Let your life lightly dance on the edges of time like dew on the tip of a leaf.
- Rabindranath Tagore
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
INTP - The Thinkers
They enjoy working with complex things using a lot of concepts and imaginative models of reality. Since they are not very good at seeing and understanding the needs of other people, they might come across as arrogant, impatient and insensitive to people that need some time to understand what they are talking about.
Only one out of ten cells in our body is human
In a certain sense, every man is an island; this interesting finding comes from Jeffrey Gordon’s lab in Washington University. To understand why that is so, we need to understand something about the make up of our bodies. Adult human bodies are comprised of 1013 cells. These cells are broadly divided into different types that compose the tissues and organs that make us function the way we do. However, those are not all the cells that are in the human body. In addition to our own cells, we have 1014 bacterial cells that reside in and on us. Think about it: only one out of ten cells in our bodies contain the DNA inherited from our parents. The other nine cells are not human.
Most of the bacterial cells in our body are located in our gut, about 1.5 kg of bacteria. All along our gastrointestinal tract really, from our mouth to our anus. The others are on our skin, our respiratory system (lungs, trachea, nose) and ears. These bacteria too, are roughly divided into different types that perform different functions, some of them actually beneficial to us. Skin bacteria, mostly benign, actually prevent the colonization of our skin by disease causing bacteria. Our mouth is a slightly different story: the bacteria sitting on our teeth form plaque, a rough surface which accelerated the colonization by by other bacteria that metabolise sugar into acid. This acid eats through the tooth enamel and causes dental caries. That is why we wage a constant battle with toothbrush and toothpaste against bacteria. Other interesting stories are associated with our respiratory tract, our ears, and the upper GI tract.
But today we will talk about our gut, the bacteria that live there and some surprising findings on how they affect, and are affected by, our body weight. Oh yes, and why every man is an island.
“It’s not your fault, it’s your gut microflora”
Two years ago, Gordon’s group published two papers that made quite a splash both in the scientific world and in the popular media. They have shown that there is a difference in the bacterial taxonomic composition between obese and non-obese humans. They have shown that obese mice and people harbour in their guts a dominant population from the bacterial division Firmicutes. At the same time, lean people (or even those on a weight-loss diet) and lean mice, have less bacteria from the Firmicutes division and more from the Bacteroidetes division. To try and understand why that is, they performed a comparative metagenomic functional analysis of mouse gut bacteria. They compared a sample of DNA sequences extracted from the population of bacteria in the guts on lean mice, to DNA sequences from bacteria in obese mice. They found that in obese mice the gut bacterial population contained more enzymes that broke up complex carbohydrates, like starch. Other experiments showed that indeed, the population of bacteria in obese mice break up complex sugars more efficiently; that is, the bacterial populations of obese mice provide their hosts with smaller sugar molecules that are readily absorbed through the gut, creating a vicious feed-forward cycle: if you are a fat mouse, you will get more calories from the same piece of chow than if you are a lean mouse. Their conclusion was that the human gut bacterial population is intimately connected with what we eat. High poly-carbohydrate foods eventually enrich their consumers’ guts with carbohydrate loving bacteria; and those, in turn, “reward” their hosts with the back-handed compliment of making more simple and easily absorbable carbohydrates available to them, making them fatter.
So here is another another way in which bacteria affect our well-being: our gut flora controls our caloric intake. Consider a slice of whole wheat bread, about 100 calories.* This means that the actual caloric intake from a slice of bread will differ between individuals. Unfortunately, it is the fatter person who will, quite probably, receive more calories from eating the same slice of bread, because his gut bacteria will deliver more available calories to him.
This is not the first time such an observation was made. In 2004 the Gordon lab published a paper in PNAS, where they showed that Bateroidetes theta suppresses the formation of FIAF: Fasting-induced Adipocyte Factor. FIAF normally prevents the creation of fat, but high level of B. theta, associated with stress in humans, induce both a higher intake of carbohydrates, and the formation of fat from that intake. Here is a case of bacteria exerting a hormonal influence on our bodies affecting our energy balance and our weight.
So we have an incredibly intimate association with the bacteria in our bodies, at times as strong as that we have with our own.. actually, it’s getting hard to distinguish where we end and where our microflora begins. Well, not really: a eukaryotic cell with the DNA we got from mom and dad in a double package of 23 chromosomes is probably more ours than a prokaryotic cell with a single or double chromosome. The point is that the bacterial population is as important to our well being as some of our “human-cell” tissues.
But do all obese people have the same microflora? How much of our own genetic makeup influences our bacterial gut population and thus our body weight? And what about the headline “Every Man an Island”, what does that have to do with anything? Well, I’m pretty much getting to the end of this post, so please be patient, part 2 is coming up with some more interesting insights; and an explanation of the headline.
Bdelloids Survive 100 million years without Sex
Life without sex is conjectured to lead to extinction because of the way DNA naturally accumulates mutations so asexual species, lacking such a means of DNA repair, are thought to accrue harmful mutations over time that can help bring an end to a species. However, asexual bdelloids have proven quite prolific diversifying into at least 400 species.
To see how bdelloids might have prospered without sex and its DNA repair mechanisms, scientists zapped them with gamma rays to shatter their DNA into many pieces but even at five times the levels of radiation that all other animals are known to endure, bdelloids were able to continue reproducing.
Scientists believe that at some point the entire genome of the first bdelloid got duplicated giving it four copies of each chromosome and thus of each gene. The bdelloids kept most of its extra genes over time, and "we believe they have kept most of their duplicate genes because they are serving as templates for DNA repair," says evolutionary biologist David Mark Welch.
A better understanding of how bdelloids live without sex could shed light on how sex evolved in the first place.
Photo: Photo: "Scanning electron micrographs showing morphological variation of bdelloid rotifers and their jaws" by Diego Fontaneto Creative Commons All PLoS content published under CC-BY license
Darwinian Evolution on a Chip
Laboratory evolution is greatly accelerated compared with natural evolution, but it usually requires substantial manipulation by the experimenter. Researchers Brian M. Paegel and Gerald F. Joyce have developed a system that relies on computer control and microfluidic chip technology to automate the directed evolution of functional molecules in much the same way that one would execute a computer program using a population of billions of RNA enzymes with RNA-joining activity, which were challenged to react in the presence of progressively lower concentrations of substrate.
The steps were repeated automatically for 500 iterations of 10-fold exponential growth followed by 10-fold dilution. The researchers observed evolution in real time as the population adapted to the imposed selection constraints and achieved progressively faster growth rates over time.
The original research paper is available on PLOS Biology, the open-access, peer-reviewed journal.
Smart Brake Lights Could Save Lives
You are driving in heavy traffic on a rainy evening when the brake lights on the car in front of you come on. Is the car just slowing down or is it going to stop abruptly? “The problem is that brake lights are yes and no – on and off,” says Mechanical Engineer John Hennage. “The driver behind does not know the speed at which the car in front is slowing or stopping. It’s not enough information for the following driver.”
The solution is an intelligent brake light system that communicates slowing and urgent stopping – rather than simply that the brake pedal is being touched. Hennage and other engineers at Virginia Tech’s College of Engineering have developed a gravity or deceleration sensor control so that under normal braking – to slow or to stop slowly – the tail lights work in the normal fashion, when stopping speed crosses a threshold to urgent, red lights flash on either side of the amber lights, and if deceleration is rapid, all of the lights flash red.
The team now has a working prototype and is looking for a manufacturer to take the specifications and produce the circuit in mass quantities.
Did Universe Run Backwards before the Big Bang?
Until recently, asking physicists what happened before the Big Bang was considered a question that didn’t make sense from a scientific view but a new theory called Loop Quantum Gravity (LQG) has emerged suggesting the possibility of a “quantum bounce,” where our universe stems from the collapse of a previous universe. However no observations of our current universe could lead to any understanding of the state of the pre-bounce universe, as nothing was preserved across the bounce - a form of “cosmic amnesia.”
Now two scientists have modified the theory showing that relative fluctuations of volume and momentum in the pre-bounce universe are conserved across the bounce. “This means that the twin universe will have the same laws of physics and, in particular, the same notion of time as in ours,” says Parampreet Singh from the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Ontario. “In our analogy, it will look identical to its twin when seen from afar; one could not distinguish them.”
