Two Quincy beaches closed by bacteria – News – The Patriot Ledger … – The Patriot Ledger

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Broady (Baker) and Delano beaches in Quincy's Germantown neighborhood have been closed by contamination. The bacteris levels are 15 times the level considered safe for swimming.

The other 63 salt-water beaches on the South Shore passed bacteria tests this week and are open for swimming.

See water quality test results for each community and for Cape Cod, the South Coast and North Shore.

For more on Quincy beaches, call 617-376-1288, or visit tpl-beaches. For more on Wollaston Beach, call 617-626-4972.

HOW BEACHES ARE TESTED

Sixy-five beaches on the South Shore are tested for intestinal bacteria found in humans and animals.

High levels indicate the possible presence of disease-causing microbes that are present in sewage but are more difficult to detect. Bacterial colonies are filtered from three ounces of water and placed on a gel infused with nutrients and chemicals designed to promote growth.

Left in an incubator, the single cells isolated on the filter grow explosively, forming colonies visible to the naked eye. After one day, the colonies are counted and if they exceed 104 colonies, the beach is closed to swimming.

If the past five samples have a mean exceeding 35 colonies, the beach must also be closed to swimming.

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Two Quincy beaches closed by bacteria - News - The Patriot Ledger ... - The Patriot Ledger

Thousands of Mysterious Yellow Sponges Wash Up On French Beaches – Smithsonian

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smithsonian.com July 20, 2017 1:11PM

Frances Opal Coast is studded with pristine, sandy beaches that overlook the deep blue waters of the English Channel. But over the past week, this picturesque stretch of land was marred by yellow, spongy clumps that washed ashore in droves.

The weird, fluffy balls numbered in the hundreds of thousands, affecting several beaches along the coastincluding La Slack, Wimereux, Le Portel,Equihen-Plage, Hardelot, Le Touquet, Stella and Berck.Experts were initiallybefuddledat the cause, but the strange substances have now been identified, according to theCBC.

AsGizmodos George Dvorksy reports, a team of firefighters was tasked with collecting samples of the invasive clumps earlier this week. The materials were analyzed at the Cedre Association, which specializes in testing hydrocarbon pollution. The results of the test suggest that the sponges are actually paraffin wax, a derivative of petroleum, coal or oil shale.

Paraffin wax is used in the manufacture of many products, including candles, crayons, and food additives. According to Tia Ghose of Live Science, the substance is often transported in large quantities by tanker ships, and because it floats, will rise to the top of the water and wash ashore in clumps.

The English Channel is a highly trafficked area, and one of the many ships that pass through its waters may be responsible for the spongy blobs invading the shores of France.

Jonathan Hnicart, president of the environmental NGO Sea-Mer Association, told the CBC that ships are allowed to dump paraffin wax residue into the seain limited quantities and far away from the shore. But the huge amount of the yellow fluff leads Hnicart to believe that somebody emptied the residue close to land.

It isnt the first time that globs of paraffin have invaded the coast of a European country. In May of this year, the waxy substance washed up onto the beaches of North Yorkshire, England.

The Cedre Association told the French publication LeVoixduNord that paraffin "does not present a danger to public health or fauna and flora, according to the CBC. But Sea-Mer notes on its website that the substance could be very polluting and harmful to the environment if it contains chlorine or polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons.

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Cigarette butts plaguing South Florida beaches – WPEC

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PALM BEACH COUNTY, Fla. (CBS12)

Cigarette butts on beaches are igniting concern, especially considering they usually end up in our ocean.

Now, a South Florida group that cares for sea turtles is trying to spark change.

Cigarette butts are always one of the most common items we find on beaches during beach clean ups. They are everywhere, Loggerhead Marine Life Center Conservation Coordinator Demi Fox said.

Just a short walk on Juno Beach turned up cigarette butts at nearly every step.

The ones CBS12 came across havent hit the ocean just yet, but when they do, ingestion by marine life is a giant threat.

Theres actually plastic filters and loads of chemicals in there that dont biodegrade over time, Fox said.

Loggerhead Marine Life Center is trying to keep the cigarette butts off of the beaches and out of the water.

Theyre installing receptacles on fishing piers all over North America to keep the most littered item in South Florida out of the water.

Trying to eradicate the cigarette butts from the beaches and ocean now is our best method, Fox said.

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Cigarette butts plaguing South Florida beaches - WPEC

Rip current victims at NC beaches need help, but not the kind you think – Charlotte Observer

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Charlotte Observer
Rip current victims at NC beaches need help, but not the kind you think
Charlotte Observer
The 80-person human chain that formed on the Florida coast to save a family from rip currents on July 8 made for dramatic images and a happy ending. It could also have gone terribly wrong. One of every five victims of rip currents in the Carolinas over ...

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Rip current victims at NC beaches need help, but not the kind you think - Charlotte Observer

13 Bizarre Things That Washed Up on Beaches – Live Science

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By Mindy Weisberger, Senior Writer | July 20, 2017 07:10am ET

Credit: Sea-Mer Association

Take a stroll on a beach and you're likely to encounter plentiful evidence of life from the ocean amid the flotsam: stray clumps of seaweed, colorful seashells, even the occasional crustacean or jellyfish.

But sometimes what washes up on a beach is much harder to identify. Perhaps the object is partly decomposed, or represents a species of marine animal or plant rarely glimpsed on land. Or maybe its condition raises questions about previously unknown relationships or behaviors of ocean creatures, or offers hints about unusual ocean dynamics.

Here are some intriguing examples of mysterious and peculiar emissaries from the sea, which remind us that there is much to be discovered about life in the oceans' depths.

Credit: Sea-Mer Association

Qu'est-ce-que c'est? Beginning on July 14, several French beaches in the north of the country experienced a new type of visitor thousands of yellow, clumpy masses that arrived with the tide and defied identification, though reports indicated that they smelled faintly of paraffin.

An estimated several tons of the waxy objects were observed on shores and along 37 miles (60 kilometers) of French coastline, and they might represent a by-product of hot grease in boat exhaust, according to the organization Sea-Mer Association, which is supervising the clean-up.

Credit: Hilarie Sorensen/University of Oregon

Gelatinous, translucent, bumpy-skinned oblong sea creatures called pyrosomes have recently taken up residence in waters along the Pacific coastline of the U.S., congregating in the millions and washing up on beaches and no one knows why.

The so-called "sea pickles" are generally found in more tropical waters, and it is uncertain what triggered their unusual population explosion in 2017, representatives of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association said in a statement.

Credit: Patasiwa Kumbang Amalatu/YouTube

Gooey masses of decomposing flesh that wash up on beaches can be particularly challenging to identify. In May, residents of Seram Island, Indonesia were treated to the sight of a beached boat-sized creature dripping with red fluid and with parts of its body inflated by quantities gas-producing bacteria.

However, scientists explained that the creature was a type of baleen whale, pointing out noticeable grooves in its head area and the presence of visible plates that once held rows of brushy baleen filters.

Credit: Leda Olmstead

Hefty ice spheres as big as basketballs and weighing as much as 50 pounds (22 kilograms) clustered along the northeastern coast of Lake Michigan in 2013.

Ice balls like these begin as bits of slush and ice crystals, shaped by the rolling motion of waves close to shore. They are commonly glimpsed in the area during the winter months, but they rarely grow this large, according to Tom Ulrich, deputy superintendent for the park where the icy lumps were found.

Credit: Marine Dynamics

A series of gruesome marine "crime scenes" played out on South African beaches in May and June, when scientists discovered the ragged remains of four great white sharks that were missing their livers.

Orcas emerged as the prime suspects, as they are known to occasionally prey on great whites, and livers along with other internal organs are a "sweet spot" for predators, a marine biologist told Live Science.

Credit: Tyler Dvorak/Catalina Island Conservancy

When a deep-sea oarfish measuring 13.5 feet (4 meters) in length washed up on Catalina Island in California on June 1, 2015, it offered scientists the rare opportunity to take a closer look at the elusive fish's biology.

Because oarfish live in ocean depths, there is much about their anatomy and behavior that is unknown, and teams of scientists jumped at the chance to study the animal's skeleton, muscles, feeding structures and reproductive system which included 7-foot-long ovaries.

