 33 percent more likely to have a high body mass index (BMI, or an indicator of body fatness), Roenneberg said. (Someone with a BMI of 25 is considered overweight,greater than 30 is considered obese.)

However, the effect wasn’t uniform. Sleep discrepancy did not explain variations in body mass among those with a normal BMI; however, it was positively associated with increasing weight among those with a higher-than-normal body mass, in the overweight and above range.

This split doesn’t interfere with the overall conclusion that more discrepancy is associated with more weight, Zeitzer said.

An owl’s world

The survey showed that the weekly loss of sleep is worse for some people, namely, the “night owls” who wake up and go to sleep later. But while work times have stayed relatively constant, the modern world is shifting our natural body clocks later, Roenneberg said.

Our body clocks use light to set themselves; however, the indoor light under which many of us spend most of our days is much dimmer than natural light. As a result our body clocks are pushed later, causing us to wake up and go to sleep later in the day, he said.

To address the problem, Roenneberg, who is also the author of “Internal Time: Chronotypes, Social Jet Lag, and Why You’re So Tired” (Harvard University Press, 2012), recommends making work times more flexible, a move he said could make employees happier and more productive, while reducing health-care costs.

Roenneberg said he coined the term “social jetlag” to compare the discrepancy between social and biological time. However, unlike travel jetlag, social jetlag doesn’t go away with time, he points out. Zeitzer takes issue with the term, because it implies a biological change not addressed in the research.

from:    http://www.livescience.com/20229-social-jetlag-sleep-obesity.html

Norma Gentile on the Navel Chakra

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FROM HEART TO NAVEL CHAKRA – Where we are going is where we have been

By Norma Gentile

In the western world we are taught to think and psychically perceive Spirit with our brains. But it is through the Body Center, the Navel Chakra,that Spirit speaks most strongly to us while we are in physical form.

A friend recently asked me about the heart-centered world into which many believe we are moving. The comment that one of my guides made was to notice that people from the developed or Western world are moving down from their heads into their hearts. They have yet to reach anywhere near their navel or body center. For this reason the journey into the heart that many in the New Age movement anticipate will bring something to completion may actually be the final step. After the Heart, we Westerners will need to begin the journey into the Body.

Many people joke about the practice of sitting in meditation as being something akin to ‘navel gazing’. My own sense is that rather than looking down from our heads at our navels, we need to know how to go down into the navel center itself, and look out from there at our world.

I have come to this conclusion based on my own experience. After moving more and more into my own heart, I began to move further down, passing through my heart and into a space that I feel is my navel chakra or body center. It is a place of great stillness, where I can feel the slightest motions of my body’s natural functions as well as motions from all that is around me. Yet at the same time I feel an intense and utter stillness. From this place of deep stillness all else seems a bit silly – it’s like relaxing in the warm sunshine watching fruit flies swarm a piece of fruit. You can enjoy your relaxation while the incessant motions of the fruit flies remind you of how still you are. What they are doing is harmless to you. While it may be a lot of activity, they are simply doing what it is that is within their nature to do. And you are choosing to do something different.

That is not to imply that all you or I do outside of meditation is equivalent to being a buzzing fruit fly! Day to day life, represented by the fruit flies in my little metaphor, is necessary to my continued physical body being in form. I believe that when I access my body center or navel in meditation it gives my personality a perspective around the true balance of priorities that my soul has. I do find that I can better choose and organize my activities after a little navel meditation.

I realize for most people the idea that our soul or spirit would speak to us through our body rather than our brain is very odd. Our western culture has taught us to live in the uppermost region of our body, basically the upper three inches of our head, not in the remaining 60 or so inches that tend to carry our head around.

Our western culture has also taught us to fear what we do not know. And since few of us had parents who could set an example of being fully embodied, it is not surprising that we have an innate fear of delving into the unknown regions beneath the level of our eyes and brain. In order to identify where our navel is, most of us have to move our hands down and touch it. Few of us simply feel and know its location in our torso. This means that there is a great learning curve ahead of us around how to connect our soul or spirit into our own bodies.

Awareness of any body part by ‘feeling’ it from the inside is an indicator of how strongly connected we are to the consciousness that is related to that body part. Each and every toe, finger, muscle, bone, tendon, organ, etc. processes energetic patterns for us. Illness is merely a sign that the spiritual, mental and emotional levels of our aura were unsuccessful in processing a pattern. In order to bring it more fully to our attention the pattern naturally moved into the etheric level of our aura, which is the blue print for our physical body.

Healing the physical issue then becomes a matter of addressing the issue at all the levels through which the pattern has come. For this reason when issues have reached the physical level I often suggest that people consult physical doctors such as Naturopaths, Chiropractors and Acupuncturists. These modalities understand that health is a result of balance, and illness is a result of imbalance. Once balance is restored, the body’s own systems will restore the physical body.

In my own energetic healing work, I find that the information I get for people is usually right on the edge of what they already know or suspect. In some cases their guides simply point out to me certain moments in their lives that are inter-related and magnifying a current emotional or physical symptom of illness. Sometimes it is also about what I call “upgrading” a belief.