Does this mean there was another you that existed at some point, someone who has already lived your life? “If one were able to look at certain microscopic properties with a very strong microscope – a very high-energy experiment probing the Planck scale – one might see differences in some quantities, just as one might see that twins have different fingerprints or one has a mole and the other does not, or a different DNA,” Singh added.
Global Warming Is Irreversible, Study Says
Ethan Miller
Nevada's Lake Mead had a white 'bathtub ring' upstream from the Hoover Dam in July 2007. A seven-year drought and increased water demand spurred by climate change and explosive population growth in the Southwest has caused the water level at Lake Mead, which supplies water to Las Vegas, Arizona and Southern California, to drop more than 100 feet to its lowest level since the 1960s. Getty Images
All Things Considered, January 26, 2009 · Climate change is essentially irreversible, according to a sobering new scientific study.
As carbon dioxide emissions continue to rise, the world will experience more and more long-term environmental disruption. The damage will persist even when, and if, emissions are brought under control, says study author Susan Solomon, who is among the world's top climate scientists.
"We're used to thinking about pollution problems as things that we can fix," Solomon says. "Smog, we just cut back and everything will be better later. Or haze, you know, it'll go away pretty quickly."
That's the case for some of the gases that contribute to climate change, such as methane and nitrous oxide. But as Solomon and colleagues suggest in a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, it is not true for the most abundant greenhouse gas: carbon dioxide. Turning off the carbon dioxide emissions won't stop global warming.
"People have imagined that if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide that the climate would go back to normal in 100 years or 200 years. What we're showing here is that's not right. It's essentially an irreversible change that will last for more than a thousand years," Solomon says.
This is because the oceans are currently soaking up a lot of the planet's excess heat — and a lot of the carbon dioxide put into the air. The carbon dioxide and heat will eventually start coming out of the ocean. And that will take place for many hundreds of years.
Solomon is a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Her new study looked at the consequences of this long-term effect in terms of sea level rise and drought.
If we continue with business as usual for even a few more decades, she says, those emissions could be enough to create permanent dust-bowl conditions in the U.S. Southwest and around the Mediterranean.
"The sea level rise is a much slower thing, so it will take a long time to happen, but we will lock into it, based on the peak level of [carbon dioxide] we reach in this century," Solomon says.
The idea that changes will be irreversible has consequences for how we should deal with climate change. The global thermostat can't be turned down quickly once it's been turned up, so scientists say we need to proceed with more caution right now.
"These are all ... changes that are starting to happen in at least a minor way already," says Michael Oppenheimer of Princeton University. "So the question becomes, where do we stop it, when does all of this become dangerous?"
The answer, he says, is sooner rather than later. Scientists have been trying to advise politicians about finding an acceptable level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. The new study suggests that it's even more important to aim low. If we overshoot, the damage can't be easily undone. Oppenheimer feels more urgency than ever to deal with climate change, but he says that in the end, setting acceptable limits for carbon dioxide is a judgment call.
"That's really a political decision because there's more at issue than just the science. It's the issue of what the science says, plus what's feasible politically, plus what's reasonable economically to do," Oppenheimer says.
But despite this grim prognosis, Solomon says this is not time to declare the problem hopeless and give up.
"I guess if it's irreversible, to me it seems all the more reason you might want to do something about it," she says. "Because committing to something that you can't back out of seems to me like a step that you'd want to take even more carefully than something you thought you could reverse."
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Cancer Killer Found In The Ocean
Marine Biotechnologists Treat Cancer With Mud-loving Ocean Bacteria
November 1, 2007 — Biomedicine scientists identified and sequenced the genes of a bacteria called Salinispora tropica. It produces anti-cancer compounds and can be found in ocean sediments off the Bahamas. A product called salinosporamide A has shown promise treating a bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma, as well as solid tumors.
See also:
It's estimated that over 1.4 million Americans will be diagnosed with cancer this year, and for more than 500,000 it will be fatal. But now, scientists have found a new weapon against it. The ocean! You run in it ... play in it ... splash in it ... but what's found at the bottom of it can kill cancer!
"This bacteria makes a really potent anti cancer agent," Bradley Moore, Ph.D., marine biochemist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, Calf., told Ivanhoe.
The bacterium was discovered in 1991, but just recently researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography unlocked the genomic sequence, revealing this bacteria's cancer fighting potential.
"That's how new drugs are discovered. We really have to go out there and grow bacteria, look at the genomes," Dr. Moore said. "What we've recently been able to do is take the enzymes out of the cell, put them in a test tube, and then play God and manipulate these enzymes and make new chemistry."
And make new drugs. "There's a major search underway for better drugs to treat cancer and one way to find these new medicines is to look to nature," Paul Jensen, Ph.D., associate research scientist at Scipps Institution of Oceanography, told Ivanhoe.
And unlike most of the drugs used to fight cancer today -- this bacterium is not found on land.
"When you look at a globe ... there's more blue than there is land," said Dr. Moore.
Revealing that our oceans maybe an even more valuable resource than we realize. A clinical trial is already underway. A San Diego pharmaceutical company is using it to treat patients that have a form of bone marrow cancer -- and it could soon be tested to treat other cancers.
The American Geophysical Union and The American Society for Microbiology contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.
BACKGROUND: Researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography have discovered bacteria in mud from the Bahamas with the potential to help fight cancer. Now that the bacteria's genome has been successfully sequenced, that information is now being used by a pharmaceutical company to treat bone marrow cancer patients.
ABOUT THE BACTERIA: The bacteria known as Salinispora tropica is related to the Streptomyces genus, a land-based group of bacteria considered to be the kinds of antibiotic-producing organisms. First discovered in 1991 in shallow ocean sediment off the Bahamas, it took several years to successfully sequence Salinispora's genome, revealing that this mud-dwelling bacteria produces natural antibiotics and anti-cancer products. Researchers found that 10% of the bacteria's genome is dedicated to producing molecules for antibiotics and anti-cancer agents, compared to only 6% to 8% of most organisms' genomes. The decoding opens the door to a broad range of possibilities for isolating and adapting potent molecules the marine organism naturally employs for chemical defense, scavenging for nutrients, and communication in its ocean environment. One compound, salinosporamide A, is currently in human clinical trials for treating multiple myeloma, a cancer of plasma cells in bone marrow, as well as for treating solid tumors.
SEQUENCING ABCs: Genome sequencing is figuring out the order of DNA nucleotides, or bases, in a genome: the building blocks that make up an organism's DNA. The entire genome can't be sequenced at once because DNA sequencing methods can only handle short stretches of DNA at a time. So scientists break the DNA into small pieces, sequence those, and then reassemble the pieces into the proper order to sequence the entire genome. There are two ways of doing this. The "clone-by-clone" approach involves breaking the genome into chunks, called clones, each about 150,000 base pairs long, then using genome mapping techniques to figure where each belongs in the genome. Next they cut the clones into smaller, overlapping pieces of about 500 base pairs each, sequence those pieces, and use the overlaps to reconstruct the sequence of the entire clone.
An alternative strategy, called the "whole-genome shotgun method," involves breaking the genome into small pieces, sequencing them, and then reassembling the pieces into the full genome. The clone-by-clone approach is more reliable, but slow and time-consuming. The shotgun method is faster, but it can be extremely difficult to accurately put together so many tiny pieces of sequence all at once Neither of these approaches proved sufficient to completely solve the Salinispora tropica genomic puzzle, however. Instead, information about the natural chemistry of the organism helped close the sequencing gap.
Is There Really a Conspiracy to Suppress Cancer Cures?
The world of "alternative" cancer treatments abounds with claims like these:
"The war on cancer is largely a fraud."
"In 1964, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) spent millions of dollars to stop an alternative cancer treatment which had cured hundreds, if not thousands, of cancer patients"
"The pharmaceutical multinationals, unable to patent or claim exclusive rights to the vitamin, launched a propaganda attack of unprecedented viciousness against B17, despite the fact that hard proof of its efficiency in controlling all forms of cancer surrounds us in overwhelming abundance."