Credit: Illustration courtesy of PLOS ONE, modified by the Burke Museum

Part of an 80-million-year-old fossil thighbone found embedded in marine rock in Washington's San Juan islands provided the first evidence that dinosaurs once roamed the state.

Paleontologists discovered the femur while looking for fossilized signs of other extinct animals, and the rock was so hard that it took an entire day to pry the fossil out. Though it is unclear what species of dinosaur the bone belonged to, the scientists eventually identified it as a theropod a type of meat-eating dinosaur in a study published in 2015 in the journal PLOS ONE.

Credit: M. Sid Kelly, YouTube screenshot

In 2014, beachgoers on the western coast of the United States were confronted by millions of squishy blue animals resembling jellyfish but each was topped with a rigid structure resembling a sail.

Each of these tiny organisms, called "by-the-wind sailors," measurs about 2.75 inches (7 centimeters) in length. They typically inhabit the open ocean, preferring warm waters in locations around the world. But every few years, storm activity can sweep them toward coastal regions, where they pile up on beaches in enormous quantities in 2009 or 2010, dead and dying sailors accumulated on a California beach to a depth of several feet, an oceanographer told Live Science in 2014.

Credit: Greg Rouse

On July 13, a Reddit user shared photos of a peculiar, lumpy object on a California beach that resembled "an organ," according to the photographer.

Images of the fleshy object, which was estimated to be 5 inches (13 centimeters) in length showed bulbous purplish regions likely its protruding gut on a partly-decomposed body bisected by a long furrow, with black markings along one side. The puzzling creature's identity was difficult to pinpoint, and marine biologists told Live Science that it could be a type of sea slug (pictured here) or a limpet.

Credit: Proteccin Civil y Bomberos de Acapulco

Perplexed officials and bystanders in Mexico were stymied by a massive, shapeless jumble of pulpy, greyish flesh in 2016, after it washed ashore on an Acapulco beach.

With a little imagination, the remains could perhaps be attributed to a fantastic sea monster. But experts explained that mystery masses such as this one are the decaying heads of sperm whales, made of deflated flesh from the upper part of the head and the mass of connective tissue known as "the junk," from the lower part of the head.

Credit: Bardocz Peter | Shutterstock.com

A beach in Siberia was recently blanketed by something unexpected scores of orb-like snowballs in sizes ranging from that of a tennis ball to nearly 3 feet (1 meter) in diameter.

Local news reports described the balls first appearing on the ice-covered beach in late October, with the spheres shaped by winds and the movement of the tides. Though this is a natural phenomenon, it is quite rare, with long-time residents in the area reporting that they had never seen it before.

Credit: Enrique Talledo, http://www.enriquetalledo.com

Enormous squids that dwell in the deep ocean are rarely seen by people unless they happen to die and wash up on land, as did a giant squid (Architeuthis dux), the largest known invertebrate, in 2013.

The sizable beast beached in October at the La Arena beach in Cantabria, Spain; it measured 30 feet (9 meters) in length and weighed a staggering 400 pounds (180 kilograms).

Credit: Nicole Haroutunian, photo courtesy of Underwater New York.

The organization Underwater New York, a digital multimedia art journal, features works inspired by unusual objects that wash up on shores and lurk in the depths of waterways around New York City.

One of its recently documented finds a lonely mechanical hand with articulated fingers was spotted on the shore of Great Kills Park Beach, in Staten Island. Other peculiar submerged discoveries mentioned by the journal include a grand piano and dead giraffe, both of which were found in Lower New York Bay.

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Mindy Weisberger is a senior writer for Live Science covering general science topics, especially those relating to brains, bodies, and behaviors in humans and other animals living and extinct. Mindy studied filmmaking at Columbia University; her videos about dinosaurs, biodiversity, human origins, evolution, and astrophysics appear in the American Museum of Natural History, on YouTube, and in museums and science centers worldwide. Follow Mindy on Twitter.

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Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the SETI Search | Astronomy.com – Astronomy Magazine

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What made you want to write a book about Jill Tarter and her life?

I care a lot about the details of science and understanding the universe in traditional ways. Then I thought back to what had very initially excited me about astronomy and made me want to go into it and it was SETI and the big questions about SETI. The biggest one: Are we alone? How does life develop? What is our place in the universe? Then, I watched Contact when I was 12 and when it came out I was very obsessed with it. Then I started reading more and didn't quite realize that no one had written anything long about Jill. But I was like, Heres this woman whos really been around the whole time and I know has inspired a lot of people, especially around my age in astronomy. And all that existed are these scattered interviews with her and maybe its time someone did something bigger.

When did you first find out about Jill Tarter and her work with SETI?

Well I guess lets start with the fake Jill Tarter, because that was all I knew from the film. All I knew was fake Jill Tarter for a really long time. My family rented the movie Contact probably as soon as it came out on video. Yes, VHS. We watched it and Id never seen a movie that I cared about so much and was just like, wow. Id never heard of radio astronomy because I was 12. I didnt know that searching for extraterrestrials was this scientific pursuit that was more than science fiction. I was very enamored of this character, Ellie Arroway, who had dedicated so much of her life, her fake life to the search.

Then I studied astronomy in college and did an internship in Green Bank, West Virginia, where the first SETI search took place. It turned out all the other interns were similarly obsessed with Contact because [we] were the same age. So we watched it one night and my friend said, Hey, you know that is based on a real person. I was like, What? What are you saying right now? Thats not true. Thats crazy. But it was not crazy and it was true.

Something that really runs through the book is Jills consistent battle with sexism in her field. How important was it for you to translate her experiences to the reader?

It was really important for me to get across how much she had to go through to be a revolutionary figure in astronomy. Good and bad. Its great that she was able to withstand the challenges of having her high school guidance counselor tell her that girls didn't need to to take physics. After that, being the only woman in her college classes and having to do her homework by herself because she wasnt allowed on the boys side of campus. Something thats important and something that I think Jill didnt exactly realize until she was maybe in her late 20s or 30s was that thats a good thing, and we need people like that. But also that it shouldnt have to be that way. You shouldnt have to be a revolutionary to be a woman in science.

I think things changed for her when she went to a meeting in Washington, D.C., that brought together a bunch of women Ph.D.s and she realized they were all going through the same sexist struggles and were like, Thats ridiculous and its great that we did it. But we shouldn't have to and we should help each other instead of thinking, Well, I made it through, you can make it through.

I think thats the key because its 2017, no one should have to be a revolutionary to take part in any field.

One thing Jill and others in SETI have always battled is the idea that the search for extraterrestrial life is fringe, but really its a massive scientific endeavor. Do you think we will ever stop associating SETI with being on the outskirts of science?

I think that from the beginning of Jills career, a large part of what shes been trying to do is to convince people by showing them that science and engineering factors that go into whether or not theres extraterrestrial life. Like how stars form and how planets form and how microbial life develops and that all of those are pretty straightforward, traditional science topics that lead to extraterrestrials.

Theres been a struggle her whole career to convince people that its legitimate and they don't just sit around looking for UFOs and little green men. I dont necessarily think that it will ever be able to escape that.

What do you want readers to take away about SETI and what its like to be a part of the search?

I would say that it takes an incredible amount of dedication and passion to be a SETI scientist because theres not a lot of money. There is a lot of public ridicule. Its hard to get tenure at a university if youre studying it and you have to really want it. You have to really care about it. Its not just a throwaway, weird fringe hobby.

Is there a part of the book you especially enjoyed writing?

In the first chapter theres a section where shes telling me about being in high school. We spent a weekend at her cabin and Donner Lake just watching her and her husband interact in real time and observing what they have in their cabin. Which is, they have a bookshelf that has Vogue Sewing and the Project Cyclops report from NASA. Then I went on a couple of field trips with the interns they had at the SETI Institute up to the Allen Telescope Array.

In your year spending time with Jill, was there something you learned about her life that was especially surprising to you?

