10 private islands you can rent from $400 a night – 9Honey

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The stunning home, which is now on the market for $18.39 million, is named theThe Eva Gabor Estate.

It has been owned by a string of impressive Hollywood names including, Eva Gabor, Mia Farrow,and David Niven and of course, Hepburn.

The six-bedroom, four-bathroom house was designed in 1938, and the property includes a guesthouse, detached office, pool and tennis court.

If you wanted to take your Hepburn obsession to the extreme, you also have the opportunity to furnish the home with some of her personal belongings as well.

Hepburn's personal collection is being auctioned byChristie'sLondon inSeptember.

We've seen interiorslined with spooky clowns,and even a home that came with a mysterious guest in the attic, but nothing compares to the horrible interior choices of this newly listed home in Arizona.

Prepare to be terrified.

The exterior of the home looks like any other, albeit a little barren. But once inside, an overwhelming amount of catparaphernalia hits you like a dirty litter box.

Every possible surface is dedicated to cats, and by the looks of it, several cats recently lived on the premise.

Thelisting, which was posted last week and has since gone viral, describes the property as a "contemporary eccentric full log-sided custom home on 20+/- acres for the cat fancier. If you love cats this is the home for you! If not bring your sandblaster!"

Although most areas around Australia don't experience snowy winters like other parts of the world, we can all agree that many of our homes aren't equipped for the chilly season.

If you've shivered your way through the past week, this line-up of winter warming throws, bedding, sheepskins, and accessories will hit the spot. Starting from $4, you'll be cosy in no time.

Pictured: InBed Store Winter 17 range, cotton grey flannel sheet set from $130

Mind-blowing images show what looks like a science fiction megacity is in fact the most spectacular real-life architecture from one Far Eastern city.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

The incredible series of shots show the quirky structures from Singapore in all their glory, from the colourful lights of the Supertree Grove standing out against the rest of the skyline to the clinically white and curved Mandai Connection.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Inside the stunning five-star Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Mandai Connection.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Cloud Forest Waterfall

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Cloud Forest Waterfall at night.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

People's Park Complex.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Singapore University of Technology and Design.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Supertree Grove.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Marina Bay Sands hotel.

Images: Andy Yong / mediadrumworld.com

Weve all dreamed of vacationing on a private island like the rich and famous but its always seemed out of reach.

Turns out you can rent a private island for as little as $400 a night through holiday rental website Home to Go, making it much more affordable than youd think.

Royal Belize Belize

At $6,500K per night, this is the most expensive private island on the list. However it does sleep 18 people and comes with full staff.

Image: Home to Go

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10 private islands you can rent from $400 a night - 9Honey

Sarah Langer Hall: Innovate GSO is only beginning – Greensboro News & Record

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Building a communitys inclusive innovation economy is hard work, but cities across the state can learn from Greensboros lead.

Nearly two years ago, a small team from Greensboro responded to a request from the Institute for Emerging Issues (IEI) at N.C. State University to participate in InnovateNC, a first-in-the-nation effort to spark innovation statewide.

If selected, they would join other cities from across the state in a cross-city learning collaborative from September 2015-June 2017.

The catch: They had to have at least some entrepreneurial and innovation assets already in place, and they had to be willing to form a diverse innovation council committed to the idea of inclusion. Inclusivity occurs when the local innovation economy actively recruits and engages what are traditionally under-connected individuals such as women and minorities in ways that build social capital across diverse networks.

Greensboro earned its place in the InnovateNC program, along with Asheville, Wilson, Pembroke, Wilmington and the Carolina Coast. These communities came together eight times over the two-year program for meetings and community-hosted site visits. They also advanced the work in their communities, meeting monthly as a council to drive data collection, strategic planning and policy efforts, and communicate the innovation stories of their communities.

An executive committee of public and private partners led the work locally. Mayor Nancy Vaughan was committed to the initiative from the outset, and Councilwoman Nancy Hoffmann actively participated on the councils executive committee. She joined Robin Coger, N.C. A&T; Cindy Thompson, Boundless Impact; Paul Jeffrey, Cone Health; Sudakar Puvvada, VF Corp.; and Lou Anne Flanders-Stec, Launch Greensboro. Deborah Hooper of the Greensboro Chamber of Commerce and Bryan Toney, formerly of UNC-Greensboro, provided critical leadership as council co-chairs.

Stephanie Walker and Ditra Miller were brought on to facilitate the work of the council. A complete list of council members is available at innovategso.org.

Greensboro has focused its efforts on purposefully engaging under-connected populations to unleash design innovation for economic growth. Under-connected populations college students, people of color, immigrants, millennials, encorepreneurs (boomers looking for a next gig), retirees, scientists, artists, academic professionals and international visa holders lacking those key relationships and connectivity to the people, information and resources necessary to successfully launch and sustain new businesses Greensboro aims to change that. The vision is to create a design destination that attracts, develops and retains diverse creative talent and enterprises.

While the work has not been easy, it has been rewarding.

InnovateGSO has enabled honest, thoughtful, and intentional conversations about the connection between Greensboros economic aspirations and our communitys inclusive innovation capacity, said Robin Coger, dean of the College of Engineering at N..C A&T. This would not have occurred without the engagement of the diverse group of people (and perspectives) of our projects Innovation Council. It is a wonderful time to be a part of Greensboro.

Ten public-private partners committed in-kind tools, services and support to help build capacity within these communities. The partnership included the RTP Foundation, Forward Impact, the N.C. Department of Commerces Board of Science, Technology & Innovation, RTI International, UNC-TV, CED, the UNC system and programs at N.C. State University, UNC-Chapel Hill and Duke University.

One key tool communities used was the InnovateNC Community Innovation Asset Map, a first of-its-kind, turnkey tool for communities of all sizes who wish to assess the quality and inclusiveness of their innovation ecosystems. The Asset Map proved to be the communitys critical first step in helping them to develop a concrete road map to growing their innovation economies in a meaningful way. As such, the Asset Map was refined for a broader audience and made available to all communities across the state on June 8. Communities are encouraged to take advantage of these unique resources by visiting InnovateNC.org to learn more about the initiative, download the Asset Map, and begin putting this tool to work in their innovation economies.

On behalf of the statewide partners, Id like to share that its been a pleasure working with such a motivated and forward-thinking Greensboro team. While InnovateNC is coming to a planned end, the work in Greensboro is only just beginning.

We are confident in their success and believe their efforts will become an inspirational case study and model for other communities across the nation seeking to fuel their economic engines by building inclusive innovation.

Sarah Langer Hall is a policy manager at Institute for Emerging Issues at N.C. State University, and leads the InnovateNC initiative.

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Sarah Langer Hall: Innovate GSO is only beginning - Greensboro News & Record

Miles City Hosts Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism – GleanerNow (press release) (blog)

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Miles City Hosts Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism
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Members from North Dakota, Idaho, eastern Montana and Billings, young and old, came away from the weekend committed to being more intentional about witnessing in their communities and becoming more involved in the mission of their local church.

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Miles City Hosts Amazing Facts Center of Evangelism - GleanerNow (press release) (blog)

Rogers: Focus on your inner game for outer-game impact – The Ledger

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By Emily Rogers Ledger correspondent

When Olympic athletes step onto a field of play after years of rigorous trainingand refinement of their technical skills, it is their mindset their inner game thatmakes the difference between the glory of gold or the acceptance of silver.

Theability of an elite athlete to focus, overcome limiting beliefs and trust their abilityto perform at the highest level differentiates them from the competition. When abusiness or community leader steps onto a professional field of play, it's the person's experience, education and track record that earns a prominent seat at theconference room table.

However, when these competencies are paired with theinfluential qualities of consciousness, courage and compassion, a field of greatpossibility is created for the leader and the organizations stakeholders.

The challenges faced by business and community leaders today are greater thanever. The pace of change makes it harder to keep up and stay relevant, thecomplexities of operating a profitable business require more focus and strategicthinking to grow and scale, and the needs of our communities are more profoundand daunting. These conditions require more than just raw talent from individuals whoare in positions to influence positive outcomes.