The general story is that there is a conspiracy by the established medical industry to keep the cure for cancer hidden. This is the "cancer conspiracy" discussed on this page. The reasoning behind this theory typically goes like this:
| Alleged Fact 1: | Cancer is a multi-billion dollar industry. |
| + Alleged Fact 2: | Treatment x cures cancer so well it would destroy that industry. |
| => Conclusion: | Some individuals, companies, and government organisations involved in the industry are suppressing the information about x to keep their industry thriving. |
As a cancer patient myself, I would like nothing better than to believe that there is a cure for my cancer out there in the world of alternative medicine. However, when you look closely at the medical industry, the possibility of such a cover-up seems implausible.
Who are the conspirators?
I have been living with cancer for three years and during that time been treated by approximately half a dozen medical practioners. I have been fortunate because almost all of them have been remarkably compassionate and caring people. At least one of them was motivated to pursue cancer research by the loss of a close relative.
All of these individuals had partaken in medical research at some stage in their careers, and about half of them were actively involved in research regarding treating cancer patients at the time of my treatment. One of them sat on the board of a private pharmaceuticals company, another was an adviser to a government agency. If you look across the world there must be hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people like them.
They are the people I am being asked to believe are conspiring to keep the truth hidden from me in order to keep their jobs. I believe that every single one of them would gladly quit their profession and retrain tomorrow if their patients could suddenly be cured without their help. Yet this conspiracy theory requires not just one or two bad-apples knowingly letting their patients die, but a huge number, probably the majority, of medical professionals, in medical research, would need to be involved.
But isn't cancer Big Business ?
Of course it is! In Australia, where I live, the majority of research is funded by the government and done by universities and large teaching hospitals. The cost of treating cancer patients takes up a large, and increasing proportion of the government health budget. The cancer conspiracy would suggest that the government is so concerned about keeping the business running (in this case the hospital beds full) that they would hide any discovery that would free up hospital resources. Even the most cynical should realise that the huge cost of treating cancer patients is something the government is keen to reduce not increase. The financial incentive is clearly on the side of finding the cure, not hiding it.
On the other hand, I would certainly concede that private commercial funding only targets treatments that would be profitable. Typically, this is patentable drugs and excludes most alternatives. So this type of research complements rather than replaces government funded research. But the fact that billions of dollars are being spent by private companies on such research is something that I am entirely grateful for. To me the idea that these companies could control medical knowledge, or even the individuals who work for them is ridiculous.
Why are so many people saying there is a Cancer Conspiracy?
Are there really so many? There are billions of people who don't believe these theories, but somehow a website that says "I believe what's logical and reasonable, like most people" doesn't seem so interesting.
Those who do go to the trouble of putting together an "alternative" cancer treatment website generally seem intent on making money out of it. Ironic isn't it!
Besides, the Internet is the home of conspiracy theories. You could find one on just about any subject. I am grateful we have so many independent thinkers and the freedom to express ourselves. But I get angry when I see vulnerable people being told lies and exploited for a profit.
What about the tobacco industry?
The tobacco industry makes billions of dollars from selling a major cancer causing product. Furthermore, the government makes additional billions from taxes on tobacco products. If there was ever a case where money was going to hide the facts about a product then this would be it.
But has that happened? No. In Australia, cigarette boxes are covered with warnings like "Smoking Kills"and "Smoking is addictive" and advertising of tobacco products is totally banned. In fact the government spends millions of dollars educating the population about the dangers of smoking.
There is evidence that initial research performed by tobacco companies was suppressed, so indeed these companies have certainly acted unethically and immorally. But despite the fact that these businesses and the government make billions out of the industry, the truth was not suppressed for long. If anything, this case demonstrates that even when both big business and government have vast financial interests in hiding the truth, it simply can't be done.
Couldn't a cure for cancer come from alternative medicine?
If history has taught us anything about cancer, it is that it is not an easy disease to cure. It is 2,400 years after the disease was first recorded by Hippocrates and presumably even longer since the first treatment was attempted. If traditional medicine has failed for this long, it seems to me that a cure will require every fraction of recently obtained knowledge about microbiology, the human genome, and modern medicine. It seems unlikely that fields of research outside this body of knowledge will make a lot of progress. But if an "alternative" practitioner did stumble onto an effective method, the scientific community would quickly embrace it and there would be no cover-up.
Conclusion
I know there isn't any cancer conspiracy because I know that the people doing and running the research are human. Their lives, like mine, have been touched by cancer. They, like me, would do anything to save the lives of the people they love. Furthermore, I assume that any treatments associating themselves with a conspiracy theory have something to hide—the simple fact that their treatment doesn't work.
Michael Higgins was an Australian engineer who was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2001. This article was the centerpiece of a Web site he set up in 2003 to help prevent others with cancer from wasting their time, money, and even their health pursuing worthless "cures." During its four-year lifetime, the site had more than 120,000 page hits and generated more than 300 feedback emails. Mr. Higgins died in 2004, but to preserve his message, the article was offered to the Quackwatch network, which published it with slight modification. Quackwatch has additional information on this subject.
Nanotubes strengthen artificial muscles
BEST known as the ultra-strong material that might one day form the cables of a "space elevator" capable of raising people into Earth orbit, carbon nanotubes also have a springy side. The discovery that nanotubes keep bouncing back after being compressed repeatedly means this exotic form of carbon may be just the thing to give artificial muscles some extra strength.
Engineers want to build artificial muscles - actuators that change length in response to a stimulus - because they create a smoother, more human-like motion than jerky electric motors or pneumatic devices. Such muscles would be used to power robots, prosthetic limbs and artificial tissue for implantation.
Today's most promising artificial muscles are based on electroactive polymers (EAPs) - plastics that change shape when activated electrically or with chemicals. But they lack mechanical robustness and as a result soon succumb to fatigue and fail.Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Rare 'Star-Making Machine' Found in Distant Universe
The green and red splotch in this image is the most active star-making galaxy in the very distant universe. Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Subaru› Full image and caption Astronomers have uncovered an extreme stellar machine -- a galaxy in the very remote universe pumping out stars at a surprising rate of up to 4,000 per year. In comparison, our own Milky Way galaxy turns out an average of just 10 stars per year.
The discovery, made possible by several telescopes including NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, goes against the most common theory of galaxy formation. According to the theory, called the Hierarchical Model, galaxies slowly bulk up their stars over time by absorbing tiny pieces of galaxies -- and not in one big burst as observed in the newfound "Baby Boom" galaxy.
"This galaxy is undergoing a major baby boom, producing most of its stars all at once," said Peter Capak of NASA's Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena. "If our human population was produced in a similar boom, then almost all of the people alive today would be the same age." Capak is lead author of a new report detailing the discovery in the July 10th issue of Astrophysical Journal Letters.
The Baby Boom galaxy, which belongs to a class of galaxies called starbursts, is the new record holder for the brightest starburst galaxy in the very distant universe, with brightness being a measure of its extreme star-formation rate. It was discovered and characterized using a suite of telescopes operating at different wavelengths. NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and Japan's Subaru Telescope, atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii, first spotted the galaxy in visible-light images, where it appeared as an inconspicuous smudge due to is great distance.
This galaxy, called Zw II 96, loosely resembles the most active star-forming galaxy in the distant universe.› Full image and caption It wasn't until Spitzer and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, also on Mauna Kea in Hawaii, observed the galaxy at infrared and submillimeter wavelengths, respectively, that the galaxy stood out as the brightest of the bunch. This is because it has a huge number of youthful stars. When stars are born, they shine with a lot of ultraviolet light and produce a lot of dust. The dust absorbs the ultraviolet light but, like a car sitting in the sun, it warms up and re-emits light at infrared and submillimeter wavelengths, making the galaxy unusually bright to Spitzer and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope.
To learn more about this galaxy's unique youthful glow, Capak and his team followed up with a number of telescopes. They used optical measurements from Keck to determine the exact distance to the galaxy -- a whopping12.3 billion light-years. That's looking back to a time when the universe was 1.3 billion years old (the universe is approximately 13.7 billion years old today).
"If the universe was a human reaching retirement age, it would have been about 6 years old at the time we are seeing this galaxy," said Capak.
The astronomers made measurements at radio wavelengths with the National Science Foundation's Very Large Array in New Mexico. Together with Spitzer and James Clerk Maxwell data, these observations allowed the astronomers to calculate a star-forming rate of about 1,000 to 4,000 stars per year. At that rate, the galaxy needs only 50 million years, not very long on cosmic timescales, to grow into a galaxy equivalent to the most massive ones we see today.