The most surprising thing to me was when you think of someone like Jill, whos been a leader in the field and such a public figure, that they were always meant to do this work. Thats just a nice story to tell yourself. But really, Jill kind of thought about extraterrestrial intelligence when she was very young. One time looking up at the stars she just thought, Huh, I think theres probably someone else on the other side looking back at me. Then she kind of left it alone until she was almost 30.

Has Jill ever talked about what its like being a role model for an entire generation of people?

She doesnt like to talk about it so much. She knows its true because every conference she goes to, someone between the ages of 20 and 40 comes up to her and tells her that. I think that she ... she hasnt actually told me so this is an inference, not a thing that I know for sure. Is that she is happy to be that person that she didnt have in her own life.

There were a few women astronomers that she could look up to, but no one who was doing the kind of work she was doing. So I think shes happy that other people can have that. But for the most part shes very focused and a very practical person. I think she probably thinks about it and then immediately puts it out of her mind and just goes on with her work. I think thats also what people look up to her dedication to her work. So its just a vicious cycle of being a role model for people.

I have to ask since you wrote a book about a SETI pioneer and its what inspired you to go into astronomy do you think were alone in the universe?

I dont know. Well, I will caveat what Im about to say by saying that the whole point of SETI is to answer that question with science and not with guessing and wondering. So if I thought I knew, I wouldnt have written a book about SETI because I would not care that much about the science. So I think its important to investigate it scientifically. That said, I think the universe is an extremely large place. The largest place. We know that it has so many planets now or so many planets that can possibly host life. I think just statistically it makes more sense to me that there would be life and even intelligent life than it does statistically to think, out of all of this stuff, were the one time this kind of evolution happened.

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Making Contact: Jill Tarter and the SETI Search | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine

Ending all life on Earth would take a pretty big object | Astronomy.com – Astronomy Magazine

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It would take a dwarf planet-sized impactor to end all life on Earth.

Thats according to research published in Scientific Reports last week. The study looked at what it would take not just to end humanity, but to actually sterilize the entire planet of any life contained on it.

The calculations from a team at Oxford and Harvard Universities suggest you would need 6 x 1026 joules of energy far, far more than contained in our nuclear arsenal. With that much power, you could vaporize the oceans of Earth and sterilize the entire planet in the process by bringing all available water on the planet up to at least 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 degrees Celsius) the boiling point of water.

In order to make a blast that size, you would need a big, big asteroid. According to Science Magazine, it would have to be the size of Vesta or Pallas, the second- and third-largest asteroids, respectively. Both those objects have diameters at around 310 miles (500km), about the minimum size for a dwarf planet. (Neither Vesta nor Pallas are round and thus arent considered dwarf planets.)

Thats a pretty big impact. Its also what you might need to rob tardigrades of every chemical they need to live. Tardigrades are tiny, hardy pond-dwelling creatures that can seemingly survive anything nature throws at them. They can even survive prolonged radiation exposure or drought, though not indefinitely.

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Ending all life on Earth would take a pretty big object | Astronomy.com - Astronomy Magazine

NSF Program Brings Budding Astronomers to BU – BU Today

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Many of us thrill to the breathtaking views of outer space permitted by telescopes and spacecraft. But dark matterthe force causing stars to move faster than their mass would allowposes a pesky problem: you cant see it. So Carly Snell, aided by the chair of BUs astronomy department, Tereasa Brainerd, is spending the summer writing computer code to analyze telescopic survey data of the heavens. One goal is to see if the orbits of actual galaxies match those in simulations of dark matter.

Snell doesnt go to BU; the physics major will be a senior this fall at North Dakota State University, and my department there does not have astronomy, she says. The National Science Foundations Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program provides aspiring astronomers like Snell the opportunity to pursue this research.

This summerBUs third participating in REUhas brought Snell and five other undergraduates from different universities to campus to help professors researching topics in astronomy and space physics. The latter get research help; the students have the opportunity to wet our feet a little bit in research that a lot of people wouldnt necessarily get at their home university, Snell says. (BUs own students get similar mentoring through the Universitys Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.)

The REU program in the astronomical sciences includes 28 universities, observatories, museums, and other institutions, including BU. Here, the students enrolled in this summers program hail from the Universities of Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, North Dakota State, Rochester, and Wisconsin. They spend 10 weeks on campus, studying topics from the earth to the galaxies, says Merav Opher, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of astronomy and director of BUs REU program.

Each student is matched with a specific research project so that they can work closely with specific researchers. Students receive a stipend as well as financial support for food, lodging, and airfare.

REU teaches both science and career development; here, Mark Kornbleuth (CAS13,16, GRS20), a research fellow in the astronomy department, offers resume-writing tips to students Carly Snell, left, and Genevieve Schroder.

Mark Hubbert, a rising senior at the University of Maryland, is helping Ophers effort to confirm her new model of the shape of the suns magnetic field, the heliosphere. The model is pretty rock-solid from a theoretical perspective, he says, but hasnt really been substantiated from an observational perspective. So hes using various software programs to compare the models predictions with observed properties.

Dr. Opher is a huge name in the field of heliophysics, Hubbert says of his interest in coming to BU. The resourceshuman and equipmenthere are great, and I know that whatever I put my hands on has the potential to be a new and innovative discovery.

He says that another benefit of the REU program is its mentoring style, which makes the students in the program feel like their work is important and appreciated. This, unfortunately, is not something that every program puts focus on when bringing in summer interns. Working at NASAs Goddard Space Center last summer, he says, the sheer magnitude of the operation made it very easy . . . to get lost in the fray. Here, I knew that the environment would be more intimate.

In addition to their individual research, the students gather Wednesdays for discussions, either about specific topics in astronomy or graduate study and career opportunities in the discipline, says Marc Kornbleuth (CAS13,16, GRS20), a research fellow with Opher who runs the weekly discussions.

REU is a great exposure for the [astronomy] department, says Opher. These students come out from here; theyll tell their advisers [at their universities] how great a program it was. As an example, Kornbleuth cites one REU participant from two years ago who is returning to campus this fall for graduate study.

The good news for students thinking of applying to the program is that you dont necessarily have to be an astronomy or physics prodigy to participate. Opher recalls one student she unsuccessfully tried to recruit who had a really strong background in arts but was interested in exploring astronomy. And I thought this would be a very interesting combination.

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NSF Program Brings Budding Astronomers to BU - BU Today

The Great American Eclipse: Q-C astronomy clubs, others get ready … – Quad City Times

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What is the attraction of a total eclipse, deep space?

What is so special about seeing a total eclipse that you're willing to take time off from work to travel hundreds of miles and spend hundreds of dollars to see something that lasts two minutes?

Jeff Struve, president of the Quad-Cities Astronomical Society, opened his laptop computer. "This will showyou why we're going," he said.

He clicked a few keys and up popped an image of the sun, totally blocked by the moon, with only its corona, the outermost part of the sun's atmosphere, glowing like around diamond ring in the darkness of space.

"It's beautiful," he said.

And if you don't grasp that,thenwords won't explain it.

***

Paul Levesque, from Moline, grew up in New England, withthe 1972 hit song "You're So Vain" by Carly Simon playing in his head. The tune was aboutan unnamed, self-absorbed lover who, among other things,"flew (his)Learjet up to Nova Scotia to see the total eclipse of the sun."

The haunting words and melody referencing an eclipse in 1970 planted an interest for Levesque that grew through the years.

About a year ago, he realized he would be near atotal eclipse said, "Holy cow! I've got to see it! It's a bucket list thing. I cannot miss this."

He is traveling to Missouri for his brush with totality, although he's not saying exactly where. "I'm psyched about it," he said.

"It's like a spiritual thing. It touches you. I mean, the sun goes dark in the middle of the day! What the heck? How is that even possible?"

***

Robert Mitchell, physics professor at St. Ambrose University, got hooked onastronomy when he found two books one on constellations and one on planets in his elementary school library.

"It just clicked with me," he said.

Although he's all about science, he finds it "the most incredible coincidence that the distance of our moon and the distance of our sun are just right so that their apparent sizes are almost exactly the same (from Earth) even though the sun is 400 times as big as the moon and is 400 times as far away."

It is those relative distances and sizes thatmake the eclipse possible.

"It's coincidental. Or is it?" he said.