When I begin an executive-coaching engagement, I often start by asking thisseries of questions to create awareness of the role the inner game plays for aleader:

When youre leading at your highest and best, what are you doing (howare you playing your outer game)?

Who are you being (what is the status of yourinner game)?

And what is the impact of both?

The first question is the easiest toanswer because it is associated with the actions leaders take on a daily basisand, like an elite athlete, the technical skills acquired throughout their careers.

The second question often causes my clients to pause and say, Ive never reallythought about that. Its not uncommon for leaders to get so caught up in the day-to-day doing that they lose sight of who they are being in the process, creatingblind spots and missed opportunities. Leaders who have a greater sense ofawareness of who they are being have a greater capacity to be more intentionalabout the quality of the experience they want to create for themselves and theirkey stakeholders as they are achieving targeted results.

Like the tip of an iceberg, a leaders outer game is visible above the surface ofthe water. It is the behaviors and results that are seen and experienced byothers. Under the surface lies the vast inner game the thinking andemotions that drive a leaders behavior and, ultimately, results.What getsachieved is driven by thinking.

With greater awareness of what is lurking belowthe surface of the water comes greater choice and possibility.

Here are five ways to hone your inner game:

Pause periodically throughout the day and notice your thought patterns.Are they serving or sabotaging you and the teams you are leading?

Be intentional about the quality of engagement you bring to yourprofessional field of play. What is the emotional tone you are setting?

At the end of each day, pause for a moment and reflect on your impact.Was your impact as a leader positive, negative or neutral? What mightneed to be revisited?

While in action, slow down, be present and notice. What is needed? Howam I being perceived? What needs to shift?

Courageously step out of old ways of being that are no longer serving you,and consciously step into new ways of being that empower you and theteams you lead.

Leadership excellence is connected to the deepest part of ourselves. It is aboutdigging deeper and unearthing our best selves, even if it creates discomfort attimes.

As leaders increase incompetence, they become more effective atcompleting the tasks at hand. As they increaseconsciousself-awareness and actupon it, they become exponentially impactful and can more readily achieve theorganizations highest goals.

Grow with purpose.

Emily Rogers is an executive coach, business consultant and retreat facilitator, she strategically advises and supports organizations and individuals in growing and realizing their full potential in purposeful and balanced ways. Prior to starting her coaching and consulting practice in 2013, she advised Fortune 100 brands, professional sports teams and national nonprofits on how to form mutually beneficial strategic alliances as an executive leader and senior consultant with IEG (now ESP Properties), a WPP company. You can connect with her at http://www.emilyrogers.com.

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Rogers: Focus on your inner game for outer-game impact - The Ledger

Born Into That Excitement: A Conversation with Anna Leahy and Douglas R. Dechow About Generation Space: A Love … – lareviewofbooks

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JULY 2, 2017

IN GENERATION SPACE: A LOVE STORY, co-authors Anna Leahy, a poet and English professor, and Douglas R. Dechow, a scientist and librarian, chart the two great passions in their lives. One is, of course, their own relationship and marriage. But the other is more universal: the magnetic force that drew them together. They are, to borrow the title of a Facebook conference, Space Hipsters: proud, highly educated generalists who have followed NASAs space program since their earliest years. But not since NASAs earliest years. They are members of Generation X, which has a different relationship to space travel than that of the Baby Boomers. Neither Leahy nor Dechow were yet born when Sputnik launched. But they have witnessed the triumphs of the International Space Station (ISS) and how private money is changing the idea of space exploration.

They revere the astronauts from the Apollo era and the Shuttle program astronauts who competed for a hard-won identity. They are less keen on space tourists, for whom money alone can buy an astronaut identity.

I asked them about their book and why they wrote it.

M. G. LORD: In Generation Space, you argue that another way to characterize Generation X is through its relationship to human space exploration. What did you mean?

ANNA LEAHY: We define Generation Space as all of us who were born between 1957, when the Russian satellite Sputnik launched (and the US birth rate peaked), and 1981, when the space shuttle first launched. This generation never knew a world before spaceflight. Space travel was the reality for us, not an abstraction. In 1982, Time named the computer Man of the Year. Generation Space knew a world before the personal computer, but our students know computer technology as part of the reality of their lives. When a person is born has a lot to do with how that person sees the world and the future.

DOUGLAS R. DECHOW: We were born in the mid-1960s. My first memory is sitting in front of the television watching Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walk on the Moon. At three years old, I was too young to understand what that meant, but thats the point. For me, space travel was something people did, not just possible but actual. Id argue this space-faring reality makes Generation Space an especially inquisitive bunch with high expectations. As educators, the notion of what it means to be a Millennial those who make up our current student cohort comes up frequently. While we were developing the book, it was also trendy to write think pieces comparing the traits of Boomers, Gen Xers, and Millennials, and those pieces often highlighted the negative. We think of Generation Space as an aspirational description, a way to tie together the aesthetic, cultural, and scientific associations of space travel with the group of people who were born into that excitement, the feeling of adventure of that moment.

I have to ask: Why do you refer to human space exploration as manned exploration? (When I began my own book, Astro Turf [2005], Donna Shirley, who was then head of the team for the Mars Sojourner Rover, gave me an earful about using that Apollo-era adjective instead of the more inclusive human.)

DECHOW: We do use the term human spaceflight in the book, but not to the extent we should have. Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo were men-only spaceflight programs, of course, and a lot of the documentation of that era and the writing since then refers to those programs as manned. Its easy to pick up that old-fashioned diction tick. But the Soviets sent women to space in the 1960s, and the astronaut class of 1978 included six women, all of whom flew in space. We talk in the book about how Shuttle changed the notion of astronaut. Your point is incredibly important, and the larger issue is something we continually address in our daily lives.

LEAHY: You have us thinking about how deeply engrained gender-biased terminology becomes, for the real struggle over not using manned is what to call spaceflight without humans aboard. Not unmanned, then, but not un-human or non-human either so a parallel term isnt possible for human spaceflight. Perhaps telerobotic, but that sounds overly technical. The terms should probably be crewed and uncrewed (which autocorrect wants to type as unscrewed, so its not yet common parlance). That seems the way to go as we and others continue to write about space exploration.

You each write different chapters of the story yet you dont rigidly alternate chapter by chapter. How did you decide who would tell what part of the story and how these chapters would be assembled into the manuscript?

DECHOW AND LEAHY: The first version of Generation Space we drafted was in a together voice (like this paragraph), which got us off the hook for deciding who told which part of the story, but which created all sorts of logistical problems, including referring to ourselves as Anna or Doug. People didnt believe we could agree as much as we do. Or maybe people dont like to admit that we make shared stories of life too, that sometimes we default to others versions if we arent sure, or that people who know each other well sometimes really can finish each others sentences. So, we talked about what we wanted to cover in the book we had a draft of that and who had what to say about each part.

LEAHY: I wanted to talk about my sisters accidental Sputnik holiday ornament and my mothers memory of Alan Shepards launch. Separating our voices allowed a lot more memory into the story. I saw Discovery on the launch pad the first time we visited Kennedy Space Center (KSC), and Doug didnt. So, there were scenes only one of us could write.

DECHOW: My childhood memories and my story of planning to become an astronaut and ending up a scientist-librarian quickly became an important through-line for the book. Of course, we had to negotiate a few instances in which we remembered situations differently. To this day, we disagree about which door at KSC we followed Buzz Aldrin through when I caught sight of him. Theres an episode of the 90s TV show Mad About You in which the couple define blue and green differently and adamantly. I remember us watching that and laughing about the mundane things we see differently. Separating our voices and divvying up chapters taught us to share in new ways and to sit with our differences.

You both graduated from the same college, but in different years. Would you talk about how you met and how you kept a relationship going when your professional circumstances forced you to live in different states?