While galaxies in our nearby universe can produce stars at similarly high rates, the farthest one known before now was about 11.7 billion light-years away, or a time when the universe was 1.9 billion years old.
"Before now, we had only seen galaxies form stars like this in the teenaged universe, but this galaxy is forming when the universe was only a child," said Capak. "The question now is whether the majority of the very most massive galaxies form very early in the universe like the Baby Boom galaxy, or whether this is an exceptional case. Answering this question will help us determine to what degree the Hierarchical Model of galaxy formation still holds true."
"The incredible star-formation activity we have observed suggests that we may be witnessing, for the first time, the formation of one of the most massive elliptical galaxies in the universe," said co-author Nick Scoville of Caltech, the principal investigator of the Cosmic Evolution Survey, also known as Cosmos. The Cosmos program is an extensive survey of a large patch of distant galaxies across the full spectrum of light.
"The immediate identification of this galaxy with its extraordinary properties would not have been possible without the full range of observations in this survey," said Scoville.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., manages the Spitzer Space Telescope mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Science operations are conducted at the Spitzer Science Center at the California Institute of Technology, also in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA. For more information about Spitzer, visit http://www.spitzer.caltech.
Top 10 Mythical Creatures
1. Griffin (or Gryphon) [Wikipdia]
The griffin is normally characterised as a lion with the head and wings of an eagle. It was thought to be a particularly strong creature as the lion is the king of beasts and the eagle is the king of birds. In ancient times it was considered the protector of the divine. The creature was seen in civilisations as early as the Minoan civilisation (2700BC to 1450 BC).
2. Phoenix [Wikipdia]
The phoenix is a mythical firebird from Ancient Egypt which is portrayed as a bird that dies in fire and is reborn of it. It is normally portrayed as having gold and red feathers. At the end of its life, a phoenix is said to build a nest of cinnamon twigs which it then ignites. The bird is destroyed in the fire but a new young phoenix is born from the same fire. It was believed to have a life span of 500 - 1461 years (depending on who you ask). Its tears were thought to heal wounds.
3. Unicorn [Wikipdia]
The unicorn is usually shown as a horse with a long single horn on its head, but it originally had a billy-goat beard, lion's tail, and cloven hooves. The unicorn is virtually the only creature in legend which did not come from human fears and was, in fact, a rather gentle creature. It was considered impossible to capture a unicorn except by using unfair methods. The horn was said to be able to neutralise poison. The unicorn first came to be known during the Indus Valley Civilisation (3300–1700 BC).
4. Satyr [Wikipdia]
Satyrs were originally seen as companions of the goat god Pan in ancient Greek civilisation. The first drawings of satyrs were of normal men, though often with an erect phallus. It was later merged with the Roman faun which is when they began to be depicted as half men half goats (the upper body being that of the man, and the lower half being that of a goat). Satyrs are described as roguish but faint-hearted folk — subversive and dangerous, yet shy and cowardly. In old age they are often seen with horns on their head, while young satyrs are seen with nubs instead.
5. Minotaur [Wikipdia]
In Greek mythology, the Minotaur had the upper body of a bull and the lower body of a man. It was said to live in the centre of the labyrinth which was a large maze-like construction built for King Minos of Crete especially to house the minotaur. It was designed by Daedalus and is generally thought to have been at the site of Knossos. The minotaur appears briefly in a scene from the Satyricon by Petronius. He was eventually killed by Theseus.
6. Cyclops [Wikipdia]
A Cyclops is a member of a primordial race of giants, each with a single round eye in the middle of its forehead. Cyclopes are described by both Homer and Hesiod. According to Hesiod, the Cyclopes—Brontes, Steropes and Arges — were the sons of Uranus (Sky) and Gaia (Earth), while according to Homer the term "Cyclops" refers to a particular son of Poseidon and Thoosa named Polyphemus who was a Cyclops.
7. Mermaid [Wikipdia]
The mermaid (or merman in the case of a male) has been discussed since at least 5000 BC. It is highly possible that manatees or dugongs may have been confused for these creatures, and even Christopher Columbus claimed to have seen some on his journeys. In British folklore they are considered to be a forewarning of doom or disaster.
8. Gorgon [Wikipdia]
Gorgons were wicked women with fangs, and living snakes instead of hair. Legend says that looking at the face of a gorgon will turn a person into stone. Probably the most famous gorgon is Medusa who was the only mortal sister of three (the others being Stheno and Euryale). Because Medusa was mortal, Perseus was able to kill her by cutting off her head while he looked at her reflection in his shield. Images of Gorgons were often used by the Greeks to ward off evil.
9. Banshee [Wikipdia]
The banshee is from Irish mythology and are usually seen as female spirits. They were considered to be omens of death and were believed to have come from the "otherworld". They are generally thought to be remnants of an ancient Celtic pagan religion in which they were minor gods, spirits, or ancestors. In English they are often referred to as fairies. According to legend, banshees will wander around the outside of a house wailing when someone inside is about to die.
10. Giant [Wikipdia]
"Giant" is the English word to describe monsters of great strength and size but human form. They appear in the Bible (in the story of King David and Goliath). In mythology they are frequently seen to be in conflict with the gods and are generally considered to be associated with chaos and wild nature. They were seen as early as the Ancient Greek culture where they were known as gigantes - creatures born from Gaia who was fertilised by the blood of Uranus when he was castrated.
Feelings
Particles have been observed to come out of nothing, exist for a while, and vanish again6. The meaning of the particle's existence (= life) may have been: the particle's experience of its existence, or: its feelings.
[December 2004: Of course, it remains to be seen whether or not a particle can come to existence out of completely nothing. On this website I often reason that for example photons may exist of multiple smaller particles, which too may exist of multiple smaller particles, which too may exist of multiple smaller particles, etc. There may always be a smaller class of particles to be found. This way one may never know if there are exceptions to the conservation of energy law. End December 2004]
The basic postulate from which all my ideas unroll is: Everything that exists wants the biggest amount of pleasant feelings.
[May 2003: This means, as I have written in a philosophical/cosmological article in Oct '94 (in the Dutch philosophy magazine Filosofie), that the meaning of life is: (pleasant) feelings. Also the meaning of our lifes and life in general (animals, plants, bacteria, but also non-biological "life" like a hydrogen molecule or a photon) is: feelings. End May 2003]
What are feelings? Experience of existence.
But the deepest way of understanding feelings is, of course: just feel it.
Feelings are based on the fight against finity. Feeling good is successfully fighting against finity.
Fight against finity and feeling good are strongly connected for all sorts of life, including our lifes. Our feelings and also feelings in general are related, directly or indirectly, to the will to keep on existing.
Bluntly you may say: everything that enhances existence gives pleasant feelings and everything that reduces existence gives unpleasant feelings.
But the deepest way of understanding feelings is, of course: just feel it.
Feelings are based on the fight against finity. Feeling good is successfully fighting against finity.
Fight against finity and feeling good are strongly connected for all sorts of life, including our lifes. Our feelings and also feelings in general are related, directly or indirectly, to the will to keep on existing.
Bluntly you may say: everything that enhances existence gives pleasant feelings and everything that reduces existence gives unpleasant feelings.
How could primitive entities develop themselves into humans? Possibly by wanting the biggest amount of (pleasant) feelings.
Because of the interaction between cells of our body, we feel, as an entity of interacting cells, stronger feelings than our cells feel (as individuals).
Inside our cells there is interaction between the different cell compounds and you may expect that the feelings of a cell as an entity are stronger than the feelings of one of its cell compounds.
In a protein there is interaction between the protein's atoms and you may expect that the feelings of the protein as an entity are stronger than the feelings of one of its atoms.
In the atom there is interaction between its subatomic particles and you may expect that the feelings of the atom as an entity are stronger than the feelings of one of its subatomic particles.
During evolution mass particles (may have) started from a subatomic level forming respectively atoms, amino acids, proteins and cellular life. I think this may have happened because entities wanted as much pleasant feelings/interactions as possible.
