The solar wind is 323 KM/sec and the proton count is up to 3.8. There are four active sumspot clusters ont eh sun today, but they are headed over the limb. With the departure of sunspot AR1678, solar activity has returned to low levels. NOAA forecasters estimate a 5% chance of M-class solar flares and a scant 1% chance of X-flares during the next 24 hours.
The Most Productive People View Fear The Way Other People View Lunch
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Jeff Haden
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Jeff Haden is the author of more than 30 non-fiction books and a columnist for Inc.
Some people get more done than others--a lot more.
Sure, they work hard. And they work smart. But they possess other qualities that make a major impact on their performance.
They do the work in spite of disapproval or ridicule.
Work too hard, strive too hard, appear to be too ambitious, try to stand out from the crowd. It's a lot easier and much more comfortable to reel it in to ensure you fit in.
Pleasing the (average-performing) crowd is something remarkably productive people don't worry about. (They may think about it, but then they keep pushing on.)
They hear the criticism, they take the potshots, they endure the laughter or derision or even hostility--and they keep on measuring themselves and their efforts by their own standards.
And, in the process, they achieve what they want to achieve.
They see fear the same way other people view lunch.
One of my clients is an outstanding--and outstandingly successful--comic. Audiences love him. He's crazy good.
Yet he still has panic attacks before he walks onstage. He knows he'll melt down, sweat through his shirt, feel sick to his stomach, and all the rest. It's just the way he is.
So, just before he goes onstage, he takes a quick shower, puts on fresh clothes, drinks a bottle of water, jumps up and down and does a little shadowboxing, and out he goes.
He's still scared. He knows he'll always be scared. He accepts it as part of the process. Pre-show fear is like lunch: It's going to happen.
Anyone hoping to achieve great things gets nervous. Anyone trying to achieve great things gets scared.
Productive people aren't braver than others; they just find the strength to keep moving forward. They realize fear is paralyzing while action creates confidence and self-assurance.
They can still do their best on their worst day.
Norman Mailer said, "Being a real writer means being able to do the work on a bad day."
Remarkably successful people don't make excuses. They forge ahead, because they know establishing great habits takes considerable time and effort. They know how easy it is to instantly create a bad habit by giving in--even just this one time.
They see creativity as the result of effort, not inspiration.
Most people wait for an idea. Most people think creativity happens. They expect a divine muse will someday show them a new way, a new approach, a new concept.
And they wait and wait and wait.
Occasionally, great ideas do just come to people. Mostly, though, creativity is the result of effort: toiling, striving, refining, testing, experimenting... The work itself results in inspiration.
Remarkably productive people don't wait for ideas. They don't wait for inspiration. They know that big ideas most often come from people who do, not people who dream.
They see help as essential, not weakness.
Pretend you travel to an unfamiliar country, you know only a few words of the language, and you're lost and a little scared.
Would you ask for help? Of course. No one knows everything. No one is great at everything.
Productive people soldier on and hope effort will overcome a lack of knowledge or skill. And it does, but only to a point.
Remarkably productive people also ask for help. They know asking for help is a sign of strength--and the key to achieving more.
They start...
At times, you will lack motivation and self-discipline. At times, you'll be easily distracted. At times, you'll fear failure or success.
Procrastination is a part of what makes people human; it's not possible to completely overcome any of those shortcomings.
Wanting to put off a difficult task is normal. Avoiding a challenge is normal.
But think about a time you put off a task, finally got started, and then, once into it, thought, "I don't know why I kept putting this off--it's going really well. And it didn't turn out to be nearly as hard as I imagined."
It never is.
Highly productive people try not to think about the pain they'll feel in the beginning; they focus on how good they will feel once they're engaged and involved.
And they get started. And then they don't stop.
...And they finish.
Unless there's a really, really good reason not to finish--which, of course, there almost never is
Star Trek
Star Trek technical manuals indicate that transparent aluminum is used in various fittings in starships, including exterior ship portals and windows. It was notably mentioned in the 1986 film Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Panels of ultra-thick acrylic glass were needed to construct water tanks within their ship's cargo bay for containing two humpback whales and tons of water. However, the Enterprise crew, without money appropriate to the period, found it necessary to barter for the required materials. Chief Engineer Montgomery Scott exchanges thechemical formula for transparent aluminum for several sheets of of the material. from a manufacturer called Plexicorp. When Dr. Leonard McCoy informs Scott that giving Dr. Nichols the formula is altering the future, the engineer responds, "Why? How do we know he didn't invent the thing?" (In the novelization of the film, Scott is aware that Dr. Marcus "Mark" Nichols (Alex Henteloff), the Plexicorp scientist with whom he and McCoy deal, was its "inventor," and concludes that his giving of the formula is a predestination paradox/bootstrap paradox.) The substance is described as being as transparent as glass while possessing the strength and density of high-grade aluminum. It was also mentioned in Star Trek: The Next Generationepisode "In Theory."