In addition to teaching, Mitchell isdirector of the university-owned Menke Observatory at theWapsi River Environmental Education Center near Dixon.

*********

What is it about deep space that attracts you?

Mike Ombrello, of East Moline, came to his interest in space through photography. One of his nighttime photos happened to capture the Milky Way, the galaxy that includes Earth, "and the next thing you know, I bought a telescope," he said.

"Since then, I've been photographing deep space objects."

Looking through atelescope, you can see things that seem like make-believe because you have never seen anything like them before. You see greatgalaxies with literally billonsand billions of stars and greatnebula, or gas dust, flaring forth.

You can hardly believe these things exist because whenyou look at the sky with your naked eye, you can't see them. So you wonder if the telescope is playing tricks. But no, those things arereal. They exist. And Ombrello takes pictures of them.

He says his equipment isn't especially expensive, but he's able to capture nebula,the nearby galaxy called Andromeda, that appears as a big whirlpool, and many other objects.

This has led to more exploration and learning.

"I never knew where the Milky Way was or how to find it," he said.

Now astronomy and peering into space is something of an addiction.

"I can't wait for it to get dark enough to see something else," he said.

****

Alan Sheidler, president of the Popular Astronomy Club, grew up on a farm in Ohio in the 1960s. There wasn't much light pollution so he could see lots of interesting things in the night sky and,with the Kennedy Administration space program in full gear, "science was king."

Those two elements combined to spur his interest, and he received an inexpensive telescope as a present from his parents for better viewing.

Then one sunny day when he was in late grade school, he and his brother were playing in the barn when they noticed something unusual. They noticedthe sun pouring through a knothole in the barn siding at just the right angle that it cast an image on the opposite wall.

"We could see a circle of light on the other side of the barn," Sheidler recalled. "We looked at it in closer detail and realized we had a perfect image of the sun. The knothole was like a pinhole viewer.

"We got a piece of paper and held it up and we could see sunspots on the sun. We tracked this over a series of weeks, and we could see the spots move. We had a solar observatory in the barn with knotholes."

Eventually the brothers weren't satisfied with the knotholes that existed, so they got a hand drill and made new ones, allowing them to have viewings at different times of the day or year.

They didn't tell their dad until years later. He just smiled, Sheidler said.

Sheidlerretired from Deere & Co. in product development about a year ago, so he's had more time to pick back up on astronomy. He's traveling to Missourito see the eclipse.

He also has made trips to areas of "dark sky," such as Arizona, the Big Island in Hawaii and the outback of Australia.

"That is the most amazing sky I've ever seen because there is zero light," he saidof Australia. "You'd swear there are clouds in the sky. But it's the Milky Way.

"We have no idea what we're missing here," he said.

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The Great American Eclipse: Q-C astronomy clubs, others get ready ... - Quad City Times

The Cosmos is One Big Particle Accelerator –"Paves the Way For a … – The Daily Galaxy (blog)

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Physicists are capitalizing on a direct connection between the largest cosmic structures and the smallest known objects to use the universe as a "cosmological collider" and investigate new physics. The cosmos' tiniest particles and the distribution of matter across the vast universe occupy opposite ends of the scale spectrum, but they're not unrelated.

In a new study, published this week in the journal Physical Review Letters, astrophysicists argue the nature of the The researchers argue the cosmos is like one big particle accelerator. The study of the vast distribution of cosmic matter could offer new insights into the nature of quantum mechanical particles.

"Ongoing observations of cosmological microwave background and large scale structures have achieved impressive precision, from which valuable information about primordial density perturbations can be extracted," Yi Wang, a professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, said in a news release.

The Standard Model of physics describes the behavior of all known particles, but researchers believe the large-scale structures of the universe could reveal modes of particle behavior beyond the Standard Model.

The three-dimensional map of galaxies throughout the cosmos and the leftover radiation from the Big Bang called the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are the largest structures in the universe that astrophysicists observe using telescopes. Subatomic elementary particles, on the other hand, are the smallest known objects in the universe that particle physicists study using particle colliders.

A team including Xingang Chen of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), Yi Wang from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST) and Zhong-Zhi Xianyu from the Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications at Harvard University has used these extremes of size to probe fundamental physics in an innovative way. They have shown how the properties of the elementary particles in the Standard Model of particle physics may be inferred by studying the largest cosmic structures. This connection is made through a process called cosmic inflation.

Cosmic inflation is the most widely accepted theoretical scenario to explain what preceded the Big Bang. This theory predicts that the size of the universe expanded at an extraordinary and accelerating rate in the first fleeting fraction of a second after the universe was created. It was a highly energetic event, during which all particles in the universe were created and interacted with each other. This is similar to the environment physicists try to create in ground-based colliders, with the exception that its energy can be 10 billion times larger than any colliders that humans can build.

Inflation was followed by the Big Bang, where the cosmos continued to expand for more than 13 billion years, but the expansion rate slowed down with time. Microscopic structures created in these energetic events got stretched across the universe, resulting in regions that were slightly denser or less dense than surrounding areas in the otherwise very homogeneous early universe. As the universe evolved, the denser regions attracted more and more matter due to gravity. Eventually, the initial microscopic structures seeded the large-scale structure of our universe, and determined the locations of galaxies throughout the cosmos.

In ground-based colliders, physicists and engineers build instruments to read the results of the colliding events. The question is then how we should read the results of the cosmological collider.

"Several years ago, Yi Wang and I, Nima Arkani-Hamed and Juan Maldacena from the Institute of Advanced Study, and several other groups, discovered that the results of this cosmological collider are encoded in the statistics of the initial microscopic structures. As time passes, they become imprinted in the statistics of the spatial distribution of the universe's contents, such as galaxies and the cosmic microwave background, that we observe today," said Xingang Chen. "By studying the properties of these statistics we can learn more about the properties of elementary particles."

As in ground-based colliders, before scientists explore new physics, it is crucial to understand the behavior of known fundamental particles in this cosmological collider, as described by the Standard Model of particle physics.

"The relative number of fundamental particles that have different masses what we call the mass spectrum in the Standard Model has a special pattern, which can be viewed as the fingerprint of the Standard Model," explained Zhong-Zhi Xiangyu. "However, this fingerprint changes as the environment changes, and would have looked very different at the time of inflation from how it looks now."

The team showed what the mass spectrum of the Standard Model would look like for different inflation models. They also showed how this mass spectrum is imprinted in the appearance of the large-scale structure of our universe. This study paves the way for the future discovery of new physics.

"The ongoing observations of the CMB and large-scale structure have achieved impressive precision from which valuable information about the initial microscopic structures can be extracted," said Yi Wang. "In this cosmological collider, any observational signal that deviates from that expected for particles in the Standard Model would then be a sign of new physics."

The current research is only a small step towards an exciting era when precision cosmology will show its full power.

"If we are lucky enough to observe these imprints, we would not only be able to study particle physics and fundamental principles in the early universe, but also better understand cosmic inflation itself. In this regard, there are still a whole universe of mysteries to be explored," said Xianyu.

This research is detailed in a paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters on June 29, 2017, and the preprint is available online.

The Daily Galaxy via and Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and UPI

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Physics in a Cup of Cocoa | The East Hampton Star – East Hampton Star

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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry Neil deGrasse Tyson W.W. Norton, $18.95

If this were a book review for people in a hurry, Id suggest: Read this book (1) because its a conduit to the cosmos, (2) because youll become hungry for more, and (3) so that you can join the club!

If youre not in a hurry, stay tuned.

In Astrophysics for People in a Hurry, Neil deGrasse Tyson writes a vivid and virtuosic opening chapter, The Greatest Story Ever Told, that is a tour dhorizon (pun intended) of those events that unfolded following the origin of our universe.

Explaining Newton, gravitation, Einstein, general relativity, gravitational waves, nucleosynthesis, planetary science, galaxy formation, stellar evolution, cosmic microwave background, dark energy, dark matter, and many other matters in a slim volume, with easy-to-assimilate, seasoned, charming prose, is not a cakewalk. And Dr. Tyson gives you the whole enchilada, tortilla, petits fours, Linzer torte, and bagel. He persuades you to suspend your disbelief and wins you over as he eagerly inspires you to wish for more. He has heft and bandwidth.