I find that we are all pretty good at healing ourselves. But it is hard to find that deep place of stillness where you can feel all that is in motion around you when you are overwhelmed by fatigue, anxiety, physical pain or chatter in the mind. It just helps to have someone outside of yourself point out what they are able to see, so you can see it more clearly.

There are certainly different styles of healing, and for me I prefer to help people see for themselves what it is that they are ready to change, and hold space for that change to occur. As I spend more and more time within the deep stillness of my own body, I feel the great potential each of us has to access this same space of spiritual connection inside of our own bodies.

Ultimately, I might say that I have less interest in trying to organize how the fruit flies buzz around the fruit and more curiosity about why I left the fruit out for them to buzz around. An odd metaphor, but the closest I can get to my experience of this moment.

And this brings me back to the motionless depth of spirit I find within my own body. This, to me, is a point of creation that each person will learn about in their own time.

My best to each of you.
Norma

 

About Norma Gentile

Norma Gentile

 

Norma Gentile, sound shaman, is a natural intuitive and channel for Mary, Archangel Michael and the Hathors. She maintains a private healing practice, offering sessions in English and Spanish, as well as singing healing concerts and teaching workshops. Her CD of live sound healings, Songs of Spirit, is available in the Maat Shop. To see and hear her sound healings, articles and podcasts at her website www.healingchants.com.

PO Box 971020, Ypsilanti, MI 48197

info@healingchants.com or             734-330-3997

from:    http://www.spiritofmaat.com/may12/from_heart_to_navel_chakra.html

Active Sunspot AR1476

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SOLAR ACTIVITY INTENSIFIES: Huge sunspot AR1476 is crackling with M-class solar flares and appears to be on the verge of producing something even stronger. The sunspot’s ‘beta-gamma-delta’ magnetic field harbors energy for X-class flares, the most powerful kind. Earth is entering the line of fire as the sunspot rotates across the face of the sun. Solar flare alerts:text, phone.

Earlier today, amateur astronomer Thomas Ashcraft of New Mexico detected strong shortwave radio bursts coming from the sunspot. Click to hear the “solar static” that roared out of his loudspeaker:


Dynamic spectrum courtesy of Wes Greenman, Alachua Radio Observatory

“The strongest burst so far occured around 1631 UT on May 9th,” reports Ashcraft. “I am observing at 28 MHz and 21.1 MHz. As I send this note I am hearing more bursting, indicating powerful magnetic dynamism within active region 1476.”

Solar radio bursts are caused by plasma instabilities that ripple through the sun’s atmosphere in the aftermath of powerful flares. With AR1476 poised for more eruptions, this ‘radio activity’ is likely to continue for days

fr/spaceweather.com

Of Gamma Ray Bubbles and Dark Matter

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MILKY WAY’S GAMMA RAY BUBBLES SHAPED BY DARK MATTER?

Amy Shira Teitel
Analysis by Amy Shira Teitel
Tue May 8, 2012 11:37 AM ET

Gamma-ray-bubbles

Dark matter, the elusive stuff that makes up a substantial portion of all the mass in the universe, is largely a mystery to astronomers. They’ve tried finding it and creating it, but so far no conclusive proof as to what exactly it is though most theories state that we interact with it through gravity.

But Christoph Weniger, of the Max Planck Institute for Physics in Munich, has a different theory to explain new possible evidence for dark matter. By carrying out statistical analysis of three and a half years worth of publicly available data from NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope, he’s found a gamma ray line across the sky that he says is a clear signature of dark matter.

Astrophysicists generally think that supermassive black holes, like the one at the center of the Milky Way, release jets that interact with surrounding dark matter. This interaction is thought to be the source of high-energy gamma rays that satellites like Fermi can detect. What satellites can see are the photons produced when these jets interact with dark matter.

Weniger looked for signs of such an interaction in about three and a half years worth of gamma-ray observations carried out by the Fermi satellite’s Large Area Telescope (LAT).

To increase his chances of success he only considered data from those regions of the Milky Way that should generate the highest ratios of dark-matter photons to photons from background sources. He was looking specifically for a peak in energy, a sign that a photon was produced by the collision between and annihilation of two particles; the photon left over should have the same mass as one dark matter particle. This energy would theoretically appear as a very narrow peak, a line in gamma-ray spectra, distinct from the broad energy distribution seen across the visible universe.

That’s just what he found — a line in the gamma ray spectrum.

But he’s quick to admit it’s a provisional result. His data points come from about 50 photons and he’ll need a lot more to prove conclusively that his line is related to dark matter. It’s possible the line he observed is from a known, though no less mysterious, astronomical phenomenon: the pair of enormous gamma-ray-emitting bubbles extending outwards from the plane of the Milky Way.

In December 2010, scientists working with the Fermi Space Telescope found two giant lobes extending from the black hole at the center of our galaxy.

Twenty-five thousand light years high, each bubble spans more than half of the visible sky reaching from the constellation Virgo to the constellation Grus and may be relatively young at just a million or so years old.

The bubbles are a recent find, normally masked by the fog of gamma rays that appears throughout the sky that is a result of particles moving near the speed of light interacting with light and interstellar gas in the Milky Way. Scientists only found the bubbles by manipulating the data from the LAT to draw out the striking feature.

