Solar activity is still relatively low, but the appearance of the sun suggests the quiet might not last. Over the weekend, a profusion of new sunspot groups peppered the solar disk with dark cores--each one a potential source of eruptions. NOAA forecasters estimate a 35% chance of M-class flares and a 5% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours. We have already had a M Class flare in the past few days. This solar cycle is not over yet. Don’t forget that this is the most atypical solar cycle ever recorded. December rolled by without so much as a Y2K ripple, but the jury is still out, as they say. The solar wind is still a medium 352 km/sec and the proton count is about five times as high as we normally observe. There are so many sunspot cluster facing the earth they are hard to count. There is also a large coronal hole facing us at this time and one coming around. You might not want to sell that bunker just yet.
9 million Chinese are without water tonight as the supply was shut off after it was reported that about 9 tons of toxic chemical was dumped into the water supply. Somebody down at the water treatment facility is probably new, and they added the wrong stuff in the wrong amounts.
Also, the Hawaii bouy system reported 40-meter swings in after a
Tonight, after X-Squared Radio is over, Cost to Coast host George Noory is celebrating his 10th year with the 800 pound gorilla in paranormal broadcast radio. I will be one of his invited guests tonight, for which I am grateful. This is amazing and perhaps miraculous timing, as we have also launched a crowd funding effort at Indiegogo.com to fund the expedition to the Arctic Region. We need you help spreading the word. If I have not already emailed you, would you please go to X-Squared Radio at and get the crowdfunding link and share it?
Flu infections sweep America hospitalizing thousands and leaving 18 children dead of complications, and it's going to get worse
- 2,257 people have been hospitalized since the start of flu season
- Three-fourths of those with symptoms say the were not vaccinated
- 41 states have reported cases
The U.S. has been hit with a particularly aggressive early flu season this year with widespread reports of the illness across the country, hospitalizing 2,257 people and leaving 18 children dead before the end of 2012.
And health officials say the numbers haven't even peaked yet.
'I think we're still accelerating,' Tom Skinner, a Center for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman, told reporters.
The latest figures from the CDC show 29 states and New York City reporting high levels of flu activity, up from 16 states and New York City just one week prior.
Overall, 41 states reported cases.
'It’s about five weeks ahead of the average flu season,' said Lyn Finelli, lead of the surveillance and response team that monitors influenza for the CDC’s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. 'We haven’t seen such an early season since 2003 to 2004.'
During that flu season, Joe Lastinger's daughter Emily, 3, died only five days after coming down with the flu in late January.
'That was the first really bad season for children in a while,' said Lastinger, 40. 'For whatever reason that's not well understood, it affected her and it killed her.'
In that season, illnesses peaked in early to mid-December, with flu-related pneumonia and deaths peaking in early January.
That season was considered a 'moderately severe' season for flu, and ended in mid-February.
It's still too early to tell how bad this year's flu season will get.
While the CDC is waiting for more time to pass before classifying the season, Google Flu Trends
Do you have the flu? These are the symptoms to watch for
According to data being gathered by Flu Near You, flu cases have increased dramatically over the last few weeks. Here are the season's most-reported symptoms:
1. Cough -19 per cent
2. Sore throat - 16 per cent
3. Fatigue - 15 per cent
4. Headache - 14 per cent
5. Body Ache - 10 per cent
6. Fever - 7 per cent.
has already listed it as 'intense' by monitoring flu activity around the world based on internet search terms.
And roughly 4 per cent of users on Flu Near You, a real-time tracking tool gaining about 100 new participants per week, say they're experiencing symptoms.
'That's huge,' John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and assistant professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and Children’s Hospital Boston, told NBC News. 'Last year, we never got near this.'
Brownstein is one of the founders of Flu Near You, a project, coordinated by Children’s Hospital Boston, the Skoll Global Threats Fund and the American Public Health Association.
The project has been a great tool for generating immediate data about the ongoing flu season.
'It’s what we call ‘nowcasting,'' Brownstein said. 'It’s a more up-to-date view.'
CDC data can be as much as two weeks behind real-time reports.
Nuclear Security Helicopters
Helicopters have been conducting radiation tests above portions of the Washington, D.C. area using remote gamma radiation sensing technology.
The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) has been flying the radiation missions since Dec. 27, 2012 and they will continue until next Friday, Jan. 11. The flights have been conducted during daylight only, and the pilots fly about 80 miles per hour at 150 feet above the approximately 70-square mile radiation assessment area.
Naturally-occurring radiation is measured so that baseline levels can be established and used in security and emergency preparedness, reads a statement from the NNSA.