The series' science consultant André Bormanis has concluded that the material would not be a good conductor of electricity.
Aluminiumoxynitride is a form of ceramic whose properties are similar to those of the fictional substance seen in Star Trek. It was patented in 1980, and has military applications as bullet-resistant armour, but is too expensive for widespread use.[1][2]
However, transparent aluminum became another Star Trek fiction turned reality when it was created as a new state of matter by a team of scientists in 2009. A laser pulse removed an electron from every atom without disrupting the crystalline structure.[3]
A group of scientists led by Ralf Röhlsberger at DeutschesElektronen-Synchrotron (DESY), Hamburg, Germany, succeeded in turning metal transparent during research in 2012 to createquantum computers.[4][5]
Dr. Ketchum is the founder of DNA Diagnostics. Established in 1985, DNA Diagnostics has become a leader in all types of DNA testing including: human and animal forensics, human and animal paternity and parentage testing, disease diagnostics, trait tests, animal and human identity testing, species identification and sex determination. Most common species of animals are tested at DNA Diagnostics. Dr. Ketchum has also established a research program ranging from gene mapping to developing the VeriSNP™ (patent pending) platform for universal genetic evaluation in multiple species of animals. Other research includes genetics of disease, population genetics and other genetically important traits such as coat color in animals.
Dr. Ketchum is a past three-term Chairperson of the International Society for Animal Genetics Equine Genetics Standing Committee. She has also been Dog Map Chairperson and a Committee member on the Dog and Cat Parentage Committee. She is a former Treasurer for AFDAA, The Association of DNA Analysts and Administrators. She aided in the analysis of the DNA sequences from the World Trade Center Disaster
Another bright Comet Coming
Comet Panstarrsdiscovered by the Pan-Starrs telescope in Hawaii in 2011, is coming in March of this year Could this be the Blue Kachina predicted by the Hopi, or could it be Comet ISON coming in November? Both of these comets will be visible with the naked eye and very well with an ordinary pair of binoculars. You will be able to see IOSN in daylight. Now that is amazing.
I would suggest making a binocular holder, or going to the gym for a few months. One can be made with ordinary PVC piping and some cheap clamps or Velcro. If you would like plans for a simple binocular holder for a swivel office chair with arm rests, let me know. You can take your office chair outside, clamp the holder to the arms of the chair, set you binoculars into the clamps, and sit back and watch for hours the planets, moons, and comets without fatigue.
AUDIO
Scientists create 'sixth sense' brain implant to detect infrared light
A brain implant which could allow humans to detect invisible infrared light has been
developed by scientists in America.
A brain implant which could allow humans to detect invisible infrared light has been developed by scientists in
America. Photo: ALAMY
By Nick Collins
2:58PM GMT 17 Feb 2013
Scientists have created a "sixth sense" by creating a brain implant through which infrared lightcan be detected.Although the light could not be seen lab rats were able to detect it via electrodes in the part ofthe brain responsible for their sense of touch.
Similar devices have previously been used to make up for lost capabilities, for example givingparalysed patients the ability to move a cursor around the screen with their thoughts. But the new study, by researchers from Duke University in North Carolina, is the first case inwhich such devices have been used to give an animal a completely new sense. Dr Miguel Nicolelis said the advance, reported in the Nature Communications journal this week,was just a prelude to a major breakthrough on a "brain-to-brain interface" which will beannounced in another paper next month.
Speaking at the annual meeting of the American Academy for the Advancement of Science inBoston on Sunday, he described the mystery work as something "no one has dreamed could bedone".
The second paper is being kept secret until it is published but Dr Nicolelis's comments raise theprospect of an implant which could allow one animal's brain to interact directly with another. In the first study, rats wore an infrared detector on their head which was connected to electrodesin the part of their brain which governs touch.
When one of the ultraviolet light sources in their cage was switched on, the rats initially beganrubbing their whiskers, indicating that they felt as if they were touching the invisible light. After a month of training, they learned to link the new sensation with the light sources and wereable to find which one was switched on with 100 per cent accuracy. A monkey has since beentaught to perform the same task.