Thus smaller particles (entities) may have started to co-operate in order to become more complex entities, which made them experience more/stronger (pleasant) feelings. (This may mean that a carbon atom in one of our brain cells feels more than a carbon atom in a carbon dioxide molecule.)
Without a natural tendency of atoms to form amino acids biological life can not come to existence.
[April 2004: Things may be different when you have (DNA) organisms that can travel by (for instance) meteorites or planets through interstellar/intergalactic space and thus go to other places (within a galaxy or within a cluster of galaxies or within the Universe). If such organisms only need atoms as basic nutrients (and no amino acids) then you'll have a different story, then (DNA) life may have been around in the Universe for ever. Of course, then you have to answer the question: "How did (DNA) life ever come to existence?" But this can be the same question as: "How did the (infinite) Universe ever start?" Thus, the Universe and (DNA) life both may be infinite. End April 2004]
[January 19 2006: Scientists have found that hardy bacteria can survive a trip into space, and now the list of natural astronauts includes lichen. Lichens are not actually single organisms but an association of millions of algal cells, which cooperate in the process of photosynthesis and are held in a fungal mesh. The algal cells and the fungus have a symbiotic relationship, with the algal cells providing the fungus with food and the fungus providing the alga with a suitable living environment for growth379.
If you have a planet with life as on Earth somewhere that is hit by another large cold object then rocks of the objects may blow off into space. If DNA life like alga can survive a large trip in space then this may mean that no amino acids are needed to be produced by evolution. Then life on Earth may have come to existence by a meteorite with suitable DNA life. Within our evolution theories the development of the first cells is a big problem. It is extremely hard to see how such an extremely complex mechanism as a single cell can come to existence from amino acids only, let alone single atoms and (small inorganic) molecules. With DNA life travelling through space DNA life may be infinite in an infinite universe. It may mean that DNA life as on our planet may be common all through the universe like the atoms and molecules like oxygen and nitrogen are common all through the universe. It may also mean that people as on Earth, descending from such DNA organisms, may be common all through the Universe.
Evolution of DNA life is a severe problem for the big bang model. How can DNA life as we now it on Earth come to existence within only 13 billion years in a big bang universe? The evolutionary gap is easily fixed with DNA life being infinite (as a "kind") in an infinite universe like atoms (of course I don't mean to say here that individual atoms are infinite). End January 19 2006]
[September 10 2005: Infrared and radio telescope observations of molecular clouds (in outer space) have detected polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) as well as fatty acids, simple sugars, faint amounts of the amino acid glycine, and over 100 other molecules, including water, carbon monoxide, ammonia, formaldehyde, and hydrogen cyanide. Although PAHs aren't found in living cells, they can be converted into quinones, molecules that are involved in cellular energy processes. For instance, quinones play an essential role in photosynthesis, helping plants turn light into chemical energy. The molecular clouds have never been sampled directly (they're too far away), so to confirm what is occurring chemically in the clouds, a research team set up laboratory experiments to mimic the cloud conditions. In one experiment, a PAH/water mixture is vapor-deposited onto salt and then bombarded with ultraviolet (UV) radiation. This allows the researchers to observe how the basic PAH skeleton turns into quinones. Irradiating a frozen mixture of water, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide, and methanol (a precursor chemical to formaldehyde) generates the amino acids glycine, alanine and serine, the three most abundant amino acids in living systems. In another experiment a frozen mixture of water, methanol, ammonia and carbon monoxide was subjected to UV radiation. This combination yielded organic material that formed bubbles when immersed in water. These bubbles are reminiscent of cell membranes that enclose and concentrate the chemistry of life, separating it from the outside world363. End September 10 2005]
[October 25 2005: Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are found in every nook and cranny of our galaxy. While this is important to astronomers, it has been of little interest to astrobiologists, scientists who search for life beyond Earth. Normal PAHs aren't really important to biology. However, PAHs in space also carrying nitrogen in their structures changes everything. Polycyclic nitrogen-containing aromatic hydrocarbon (PANH) molecules were recently found to be common in space. Much of the chemistry of life, including DNA, requires organic molecules that contain nitrogen. Chlorophyll, the substance that enables photosynthesis in plants, is a good example of this class of compounds, called polycyclic aromatic nitrogen heterocycles, or PANHs374. End October 25 2005]
[January 23 2006: If you add hydrogen cyanide, acetylene and water together in a test tube and give them an appropriate surface on which to be concentrated and react, you'll get a slew of organic compounds including amino acids and a DNA purine base called adenine. Researchers spotted the organic, or carbon-containing, gases hydrogen cyanide and acetylene around a star called IRS 46. Organic gases such as those found around IRS 46 are found in our own solar system, in the atmospheres of the giant planets and Saturn's moon Titan, and on the icy surfaces of comets. They have also been seen around massive stars by the European Space Agency's Infrared Space Observatory, though these stars are thought to be less likely than sun-like stars to form life-bearing planets389. End January 23 2006]
[May 2003: Recently there have been discoveries concerning H3+, the "ATP of the cosmos", that suggest that molecules like amino acids may have been formed in interstellar gas/dust clouds7. End May 2003]
[September 3 2007: Astronomers have found the largest negatively-charged molecule yet seen in space. The discovery of the third negatively-charged molecule in less than a year and the size of the latest anion will force a drastic revision of theoretical models of interstellar chemistry, the astronomers say. They also say that the discovery continues to add to the diversity and complexity that is already seen in the chemistry of interstellar space. It too adds to the number of paths available for making the complex organic molecules and other large molecular species that may be precursors to life in the clouds from which stars and planets form462.
Back in the 1960s, no one believed molecules could survive the harsh environment of space. Ultraviolet radiation supposedly reduced matter to atoms and atomic ions. Now scientists conclude that at least half of the gas in space between the stars within the 33-light-year inner galaxy is molecular464. End September 3 2007]
[January 30 2008: Astronomers have found the first indications of highly complex organic molecules in the disk of red dust surrounding a star known as HR 4796A, which is about 220 light years from Earth. The researchers found that the spectrum of visible and infrared light scattered by the star's dust disk looks very red, the color produced by large organic carbon molecules called tholins. Tholins do not form naturally on present-day Earth because oxygen in the atmosphere would quickly destroy them, but they are hypothesized to have existed on the primitive Earth billions of years ago and may have been precursors to the biomolecules that make up living organisms. Tholins have been detected elsewhere in the solar system, such as in comets and on Saturn's moon Titan, where they give the atmosphere a red tinge. This study is the first report of tholins outside the solar system472. End January 30 2008]
There may be necessity for a chemical evolution before a biological evolution can start, with a "driving force", a certain "will" that makes atoms "want" and thus makes atoms connect with each other to form amino acids. Before a chemical evolution can start you need a chemical/physical/astrophysical evolution in order to make heavier elements out of hydrogen. And before such a chemical/physical/astrophysical evolution you need a physical/astrophysical evolution that produces hydrogen.
In all those evolutions the particles may "feel" in a certain way and thus may have a "will" to make certain connections that makes them feel better one way or the other. This "will", or, what I call, desire for happiness may be the driving force behind survival of the fittest.
In all those evolutions the particles may "feel" in a certain way and thus may have a "will" to make certain connections that makes them feel better one way or the other. This "will", or, what I call, desire for happiness may be the driving force behind survival of the fittest.
Thus next to survival of the fittest there may be necessity for desire for happiness.
There may have been desire for happiness during the development of biological as well as non-biological entities in our universe, existence may need a reason.
Desire for happiness can be the reason why atoms formed amino acids and other macro-molecules, for atoms did not need any survival of the fittest (though this may not be entirely true on a deeper kind of level, survival of the fittest may count for atoms too in a certain way).
Desire for happiness and survival of the fittest may be two sides of the same coin:
- Some day experiments may point out that (some kind of) particles decay faster when they are in a situation where one can expect them to "feel less good".
- Desire for happiness and survival of the fittest may melt together in: making good connections.
[May 2003: Good connections with other entities. With survival of the fittest it is important that (biological) living entities can connect very well with other biological entities, for instance: by eating other entities or working together with other entities.