LEAHY: When we started writing this book, we didnt think of it as a love story. We wanted to be the eyes and ears for others, not the subject of the book. As we immersed ourselves in the history of spaceflight, we started using the reference points and the questions to understand who we were and how we had managed to stay together for more than two decades.

DECHOW: Wed been together as college students for barely 18 months when we made our first major shared life decision: leaving Knox College behind and moving as a couple to Maryland. Shortly after getting settled, I started work at NASAs Center for AeroSpace Information (CASI). Anna was a graduate student, so, in a very real way, NASA was sustaining our lives. This was a very intense period of figuring out who we were and who we wanted to be.

The outcome of that time, that we both wanted to be academics, came with the realization that we might not always be in the same time zone, let alone zip code. Our longest period of separation was during my PhD program at Oregon State University, while Anna was a new professor at a couple of schools in the Midwest. Figuring out how to be together as a couple while leading separate professional lives could have unraveled us. One of the most intense times of loss then was the destruction of the space shuttle Columbia in 2003. We were on the phone watching the news and discussing our responses nearly the entire day. We also made a habit out of going out in the evenings to watch the International Space Station overhead.

LEAHY: Our daily lives are not like living on a space station, with no way to get home quickly but that way of life can help us understand what it means to be separated from loved ones while pursuing your lifes goals. Analogies and metaphors make sense to me because they use differences to make similarities clearer, to clarify meaning. Whether two hundred miles away on ISS, two thousand miles across the country, or in the next room, were all making choices about how we want to connect with others in our lives and about how much distance a given relationship can endure.

One thing I love about Annas sections is the way she discusses the etymology of words with Latin derivations e.g., purpose is to put forth. Anna, how did your study of Latin influence your love of spaceflight? And, for that matter, of poetry?

LEAHY: As a kid, I always liked grammar and felt as if it wasnt something to learn so much as something that made inherent sense in my brain. When I studied Latin in high school, I realized that languages work differently that ancient Romans must have made sense of ideas differently, because the verb tended to be at the end of the sentence. I took an anatomy class as a senior, one of only a few girls allowed to take a class over at the boys school, and that course was filled with Latin terminology (which was as memorable as the frog and cat we dissected). I studied Latin again in college and graduate school, and built an appreciation for how Latin words had made their ways into English for the fact that words have long histories, or ancestors.

When I was working on my first poetry book, I started playing with Latin again. I was really proud of myself for having done something that felt useful or artful with what people think of as a dead language. Its now part of my pondering as a writer, whether in poetry or prose. Of course, astronomy draws terminology from Latin nebula, gibbous, orbit so the approach feels all the more natural to me in that context.

Do you think the generation after yours appreciates the romance of spaceflight? For years, champions of privatizing spaceflight have said, Space is a place not a program. Yet your love affair the love affair of Generation Space is with a program, our collective national effort to explore.

LEAHY: When we were following the end of the space shuttle program six years ago, I mentioned to my students what I was doing. Some of them were surprised to hear the shuttle was still flying, and others were aghast that it was being retired. I remember sitting in a hospital waiting room in 2012, and a story about the retired shuttles came on the television. Everyone looked up, and people started talking about it, saying that it wasnt right that the United States wasnt flying humans to space anymore. There was the sense that wed lost something important about who we are.

Last year, though, 18,300 people applied to be part of NASAs 2017 astronaut class, which should be announced soon. The previous record, of only 8,000, was set by the 1978 class, the first to include women. Theres been a lot of space news lately black holes colliding, close-ups of Jupiter, Voyager leaving the solar system and people want to take part in that exploration.

DECHOW: Alan Shepard was the first American to go to space. His parabolic flight lasted only a few minutes, and hed forgotten to change a filter so he didnt see the view in full color. Yuri Gagarin had already orbited Earth by then. Later, there was some dispute over whether his spaceflight counted in the same way, because hed parachuted out of his spacecraft. So, theres long been quibbling about how to measure spaceflight accomplishments.

But one thing is clear: spaceflight is a cool accomplishment. In the fall of 2010, during one of our nerd date-nights for writing blog posts, we were making backup plans for viewing a shuttle launch in case neither of us became credentialed media. At the table next to us were three young men animatedly making plans for the same trip. Being generally nosy many writers eavesdrop I listened in to their conversation, only to hear the word Titusville mentioned several times. So, I engaged them in conversation. Just like Anna and myself, they couldnt believe that the Shuttle program was coming to an end, and they wanted to be there to witness it.

What impact will the privatization of spaceflight have on its appeal? Does it degrade the idea of astronaut that anyone with enough money can achieve that identity?

LEAHY: All the Mercury, Apollo, and Gemini astronauts were white men. Although one attains the identity by crossing the Krmn line, for a long time, it seemed that being an astronaut was the job of only a few military test pilots. The space shuttle era changed how we think about what it means to be an astronaut. Id hate to see privatization narrow the definition according to socioeconomic class. If I had $250,000 in spare change thats more than the median home price in the United States or the cost of a medical degree Id definitely be tempted to hand it over to Virgin Galactic to have six weightless minutes in space. But I cant imagine the life of someone like that.

DECHOW: To be sure, there are some goofy ideas afloat for human spaceflight. Mars One isnt so much a proposed spaceflight to the Red Planet as it is a reality television show in which theres no plan for the return trip. For several years before the shuttle was retired, Space Adventures was able to broker deals for private citizens to pay to ride aboard Soyuz to the International Space Station. The idea that spaceflight might become the purview of only the incredibly wealthy is disturbing, but thats not what SpaceX or NASA seem to be up to right now.

As we worked on Generation Space, we warmed up to commercial space more than we expected. Its important to remember that, because NASA belongs to all of us, SpaceX can draw from 50 years of research and development. To watch the video of the Falcon 9 launch and then return to land on a barge is spectacular. This year, the same Falcon 9 launched and landed on that same barge. Despite the tough questions its posing, commercial space is earning my respect.

I loved the way much of the drama in the book involved the nuisance of getting credentials for launches and the hierarchical nature of those credentials. Anna, how did you feel when you were awarded credentials (for a non-launch, if I remember correctly) and Doug wasnt? Did you feel like you had to do a better job or that Doug, because of his scientific training should be there in your place?

LEAHY: Getting a media badge made us feel as if we were taken seriously and had to live up to that well-vetted, professional designation. When I was awarded a badge for Discoverys last launch and Doug wasnt, that seemed like a big test for whether we were up to this project, and also a big test of our relationship. Its easy for a couple to talk about how they want the best for each other and would do anything for each other.

We told ourselves rightly, I think that one media badge was better than none. As we prepared, I did panic that I didnt know enough about the technology to know what to ask or how to see what I was seeing that Doug should have been the one designated as press. All that fell away as soon as I passed through the security gate at Kennedy Space Center.

Ive never felt more pressure to do a good job, to learn new terminology quickly, to pay attention. I forced myself to be assertive, to interview an astronaut, to not let myself relax. No one at KSC knew who I was or cared whether I left, so I was my best self during that not-launch trip in part because no one was watching me but me. I stood yards away from Discovery on the launch pad. I could hardly speak, but after I caught my breath, I called Doug. I worried that he would be resentful, but he seemed utterly happy in hearing my joy. Thats something we carry with us now, genuinely being happy for each other.

Okay, now the question the astronauts mostly dodged: Which orbiter is your favorite? Endeavour? Discovery? (Do you both agree?) And why?

DECHOW AND LEAHY: Endeavour. We have too many associations with Endeavour now. Its the first orbiter we saw in person, when it landed in California in 2008. Its the first orbiter we saw launch in person, for its last launch in 2011. Its the orbiter we saw up close, when we got a private tour of Endeavour in the Orbiter Processing Facility after its last launch. Its the orbiter that we can drive to see any time. And we like the astronauts who chose a favorite too.

Anna, how did Southern Californiaraised astronaut Mike Coats react when you told him you had never been to Disneyland?

