HUGE sunspots turning toward Earth | Bad Astronomy

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As the Sun rotates roughly once per month, we see different features come into view… and the latest is an enormous sunspot system which just came around the limb of the Sun:

[Click to magneticfieldentanglenate.]

That shot was taken by the Mexican "amateur" astronomer César Cantú, and shows the spots — called Active Region 1339 — from November 4. The size of this system is staggering; the whole thing is well over 100,000 km (60,000 miles) across, and the dark cores are each about the size of our entire Earth!

They’re active, too: On November 3rd they popped off a pretty big X 1.9 class flare:

That image was taken by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory in the ultraviolet, where violent activity is easier to see. NASA made a video of the flare, and you should take a look. It’s pretty amazing.

So we have a recipe for some action here: big spots, known to be active, and they’re riding the Sun’s surface as it rotates them more fully toward us. Over the next week and a half we might get some more flares from them, and maybe some coronal mass ejections… and that means we might get more aurorae. Stay tuned here; if any occur I’ll report them as soon as I hear. Also keep your browser pointed at SpaceWeather.com, which always has the latest info as well.

Image credits: César Cantú; NASA/SDO

Related posts:

- October’s solar blast, seen from the side
- Gorgeous aurorae
- Solar purrominence
- Gorgeous flowing plasma fountain erupts from the Sun


Organic and Natural Skin, Hair and Body Care by the Youn

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We see natural skin care education as a key to our strength and viability as a sensitive skin, hair and body care product company.

We believe consumers should be informed to enable them to make the best choices about organic skin care.

We have discovered that knowing what NOT to put on your face, body and hair is as important and perhaps more important than what you do.

Since there is so much confusion in the market place, we have made a list of the most dangerous and damaging ingredients commonly used in the face, body and hair care industry.

Some of these ingredients you can not pronounce unless you are a chemist and many of these are listed on products using a different name, but we will continue to update this list to keep you informed of these damaging, allergenic, and many times carcinogenic pollutants to your body and the environment. Read more...

AyurGold for Healthy Blood

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Plastic Bag Pollution

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plastic bag litter

If you are new to “greening” your lifestyle you may have found yourself recently in a situation where you were standing in line at Trader Joe’s or your local Wholefoods market, shopping cart full of health conscious grub. You’re looking over your list to double check you have all the ingredients to try to recreate that fabulous vegan dish you had at the restaurant the other night. As you are patiently waiting your eyes have wondered over to the attractive blonde in front of you. You don’t want to stare so in your peripheral vison you notice what he is having for breakfast (crunchy granola cluster, rice milk, etc) as he one by one adds each item to the conveyer belt. Then he pulls out his neatly folded canvas shopping bag. Darn! I knew I forgot something! Don’t worry even the most experienced eco-veteran makes this mistake. As people anxiously wait in grocery lines you will notice its a great time to people watch (after you go over your grocery check list of course.) What a more perfect time to promote awareness of a waste free environment. Plastic bags take a whopping 80 percent of the grocery and convenience store market since they were introduced over a quarter century ago.

Plastic Bag Pollution Everywhere

According to a data released by the United States Environmental Protection Agency in 2001 on U.S. plastic bag, sack, and wrap consumption, somewhere between 500 billion and a trillion plastic bags are consumed worldwide each year. Of those, millions end up in the litter stream outside of landfills—estimates range from less than one to three percent of the bags. Plastic bag pollution has been attributed to the Plastic Vortex in the Pacific Ocean.

If you think about in how many instances the average person uses plastic bags and understandably so, they are convenient, almost always handy, and available in abundance. So what is a good alternative to those oh so convenient plastic bags? Well one of the morst popular ways today is the reusable canvas bag. It has become somewhat of a movement. It’s such a fun, smart, and cost effective approach to helping our beloved marine life and environment.

Plastic Bag Ban

I think we need to fight back against the plastic bag industry just as countries like Ireland, Bangladesh, South Africa, Thailand and Taiwan have done. Some U.S. cities are trying to follow in their footsteps as well by taking a stand such as San Francisco, Los Angeles, and Portland.

Tony Lowes, director of Friends of the Irish Environment in County Cork, said the 15 cent (about 20 cents U.S.) tax on plastic bags introduced there in March 2002 has resulted in a 95 percent reduction in their use. “It’s been an extraordinary success,” he said.