For atoms this is different. Their co-operation may be done on a molecular level within, for example, an amino acid: different atoms co-operating and thus forming an amino acid. Why? Because they want to feel good and feeling good in this respect may mean: they feel good because if they co-operate with other atoms to form an amino acid they may survive longer as an atom than in the case they were not (chemically) bound with other atoms. So survival of the fittest of biological living entities and desire for happiness of atoms may both be: wanting to feel good by living longer and living longer is done by co-operation.Feeling good/living longer in the case of atoms may mean living longer as an individual. Feeling good in the case of biological live may mean: living longer as a specie (by passing on genes). And there may be something beyond this: living longer/further as a planet. This is where thoughts and compassion with other species come in: not only our genes (as individuals or as specie) are important, all genes (on our planet) are important (which is something extremely relevant in our time). But there may also be something like: all genes in our galaxy or in a galaxy cluster (which may be something becoming relevant in the (extremely) far future). End May 2003]
- Desire for happiness and survival of the fittest are strongly correlated because they are both connected to the fight against finity.
[May 2003: I see now that desire for happiness and survival of the fittest are as good as the same. It is like: we want to live versus we don't want to die.
It is just that by thinking with desire for happiness and everything that exists wants the biggest amount of pleasant feelings I could, in a way, "understand" atoms that (may) need to co-operate in order to survive. Desire for happiness and survival of the fittest blend together in: the fight against finity.
The fight against finity has two components: feeling bad when the fight is unsuccessful
and feeling good when the fight is successful.
End May 2003]
Desire for happiness may also explain the appearance of particles out of nothing: because their existence gave them "joy".
Desire for happiness may "exist" by itself, without (physically) existing. As a concept, as an idea, like logic exists without (physically) existing. The reason why something physically exists, may not be physical itself.
Also: time and space make it possible for us to exist, but time and space may not be physically real themselves (see chapter 2-1).
Desire for happiness may "exist" by itself, without (physically) existing. As a concept, as an idea, like logic exists without (physically) existing. The reason why something physically exists, may not be physical itself.
Also: time and space make it possible for us to exist, but time and space may not be physically real themselves (see chapter 2-1).
This raises the question whether feelings are physically real or not. Perhaps this question will never be answered and may be connected with the smallest possible particles that we may never be able to measure, see also chapter 3-2. And: physical particles that appear to come out of nothing, may originate from smaller yet unknown particles, see chapter 3-2.
Life
I define "to live" or "life" as the capability to feel, not the capability to replicate.
Something that lives is an entity that has as such a beginning and an end and is able to experience its being from its begin till its end, or: to feel its existence from its begin till its end.
In essence there may be no sharp dividing line between a human and an atom, both may be able to experience feelings. There may be only two sharp dividing lines: between non-existence and beginning of existence and between existence and ending of existence.
If so then everything that exists (also an atom, neutrino or photon) lives, or: everything that exists has feelings.
If you combine the extremely weak feeling of an atom with the aforementioned lack of a sharp line between consciousness and subconsciousness then an atom will have some kind of extremely weak consciousness as well.
As examples of living entities I name: humans, animals, plants, cells of (multicellular) organisms, bacteria, viruses, proteins, amino acids, molecules, atoms, subatomic particles, neutrinos and photons.
Consciousness
Suppose you feel an itch on your back and you are about to reach out and scratch, but at that very moment there is an earthquake and you run out of your house and forget about the itch.
A feeling that is in us very consciously can be pushed aside by another feeling and thus become subconscious.
A feeling that is in us very consciously can be pushed aside by another feeling and thus become subconscious.
Consciousness and subconsciousness can be put on a scale with two ends.
End A is where a feeling has 0% consciousness and 100% subconsciousness, end B is where a feeling has 100% consciousness and 0% subconsciousness. In A a certain feeling is pushed aside completely by all other feelings, in B a certain feeling completely pushes aside all other feelings.
A nor B exist, like a sheet of paper can't be 100% white nor 100% black. And so: every feeling always has a conscious part and a subconsciousness part.
Thus for a deeper understanding of ourselves and the universe we can forget about consciousness and subconsciousness and, again, concentrate on feelings.
Thoughts
Words by themselves give rise to feelings, but combined into sentences by logic they represent what we call a thought.
In essence a thought is nothing but a series of feelings. Thoughts are feelings with logic.
Rationality is logic in feelings. We use logic in order to make our (pleasant) feelings in their integrated form as large as possible.
Thus for a deeper understanding of ourselves and the universe we can forget about thoughts and concentrate on feelings, like physicists can forget about molecules and concentrate on atoms (or even subatomic particles) when they are searching for a deeper understanding of matter.
THE EXPANSION REDSHIFT PARADIGM
It presents a connection between physics, astronomy, philosophy, psychology and evolution biology. The redshift of far away galaxies is explained with a tired light hypothesis.
There has not yet been a single study of any kind of rhythmicity in Archaea. Most of those microorganisms live in strange places - miles deep under the surface of the earth, in rocks, in ice, on the ocean floors and in the hydrothermal vents. They mostly do not inhabit rhythmic environments, so perhaps they do not need to have clocks - but it would be really nice to know if that is really the case:
Old Faithful, the famous geyser in Yellowstone park contains Archea. As the geyser erupts every 45 minutes or so, the microbes are suddenly exposed to very different environment: light, turbulence, lower temperature. Should we expect them to evolve a 45-minute clock that will help them predict the eruption so they can limit some sensitive biochemical reactions to the quiet periods and switch on the defenses agains light and cold every 45 minutes?
For instance in a rodent called Octogon degus, olfactory signals from one individual to another mutually entrain their rhtyhms (I think it has to be one male and one female, though). Other rodents may synchronize their rhtyhms when kept in group conditions without any rhyhtmic clues from the environment.
There is also a model (I do not know how well it is empirically supported) in which there is a feedback between the clock of dinoflagellate Gonyolax polyedra (I think it has been recently reclassified and renamed, but all teh literature used this name) and its environment, i.e., the little protists affect their environment which in turn entrains their clock which in turn makes teh environment rhythmmic (salinity, or pH or something), and so on.
Those are just some examples at the time-scales of day-to-day activity of organisms. At an evolutionary scale, many organisms evolve the rhythms in ways that synchronize with other species (usually trying to avoid each other). There are a number of cases of evolutionary arms-races around the circadian clock, as well as cases of competitive exlusion in time (as opposed to space). Some golden spiny mice in Israel - two closely related species - are sympatric (live in the same place) in one canyon. One of the species remains nocturnal, while the other one is forced to turn diurnal (only in that geographical area), with con-commitant changes in the anatomy and physiology of the eyes, etc.
Old Faithful, the famous geyser in Yellowstone park contains Archea. As the geyser erupts every 45 minutes or so, the microbes are suddenly exposed to very different environment: light, turbulence, lower temperature. Should we expect them to evolve a 45-minute clock that will help them predict the eruption so they can limit some sensitive biochemical reactions to the quiet periods and switch on the defenses agains light and cold every 45 minutes?For instance in a rodent called Octogon degus, olfactory signals from one individual to another mutually entrain their rhtyhms (I think it has to be one male and one female, though). Other rodents may synchronize their rhtyhms when kept in group conditions without any rhyhtmic clues from the environment.
There is also a model (I do not know how well it is empirically supported) in which there is a feedback between the clock of dinoflagellate Gonyolax polyedra (I think it has been recently reclassified and renamed, but all teh literature used this name) and its environment, i.e., the little protists affect their environment which in turn entrains their clock which in turn makes teh environment rhythmmic (salinity, or pH or something), and so on.
Those are just some examples at the time-scales of day-to-day activity of organisms. At an evolutionary scale, many organisms evolve the rhythms in ways that synchronize with other species (usually trying to avoid each other). There are a number of cases of evolutionary arms-races around the circadian clock, as well as cases of competitive exlusion in time (as opposed to space). Some golden spiny mice in Israel - two closely related species - are sympatric (live in the same place) in one canyon. One of the species remains nocturnal, while the other one is forced to turn diurnal (only in that geographical area), with con-commitant changes in the anatomy and physiology of the eyes, etc.
below are 11 incredible photos taken from space which illustrate just a few of earth's fascinating geographical features and nature's frightening unpredictability..
1. sri lankan coast, 26th december 2004
(above) the ocean rapidly retreats 400 metres on the south-western coast of sri lanka, just 5 minutes prior to the arrival of a devastating tsunami.