LEAHY: Oh, he was terribly disappointed in me. Mike Coats was the first astronaut I ever met. Hed flown Discovery three times, and he was the director of Johnson Space Center at the time I spoke with him. I hadnt thought about the sort of access a media badge would entail, and we spent about 10 minutes alone in a KSC conference room for the interview. He really warmed up when I asked him about growing up in California and spending a lot of time at Disneyland. When I admitted that I hadnt been to Disneyland, he said, Anna, shame on you. I still havent been to Disneyland. Maybe my refusal is a way to preserve the integrity of that first conversation with an astronaut.

Doug, what cool space artifacts have you acquired for the Chapman University library?

DECHOW: Whistleblowers Roger Boisjoly and Allan McDonald two of the Morton Thiokol engineers who were adamant that NASA not launch the space shuttle Challenger on that cold, fateful morning in 1986 have both donated their papers to the Leatherby Libraries. While both collections are wonderful, Roger Boisjolys materials contain a wealth of engineering documents, notebooks, and photographs that speak to the technical problems that beset the solid rocket boosters that ultimately led to Challengers destruction.

The library also participated in a government program when NASA sought permanent homes for items it was no longer using. We received a number of items, some of which including a laptop and some gloves had flown in space. We have an almost-light-as-air space shuttle tile that has been on an orbiter but never left Earth. We also received a number of models of 1960s-era satellites including a Nimbus weather satellite and an Orbiting Geophysical Observatory that had probably served as traveling educational exhibits. Each wooden case contained assembly instructions and torn, yellowed photographs of the models in their demonstration roles. That familiar museum storage basement smell wafted from the cases when we opened them. It made us wonder if it had been several decades since the cases were last opened and who had been the last person to touch them prior to us.

In designing syllabi or in your teaching methodology, do you do anything to encourage your students to share your passion for space exploration?

LEAHY: I teach mostly creative writing classes and do talk with students about my writing projects. Encouraging creative writing students, though, focuses more on process and craft. When I see an opening, of course, I sneak in science and space exploration. Not too long ago, a student used black hole as a metaphor, and I encouraged some extra research to think about what that might really mean and how the language used to talk about black holes applied or didnt. Thinking about space and the universe adds some perspective to a writers life.

DECHOW: Ive taught a number of short, one- or two-hour courses based on the items in the Boisjoly collection. I get a chill each time I work with those materials. Its really something to hold an O-ring in your hand, to know tangibly how small the diameter is, and to realize that that part doomed Challenger. The engineering materials in the collection make clear that the problems and risks associated with the space shuttle program in the mid-1980s were well understood. So its my job to use those materials to show that the Challenger accident was a failure of human decision-making.

Would you go to Mars if you had the opportunity?

DECHOW AND LEAHY: We dont have the opportunity. Were too old. So, its easy to say yes without thinking about the consequences such a decision would have. We do want humans to go to Mars, but thats for Generation Mars to accomplish. Think about what it would mean for people to be born into a world in which living on another celestial body was the reality.

M. G. Lord is the author of Forever Barbie: The Unauthorized Biography of a Real Doll, Astro Turf: The Private Life of Rocket Science, andThe Accidental Feminist: How Elizabeth Taylor Raised Our Consciousness and We Were Too Distracted by Her Beauty to Notice. She teaches nonfiction writing at USC.

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Born Into That Excitement: A Conversation with Anna Leahy and Douglas R. Dechow About Generation Space: A Love ... - lareviewofbooks

SINGULARITY: a Josh Gates, DT and EXU Fan Site …

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This week's airing schedule is an "Expedition Unknown" marathon tonight on Travel Channel, but it looks like no new episodes this week. On Friday, we have some EXU reruns with a marathon of "Destination Truth" which includes two "new" DT reruns in the mix, as well.

Here is some other news and information that may be interesting to you guys, while you are here:

If you want to read some cool blogs on this site, here is what I recommend:

For this week's airing schedule, check out Travel Channel on Wednesday night for an "Expedition Unknown" marathon and a brand new "Expedition" episode. On Friday (after "Ghost Adventures" and "Expedition"), we continue to enjoy the revival of our favorite "Destination Truth" reruns with Josh, Erin Ryder, Jael de Pardo, Rex Williams, Gabs Copeland, Casey Brummels, and more of our favorites, on Travel Channel. Enjoy and check your local listings!

FRIDAY = after "Ghost Adventures," there are "Expedition" reruns and two "new" DT re-runs on.

To clarify, for everyone - Travel Channel is re-airing DT under the name "Josh Gates' Destination Truth." There are no new episodes planned to be shot and aired for DT (that I am aware of) and yes, they are airing them out of sequence, compared to how they originally aired on Syfy/SciFi. Check your local listings and time zones for accurate viewing schedules. Also, a regular reminder that this is a fan page not run by Josh Gates/Travel/Syfy/Ping Pong Productions.

Then on Friday the 2nd, we not only get EXU reruns, but then, we get more "new" DT reruns, too!

More things you might be interested in: Why does a certain Netflix show think Josh Gates is Steve Barry? Wondering why the "DT" episodes being aired on Travel are out of order, in comparison to how they appeared on Syfy/SciFi? Not hearing so much from Josh on Twitter & Facebook? Check out his Instagram page by clicking here.

I do not know, so my guess is that Ping Pong Productions wanted to edit and air them in the order they wanted. That and there are likely people who are going to be discovering "DT" for the first time with these reruns on a new network, so in the grand scheme of things, not sure if it matters so much. Hope I don't ruffle feathers by saying that.

As far as the book, it documents the history of "DT" in relation to it's original network and came out more than a year before these reruns found a new home on Travel Channel. I hope that clears things up! On that note - the price of the book has been lowered to celebrate the show's revival - it is full of exclusive interviews, insider info, and even a foreword by Josh Gates himself! Pick it and support the fan site by clicking here. -Amanda, fan site runner

WEDS NIGHT: There is an all night "Expedition Unknown" marathon, including one of the "Destination Truth episodes that aired last week being re-run on Travel Channel.

FRIDAY: There is another all night EXU marathon followed by two "new" DT re-runs.

SATURDAY - 2 EXU reruns.

Just a reminder - these are not new DT episodes. What it looks like so far, though, is that the logo has changed from the classic "Destination Truth" logo to a different font and it says "Josh Gates' Destination Truth." It also looks like the footage has been cleaned up or remastered a little bit, which is nice to see on these newer TV sets. Be sure to keep watching & tweeting. Enjoy!

Just to clarify - these are re-runs of the same "Destination Truth" that aired on Syfy. It will now play on Travel Channel and it's now known as "Josh Gates' DT" but you never know what possibilities this could mean. Maybe merchandising? Reboots? No way to tell unless we get the ratings high for these reruns, so be sure to check your local listings and tune in!

PS - don't forget to use the hashtag #destinationtruth on social media while watching!

All night marathons of "Expedition Unknown" reruns this Wednesday and Friday night (except for a random episode of "Legend Hunter" thrown in the mix). Be sure to check local listings to verify when these are on for you.

And be sure to check out Josh Gates' Instagram for fun shots on the road! Since we will be seeing familar faces, as well, go check out Ryder's Instagram, Jael's, & Gabe's. If there are other "DT" alumni cast Instagrams we should check out, comment below!

In case there are any doubts, you can read the press release that was sent to me by Josh Gates himself here, and Travel Channel confirmed it by tweeting about it here.

In other news, in celebration of "DT" reruns coming back to a new network soon, I am going to look into a discounted price or a promo code for the "Fan Guide to Destination Truth," so stay tuned for that!

Originally posted here:

SINGULARITY: a Josh Gates, DT and EXU Fan Site ...

Forget Flying Cars, the Future Is Driving Drones – Singularity Hub

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Flying car concepts have been around nearly as long as their earthbound cousins, but no one has yet made them a commercial success. MIT engineers think weve been coming at the problem from the wrong direction; rather than putting wings on cars, we should be helping drones to drive.

The team from the universitys Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) added wheels to a fleet of eight mini-quadcopters and tested driving and flying them around a tiny toy town made out of cardboard and fabric.