Although such a high increase in the US would cost thousands of job losses and an increase in energy consumption, maybe a much lower tax would do the trick?

Reusable shopper bags can be the practical, cool, and smart way of taking this matter in your hands. Believe it not, some people that may not even think twice about using a canvas tote may reconsider just by seeing an eye catching design or noticing an increase of people carrying them at the store. They may not want to feel embarrassed for being a green offender. Or they simply may want to just become part of the movement!

Whether you’re toting around your eco shopper tote to work, the pool, your kids soccer games etc, they can be very handy and fashionable too. You will know deep down that it’s the right thing to do all the while consciously or subconsciously effecting the decisions of others around you. Some cities already banned the plastic bag, if you live in one of those cities, you already have to use reusable bags. Amazon sells a pack of six for a good price.

Make your tote shopper bag an eco accessory like I have. These days you can get them personalized and with thousands of designs on the market today it’s easy to showcase a specific cause you care about.

I urge you to pick up a couple of eco friendly shopper bags as they remind us of our responsibility to the environment while preserving its beauty for all inhabitants.


How Archimedes’ lever explains human evolution | Gene Expression

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Last August I had a post up, The point mutation which made humanity, which suggested that it may be wrong to conceive of the difference between Neanderthals and the African humans which absorbed and replaced them ~35,000 years ago as a matter of extreme differences at specific genes. I was prompted to this line of thinking by Svante Pääbo‘s admission that he and his colleagues were searching for locations in the modern human genome which differed a great deal from Neanderthals as a way through which we might understand what makes us distinctively human. This sort of method has a long pedigree. Much of the past generation of chimpanzee genetics and now genomics has focused on finding the magic essence which differentiates us from our closest living relatives. Because of our perception of massive phenotypic differences between H. sapiens and Pan troglodytes the 95-99% sequence level identity is thought by some to be perplexing. Therefore models have emerged which appeal to gene regulation and expression, or perhaps other forms of variation such as copy number, to clear up how it can be that chimpanzees and humans differ so much. Setting aside that the perception of difference probably has some anthropocentric bias (i.e., would an alien think that chimpanzees and humans are actually surprisingly different in light of their phylogenetic similarities? I’m not so sure), it doesn’t seem to be unreasonable on the face of it to plumb the depths of the genomes of hominids so as to ascertain the source of their phenotypic differentiation.

But can this model work for differentiating different hominin lineages? Obviously there’s going to be a quantitative difference. The separation between chimpanzees and modern humans is on the order of 5 million years. The separation between Neanderthals and modern humans (or at least the African ancestors of modern humans ~50,000 years B.P.) is on the order of 500,000 years. An order of magnitude difference should make us reconsider, I think, the plausibility of fixed differences between two populations explaining phenotypic differences.

 

Backing up for a moment, why do we think there might be fixed differences between Neanderthals and modern humans? The argument, as outlined in books like The Dawn of Human Culture, is that H. sapiens sapiens is a very special lineage, whose protean cultural flexibility allowed it to sweep of the field of all other hominin sister lineages. The likelihood of some admixture from these “dead end” lineages aside, this rough model seems to stand the test of time. Consider that the Mousterian technology persisted for nearly 300,000 years, while the Oldowan persisted for 1 million! In contrast, our own species seems to switch and improve cultural styles much, much, faster. Behavioral modernity does point to a real phenomenon. The hypothesis of many scholars was that there was a genetic difference which allowed for modern humans to manifest language as we understand it in all its diversity and flexibility. The likelihood of this seems lower now that modern humans and Neanderthals have the same variants of FOXP2, the locus which seems to be correlated to elevated vocal and auditory capabilities across many vertebrate lineages. And, if it is correct that ~2.5% or so of modern human ancestry in Eurasia, and nearly ~10% in Papua, comes from “archaic” lineages, then I think that should reduce our estimates of how different these humans were from the Africans.

Therefore you can posit two stylized scenarios of contrasts between Neanderthals/modern humans and chimpanzees/modern humans. In one model the difference between the two comparisons is fundamentally of degree. Neanderthals and chimpanzees are still disjoint from modern humans. That is, there’s no overlap in the traits. But, Neanderthals are far closer to modern humans, as would be likely expected from the phylogenetic relationship. Another model though is that Neanderthals and modern humans did differ, but there was a great deal of overlap. This is a model with qualitative differences from that of chimpanzees vs. humans. If the second model is correct, and I think with all that we know from the Neanderthal genome project would should take it more seriously, then looking for disjoint pairwise differences in allele frequencies is not the way to go in understanding how the two human lineages diverged in phenotype.