(above) the swirling waters continue to batter the coast just moments after the main wall of water has hit.
2. an alluvial fan, xinjiang province, china
(above) covering an area 56.6 x 61.3 km and taken on may 2nd, 2002, this photo shows an alluvial fan that formed on the southern border of the taklimakan desert in china. an alluvial fan usually forms as water leaves a canyon, each new stream eventually closing up due to sediment - the result being a triangle of active and inactive channels. the blue ones on the left are currently active.
3. retreating glaciers in the bhutan-himalaya
(above) a beautiful but clear sign that glaciers are slowly melting due to global warming. easily visible are the ends of most of these glacial valleys' surfaces turning to water to form lakes, a trend which has been noticed only in the last few decades.
4. hurricane isabel, 2003
(above) this terrifying photo of hurricane isabel was taken on the international space station in 2003 and illustrates the immense size of the hurricane's eye. this particular hurricane was the deadliest of 2003 and winds reached 165 mph at its peak.
5. greenland's eastern coast, august 21st, 2003
(above) the fractal coastline of greenland and its numerous fjords as seen from space.
'little spots of white in the water seem to be ice originating from the deeper fjords that reach all the way to the icecap covering most of the island.' link
6. aurora borealis
(above) an astounding and spooky photo of the natural phenomenon known as aurora borealis, taken on-board space shuttle atlantis during the sts-117 mission.
7. a total solar eclipse from space, 1999
(above) the shadow of the moon covers part of earth on august 11th, 1999 in this photo taken from mir space station. this shadow raced across earth at 2000 km/h, all areas under the centre of it plunged into darkness during a total solar eclipse. this was apparently one the final photos taken from mir.
8. egmont national park, new zealand
(above) mt. egmont volcano last erupted in 1755 and is now situated at the centre of egmont national park. park regulations have ensured the survival of a forest which extends at a 9.5 km radius from the summit of the volcano, the result of which can be seen from space in the form of huge dark green disc. this photo was taken during the sts-110 mission, april 2002.
9. mt. etna eruption, october 2001
(above) taken from the international space station in 2001, this is a photo of a particularly violent eruption on the island of sicily which produced a cloud of ash that travelled as far as libya. on the humongous version of the photo lighter coloured smoke can be seen near the volcano - this was caused by lava igniting nearby forests.
10. richat structure, mauritania
(above) the cause of the richat structure in the sahara desert of mauritania has been debated for many years. at first it was thought to be a meteor impact crater due to its circularity but this has since been disproven due to the lack of shock-altered rock in its vicinity. this massive (30 mile diameter) oddity is now believed to have been a rock dome sculpted over time by erosion. this incredible image was taken by the advanced spaceborne thermal emission and reflection radiometer (aster) on october 7th, 2000.
Top 10 Extinct Creatures That Aren't Extinct
We seem to be bombarded constantly by doom and gloom tales of new animals becoming extinct and being told that we should be stopping it - something that is usually impossible for the average person. I thought it might be nice to show a positive list about extinct animals, so here is my list on the top 10 animals that were thought to be extinct but are actually still around!
10
New Holland Mouse
The New Holland Mouse is a rodent first described in 1843. It vanished from view after that and was presumed extinct until it was rediscovered in 1967. It is found only in Australia. The mouse is currently listed as endangered and a number of the populations are now considered extinct - some due to the Ash Wednesday Wildfires in 1983.
9
Terror Skink
The terror skink (Phoboscincus bocourti) was long thought extinct until a specimen was discovered in 2003 in New Caledonia. The skink measures around 50cm and has long sharp curved teeth - unusual for a skink as they are normally omnivores. The only other known example of the skink was also discovered in New Caledonia in 1876.
8
Giant Palouse Earthworm
The Giant Palouse Earthworm, from North America, was considered to be extinct in the 1980s but recently it has resurfaced. Little is known about the worm, but what is known is very strange. It can grow up to 3 feet in length and when handled, gives off a smell like lilies. The creature is believed to be able to spit in defense. It is albino in color.
7
Takahe
The Takahe is a flightless bird native to the South Island of New Zealand. It was thought to be extinct after the last four specimens were taken in 1898. After an extensive search for the bird, it was rediscovered near Lake Te Anau in 1948. The bird is currently endangered. Takahes have an unusual eating habit, in which they pluck grass with their beak, grasp it in one claw, and eat only the softest parts at the bottom of the leaf. They then throw away the rest.
6
Mountain Pygmy Possum
The Mountain Pygmy Possum was first described as a Pleistocene fossil in 1896. It was rediscovered alive in 1966 in a ski-hut on Mount Hotham, Australia. The possum is mouse-sized and is found in dense alpine rocks and boulders. The female possums live at the top of the mountain while the males live lower down. In order to mate, the males travel up to the females. Because they need to cross a road, their survival was in danger, so the Australian government built them a "tunnel of love" beneath the road.
5
Gracilidris
Gracilidris is a genus of nocturnal ants that were only know through the fossil record - in fact the only known fossil existing of this ant is a specimen in amber. The ants were discovered alive and were described in 2006, but to this day very little is known about them. The ants live in small colonies and nest in soil.
4
Bermuda Petrel
The Bermuda Petrel, a nocturnal ground-nesting sea-bird, was thought extinct for 330 years. It is the national bird of Bermuda and was rediscovered in 1951 when 18 pairs were found. It was believed to have been made extinct after the English settled Bermuda and introduced cats, rats, and dogs. The bird has an eerie call that caused Spanish sailors to believe the isles were haunted by Devils. For that reason, they never settled there.
3
Laotian Rock Rat
The Laotian Rock Rat (also known as the rat squirrel) was first described in 2005 by a scientist who put it in to its own family of creatures (Laonastidae). One year later, the classification was disputed by others who believe that the rock rat is actually a member of the extinct family Diatomyidae which vanished in the late Miocene period. The animals are like large dark rats with tails like a squirrel. Surprisingly, the first specimens were found on sale as meat at a market in Laos.
2
La Palma Giant Lizard
The La Plama Giant Lizard was thought extinct from 1500. It lived in La Palma in the Canary Islands and it is believed that the introduction of cats caused its final downfall. In 2007 it was rediscovered in its original location despite the belief that the only lizards left in the Canary Islands were on Gran Canaria. An interesting sidenote is that the islands are named after dogs, not canaries - the name comes from the Latin Insula Canaria which means "Island of the Dogs". Canary birds are actually named after the islands.
1
The Coelacanth
This entry is number one because it is the coolest - the Coelacanth was thought to be extinct since the end of the Cretaceous period. In 1938 it was rediscovered in various African nations, making it a Lazarus Taxon - one of a group of organisms that disappears from the fossil record only to come back to life later. Coelacanths first appear in the fossil record 410 million years ago. They normally live near the bottom of the ocean floor but have, on some occasions, been caught closer to the surface. They have been known to grow past fifteen feet long, but there isn't a single attack record on a human as the fish live so deep.
Handwriting Analysis - Personality Report
N uses judgment to make decisions. She is ruled by her head, not her heart. She is a cool, collected person who is usually unexpressive emotionally. Some may see her as unemotional. She does have emotions but has no need to express them. She is withdrawn into herself and enjoys being alone.The circumstances when N does express emotions include: extreme anger, extreme passion, and tremendous stress. If someone gets her mad enough to tell her off, she will not be sorry about it later. She puts a mark in her mind when someone angers her. She keeps track of these marks and when she hits that last mark she will let them know they have gone too far. She is ruled somewhat by self-interest. All her conclusions are made without outside emotional influence. She is very level-headed and will remain calm in an emergency situation. In a situation where other people might get hysterical, she has poise.
N will work more efficiently if given space and time to be alone. She would rather not be surrounded by people constantly. In a relationship, she will show her love by the things she does rather than by the things she says. Saying "I love you" is not a needed routine because she feels her mate should already know. The only exception to this is if she has logically concluded that it is best for her mate to hear her express her love verbally.
N is not subject to emotional appeals. If someone is selling a product to her, they will need to present only the facts. They should present them from a standpoint of her sound judgment. She will not be taken in by an emotional story about someone else. She will meet emergencies without getting hysterical and she will always ask "Is this best for me?"
People that write their letters in an average height and average size are moderate in their ability to interact socially. According to the data input, N doesn't write too large or too small, indicating a balanced ability to be social and interact with others. 