Adding the ability to drive reduced the distance the drone could fly by 14 percent compared to a wheel-less version. But while driving was slower, the drone could travel 150 percent further than when flying. The result is a vehicle that combines the speed and mobility of flying with the energy-efficiency of driving.

CSAIL director Daniela Rus told MIT News their work suggested that when looking to create flying cars, it might make more sense to build on years of research into drones rather than trying to simply put wings on cars.

Historically, flying car concepts have looked like someone took apart a Cessna light aircraft and a family sedan, mixed all the parts up, and bolted them back together again. Not everyone has abandoned this approachtwo of the most developed flying car designs from Terrafugia and AeroMobil are cars with folding wings that need an airstrip to take off.

But flying car concepts are looking increasingly drone-like these days, with multiple small rotors, electric propulsion and vertical take-off abilities. Take the eHang 184autonomous aerial vehicle being developed in China, theKitty Hawk all-electric aircraft backed by Google founder Larry Page, which is little more than a quadcopter with a seat, the AirQuadOne designed by UK consortium Neva Aerospace, or Lilium Aviations Jet.

The attraction is obvious. Electric-powered drones are more compact, maneuverable, and environmentally friendly, making them suitable for urban environments.

Most of these vehicles are not quite the same as those proposed by the MIT engineers, as theyre pure flying machines. But a recent Airbus concept builds on the same principle that the future of urban mobility is vehicles that can both fly and drive. Its Pop.Up design is a two-passenger pod that can either be clipped to a set of wheels or hang under a quadcopter.

Importantly, they envisage their creation being autonomous in both flight and driving modes. And theyre not the only ones who think the future of flying cars is driverless. Uber has committed to developing a network of autonomous air taxis within a decade. This spring, Dubai announced it would launch a pilotless passenger drone serviceusing the Ehang 184as early as next month (July).

While integrating fully-fledged autonomous flying cars into urban environments will be far more complex, the study by Rus and her colleagues provides a good starting point for the kind of 3D route-planning and collision avoidance capabilities this would require.

The team developed multi-robot path planning algorithms that were able to control all eight drones as they flew and drove around their mock up city, while also making sure they didnt crash into each other and avoided no-fly zones.

This work provides an algorithmic solution for large-scale, mixed-mode transportation and shows its applicability to real-world problems, Jingjin Yu, a computer science professor at Rutgers University who was not involved in the research, told MIT News.

This vision of a driverless future for flying cars might be a bit of a disappointment for those whod envisaged themselves one day piloting their own hover car just like George Jetson. But autonomy and Uber-like ride-hailing business models are likely to be attractive, as they offer potential solutions to three of the biggest hurdles drone-like passenger vehicles face.

Firstly, it makes the vehicles accessible to anyone by removing the need to learn how to safely pilot an aircraft. Secondly, battery life still limits most electric vehicles to flight times measured in minutes. For personal vehicles this could be frustrating, but if youre just hopping in a driverless air taxi for a five minute trip across town its unlikely to become apparent to you.

Operators of the service simply need to make sure they have a big enough fleet to ensure a charged vehicle is never too far away, or theyll need a way to swap out batteries easily, such as the one suggested by the makers of the Volocopter electric helicopter.

Finally, there has already been significant progress in developing technology and regulations needed to integrate autonomous drones into our airspace that future driverless flying cars can most likely piggyback off of.

Safety requirements will inevitably be more stringent, but adding more predictable and controllable autonomous drones to the skies is likely to be more attractive to regulators than trying to license and police thousands of new amateur pilots.

Image Credit: Lilium

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Canada Is Building a 7 Megawatt-Hour Compressed Air Energy Storage Plant – Singularity Hub

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Green energy is a popular topic right now, with many countries signing on to the Paris Climate Accord and planning to move away from fossil fuels toward renewable energy.

While most countries are working toward establishing solar and wind power farms, some countries like Canada are looking toward the creation ofcompressed air storage plantsfor power storage and generation.

How can compressed air change the way countries use and store green energy?

Compressing air in porous caves can serve as a backup form of power that can be tapped when the demand for power is high. Essentially, the compressed air is stored in caves of porous basalt rock when power demand is low. When more power is needed, the air is heated and piped through turbines to generate power.

This is a great way for countries that already rely on wind power to hedge their bets, so to speakto ensure that there is a sufficient supply of power even if the wind doesnt blow as much as they would like.

But aproblem with this type of energy storage is that it relies on natural gas to heat the air. As of 2016, natural gas use made up more than one third of the US energy industry, and while it is more efficient than coal power, it is still a non-renewable resource.

The biggest difference between traditional compressed air storage plants and the new 7 MWh plant approved to be built in Goderich, Ontario, is the way the air is heated before being piped through the turbines. As mentioned, standard plants rely on natural gas to heat the air used to generate power. The new Goderich plant, on the other hand, uses a heat exchange system.

This heat exchange system stores the heat that is generated when the air is initially stored. When the air needs to be heated to generate power, that heat is simply released, making this an emission-free form of energy storage.

This is a step away from the traditional energy storage markets. Lithium-ion batteries like the ones in the Tesla Home battery system currently hold the majority of the market. Most of these batteries, though, are designed for small, single-home applications. Compressed air storage, on the other hand, can generate power for entire communities or power grids when the need arises.

Compressed air storage plants are a growing field, especially with the global focus on green energy. Anywhere that has a sufficient layer of basalt stone can be used for compressed air storage, making it an option for markets around the world.

The market for the equipment just to treat the air that is being compressed is expected to grow by more than six percent, reaching $11.2 billion by 2025.

Treating the compressed air is important to protect the compression equipment. The ambient air can contain contaminants that could damage or clog the equipment and pollute the compressed air.

With the path toward green energy growing clearer every year, construction projects like the new emission-free compressed air plant in Canada are the first steps toward a green planet, and toward getting humans away from fossil fuels and greenhouse gases.

While construction hasnt started yet on the Canadian plant, it will be fascinating to see how much power this emission-free plant can generate once its up and running, not to mention the amount of power that will eventually come from additional compressed air storage plants in the coming years.

Stock Media provided by noppasinw / Pond5

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Ascension Now

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I must be willing to give up what I am, in order to become what I will be. - Albert Einstein (1879-1955)

"In one drop of water are found all the secrets of all the oceans; in one aspect of You are found all the aspects of existence." - Kahlil Gilbran

Nothing man-made, not a multitude of books, nor the latest computers and the computers of the future all taken together, can ever encompass even a part of the information contained in a single Man(/Woman). One has only to know how to use it. But to know the Truth, one must have a conscious awareness and purity of thought.

Man is the only creature in the Universe who can live on all planes of existence at once. In their earthly existence most people see themselves only as an earthly, materialised manifestation. But there are those who perceive other levels of being, levels invisible to the material senses.