LINK
NNSA is making the public aware of the upcoming flights so that citizens who see the low-flying aircraft are not alarmed by the helicopters conducting the tests. The NNSA’s Remote Sensing Laboratory (RSL) out of Joint Base Andrews will be performing the assessment for local law enforcement of Washington, D.C, according to the organization’s Dec. 26 press release.
NNSA’s Office of Emergency Operations currently collaborates with more than 80 foreign governments and 10 international organizations with projects ranging from providing assistance to foreign governments in improving their emergency preparedness and response programs, to joint collaborative activities to improve emergency management infrastructure worldwide.
The NNSA hosted a training course in October that was primarily intended for personnel who work with radiation emergency response teams.
“The training was part of NNSA’s broader effort to build and enhance nuclear emergency management systems worldwide,” said NNSA Associate Administrator for Emergency Operations Joseph Krol in a press release from Oct. 12. “The international course provided commonly accepted methods in addition to lessons learned by NNSA responders in Japan during the Fukushima incident.”
The NNSA was established by Congress in 2000 as a semi-autonomous agency within the U.S. Department of Energy responsible for enhancing national security through the military application of nuclear science.
The electric shock that could cure a headache by releasing the body's most powerful painkillers
- Electrical current alters speed at which brain neurons fire, relieving pain
- Releases painkillers that have similar properties to opiates such as morphine
- Reduced pain of chronic headaches by 37 per cent over four weeks
- Long-term could reduce the amount of medication needed
Scientists have managed to release the body's most powerful painkillers by running an electrical current through the brain.
The breakthrough has provided hope for sufferers of chronic migraine after it was found to reduce the pain of a headache by up to 37 per cent.
The technique, known as deep brain stimulation, or transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS), alters the speed at which the brain's neurons fire. This, in turn, can relieve pain.
The painkillers released by the brainwere endogenous opioids - the human body’s most powerful, euphoria-inducing painkillers that are very similar to opiates such as morphine.
The new research, conducted at the University of Michigan, found that just a very small current - of two milliamps - was enough to have the effect.
Thirteen patients with chronic migraine - defined as least 15 attacks a month - had electrodes were placed above the motor cortex - the part of the brain responsible for voluntary movement.
After 10 sessions over four weeks, the average person's pain threshold had increased by 37 per cent after four weeks
The effects were cumulative and kicked in after about four weeks of treatment, said AlexandreDaSilva, assistant professor at the U-M School of Dentistry and lead author of the study, which appears in the journal Headache.
It's hoped electrical stimulation will reduce the need for medication - and therefore painkiller addiction
'This suggests that repetitive sessions are necessary to revert ingrained changes in the brain related to chronic migraine suffering,' he said, adding that study participants had an average history of almost 30 years of migraine attacks.
By boosting the release of natural painkillers, it's hoped chronic migraine sufferers would be less reliant on medication, therefore reducing the side effects and the risk of addiction.
Other studies have shown that stimulation of this part of the brain reduces chronic pain. However, this study provided the first known mechanistic evidence that tDCS of the motor cortex might work as an ongoing preventive therapy in complex, chronic migraine cases, where attacks are more frequent and resilient to conventional treatments, DaSilva said.
While the results are encouraging, any clinical application is a long way off, DaSilva said.
'This is a preliminary report,' he said. 'With further research, noninvasive motor cortex stimulation can be in the future of adjuvant therapy for chronic migraine and other chronic pain disorders by recruiting our own brain analgesic resources.'
The research, performed in conjunction with scientists from Harvard University and the City College of the City University of New York, also tracked the electric current flow through the brain to learn how the therapy affected different regions.
This was done using a high-resolution computational model. They correctly predicted that the electric current would go where directed by the electrodes placed on the subject's head, but the current also flowed through other critical regions of the brain associated with how we perceive and modulate pain.
'Previously, it was thought that the electric current would only go into the most superficial areas of the cortex,' DaSilva said. 'We found that pain-related areas very deep in the brain could be targeted.'
Norlan is married to Charmaine Knight Jacobs, and between them they have 14 children and eight grandchildren. He is the son of Norman and Flora Jacobs and is in the middle of their 11 children..Talented Writer
Norlan is a versatile writer and currently holds a master's degree in dramatic writing from the University of New Mexico. While there, he instructed master classes in playwriting and served as the coordinating director for the University's renown playwriting outreach program...