The manipulated images show the bubbles have well defined edges, suggesting they were formed as a result of a large and relatively rapid energy release — the source of which is still unknown. Interestingly, the energy cutoff of the bubbles corresponds to the gamma ray line Weniger found, the one he’s associating with a dark matter signature.

It’s possible the bubbles and the line have the same origin. Or, dark matter might be the cause of the bubbles’ defined endpoint.

Whether or not the two observations turn out to be linked — which of course hinges on conclusive proof of Weniger’s gamma ray line — both are very cool and part of the fascinating and mystery nature of our corner of the universe.

Image credit: NASA-Goddard

from:   http://news.discovery.com/space/dark-matter-and-gamma-ray-lobes-light-up-the-visible-universe-120508.html

Very Large Sunspot Coming Our Way

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BIG SUNSPOT: One of the largest sunspot groups in years rotated over the sun’s northeastern limb on May 6th. With a least four dark cores larger than Earth, AR1476 sprawls more than 100,000 km from end to end, and makes an easy target for backyard solar telescopes. Amateur astronomer Alan Friedman sends this picture of the behemoth from his backyard in Buffalo, NY:

“AR1476 is firecrackler,” says Friedman.

Indeed, the active region is crackling with impulsive M-class solar flares. Based on the sunspot’s complex ‘beta-gamma’ magnetic field, NOAA forecasters estimate a 75% chance of more M-flares during the next 24 hours. There is also a 10% chance of powerful X-flares.

“This one is going to be fun as it turns to face us!” predicts Friedman. He might be right

from: Spaceweather.com

Coronal Hole Ejections

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CORONAL HOLE: A dark hole in the sun’s atmosphere (a ‘coronal hole’) is spewing a stream of solar wind toward Earth. The impact of the stream, expected on May 9-11, could add to the effect of the incoming CMEs, boosting the chances of strong geomagnetic activity later this week. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory took this picture of the opening on May 8th:

Coronal holes are places where the sun’s global magnetic field opens up and allows some of the sun’s atmosphere to escape. The outflow of gas is the solar wind. NOAA forecasters estimate a 40% chance of geomagnetic activity on May 9-10 when the stream arrives (along with the CMEs of May 7th).

from:    spaceweather.com

New CME’s Incoming

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TWO INCOMING CMEs: A pair of solar eruptions on May 7th hurled coronal masss ejections (CMEs) toward Earth. Forecast tracks prepared by analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab suggests that clouds with arrive in succession on May 9th at 13:40 UT and May 10th at 07:54 UT (+/- 7 hours). The double impact could spark moderate geomagnetic storms. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras.

from; spaceweather.com

Volcano Updates – Mexico, Japan, Indonesia, Alaska

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Eruption Update for May 7, 2012: Popocatépetl, Iliamna, Lokon-Empung and a Pair of Japanese Volcanoes

The plume from Popocatépetl in Mexico seen on May 6, 2012. Webcam capture by Eruptions reader Kirby.

 

Quick updates on current activity at a number of volcanoes while I am mired in grading jail:

Popocatépetl: The Mexican volcano is still churning away (see above). Thus far, most of the activity has been subplinian plumes from the crater area as the new magma rises and fragments, but Mexican officials are not taking any chances. They will be distributing almost half a million dust masks to people living near the volcano if/when a larger explosive eruption occurs that could drop significant ash across much of the area. You can see what is going on at Popocatépetl on the CENAPRED webcams for the volcano.

 

Iliamna: We haven’t heard much from Iliamna in the past month or so after the volcano was downgraded to Yellow Alert status by AVO after a period of increased seismicity and degassing. The seismicity was reported to be back on the upswing at the end of last week according to the Alaska Dispatch (who looks to be getting into the game of webicorder watching). However, this blip (if real) didn’t cause AVO to change the status of Iliamna as the latest update just mentions seismicity at the volcano is “slightly above background”. Iliamna has a webcam as well as a webicorder so you can follow along at home.

Lokon-Empung: Another volcano that has been quite active is Lokon-Empung in Indonesia. Thevolcano had an explosive eruption earlier last week, producing a 2.5 km / 8,200 foot plume. Although evacuations have not been called yet, the National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) has begun to set up evacuation centers in case the activity increases. Seismicity has been increasing at Lokon-Empung since last week’s eruption, but the alert status (Level III) is unchanged.

Iwo Jima (Ioto): I haven’t been able to find too much in the news about the activity at Japan’s Iwo Jima (Ioto), however Eruptions reader Sherine did find some images of the activity at Iwo Jima, along with images of potential submarine activity at Fukutoku-Okanoba (see below or the top two rows of images on the previous link). As for descriptions, last week’s Global Volcanism Program Weekly Volcanic Activity Report mentions that a new fumarole has opened at Iwo Jima as well.

Slight discoloration of the sea at Fukutoku-Okanoba (bottom right) may suggest eruptive activity. Image taken April 19, 2012 by the Japanese Coast Guard.

from:   http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2012/05/eruption-update-for-may-7-2012/#more-109484