Prophets who believe in and talk about the end of the world - they themselves are producing mental visualisations of the end of the world. They are motivated not by faith in the Light, in the Love that is God, but by fear. And this fearful scenario is something they are fashioning for themselves." 'The Ringing Cedars of Russia' by Vladimir Megr; Book 2 of The Ringing Cedars Series. See also: Recommended Books/The Ringing Cedars Series

"You are not a soul, you are not a mind, you are not a body. You are the controller of all three." - Yogi Bhajan

True Spirituality

"The soul is going to wake up. It will know every aspect of itself, and every aspect of the souls self will know all of itself at once. You will be aware of all realities at once as you learn to ride the vibrational rate and become fourth dimensional. You are awakening Prime Creators abilities.. Prime Creators goal in creating this universe and all other universes was to develop itself to such an extent, and have so many multidimensional channels of data open, that it - whose consciousness is in all things - could become aware of itself in all things, aware of every event that all things are involved in. You are evolving that ability in yourselves. the knowing is growing, and it is a knowing of what is awakening inside of you. You must be committed all of the time. When these gifts and abilities begin to be firsthand experiences for you, you must learn to work with them no matter what. Begin to know that you are divinely guided and that all events are drawn to you for upliftment, no matter what kind of upheaval they seem to produce in your life. Earth is going through an initiation at this time. You are going through an initiation because you are part of Earth, and you cannot separate yourself from this system. Earth is transforming itself and intending to act as a domino for your solar system. It is intending to merge multiple worlds [dimensions] into one, to be grounded enough to allow all those worlds [dimensions] to exist and to translate the experience. Bringers of the Dawn; Teachings from the Pleiadians, Channelled by Barbara Marciniak

_It's Time To Wake Up - We Are All One

"If quantum mechanics hasn't profoundly shocked you, you haven't understood it yet." ~ Niels Bohr

"Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide, In the strife of truth with falsehood, for the good or evil side; Some great cause, some great decision, offering each the bloom or blight, And the choice goes by forever, twixt that darkness and that Light." - James Lowell, 1845

Abraham Hicks : Empowering Inspiring video message

Esther Hicks channels 'Abraham' in one of the most inspirational scenes depicting 'The Law of Attraction'. Video includes Esther Hicks and Micheal Beckwith and many deleted scenes from Rhonda Byrne's film 'The Secret'.

The Secret Teachings of All Ages, Manley P Hall

Spiritual 4th, 5th and 6th Dimensionality

"It's not important that you know everything .... just the important things." - Miguel de Unamuno

St. Germain - Earth Birth Changes "It is nigh unto the ripeness of time indeed, a culmination of eons of time unto the Harvest. The time is Now... The rapture will allow you to perceive fourth density... therefore third density will no longer be able to perceive you, for you will be simultaneously existing, co-existing in the same space/time, but merely not perceived, because it is of a different frequency. The year 2012 of your time is the apex of it. It is a convergence point into unlimitedness.... Cycles - there are cycles within cycles within cycles. There are many, many, many different cycles that are culminating in this Now. The reason for the focus on planet Earth, and for all the galactic confederations coming forth unto this area of your solar system, is because the universe is in the shifting of densities.... it is also occurring to the astral body of Earth, the etheric body of Earth, and the soul body of Earth. These particular dates (2012) are all shifting, because consciousness is shifting all the time. It is a flux. It appears that it is somewhere between 2010 and 2013 of your Now..and when fourth density or super-consciousness comes upon the planet, it will not be perceiving third density and third density will not be perceiving fourth density, for they will be different dimensions then. Now they are co-existent dimensions, and when super-consciousness prevails, the shift will occur and that is called a rapture. In many references your Harvest is your fourth density transformation, your ascension. Some would call it rapture."

Welcome to 'Ascension Now'!

The spiritual graduation of Humanity will be very exciting and challenging: together we will explore new possibilities and opportunities. Light = Information, and Information is the key to understanding what is happening.

Divine Love, Light, peace and healing to all From Spirit and Messenger Spirit

This is information to which I have been guided by Spirit over the course of several years, and Spirit have asked me to bring it all together in one place for others who seek the Truth. You will feel in your heart whether it resonates with you.

We are not our physical bodies, we are spiritual beings, individuated expressions of the One Infinite Creator whose Conscious Awareness is now awakening in the Human family. It is time to remember Who We Are and to rise to our full potential. As fully-awakened Humans - the 'rainbow bridge' between Spirit and matter - we have a very important role to play in the Universe.

Divine Love, Light, peace and healing Messenger Spirit

Few consciously remember The path we chose in life. But time will show our destiny As every thought and deed Unfolds the story deep within. A story written long ago, In realms beyond our earthly reach, Of aims and aspirations For the Highest Good of All. With Spirits help and guidance And the love of those around us This time of revelation Will unveil our lives true goal. We came to help The raising of Mother Earths vibration, And the lifting of Humanity To higher realms of Light. As waves of Higher Love and Light Sweep through the Solar System, Vibrations rise And Mother Earth Expands her consciousness. Humanity awakens In the presence of Divinity, Awakens to Divinity within. Always present, dormant , waiting . For Humanitys remembrance Of our origin in Light. A new dawn awaits us; Is now within our grasp. Reach out and touch it ..

From Spirit, through Messenger Spirit

Abraham Hicks : 2012 and Beyond

Esther doesn't use the word "channeling" to describe her process, but understands if others do. For more information, please view our YouTube video entitled "Abraham Explains Who They Are", or go to http://www.abraham-hicks.com and listen to the audio entitled "Introduction To Abraham".

In this unique time in the universe when all experiencing is being accelerated, souls have been given the unprecedented opportunity to evolve out of third densitys low vibrations and physically accompany Earth into higher energy planes.

Spirit teacher Matthew Ward

Ra : Acceleration towards the Law of One

The Good Remembering, Llyn Roberts (see 'Recommended Books')

A Love That Is You

The Family of Jacob / Elohei Yaakov Website: http://www.youtube.com/colorfulteardrops / http://www.facebook.com/Loveis Brian Baruch is a conscious channeller for the "Family of Jacob". The "Family of Jacob" (Elohei Yaakov) is an inter-dimensional collective consciousness that resonates a central frequency of the united essence of All Source.

Over the ages the "Family of Jacob" have been known by many names; the higher central Sun, Tiferet, the personage of Divine as Father, the Egyptian All recognizing collective consciousness called "Ra", the Hindu Lord Vishnu, the cosmic consciousness of All Life, the Christian Trinity, the biblical archetype of the patriarch "Jacob" who coalesced All through frequencies of "merciful healing" and recognizing "truth". These are some incarnations of this family consciousness called the "Family of Jacob", and there have been many more.

Splinters of this collective consciousness are incarnated in almost every generation along the earthly tier, other aspects of this collective are ascended (angelic) intelligences that never spent time along the earthly tier, or have resonated their key resonance of truth in many other worlds and dimensions.

They offer a "bird's eye view" of true reality, and share a message of the Higher Love and compassionate healing; revealing dignity for the individual, a deep compassion and reverence for the collective; the majestic "music" from behind the veil - the coalescing of All That Is. Their sacred message carries a profound cadence that leads to the abstract co-ordinates for ascension into the fullness of inter-dimensional "wholeness".

The "Family of Jacob" explain how this game of duality consciousness is designed to help angels and imprisoned intelligences ascend to higher dimensions of intimacy with All Source by resonating All Source's intrinsic frequency of unconditional love and unity along the earthly tier.

Similar to Esther Hicks' channelled collective consciousness "Abraham" who sends the beacon of co-ordinates of creation's "Is" through the frequencies of "loving kindness" and "bountifulness", the "Family of Jacob" resonate the co-ordinates of "truth", "merciful healing" and "true (unconditional) love" to direct All how to embrace their crowns of ascension to freely reside in the dimension of the "higher central Sun" with intimacy and gratitude in All That Is.

Excerpt from:

Ascension Now

St. Elizabeth clinic for the uninsured gets additional space at Ascension Parish health unit – The Advocate

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GONZALES A local health clinic born eight years ago in a partnership between St. Elizabeth Hospital in Gonzales and the Ascension Parish government has doubled its space to better serve residents who don't have health insurance.

Former office space in the Ascension Parish Health Unit off Worthey Road in Gonzales has been converted to a reception area, four patient exam rooms previously there were only two and a larger lab for medical testing for the St. Elizabeth Community Clinic that's been housed at the parish health unit since 2009.

"They love it, they absolutely love it," Paula Julian, nurse practitioner, said of her patients' appreciation of the new space.

Julian and another nurse practitioner, Kristin Martin, rotate to see patients at the community clinic on Tuesdays and Thursdays. The medical director for the St. Elizabeth Community Clinic is Dr. James D'Antoni.

The Ascension Parish Health Unit offers residents immunizations; pregnancy testing; family planning services; nutritional services for women, infants and children; and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases.

The St. Elizabeth Community Clinic there offers routine treatment, on a sliding-scale fee basis, for uninsured parish residents, ages 10 and up, with common short-term health problems or long-lasting illnesses that can be managed on an outpatient basis.