In the second model, where there is a great deal of overlap, there is still a difference in the tails of the distribution. The idea I had in mind with my earlier post was that it is at these tails that the differences between Neanderthals and modern humans will be found when it comes to cultural differences. I think one might wonder where the Michelangelo or a Bachs of the Neanderthals were, but then one has to observe that the vast majority of modern humans are not Michelangelo or a Bachs! One of the primary indications of the transition to behavioral modernity is the proliferation of symbolism. But are we to presume that every member of an ancient Paleolithic tribe was equally capable of creative virtuosity? I think likely not. It could be that in fact the vast majority of “modern humans” are no different from all Neanderthals in the sort of things we might expect to be different across the two lineages. Rather, it may be that a small minority of modern humans crossed a particular threshold at the edge of the distribution of the phenotype, and when that transition was made the world was never the same.


Julius Caesar

I’m not proposing here that the victory of African humans ~50,000 years ago was due to artists. What I’m proposing is that at some point a critical mass of exceptional individuals arose. These individuals were possessed of peculiar characteristics, but instead of these characteristics making them outcasts, the qualities which they possessed were seen by their fellow humans as marks of greatness. In short, they were the children of gods among men.

Or perhaps demons. Men such as Alexander, Napoleon, and Hitler, were possessed of peculiar charisma, but whether they were good or evil is a matter of dispute and perspective. The point is not that they achieved greatness, but that they were the catalysts for a great number of events. As charismatic leaders they took collections of human beings, and turned them to there purpose. Individual humans became more than the sum of their parts, and for moments exhibited almost organismic levels of cohesion. Though the number one predictive variable in who won wars in the pre-modern world is the simple one of numbers, organization and structure also mattered. The Roman legion operating in a Testudo formation could beat off the attacks of more numerous barbarians who were physically more robust on a per person basis because the unit exhibited synergy, and translated cohesion into efficient collection action. This does not occur bottom up, but requires a personality type, a genius, to serve as the nexus or locus.

The model I have in mind then is one where the African humans faced up against their near relations, but not as one against one. Rather, under the guidance of charismatic leaders, Paleolithic megalomaniacs driven by fervid nightmares and irrational dreams, they ground through the many enemies who fought as sums of singulars as a cohesive social machine. It was not because they were superior on a per unit basis, but because they were superior on a per tribe basis, driven by individuals who turned the many to their own ambitions. With the lever of superior social organization the few moved the world, and swept over it. How many insane voyages were their east over the horizon from Sundaland before one tribe finally made landfall in Sahul? How many tribes perished in the ice of the far north, before some finally made it to Beringia? Why did humans look over the horizon, and venture out across the black waters? Perhaps just because they could. This answer is likely confusing and disquieting to many alive today, and perhaps it was disquieting to the more reasonable and level-headed “archaics” who were confronted with the zealous organizational insanity of the African humans who were rolling all opposition. But these insane individuals still move among us today, and they are still the objects of curiosity, fear, and adulation.

Is this a crazy model? Yes, somewhat. But is it really anymore crazy than the model that there is a mutation which can encapsulate all that differentiates man from beast-man? I think not.

UK Muslim leader Anjem Choudary threatens any media that supports Charlie Hebdo will be killed, just like Theo van Gogh

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From Eric Dondero:

In 2005 Theo van Gogh was murdered in the streets of Rotterdam by a Muslim extremist for co-producing a short film with Ayaan Hirsi Ali critical of Islam.

Now this:

Let there be no mistake. We libertarian Republicans, the full editorial board of this website, fully support Charlie Hebdo and all European publications and websites that stand up for freedom of speech.

H/t Spencer, Jihad Watch

Muslim activist put up Facebook page listing Australian soldiers war dead

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by James L. Fryar, Australia

Ibrahim Siddiq-Conlon is up to his old stunts again, this time starting a Face book page, “The Australian Defence Force: The Real Terrorists” in which he listed every Australian killed in the Afghanistan campaign and accused them of being terrorists because of their military service.