The study demonstrates that a part of the brain which is designed to process one sense caninterpret other types of sensory information, researchers said.
It means that in theory, someone who is blind because of damage to their visual cortex couldregain their sight using an implant in another part of the brain.
Dr Nicolelis said: "What we did here was to demonstrate that we could create a new sense inrats by allowing them to "touch" infrared light that mammals cannot detect.
"The nerves were responding to both touch and infrared light at the same time. This shows thatthe adult brain can acquire new capabilities that have never been experienced by the animalbefore.
"This suggests that, in the future, you could use prosthetic devices to restore sensory modalitiesthat have been lost, such as vision, using a different part of the brain."
The study is part of an international effort to build a whole-body suit which allows paralysedpeople to walk again using their brain to control the device's movement. Infrared sensing could be built into the suit to inform the person inside about where their limbsare and to help them "feel" objects.Dr Nicolelis and his collaborators on the project hope to unveil the "exoskeleton" at the openingceremony of the football World Cup in Brazil in 2014.
© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2013
Space Tourism
Sometimes, it almost seems to disappear into the desert. Conceived as a conjuring trick of architecture and topography, Sir Richard Branson’s Virgin Galactic Gateway to Space rises in a sinuous curve from the New Mexico dust, its steel surfaces weathered into a red-brown mirage on the horizon.
The route that the package-tour astronauts of tomorrow will take through the building has been meticulously devised by the architects of Foster + Partners to foreshadow the journey they will make into space: a concrete ramp ascends gently towards the centre of the building — a narrow, hooded cleft that even in the blinding south-western sunshine forms a small rectangle of perfect darkness.
A magnetic tag worn by each passenger triggers heavy steel doors that will open into a narrow and dimly lit passageway, the walls curving out towards another blackened doorway, and a catwalk with views of the 4,300 square-metre hangar four storeys below, housing the fleet of spacecraft in which they will travel.
And then, the finale: the last set of doors swings open into the astronaut lounge, a vast, open space filled with natural light from an elliptical wall of windows, offering a panorama of the 3km-long spaceport runway, and the sky beyond. The effect is just as the architects intended: although the building is not yet complete, when a group of prospective space tourists was brought to it, they found the experience so overwhelming they were moved to tears.
Yet there remains a great deal at stake out here in the desert. There are now nine locations in the US designated as spaceports, but the New Mexico complex — Spaceport America — is the only one built from scratch and designed to accommodate a regular passenger service. It was raised from nothing on an isolated plain 30 miles from the nearest town.
Creating it has not been cheap: to date, it has cost £155 million and the bill for the runway alone will be £24 million. And although the building at its centre bears Virgin Galactic’s name and was designed to the company’s requirements, it has been paid for by the state of New Mexico, whose citizens voted for a sales tax designed to finance its construction.
On a cold November morning, Christine Anderson, the former US Air Force official now charged with bringing Spaceport America to life, stands on a wind-whipped access road near the Gateway to Space. “This is the beginning of the commercial passenger space-line industry,” she says.
Anderson’s crews are on target to complete their work by the end of this year; Virgin Galactic plans a regular service — launching daily flights into space — for the start of 2014. She is optimistic about the future: daily sub-orbital passenger flights will be followed by point-to-point intercontinental travel that will traverse the globe in the time it takes to watch an in-flight movie; trips out of the Earth’s atmosphere will become as commonplace as taking a bus. “I hope,” Branson says later, “it’s the beginning of a whole new era in space travel.”
But before that can happen, Virgin Galactic will have to finish building its rocket. When complete, SpaceShipTwo’s cabin space will be 2.28m in diameter and 3.5m long, half the size of that in a small business jet.
After a take-off, tethered beneath the mothership — WhiteKnightTwo, a twin-fuselage turbojet with a 42m wingspan — the ascent to launch altitude will be the longest single part of the journey, taking more than an hour to reach nine miles high.
“There’s no drinks service, no newspapers,” says Dave Mackay, the former RAF test pilot and Virgin Atlantic captain who will be in the cockpit for Galactic’s first flights.
Once released from the mother ship, the spaceship drops away to a safe distance, where the pilot ignites the rocket motor, using two cockpit switches. With an unthrottled shriek, the rocket-plane shudders to full thrust within a tenth of a second, its nose pointed straight up to where the air thins towards the edge of space. At the instant of ignition, the passengers are thrown back into their seats with the full force of 3G, like being hurled against a brick wall. It’s 12 seconds to the sound barrier, 30 to Mach 2; within a minute, the spacecraft is travelling at 4,800kph.