Dr. Tysons description of the events following the Big Bang includes the story of the leftover light from a dazzling, sizzling early universe. And, he says, studying the patterns in the cosmic microwave background is like performing some sort of cosmic phrenology, as we analyze the skull bumps of the infant universe.

Hollywood science-fiction epics may portray galaxies and space as romantic and glamorous. Nobody doesnt like intergalactic space, Dr. Tyson seems to agree, but it can be hazardous to your health if you choose to go there. He points out that you would freeze to death, your blood cells would burst, and youd be shot full of very high-energy cosmic radiation nuclear particles of matter that traverse interstellar and intergalactic space after being ejected by distant exploding stars.

I was not sure why I loved this book so much: because it was so well written, or because it reminded me of my passion for astrophysics. So I asked a very intelligent good friend a successful businessman and enthusiastic science aficionado for his laymans opinion. He wrote:

For the novice, this book serves as a fascinating and intensive introduction. It will also encourage him or her to read more on astrophysics . . . and marvel at the way in which Tyson organizes and presents his material. His chapter on Newtons and Einsteins theories of gravity, juxtaposed with the current concepts of the gravitational effects of dark matter and dark energy, is extraordinary.

I completely agree. Dr. Tyson has a wonderful way with words. So dark matter is our frenemy. We have no clue what it is. . . . But we desperately need it . . . to arrive at an accurate description of the universe.

You cant see it (hence dark), but you can infer the effects of dark matter on galaxies, making them appear unreasonably! as if they resembled a solid disc, like the wheel on your car that rotates on its axle. (In our solar system, however, planets revolve around the sun at different speeds that depend on their solar distances.) Thus, dark matter is an attractive force gluing a galaxys collection of stars together.

This is unlike dark energy, which is a repulsive force acting, so to speak, as if it were negative gravity and, as Dr. Tyson puts it, that it will ultimately win the tug of war, as it forces the cosmic expansion to accelerate exponentially into the future.

In other words, dark matter is attractive (some might say feminine) and dark energy is repulsive (some might say masculine), and together they invisibly make up about 95 percent of whats out there. Only some 5 percent of the universes total mass energy is visible to us. Was Buckminster Fuller prophetic when he said the greatest discovery of the 20th century was that the invisible is more important than the visible?

The matter we have come to love in the universe, Dr. Tyson says, is only a light frosting on the cosmic cake, modest buoys afloat in a vast cosmic ocean of something that looks like nothing.

The author mentions Einsteins problems with Hitler, who disparaged theoretical physics and general relativity as Jewish science and thus inferior to Aryan science because it was experimental. In fact, Hitler loathed Einstein so much that he wanted him assassinated, and organized a hundred authors to write a book against Einsteins ideas. Dr. Tyson paraphrases Einstein, who said about this book of negative propaganda that if he [Einstein] were wrong, then only one [author] would have been enough.

In discussing the universality of physical laws, the author humorously relates how he ordered a hot cocoa with whipped cream but was disappointed to see no trace of the topping. The waiter said it had sunk to the bottom, but Dr. Tyson pointed out that since whipped cream has a low density it should have been floating on the top, and that either they forgot to put it in or the laws of physics were different in this restaurant near Caltech. When the waiter reluctantly brought the (forgotten) dollop for the hot cocoa, it floated thus exemplifying that the laws of physics are universal. Of course, one example is not proof. (Lets hope the waiter got a good tip and became a physicist.)

Dr. Tysons book is justifiably at the top of the New York Times nonfiction best-seller list. Hes an authoritative source of clear ideas about our universe and writes in stylistic, eloquent prose without mathematics. This in itself is quite an unusual feat considering the unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics in describing the natural sciences, as the Nobel-winning physicist Eugene Wigner said, describing an extraordinary phenomenon bordering on the mysterious. Just like the universe.

Dr. Tyson also has a special way with children. At a recent standing-room-only Isaac Asimov Memorial Debate on De-Extinction at the American Museum of Natural History, he came forward from the podium and sat down at the edge of the stage, long legs dangling down to audience level, to listen to an adorable 9-year-old who had a very intelligent question for him. She wore an extremely colorful and elegant combination of eye-catching attire. Neil lifted her gently onto the stage so the multitudes could see her beguiling individuality. The audience was thrilled.

So hes a really nice guy in addition to writing a really good book.

Neil deGrasse Tyson is the director of the Hayden Planetarium and the host of the radio and TV show StarTalk. He lives in New York City and East Hampton.

Stephen Rosen, an astrophysicist who lives in East Hampton, will give a talk, Albert Einstein: Rock Star, at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Aug. 10 at 5:30 p.m.

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Physics in a Cup of Cocoa | The East Hampton Star - East Hampton Star

China’s Got a Huge Artificial Intelligence Plan – Bloomberg

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Bloomberg News

July 20, 2017, 11:04 PM EDT July 20, 2017, 11:59 PM EDT

China aims to make the artificial intelligence industry a "new, important" driver of economic expansion by 2020, according to a development plan issued by State Council.

Policy makers want to be global leaders, with the AI industry generating more than 400 billion yuan ($59 billion) of output per year by 2025, according to an announcement from the cabinetlate Thursday. Keydevelopment areas include AI software and hardware, intelligent robotics and vehicles, virtual reality and augmented reality, it said.

"Artificial intelligence has become the new focus of international competition," the report said. "We must take the initiative to firmly grasp the next stage of AI development to create a new competitive advantage, open the development of new industries and improve the protection of national security."

The plan highlights Chinas ambition to become a world power backed by its technology business giants, research centers and military, which are investing heavily in AI. Globally, the technology will contribute as much as $15.7 trillion to output by 2030, according to a PwC report last month. Thats more than the current combined output of China and India.

"The positive economic ripples could be pretty substantial," said Kevin Lau, a senior economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Hong Kong. The simple fact that China is embracing AI and having explicit targets for its development over the next decade is certainly positive for the continued upgrading of the manufacturing sector and overall economic transformation."

Chinese AI-related stocksadvanced Friday. CSG Smart Science & Technology Co. climbed as much as 9.3 percent in Shenzhen, while intelligent management software developer Mesnac Co. surged by the 10 percent daily limit.

Read More: China AI Stocks Jump After Development Plan

AI will have a significant influence on society and the international community, according to an opinion piece by East China University of Political Science and Law professor Gao Qiqi published Wednesday in the Peoples Daily, the flagship newspaper of the Communist Party.

PwC found that the worlds second-biggest economy stands to gain more than any other from AI because of the high proportion of output derived from manufacturing.

Read More: AI Seen Adding $15.7 Trillion as Global Economy Game Changer

Another report from Accenture Plc and Frontier Economics last month estimated that AI could increase Chinas annual growth rate by 1.6 percentage point to 7.9 percent by 2035 in terms of gross value added, a close proxy for GDP, adding more than $7 trillion.

The State Council directive also called for Chinas businesses, universities and armed forces to work more closely in developing the technology.

"We will further implement the strategy of integrating military and civilian developments," it said. "Scientific research institutes, universities, enterprises and military units should communicate and coordinate."

More AI professionals and scientists should be trained, the State Council said. It also called for promoting interdisciplinary research to connect AI with other subjects such as cognitive science, psychology, mathematics and economics.

With assistance by Xiaoqing Pi, Emma Dai, and David Ramli

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China's Got a Huge Artificial Intelligence Plan - Bloomberg

Despite Musk’s dark warning, artificial intelligence is more benefit than threat – STLtoday.com

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We expect scary predictions about the technological future from philosophers and science fiction writers, not famous technologists.

Elon Musk, though, turns out to have an imagination just as dark as that of Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrick, who created the sentient and ultimately homicidal computer HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey.

Musk, the founder of Tesla, SpaceX, HyperLoop, Solar City and other companies, spoke to the National Governors Association last week on a variety of technology topics. When he got to artificial intelligence, the field of programming computers to replace humans in tasks such as decision making and speech recognition, his words turned apocalyptic.