Siddiq-Conlon has received a great deal of attention here in Australia these past few years for establishing the Sharia4Australia movement. Conlon who sees democracy as a ‘challenge to Gods law’ wants to live under Sharia, and wants it imposed on all of us to stop us drinking beer, eating pork, and all the rest of those things his cult is intolerant towards.

It is uncertain what the attraction for such a drab and wretched lifestyle is with its women covered from head to toe, and most fun things like drinking booze, rock and roll, chatting up chicks, banned. Perhaps it’s the opportunity to be a member of the morals police, who get their jollies by whipping chicks who show a bit too much ankle, sort of like a male dominatrix force with the consensual aspect omitted.

His hate site has been taken down after the ADF received complaints and notified the Australian Federal Police and Facebook. If it were not the hurt it has caused the families of soldiers who have lost their lives there, it may have been for the best to leave it up. There is something positive in allowing the public to see it and assess for themselves just what a piece of shit he really is.

LR contributor James Fryar is the Real World Libertarian (blog). He is an oil rig worker and a fmr. LDP candidate for State Senate.

Mass starvation, Stalinist purge trials now in North Korea

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Socialist Utopia in the Extreme

by Clifford F. Thies

Five party bosses have been executed in North Korea, and a sixth committed suicide, The first question in everybody's mind was, of course, who would get their food rations.

According to the World Food Program, as many as 6 million of the 24 million people of North Korea are at risk of starvation. People are emaciated from hunger, susceptible to disease, and routinely resort to cannibalism. Most of the children are so malnourished, that their development has been severely stunted. Their height, their bone formation and their brain capacity are all well below normal.

We haven't seen a disaster the likes of this since Pol Pot's Cambodia, Mao's China, and Stalin's Russia.

(Source: Catholic News India)

Photo credit and to help - AmnestyInternational.org

Attempted "terror" act at NC University – Elizabeth City: Gunman identified

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Roaming campus carrying an AK-47, fled into the woods

From Newscorp via usecnetwork.com:

A former student at a North Carolina university who was seen carrying an assault rifle on campus was shot by police Saturday before being taken into custody.

University police on patrol at Elizabeth City State University, N.C., about 50 miles south of Norfolk, Va., saw students running from part of the campus and saying they had seen a man with a rifle... gunshots were fired on campus... The campus was put on lockdown. Officers saw a man wielding an assault rifle, and he was shot by an officer during a confrontation.

The suspect, who was not identified except as a male former Elizabeth City student, fled into a wooded area near the campus while still armed, Beamon said. Elizabeth City Police Department... dispatched officers and a K9 unit to locate the man.

Suspect - Rashaad Gardner - charged with terrorism

Update from local NBC News Channel 10 WAVY.com, "ECSU gunman pointed AK-47 at officers":

Police say Rashaad Gardner is charged with assault by pointing a gun, possession of a weapon on state educational property, and going armed to the terror of the people. Gardner is being held in the Albemarle District Jail on $50,000 bond.

A spokesperson for ECSU police says at least one officer shot Gardner in the leg after he pointed an AK-47 at police.

Police say they asked Gardner to drop the gun repeatedly but he refused.

Photo credit - Black Legacy colleges, Blackpast.org

Green Thanksgiving Tips

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Green Thanksgiving Turkey

Thanksgiving day is coming up before you know it and with it comes friends, family, and food. It’s one of the holidays that Americans loosen up the belt to cram a piece of every last dish on the dinner table. Even after shoving all that food in your face, the sad fact is that Americans waste about 25 percent of all Thanksgiving food prepared. It really is a tragedy to waste food when it could go to those who are more needy. Here are my top ten tips for a green Thanksgiving:

Buy Local and Seasonal

Farmers Markets have exploded to nearly every part of the country in the past ten years. That means you have no excuse, support your local farmers and keep your money in the local economy. Since organic produce often costs more, buy organic for produce that is known to have more pesticide residue. According to the Environmental Working Group list of dirty dozen for 2011, apples have the most pesticide residue followed by celery, strawberries, peaches, spinach, nectarines, grapes, sweet bell peppers, potatoes, blueberries, lettuce, and kale. Make sure you get those items in organic and check out their list for other produce items that have very low pesticide residue and should be okay to buy conventional. Generally, onions, corn, asparagus, sweet peas, eggplant, and sweet potato are okay to eat according to the EWG list.

Have A Potluck Thanksgiving

Having a potluck for Thanksgiving saves the host from bearing the full financial cost of dinner without compromising the amount of food to share with everyone. Pulling resources together is great way to involve everyone attending Thanksgiving dinner and also makes for great conversation topics with the whole group.