Norlan served as the Theatre Department Chair for the Manatee School for the Arts, where he developed their entire theatre curriculum, taught play and musical writing, and directed theatre productions for several years. He is best known for directing the professional production of the original musical, Saturday's Warrior, which was a smash hit that played to over 250,000 patrons throughout the western United States. / / /
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Norlan's Writings
Norlan received recognition for his celebrated screenplay The Reckoning, the musicals My Day and Honoring the Call, along with dozens of full length and one-act plays.
Norlan, what got you thinking about the hollow earth?
Most scientific minds who wrestle with this subject matter, often sweep their notes about it into a secret drawer and don’t speak about it to any of their peers about it. It’s sort of like Lemuria or Atlantis. A sort of scientific suicide, as it were. What made you tackle this as a fiction novel?
Did you start with an end vision of this subject? I mean you started this as an Epic film project.
Was there a basis in story or scientific fact that you started with?
I read the Smokey God and it seemed plausible that this son of a sailing explorer was swept into a lower world with his father. The idea that he was haphazardly rescued on the ice where no one dressed as he was should have been at least alive, seemed a little extreme, but still plausible. He was able to tell his story after he got out of incarceration for being deemed insane enough for it. Like we all aren’t at times ready for it ourselves.
It seems as I read your incredible book, actually it is quite credible, that you are leading us like Jules Verne once did to the moon or to the bottom of the sea, or indeed to the center of the Earth through story fashion. Is that what you are doing here?
I find the book very synergistic as my scientific colleagues and I are planning a physical voyage above the Arctic Circle to explore the legend ourselves. I also find it amazing that you start out the book with a talk radio host who has a rather amazing encounter. Can you share this in paraphrase with us?
So, this old man in the nursing home is able to get out on his own and walk through the streets of Santa Monica with the rest of the sane people?
So how does the story resonate with the host’s listeners?
Now that is strangely familiar.
Now, many people don’t know how an Epic begins, or why it seems that Hollywood is addicted to them. What is an Epic tale?
Why are they so hard to write?
How do you keep the theme consistent? I mean I wander enough writing a 500 pageto forget the Lamanites even existed. Do you tack the theme to your computer screen and then force yourself to remember the main character likes plaid?
One of the themes that is basic enough to be its own heading in a how to book is Boy meets Girl, gets, girl, loses girl, gets girl back, etc. Is there a love story in the book?
How does the story give way to the whole big screen idea of a hollow Earth?
This is a questions I ask myself about once a month as we work on thei whole Arctic voyage project. Why do you think that think there is such a passion, I mean a real lost in the distant stare passion with people from all over the world who think about the hollow Earth? I mean it’s more than thought, actually. It’s like a dream or a vision or an out of body experience with so many people. What do you think is going on here?
Now, Norlan I love a story. I like to read them and tell them. But I am a scientist and as much as I love the movie Avatar, I know it is a fantasy and a story. The concepts are beautiful and moving and even quite believable in themselves with energy moving through all life and matter being able to levitate with static energies. But they are entertainment and digital wonderment. What makes the idea that the planet is hollow so powerful with people. I mean the movies that have been made about it are corny to say the least. Still there is something powerful there.
I know you have a large family. Me too, by modern standards. I used to tell road stories to my kids about a mythical people that lived in between the freeways. I’m recording them right now so other kids can hear them on long trips with their parents. Have you shared these stories with your kids and grandkids?
When I talk with geologists or plate tectonic experts, and they admit that there is enough evidence to allow for significant voids inside the crust, perhaps even deep under the crust, they really don’t speculate beyond their fields of expertise. I mean we have only drilled about 8 miles into the crust. We only have remote sensing with seismic waves and perhaps HAARP data to go by beyond that.
I can tell you this much, as a scientist. If there is a void inside of the Earth, there will be life there. I don’t know if it microbial or more complex, but there will be life there. What, in your mind and research, leads you to support eh idea that complex life, perhaps even intelligent life might live there?
George, the universe needs at least another ten years of your voice and your heart worldwide on Coast to Coast AM.
Would you like a really quick Hollow Earth Update?
Two quick things. First update, we just acquired a new Expedition team memberNorlan Jacobs, a great researcher, author and screenwriter with his new book, The Source. It’s anAmazon book that will make a phenomenal major film. There’s a leading man role that is a talk radio host that breaks the story of the Hollow Earth. If you keep getting younger every year, who knows what the next ten years holds for you?
Now, you always ask me if weever get any interference on our efforts to visit the Arctic. Well, the Second update is our New York executive production crew completely vanished without a trace a month ago. Very mysterious. But we are not giving up so, hollow earth enthusiasts do a search for North Pole on Indiegogo. Come with us George. Let’s go and see, what do you say? Keep affecting the universe my friend! We can’t give up now.