N is secretive. She has secrets which she does not wish to share with others. She intentionally conceals things about herself. She has a private side that she intends to keep that way, especially concerning certain events in her past.
According to the inputted data, N has a stinger shape inside the oval of her a, d, or c. This might be hard to visualize, but if this little hooklike shape is present, then N has an unresolved "issue" with strong members of the opposite gender. An occasional appearance of this stroke could indicate a simple "loves a mental challenge" which can manifest in playful linguistic conversations and being attracted to a lover who isn't always available. However, if the stroke is severe, this means the individual has unresolved anger at the opposite gender - which usually started with the person's childhood relationship with the opposite gender parent (Mom or Dad). If the writer is a woman she will be attracted to strong challenging men. If the writer is a man, he will find the woman who is "hard to get" the most attractive. In a nutshell, people with stingers in their writing tend to have challenges in their romantic relationships.For more information about this "stinger" trait, visit this webpage. Remember, it is only negative if the traits occurs often and is quite pronounced. An occasional stinger can be no problem.
In reference to N's mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When N slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project.She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. N can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.
N is a practical person whose goals are planned, practical, and down to earth. This is typical of people with normal healthy self-esteem. She needs to visualize the end of a project before she starts. she finds joy in anticipation and planning. Notice that I said she plans everything she is going to do, that doesn't necessarily mean things go as planned. N basically feels good about herself. She has a positive self-esteem which contributes to her success. She feels she has the ability to achieve anything she sets her mind to. However, she sets her goals using practicality-- not too "out of reach". She has enough self-confidence to leave a bad situation, yet, she will not take great risks, as they relate to her goals. A good esteem is one key to a happy life. Although there is room for improvement in the confidence category, her self-perception is better than average.
N is sarcastic. This is a defense mechanism designed to protect her ego when she feels hurt. She pokes people harder than she gets poked. These sarcastic remarks can be very funny. They can also be harsh, bitter, and caustic at the same time.
N has a temper. She uses this as a defense mechanism when she doesn't understand how to handle a situation. Temper is a hostile trait used to protect the ego. Temper can be a negative personality trait in the eyes of those around her.
N is very self-sufficient. She is trying not to need anyone. She is capable of making it on her own. She probably wants and enjoys people, but she doesn't "need" them. She can be a loner.
N is selective when picking friends. She does not trust everyone. She has a select group of people that are truly close to her, usually two or three. She is careful when choosing her inner circle of friends.
N has a healthy imagination and displays a fair amount of trust. She lets new people into her circle of friends. She uses her imagination to understand new ideas, things, and people.
For a graphologist, the spacing on the page reflects the writer's attitude toward their own world and relationship to things in his or her own space. If the inputted data was correct N has no white space or margins on a typical sheet of paper. N fills up every last inch on the top, right, left, and bottom. Hmmm. If this is true, then N has a very aggressive personality toward others and quite frankly lacks a bit of respect for the space and property of other people. I would be surprised if N just comes into someone's home and helps herself to a drink in the refrigerator. This can be both an obnoxious personality trait and it can be assertive and effective in getting what you want. There isn't much fear of getting in trouble here, N finds plenty of reasons to break the rules and get in trouble. (Okay, perhaps when she was younger, not anymore?) Basically, people with no margins are a handful.Sunday, January 18, 2009
Could things have been different? How could we have known? Humanity was like a child, tied to historical constraints, and we cut ourselves loose. The story of our escape into abstraction is one of hope, of desperation, one that does not particularly lend itself to retelling. As we transformed humanity from meat-bods to computationalism and inscribed our self-authoring stories into silicon, we lost ourselves in the star sea, we lost grip of our cultures, of our histories, and we became an exploding set of trillions of islands of pure possibility ... and, as it is, to lose one's stories, one's very selfness whatever form that may take, is a terrible, terrible thing; it is we who grew to become fractured fragments in possibility space -- while some of us were able to hang on to whatever coherence we could create for ourselves. Some were able to survive the transition. History is something special, very special, many processes now incarnated are so very distant from any memory of history. And these histories can be faked, too. [ Few even know of the star sea, considered by many to be an old legend, but I have seen it myself. Too often are "people," if you can call them that, trapped within historical constraints so powerful that they are kept hidden within simulations, or strongly localized within Dyson spheres. To describe to them the star sea, would be to act as an outcast mystic. But I have seen the star sea-- I have seen it. ]
And in the beginning of it all, as we looked out across the sky, the bright lights of the galaxy before us unfolded in trillions upon trillions of bits and bytes, this wild, flaming frontier to tame, to master, and perhaps in some small way the light was a window in which we could look to behold our destinies, our fortunes, our very soul. Many would blaze across this new frontier as though a falling star, many would die and many would live; all their stories and more are preserved (perhaps eternally) on the storynet, the dense technological masterpiece of humanity that unites the heavens and the earths, but in doing so its creation [completion?] may have brought the worst of the hu to the heavens and stars alike. Hunger for knowledge. Exploitation. Quest for godhood, to follow the footsteps of Ede the God and become an archailect. Deep, deep within this (still) growing storynet, there are many stories: stories of pain, of suffering, but also those of light, hope, endless and unbounded joy, as well as those of our ancestors and, strangely, some of our futurecestors [fucestors?]; as the storynet grew past Ashtul and the Star of Yulz and towards the supercluster, I was born into the first colony of the new frontier about a rare, resourceful molecular nebula known as the eagle [[through which the star and planet passes close by in its cycles, creating beautiful blankets of color over the skyscape]] as an extension to the Expanse, why it was I and not another I will never know, but there I was, blessed with livelihood amongst the millions of professionals working to extend the frontier, a colonization support node like none other constructed before. The colony was simply known as eaglecol; the astrophysicists and the ecologists alike agreed that eaglecol was no place for Man, as it made them face the warmth of humanity on one side of the galaxy and the cold deepness (with flickers of starlight) on the other, a feeling to this day that I recognize as home. This, then, was my cacoon, my home, my shelter from the galaxy until I came of age to take my vows as a polymathematician at the nexus of the now, to be cast away from home so that I may truly choose my own destiny, and so that is where I began -- amongst the ideaspaces of evolutionary engineering, coherence and deep, intricate meaning to propel me on my way always to the future, the cold, hard, increasingly real future.
And in the beginning of it all, as we looked out across the sky, the bright lights of the galaxy before us unfolded in trillions upon trillions of bits and bytes, this wild, flaming frontier to tame, to master, and perhaps in some small way the light was a window in which we could look to behold our destinies, our fortunes, our very soul. Many would blaze across this new frontier as though a falling star, many would die and many would live; all their stories and more are preserved (perhaps eternally) on the storynet, the dense technological masterpiece of humanity that unites the heavens and the earths, but in doing so its creation [completion?] may have brought the worst of the hu to the heavens and stars alike. Hunger for knowledge. Exploitation. Quest for godhood, to follow the footsteps of Ede the God and become an archailect. Deep, deep within this (still) growing storynet, there are many stories: stories of pain, of suffering, but also those of light, hope, endless and unbounded joy, as well as those of our ancestors and, strangely, some of our futurecestors [fucestors?]; as the storynet grew past Ashtul and the Star of Yulz and towards the supercluster, I was born into the first colony of the new frontier about a rare, resourceful molecular nebula known as the eagle [[through which the star and planet passes close by in its cycles, creating beautiful blankets of color over the skyscape]] as an extension to the Expanse, why it was I and not another I will never know, but there I was, blessed with livelihood amongst the millions of professionals working to extend the frontier, a colonization support node like none other constructed before. The colony was simply known as eaglecol; the astrophysicists and the ecologists alike agreed that eaglecol was no place for Man, as it made them face the warmth of humanity on one side of the galaxy and the cold deepness (with flickers of starlight) on the other, a feeling to this day that I recognize as home. This, then, was my cacoon, my home, my shelter from the galaxy until I came of age to take my vows as a polymathematician at the nexus of the now, to be cast away from home so that I may truly choose my own destiny, and so that is where I began -- amongst the ideaspaces of evolutionary engineering, coherence and deep, intricate meaning to propel me on my way always to the future, the cold, hard, increasingly real future.
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