He called artificial intelligence, or AI, a fundamental risk to the existence of human civilization. For example, Musk said, an unprincipled user of AI could start a war by spoofing email accounts and creating fake news to whip up tension.

Then Musk did something unusual for a businessman who has described himself as somewhat libertarian: He urged the governors to be proactive in regulating AI. If we wait for the technology to develop and then try to rein it in, he said, we might be too late.

Are scientists that close to creating an uncontrollable, HAL-like intelligence? Sanmay Das, associate professor of computer science and engineering at Washington University, doesnt think so.

This idea of AI being some kind of super-intelligence, becoming smarter than humans, I dont think anybody would subscribe to that happening in the next 100 years, Das said.

Society does have to face some regulatory questions about AI, he added, but theyre not the sort of civilization-ending threat Musk was talking about.

The pressing issues are more like one ProPublica raised last year in its Machine Bias investigation. States are using algorithms to tell them which convicts are likely to become repeat offenders, and the software may be biased against African-Americans.

Algorithms that make credit decisions or calculate insurance risks raise similar issues. In a process called machine learning, computers figure out which pieces of information have the most predictive value. What if these calculations have a discriminatory result, or perpetuate inequalities that already exist in society?

Self-driving cars raise some questions, too. How will traffic laws and insurance companies deal with the inevitable collisions between human- and machine-steered vehicles?

Regulators are better equipped to deal with these problems than with a mandate to prevent the end of civilization. If we write sweeping laws to police AI, we risk sacrificing the benefits of the technology, including safer roads and cheaper car insurance.

Whats going to be important is to have a societal discussion about what we want and what our definitions of fairness are, and to ensure there is some kind of transparency in the way these systems get used, Das says.

Every technology, from the automobile to the internet, has both benefits and costs, and we dont always know the costs at the outset. At this stage in the development of artificial intelligence, regulations targeting super-intelligent computers would be almost impossible to write.

I dont frankly see how you put the toothpaste back in the tube at this point, said James Fisher, a professor of marketing at St. Louis University. You need to have a better sense of what you are regulating against or for.

A good starting point is to recognize that HAL is still science fiction. Instead of worrying about the distant future, Das says, We should be asking about whats on the horizon and what we can do about it.

Make it your business. Get twice-daily updates on what the St. Louis business community is talking about.

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Despite Musk's dark warning, artificial intelligence is more benefit than threat - STLtoday.com

Artificial intelligence suggests recipes based on food photos – MIT News

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There are few things social media users love more than flooding their feeds with photos of food. Yet we seldom use these images for much more than a quick scroll on our cellphones.

Researchers from MITs Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) believe that analyzing photos like these could help us learn recipes and better understand people's eating habits. In a new paper with the Qatar Computing Research Institute (QCRI), the team trained an artificial intelligence system called Pic2Recipe to look at a photo of food and be able to predict the ingredients and suggest similar recipes.

In computer vision, food is mostly neglected because we dont have the large-scale datasets needed to make predictions, says Yusuf Aytar, an MIT postdoc who co-wrote a paper about the system with MIT Professor Antonio Torralba. But seemingly useless photos on social media can actually provide valuable insight into health habits and dietary preferences.

The paper will be presented later this month at the Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition conference in Honolulu. CSAIL graduate student Nick Hynes was lead author alongside Amaia Salvador of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia in Spain. Co-authors include CSAIL postdoc Javier Marin, as well as scientist Ferda Ofli and research director Ingmar Weber of QCRI.

How it works

The web has spurred a huge growth of research in the area of classifying food data, but the majority of it has used much smaller datasets, which often leads to major gaps in labeling foods.

In 2014 Swiss researchers created the Food-101 dataset and used it to develop an algorithm that could recognize images of food with 50 percent accuracy. Future iterations only improved accuracy to about 80 percent, suggesting that the size of the dataset may be a limiting factor.

Even the larger datasets have often been somewhat limited in how well they generalize across populations. A database from the City University in Hong Kong has over 110,000 images and 65,000 recipes, each with ingredient lists and instructions, but only contains Chinese cuisine.

The CSAIL teams project aims to build off of this work but dramatically expand in scope. Researchers combed websites like All Recipes and Food.com to develop Recipe1M, a database of over 1 million recipes that were annotated with information about the ingredients in a wide range of dishes. They then used that data to train a neural network to find patterns and make connections between the food images and the corresponding ingredients and recipes.

Given a photo of a food item, Pic2Recipe could identify ingredients like flour, eggs, and butter, and then suggest several recipes that it determined to be similar to images from the database. (The team has an online demo where people can upload their own food photos to test it out.)

You can imagine people using this to track their daily nutrition, or to photograph their meal at a restaurant and know whats needed to cook it at home later, says Christoph Trattner, an assistant professor at MODUL University Vienna in the New Media Technology Department who was not involved in the paper. The teams approach works at a similar level to human judgement, which is remarkable.

The system did particularly well with desserts like cookies or muffins, since that was a main theme in the database. However, it had difficulty determining ingredients for more ambiguous foods, like sushi rolls and smoothies.

It was also often stumped when there were similar recipes for the same dishes. For example, there are dozens of ways to make lasagna, so the team needed to make sure that system wouldnt penalize recipes that are similar when trying to separate those that are different. (One way to solve this was by seeing if the ingredients in each are generally similar before comparing the recipes themselves).

In the future, the team hopes to be able to improve the system so that it can understand food in even more detail. This could mean being able to infer how a food is prepared (i.e. stewed versus diced) or distinguish different variations of foods, like mushrooms or onions.

The researchers are also interested in potentially developing the system into a dinner aide that could figure out what to cook given a dietary preference and a list of items in the fridge.

This could potentially help people figure out whats in their food when they dont have explicit nutritional information, says Hynes. For example, if you know what ingredients went into a dish but not the amount, you can take a photo, enter the ingredients, and run the model to find a similar recipe with known quantities, and then use that information to approximate your own meal.

The project was funded, in part, by QCRI, as well as the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) and the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Industry, and Competitiveness.

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Artificial intelligence suggests recipes based on food photos - MIT News

Artificial Intelligence: Where Do County Governments’ Investment Priorities Lie? – Government Technology

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Analytics is the top bet. by News Staff / July 20, 2017

Center for Digital Government, Digital Counties 2017 survey

When it comes to artificial intelligence (AI), the top investment priority for county governments is data analytics.

Thats the finding from the 2017 Digital Counties survey from the Center for Digital Government*, which is now beginning to explore AI and how government plans to use it. Counties participating in the survey ranked various uses for AI, and together their priorities were:

All of those areas represent technology currently available today, though some applications are more mature than others. When it comes to AI analytics, for example, some people are using machine learning to crunch traffic data and get a clearer picture of infrastructure needs, while others are using the tech to keep up with cybersecurity trends and detect malicious activity faster.

Infrastructure inspection technology is likely to use AI for object and pattern recognition in photos and videos: A drone with a camera could fly out to take photos of bridges, for example, and then software could examine the pictures to find cracks in the concrete. Or AI could watch data coming in from sensors in water pipes to tell which ones will need replacement soonest.

Benefits eligibility or lack thereof also has a foot in the door in government. The company Pondera uses AI to red-flag potentially fraudulent benefits claims. Other companies are looking at AI as a means of parsing out whether people who apply for one type of government benefit are likely to be eligible for other kinds of benefits, and which ones.

Artificial intelligence represents a new line of questioning in the Center for Digital Governments surveys, so future data releases should shed more light on how government is using and planning to use AI at various levels.

*The Center for Digital Government is part of e.Republic, Government Technology's parent company.

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Artificial Intelligence: Where Do County Governments' Investment Priorities Lie? - Government Technology

New aerospace curriculum helps South Carolina students reach for the stars – Columbia Star

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The South Carolina Department of Education has agreed to grant $500,000 to the first ten high schools that sign up for its new aerospace engineering curriculum. Other schools in the south, including North Carolina, have already launched the program.

Six schools have submitted applications to be considered for the aerospace curriculum that will teach the basics of aircraft design in the fall. Developed by the Southern Regional Education Board, the curriculum was created to prepare students to follow careers as aircraft mechanics, air traffic controllers, radar technicians, pilots, drone designers, and aerospace engineers. In addition to teaching them the skills needed to thrive in those careers, the program will underline the importance of communication, leadership, and teamwork skills.