The health unit sees about 2,500 patients each month, and the community clinic each month sees about 200 patients, many of them the working poor without public or private insurance, said Kyle Gautreau, communications director for the parish government.

The ability of medical staff in the parish health unit and in the community clinic "to refer folks (to practitioners) literally across the hall from each other is the beauty of the partnership," Gautreau said.

Another resource, the Ascension Parish Counseling Center, is adjacent to the Parish Health Unit. Under the umbrella of the health unit, the center offers individual and group counseling and treatment for addictive disorders.

The parish paid for the recent renovations of the St. Elizabeth Community Clinic, with parish employees doing much of the work, said Parish President Kenny Matassa, who was director of the parish health unit before he was elected parish president in 2015.

"I saw every week the great good done under the partnership between Ascension Parish and St. Elizabeth, and I wanted to see its expansion happen," Matassa said. "The great thing is that I knew we had the capacity to complete most of the work ourselves."

The $25,000 renovation was started in January and completed in June.

St. Elizabeth Hospital, part of the Franciscan Missionaries of Our Lady Health System, which runs Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge and other hospitals is a missions-based hospital, said Jon Hirsch, director of marketing for St. Elizabeth.

"Part of our mission is to serve people who don't have any resources," he said.

Follow Ellyn Couvillion on Twitter, @EllynCouvillion.

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St. Elizabeth clinic for the uninsured gets additional space at Ascension Parish health unit - The Advocate

Word on the Street: With Bill Brady’s ascension, central Illinois picks … – Peoria Journal Star

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Chris Kaergard Journal Star political reporter @ChrisKaergardNick Vlahos Journal Star reporter @vlahosnick

For the first time in a long time, central Illinois has a seat at the head of the leadership table in the state Legislature.

That's courtesy of Bill Brady's ascension Friday to the head of the Senate Republican caucus. The Bloomington lawmaker, who has been in the Senate since 2002 and in the Legislature since 1993, succeeds Christine Radogno in the role and has enormous challenges ahead of him.

Previously he'd been a top deputy to Radogno, just as Rep. David Leitch had been a top deputy to his chamber's GOP leader, Jim Durkin. But someone representing our area in the top spot? Those are tough to find in the Legislature or in statewide elective office.

Brady is as well-positioned as anyone for the job, though.

He's more conservative than Radogno. That's a change, but one that will serve him in a caucus that is split between conservatives and more moderate suburbanites. In his years of experience, he has come to recognize politics as the art of the possible inevitably meaning compromises, if hard-fought ones. (His attempt to resurrect the "Grand Bargain" budget deal late in the spring proves it.)

This role is a chance for him to erase the impression many in the GOP have of him as "the guy who lost a totally winnable governor's race to Pat Quinn of all people." But that campaign (and failed quests for the gubernatorial nod in 2006 and 2014) have given him a better idea of the nuances of the state and of Republicans in Illinois than many others in the Legislature. That probably makes him a better leader for them.

Those runs also established him as tireless. One enduring memory we have is of him standing in the freezing cold outside Carver Arena before a Bradley game shaking every last hand as his ears went numb. He's pretty personable, so that probably accounted for a portion of his 193-vote primary victory over Sen. Kirk Dillard.

From our vantage point, he's been a bit on the periphery of Peoria affairs, but omnipresent whenever there were issues or political appearances in Tazewell County. He was a fixture and, we gather, a good resource for Washington during its post-tornado rebuilding efforts (even when that meant he shared the stage with onetime opponent Quinn). And during his statewide runs for office the guy never put on airs. We could still reach him on his cellphone with questions about local matters, even while he was bopping around the vast Land of Lincoln.

Good luck to him. If the last two and a half years are any indication, he'll need it. (C.K.)

She'll be missed

Brady has awful big shoes to fill.

Radogno was instantly recognizable as the adult in the room, someone who fought hard earlier this year to jump-start talks on a budget compromise alongside Senate President John Cullerton, with whom she had a far better rapport than, say, between House Speaker Michael Madigan and House GOP leader Jim Durkin let alone that between Madigan and Gov. Bruce Rauner.

She was knowledgeable during her visits here to speak to the paper's editorial board and got along well with folks more conservative like then-Sen. Darin LaHood, who didn't support her for the leadership position, but still respected her. And she was an independent thinker, something that had to chafe with the growing Rauner influence over lawmakers.

When your shorter columnist covered the Legislature a dozen years ago, Radogno was one of the budget experts for the Senate Republicans. And in her two decades in the chamber she had earned respect and affection across party lines as a straight-shooter, and as someone who understood the fundamentals of the legislative process.

To take but one example, state Rep. Ann Williams a pretty liberal Chicago Democrat noted Thursday on Facebook that "if we had a Christine leading each of our four caucuses, the budget impasse would have been over by now."

It's a pity for all of us that we didn't. (C.K.)

A national reminder of the local

A Bradley University political-science professor wrote an article that appeared last week on the website of a publication better known for its popular-music coverage.

Although not all of Ed Burmilas words might be music to some ears, we can advocate his nonpartisan point, at a minimum.

In The Case for Paying Less Attention to Donald Trump, Burmila suggested the public focus less on the Oval Office and more on state legislatures. That is where much of the policy that affects average Americans is made, he argues.

This being Rolling Stone, of course, Burmilas piece is heavy on gratuitious left-wing spin. It also is laden with apocalyptic rhetoric, which in spades these days comes from both sides of the partisan divide.

Burmila begins by calling Trumps five-month-old administration a disaster. He also suggests the Republicans elected to control the vast majority of governorships and state legislatures are the authors of Neanderthal education policies, ruthless legislative-district gerrymandering and brutal sentencing and policing reforms.

Donald Trump is not the problem with the GOP; he is the symptom of the party's top-to-bottom absence of principles and willingness to manipulate rules, Burmila wrote If progressives focus exclusively on Trump, that makes it easier ... for Republicans at other levels to push their loathsome agenda forward.

Lets set aside the hyperbole and focus on the gist of what Burmila is arguing.

The escapades in Washington, D.C., can be entertaining, certainly. Although the constant Blue-vs.-Red dynamic is better left for a football game.

But as a practical matter, what happens in Springfield is more relevant to Illinoisans than what happens along the Potomac River.

If the public was paying closer attention years ago to what was transpiring in the General Assembly, perhaps Illinois wouldnt be in the midst of a fiscal disaster. And our state is living proof gerrymandering is a bipartisan affliction.

Well take things a few steps further than Burmila did, at least as far as governmental levels are concerned.

Local government might be the most consequential government of all. How many times have you heard Peorians complain about potholes? Or public financing of private development projects? Or substantial increases in property taxes?

Then look at the pathetic voter-turnout rates for recent Peoria municipal elections. The disconnect is obvious. Just because CNN isnt yapping about something 24/7 doesnt mean it isnt important.

In smaller communities, also look at how many seats for city councils and village boards go uncontested or unfilled through the electoral process. Thats dangerous for democracy, not to mention public policy.

Burmilas screed might not appeal to some of our better instincts. But strip the partisan attacks and youll find an important message. All politics is local, after all. (N.V.)

Chris Kaergard (C.K.) covers politics and government. He can be reached at ckaergard@pjstar.com or 686-3255. Follow him on Twitter @ChrisKaergard. Nick Vlahos (N.V.) writes "Nick in the Morning." He can be reached at nvlahos@pjstar.com or 686-3285. Follow him on Twitter @VlahosNick.

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Word on the Street: With Bill Brady's ascension, central Illinois picks ... - Peoria Journal Star

The brain on DMT: mapping the psychedelic drug’s effects – Wired.co.uk

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N, N-Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) is famous for producing one of the most intense psychedelic experiences possible, catapulting users into a series of vivid, incapacitating hallucinations. But despite the kaleidoscope of variation on offer, the enduring mystery of DMT is the encounters it induces with 'entities' or 'aliens': "jewelled self-dribbling basketballs" or "machine elves", as the psychedelic missionary Terence McKenna described them.