Plan For Leftovers

After a large family gathering for your fancy green Thanksgiving dinner you’ll probably end taking home a ton of leftovers. But chances are you are going to get sick of eating turkey sandwiches, and before you know it you’ll have wasted food that needs to be thrown away. Plan ahead for unique and different recipes that you can use that leftover turkey for, an example would be turkey soup. Letting food go to waste is crying shame, so be sure to plan ahead.

Maintain Your Green Cleaning Practices

Make sure that you stay true to your green Thanksgiving even after everyone has long gone from your home and you are stuck with cleaning up all the mess. Be sure to fill that dish washer to the rim before starting it. Dish washers are very efficient at cleaning a full load of dishes when compared to washing by hand. Before tossing dishes into the dish washer, grab a fork and scrape excess food off those plates rather than running water to pre-rinse. Also, avoid using odd cycles on your dish washer like heavy rinse or pre-rinse. You should also avoid using the drying function on the dish washer, instead let them air dry for maximum energy efficiency.

Speaking of Energy Efficiency…

With all the hustle and bustle going on in the kitchen with cooking a turkey or two in the oven, and all the baking, and prepping, it’s going to get warm…especially if you have a lot of guests over already. Be sure to turn the temperature down on the thermostat. Don’t worry your guests won’t even notice and you’ll save yourself some money on that utility bill too. If you want to take it a step further, you could buy some soy or natural wax candles to light your home and create a peaceful ambience.

Avoid Disposables

Even though using disposable dishes and utensils makes life easier for cleaning after a huge green Thanksgiving, try to avoid them. Disposables cost extra money, and are really just plain wasteful when you consider you probably have the means to get by without them. If you need extra dishes or utensils you don’t already have, just ask one of your guests or neighbors to borrow what you think you might need. They’d be more than likely to oblige, especially if you are planning to provide them a grand Thanksgiving dinner.

DIY for Decorations

Let your creative imagination run wild here. The easiest thing to do for centerpieces at your green Thanksgiving are pine cones, branches, red, orange, and yellow fallen leaves, etc. Not only will you save yourself money from buying decorations that you can only use once a year, but you can easily throw away your decorative pieces because they are biodegradable. You’ll save yourself storage space and spare the environment precious resources.

Green Turkey

If you happen to be vegan or vegetarian, this tip isn’t for you. In the spirit and tradition of Thanksgiving, a turkey must sacrifice its life for the dinner table of millions of Americans. Make sure that it is organic, and preferably from a local source. If you happen to live in rural country like my parents do, you could even raise your own turkey and call him Thanksgiving, and when the time comes, he ends up on the Thanksgiving dinner table. For most people, raising your own turkey isn’t really an option. If you must buy it from the grocery store, don’t be fooled by labels like ‘natural’ or ‘free range’, ‘organic’ is the greenest turkey option from the store.

Larger Isn’t Always Better

Sometimes people don’t realize that their plates are bigger than normal and attempt to fill their entire large plate with food and then attempt to eat it all. This is problematic because it can lead to over-eating, which is actually expected for Thanksgiving, but it can also lead to wasted food that gets tossed in the garbage. Using smaller plates allows for guests to fill smaller portions of food, and then get up for seconds if need be. It’s also a great idea for small children who tend to take one or two bites out of something and then run off to play with their brother, sisters, or cousins. This really cuts down on wasted food while also helping people watch their weight.

Cook or Prepare Less Food

Most people cook or bake up a storm in the kitchen and way over-do the Thanksgiving thing. In the spirit of attempting your first official green Thanksgiving this year, try to tamper it down a litte with the old adage ‘less is more’. As mentioned before, Americans waste about 25 percent of prepared food on Thanksgiving every year. Think about how much money that could be in savings when you consider the total cost of providing a large gathering a giant feast.

Can you think of any more tips? Let us know in the comments.

Photo Credit: Some rights reserved by cnewtoncom


Circuit Breaker Rating

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hi everbody, i m just look at MCB rating and found that the there is no any proper series or order between them like 6 A, 10 A, 13 A, 16 A, 20 A, 25 A, 32 A, 40 A, 50 A, 63 A, 80 A and 100A why these rating like this? why they are not in proper series?... is any specific reason for such type of rat