The program consists of four courses that will be taught across all four years of a students high school career or in four semesters. In the Fundamentals of Aerospace Technology class, students will be able to design, build, and test a pilot seat. The next course, Advanced Aerospace Technology, will provide them with the opportunity to build an airplane wing.

The third class, Aeronautics Engineering Applications, will teach students how to fly a plane using simulators. In the last course, Astronautics Engineering Applications, students will design a laser communication system and create a plan for space survival.

The $500,000 grant will cover the costs of a two-week training seminar at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta for teachers who plan to teach the courses. During that time, the teachers will tackle projects that their students will be presented with.

Aerospace Engineering Provides Prosperous Careers for Students

South Carolina has more than 400 aerospace companies, including its largest firm Boeing. According to SC Aerospace, private- sector aerospace jobs pay an average $70,000 a year, while the states average annual pay is $41,000.

With over 53,000 employees in South Carolina, the aerospace business has had a healthy employee growth rate. Since 2010, the industry has grown 11.4% on average, and will continue to grow with 10 new positions added yearly. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, South Carolina will have 20 new positions every year for aerospace engineers until 2018.

Aerospace represents more than six percent of South Carolinas economy and has contributed $19 billion per year to the states economy. Programs like the aerospace curriculum proposed by the South Carolina State Department will help future workers contribute more to the economy. The states largest aerospace company, Boeing, is doing its part in this movement.

Since 2012, Boeing has reached more than 100,000 middle and high school students through its DreamLearners Tour Program. According to SC Aerospace, the program provides students an introduction to Boeings production process, as well as an overview of aerodynamics and flight. The goal of DreamLearners is to inspire the next generation of Boeing workers.

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New aerospace curriculum helps South Carolina students reach for the stars - Columbia Star

Iran, World’s 15th Country in Presenting Aerospace Articles – IFP News

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Secretary of the steering committee tasked with implementing Irans Comprehensive Scientific Plan, Mansour Kabganian, has touched upon the countrys considerable achievements on the scientific front, particularly the field of aerospace.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a meeting of the committee where, according to him, a report on Irans accomplishments in the field of science and technology was presented and discussed.

In this report, the situation of the countrys documented scientific achievements from 2012 to 2016 was reviewed and compared to those of other countries, he said.

According to a Farsi report by Mehr, he added Irans ranking on the h-index was 42 in 2016.

He said another report was also presented on the progress made in the implementation of the Comprehensive Aerospace Plan.

He added the plan has three important parts.

One is the aviation part on which a report has already been drawn up and presented, he said.

Officials are also working to prepare a report on another part of the aerospace plan related to defence, he said.

He then added the third part of the report related to space was discussed the night before.

This report was presented by Manouchehr Manteqi, the head of the National Space Centre at the Science and Technology Department of the Presidential Office. Iran ranks 15th in the world in terms of articles and production in science and technology in the domain of aerospace, he said.

The Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution has specified tasks and responsibilities in the Comprehensive Aerospace Development Document on which a report was presented and discussed today. It includes the provision of domestic telecoms satellites, development of satellites domestically and expansion of GPS services.

The National Space Centre is tasked with making policies and coordinating the measures, but a separate authority is responsible for each activity.

He then highlighted that not much budget has been allocated to activities related to Islamic and Quranic concepts on the outer space and the universe which show the grandeur of the world and the order ruling it and, at last, proves the power of the Creator.

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Iran, World's 15th Country in Presenting Aerospace Articles - IFP News

State Representatives Support Aerospace Park | Local Business … – Greeneville Sun

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NASHVILLE Speaker of the Tennessee House Beth Harwell, R-Nashville, sent a July 14 letter to the members of the Tennessee Aeronautics Commission urging them to seriously consider the Tri-Cities Airports Aerospace Park project for a grant.

The planned 160-acre area is the future site of what area leaders hope to be a draw for aviation industry and jobs.

Harwell toured the site recently, and believes the project will give the region a significant economic boost, according to her letter, which does not request an set amount of funding, but does note $30 million available to the commission for allocation.

The Aerospace Park project at the Tri-Cities Airport is an innovative and worthwhile project for these grant funds, Harwell said. I hope the commission will give serious consideration to this project, because I believe it will be beneficial for the entire Northeast Tennessee region.

The Northeast Tennessee delegation in the House of Representatives, including State Rep. David Hawk, R-5th, of Greeneville, joined Harwell in advocating for the project in a news release.

Our region is fortunate to have many residents trained in this industry who are ready to fill the jobs that will be created by this important project, Hawk said. I applaud Speaker Harwells efforts to help us make aeronautics expansion in Northeast Tennessee a reality.

The Tennessee Aeronautics Commission assists with the formulation of relevant policy planning and all proposed changes in the state airport system plan.

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State Representatives Support Aerospace Park | Local Business ... - Greeneville Sun

Behind the Scenes Inside S&L, an Aerospace Factory in College Point, Queens – Untapped Cities

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Did you know theres an aerospace factory right here in New York City? Along with the NYCEDC and New York City government officials, we recently got a tour ofS&L Aerospace Metalsin College Point, Queens.. The company has been a part of New York Citys economy since it was founded as a bicycle manufacturing shop in Brooklyn in 1945. Slowly but surely, it began to transform its focus to the defense industry, movingto Long Island and then back to New York where the company has grown to become one of the leading industry members in the production of premiere hydraulics for both commercial and military aircraft parts in the United States.

Along with the United States government, S&Ls clientele also includes Boeing, Raytheon, Helicopter Support, Sikorsky Aircraft and several private companies.S&L doesthe majority of the processes for the parts in house, though excluding some of themore sophisticated pieces, such as certain parts of the Sikorsky Black Hawk helicopter, which Executive Vice President Ted Varvatassays leave the facility for upwards of 20 different processes.

We get the most complicated jobs that are out there and that helps us tremendously, Varatas says as he mentions F-35 actuators a part of the newest generation of aircrafts. If you (a company) want a cup made or something small, I wouldnt recommend they come to us and my customers know that. But anything thats complex, they know where to come to and they come to S&L.But as specialists in the world of complexity, designing brings in a whole other layer of liability, says Varatas. They instead work mostly with specs given to them by the various aircraft companies. All operationsin the facility arehuman operated, including things such as shipping and receiving, turning, milling, masking, grinding and something called the deburring department, among others.

Varatas, takesDeputy Mayor for Housing and Economic DevelopmentAlicia Glennand President and CEO of the NYCEDC, James Patchett, on a tour of S&L this past Tuesday afternoon.

Although S&L has grown far beyond what the company was originally intended to do, there was never any question, says Varvatas, about staying in New York City despite offers to move elsewhere in the United States. A big part of that,he says, has to do with their employees. Many of S&Ls 91 employees are foreign born, do not have advanced degrees and live within a four-mile radius, according to an S&L press release. As a result, Varatas says, many of the employees are fully trained by the company and tend to stay with S&L throughout their career.

When we left Maspeth in 2007, we were courted by other states such as New Jersey, but we felt our most valuable resource was our employees, so we decided to stay, Varatas says.

One such employee, Hans Rinn, had been with the company for 45 years before retiring just his past week. Following the company from Brooklyn to Long Island to Queens, the former World War II veteran says hes watched the company grow in a way thathas only been been for the better.

S&L employee Hans Rinn speaks withDeputy MayorGlennabout his time with the companyafter Tuesdays tour.

A two-pronged expansion for S&L including both renovations to their existing facility as well as the construction of a completely new building is already underway. The expectation is that by the end of the expansion, 34,000 more square feet of useable space will be added to the already 55,000 square-foot facility along with the creation of approximately 20 new jobs.

The expansion plan itself was made possible by a partnershipS&L formed with the New York City Economic Development Corporation(NYCEDC). Together they worked to sell the two empty lots behind the current S&L facility to the company as an addition to Mayor De Blasios New York Works plan a series of 25 initiatives that the mayor and his team hope will create 100,000 good-wage jobs (at least $50,000 per year) over the course of the next 10 years. Many of these initiatives include an investment in technology spaces such as cybersecurity, investing in CUNY computer science graduates and an augmented and virtual reality sector, alongside the more traditional forms of job creation in freight and the industrial and manufacturing sector.

The goal of the plan is to strengthen New Yorks middle class as well as show that New York City is still a viable place for businesses. However, despite the pledge for the creation of 100,000, the current list of initiatives only specifically outlines were 40,000 of those jobs will come from. Many of these initiatives instead are set-up to operate morelike a frame-work for the city and partnering businesses to work within the idea being to aim for the spaces in the job market that have been deemed by the city to most likely produce the most lucrative results while still providing the flexibility needed to work within the rapidly evolving technology spaces.

The citys supportof S&L in part demonstrates its commitment to keeping industrial and manufacturing jobs here in New York, something that may halt the tide of residential development that is sure to come to the College Point waterfront in the near future.

Check out the full plan and a list of the various job resources for workers the mayors office has put into placeon the New York Works official website.

Next Check Out The Top 10 Secrets of NYCs Department of Sanitationor take a look atRemnants of a 1960 Park Slope Plane Crash Hidden in Plain Sight in Brooklyn. Get in touch with the author: @Erika_A_Stark.

College Point, NYC Economic Development Corporation, queens, S&L Aerospace Metals

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Behind the Scenes Inside S&L, an Aerospace Factory in College Point, Queens - Untapped Cities

Relying on Others – Memphis Democrat

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Rabbits pose for a picture to send to Aurelia, whos away at camp. Photo by Aaron.

Saturday morning I went out for my normal Ultimate engagement with my many friends who like to chase flying plastic, but had to sign a couple releases before I could play. Rae and Aaron, who play Ultimate with us now and again, as well as serving on our Outreach committee and running a private business engaged in the production and good use of video and audio content related to community, had arrived with gear. Rae with a digital camera took video from the sidelines as we played. A drone flown by Aaron took aerial footage at the same time, which required us to ignore a flying thing in a game focused on a different flying thing. I found this surprisingly difficult, but Im always excited to be able to review our play. Theyll be taking more footage of village activities over the coming days.

Ted here with the news from this past week at our fair ecovillage here in steamy northeast Missouri.

Ive lately come to realize that Ultimate (formerly known as Ultimate Frisbee, but then shortened owing to the specific brand-name reference) is a great reference for community living as a whole. I cant play Ultimate unless at least five other players show up, and that only gets us a three-on-three game, which is tiring owing to so much running (seven-on-seven is regulation). So for a fun game of any length, Im hoping for eight or more people to show up when we play. I rely on that many or more for an essential part of my happiness a couple times a week. And that is just in one realm- most other parts of my life also rely on others, like those that milk and tend goats at pasture, without which I could not make cheese. Thanks to all my compatriots!

For the second year, a group of students and their group leaders from Earth Dance Farm in Ferguson, MO came to Dancing Rabbit early this past week for a variety of learning sessions, including natural building and food preservation. I spoke with them for a couple hours Tuesday, during which we worked with a basic goat cheese at several different stages, and also made sauerkraut from start to finish, including the students harvesting the cabbage and walking away each with a pint-full of kraut ready to begin fermenting. Sort of like bringing home a pet, those ferments It was great to deepen that relationship with the organization and the students, and felt great to connect with them around the many things were trying to do to live lightly on the earth.

My own child Aurelia has been away at camp a week now, a place called Camp Kupugani in northwestern Illinois, which bills itself (and does feel very much like) a multicultural camp. That was one of our hopes for her first camp experience, and were pleased to find it not so far away.

In dropping her off there last weekend, there inevitably came the moment when I had to say goodbye for two weeks to my kid whod never been without some family or close friends for more than a day in her life. She started with whispers soon after arrival of Do I have to stay?, which soon became I dont want you to leave!, and ended at that moment we both knew was coming, when she tried hard to smile at me and say goodbye while crying as she stayed at her cabin and I started to walk away and I forced myself to keep walking away, looking over my shoulder a few times but never seeing her running after me as I half-imagined. I had a lot of time for thought and some tears driving home alone for five hours. Very excited to pick her up again this coming weekend and carry her home again, and to see what she carries home with her.

The camp posts several dozen pictures of the campers each day, so that weve been able to catch glimpses of Aurelia with a smile on her face, having fun, and know shes ok. She does not have the same ability to check in in return, but she seems like shes doing alright with that. I know I survived and loved going to camp (even though there was no internet in those days), and Im sure it is a good thing for her sense of independence, but I have new respect for my parents for letting me go back then.

At our Sunday meeting here in the village we gathered a bunch of us together for a photo to send Aurelia for the next mail day (which includes the ability to send emails with photos), and I wish I could be a fly on the wall when she receives these reminders of home.

The weather round these parts has been consistently warm, though I felt grateful this past week for a low-likelihood 2 rain that fell all night long, and a few nights in the mid-60s that allowed us to throw open all the windows during the dark hours and recharge the coolth of our homes interior mass. I shouldnt be surprised by hot summer weather, and indeed I do enjoy the relief of jumping in the pond to cool off most days, sometimes repeatedly.

Chelsea and Kelsey, Ironweed work exchangers through early August, helped me this week to get our four newer, bigger solar panels lifted onto the tracking rack we have behind the kitchen, taking down two smaller ones to make space. The rack passively tracks the sun through the day with the aid of sun-activated hydraulics, boosting the effective efficiency by up to 30%. Ive had to dig out some long-stored bits and pieces to get everything wired out and back, and meanwhile relied solely on the original eight panels we put up in 2004. We have acquired a lot of additional uses of power in the meantime the motivation to complete the wiring is high.

We also mixed up some earthen plaster, and they each worked on plastering some earthbag walls in our root cellar that had never been finished. It is one of the few places that feels truly cool without air conditioning on these hot days, so it was a good fit with the weather. Also in the cellar we built another set of tall and deep shelves for carboys, winter veggie storage, and more, significantly increasing the functionality of the space.

Saturday the 15th marked a year since our friend Dennis left the physical plane, to commemorate which we all gathered in the evening out on Mullein Hill where he is buried to remember him, to hold Sharon and each other, and to witness the unveiling of his grave marker. Thomas, in creative consultation with Sharon, has built a beautiful marker that incorporates a bicycle wheel (Dennis was a tireless bike advocate) into a carved wooden monument that perfectly meets the space and the need we each have to remember. We miss you, Dennis.

If all that wasnt enough for one week, Sunday morning a handful of folks met with an archivist from the University of Southern Indiana who is interested in acquiring historical materials related to the founding and growth of our ecovillage. USIs Communal Studies Collection already contains photos and documents from all kinds of communities historical and contemporary, and includes documents from both the Fellowship for Intentional Community and the Federation of Egalitarian Communities. Now our various decision-making bodies will engage in identifying all the sorts of things wed feel good about sharing with this research-oriented collection, with an eye toward preserving our documents for the long term and furthering the understanding of intentional communities in the wider culture.

To close out the week we held the second of two plenary meetings to select the community members wholl next serve on the Village Council alongside the three mid-term members Mae, Cob, and Tereza. Newer villager Christina will now join for the first time (cheers for new village governance energy!), and I will return for a second two-year term. We had a longer list of willing candidates this year than usual, which bodes well for our collective future.

Heres hoping July, historically our wettest month, chooses to drop some more substantive rain on the village to keep our gardens chugging along. Javi had the first tomatoes for sale at our weekly meeting on Sunday, and Im looking forward to ours. May your gardens also grow vigorously wherever they may be!

Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage is an intentional community and educational nonprofit outside Rutledge, MO, focused on demonstrating sustainable living possibilities. We offer public tours of the village on the 2nd and 4th Saturdays of the month, April-October; the next is this Saturday, July 22nd at 1 pm. Reservations not required. Tours are free, though donations to help us continue our educational and outreach efforts are gratefully accepted. For directions, call the office at 660-883-5511 or email us at dancingrabbit@ic.org. To find out more about us, you can also check out our website: http://www.dancingrabbit.org.

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Relying on Others - Memphis Democrat