McKenna, not really a scientist so much as a roving DMT performance poet, helped popularise the drug in the 70s, along with his own intuitive theories that the entities were evidence of alien life, or that DMT facilitated trans-dimensional travel.

Theyre really amazing, spine-tingling ideas, says Robin Carhart-Harris, head of psychedelic research at Imperial College, London. But, you know, arguably theyre bullshit.

Carhart-Harris is part of a team of researchers at Imperial College London on a mission to trap the machine elves. Two years after conducting the worlds first fMRI scan of volunteers that had ingested LSD,the results of which are still being pored over, the Imperial team is now performing a similar experiment with DMT. In the process, they are targeting the pseudoscientific ideas that envelop and overwhelm any discussion of the so-called spirit molecule.

What may be glamour for some people or may be baffling, such as 'machine elves' for us is an opportunity, said Chris Timmermann, a PhD candidate conducting the research. It wont be mundane, says Carhart-Harris. I dont think it kills the magic.

The researchers have already given 12 volunteers DMT in a pilot EEG study. In a matter of weeks, they will begin the first ever fMRI scan of DMTs effect on the brain, in research that is expected to continue for at least six months.

The primary goal is to map brain activity during the experience. But Carhart-Harris and Timmerman hope they will be able to draw some conclusions from the research one of which will rationalise psychedelic encounters with entities.

Perhaps [entity encounters] relate to the fact that, certainly throughout our lives, but especially early on in our lives, were surrounded by entities as in people, says Carhart-Harris, who has a background in psychoanalytic and psychodynamic psychology.

The first thing that we manage to focus our gaze on are people, and their eyes, usually. So it just follows that this will be a major part of the human psyche, and likely a major part of the unconscious.

Carhart-Harris hopes to show that an encounter with an entity may show a similar pattern of brain activity to an encounter with a person.

Its not a bulletproof approach, he says. But were working on the hypothesis that the experience of entity encounters rests on brain activity. And if it does, then why dont we look at the neural correlates of some elements of encounters [with] entities off the drug, and get a sense of where peoples brains are sensitive.

The researchers will also be paying close attention to the transcendental qualities of the DMT experience. By asking participants to rate the intensity of experience, they hope to capture, potentially, that leap into another world which characterises a trip.

The experiment is the latest from Imperial Colleges neuropsychopharmacology unit. Professor David Nutt is overseeing the study, Carhart-Harris and others designed it, and Timmerman is carrying it out.

They have a formidable record of safe experimentation with psychedelics, thanks to previous high-profile work with LSD and psilocybin. So securing permission to do the study was quite a smooth process, according to Carhart-Harris. Particularly when it came to the Ethics Review Committee.

They were quite warm really to us. We even had someone on the panel whose eyes were really lighting up, basically volunteering to be part of the study, he said. (The unnamed panel member was sadly not eligible to participate).

To make sure they get it right, the team has also called on the godfather of DMT research: Rick Strassman, clinical associate professor of psychiatry at the University of New Mexico School of Medicine.

Strassman gave advice on dosage and administration. He gave several hundred doses of the drug to volunteers between 1990-95, famously coining DMT the spirit molecule because of the wide range of mystical experiences participants reported.

Carhart-Harris is less enamoured by the use of non-secular, unscientific language to describe the DMT experience.

Its quite easy to hear a lot of pseudo-scientific musings and this idea of the spirit molecule is in that space, he said, later adding that psychedelics researchers worry that they, as individuals, will be stigmatised and thought of as not serious scientists.

DMT is best understood as a tool that can be used to understand consciousness, says Timmerman.

Its hard to find other tools out there that can alter consciousness so dramatically and so reliably, says Carhart-Harris.

The dosage the researchers have settled on is 20mg a quantity that is significantly more potent than it would be if smoked (the usual route of administration) due to its intravenous administration.

I would characterise it as a moderate-high dose of DMT, says Timmerman.

Participants will lie in the fMRI with an EEG cap on and their eyes closed. The whole experiment takes 20-30 minutes (the duration of a DMT trip), with researchers interjecting every two minutes to ask them to rate the intensity of the experience.

Were mostly looking at spontaneous brain activity, or resting brain activity, says Carhart-Harris. Because resting, especially under DMT you wouldnt really call it rest.

People are not able to do a task or engage with the external world in that state, agrees Timmerman.

Afterwards, the researchers will record the experience and how it unfolded over time from the participant in very fine detail a kind of peer-reviewed trip report.

12 people have already gone through the pilot, which involved just an EEG scan. A further 20 will go through the full EEG and fMRI scan.

One question that they do not expect to answer is why DMT exists in nature. The DMT question is more for DMT enthusiasts, perhaps, says Carhart-Harris.

But the question of why humans possess a specific serotonin receptor that DMT binds to is a big one, he says.

As far as we know its one particular serotonin receptor thats key to how these drugs work in the brain. Its a big curiosity and a question that is unanswered in science. What are these receptors for, and what do they do?

The answer may provide clues to the ability of psychedelic drugs to facilitate behavioural change. Studies have shown that they can be useful in the treatment of addictive or compulsive behaviours.

Finding a clinical application for DMT is not the primary outcome, however, says Timmerman. These are all completely healthy people. So its hard to draw a direct inference on mental health, because theyre all well."

But preliminary results from the pilot suggest that DMT improves mood. There is a significant drop in the depression scores, says Timmerman.

And ultimately the team at Imperial, like scientists from all over the world making discoveries in the so-called psychedelic renaissance, envision a future when psychedelics can be prescribed by doctors and made available in a therapeutic setting.

In many ways thats the ultimate aim, says Carhart-Harris.

If Imperials research already has the drug prohibitionists hyperventilating, the model Carhart-Harris proposes for the NHS will send them into an altered state of consciousness. It is the administration of psilocybin and DMT (not, it should be stated, at the same time) in a series of therapeutic treatments, for those conditions where they are shown to be effective.

People will realise that its quite expensive to develop this kind of treatment, he says. Because its a treatment model that requires some psychological preparation, quite a few hours of staff time to look after this patient, and ward space.

And how is this possible in the shell of the National Health Service that we have?

The advantage of DMT is its short acting time. Several short DMT treatments, which last under an hour, could be used to supplement psilocybin treatments, which would have effects that last for several hours.

Carhart-Harris and the rest of the team may be calling out the falsehoods people project onto the DMT experience. But they are not the only myths to ruin. He is just as comfortable providing the science that underpins the advocacy of psychedelic drugs in a therapeutic context.

Done right, with all the appropriate caveats and safeguards, it could be a revolution in psychiatry, he says. Its quite a reasonable thing to say.

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The brain on DMT: mapping the psychedelic drug's effects - Wired.co.uk

The Entheogenic Evolution | Free Podcasts | PodOmatic

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June 29, 2017 09:07 AM PDT

At long last, Ash and the Sea Mother have their encounter

June 26, 2017 10:21 AM PDT

Paul J Von Hartmann discusses SOMA - the Southern Oregon Ministry Association - and sacramental use of cannabis

June 19, 2017 11:25 AM PDT

Mardul Complex makes a proposal to Theo regarding BRC Station

June 12, 2017 11:08 AM PDT

Tom and Sheri from the Oregon Psilocybin Society get us started with talks from the 2017 conference. You can support their work at opsbuzz.com

May 22, 2017 11:09 AM PDT

Here's a rather lengthy talk from my presentation at the Mystic Rising festival from 2016. As usual, I talk about 5-MeO-DMT, nonduality, religion, spirituality, self-awareness, the ego, and all that good stuff. I hope you enjoy, and see you at Exploring Psychedelics!

May 12, 2017 11:43 AM PDT

Here's Mike's talk from last summer's Peace Village festival. Mike is heading to London for heart surgery, so let's all wish him well! Plus, updates about the upcoming Exploring Psychedelics conference and additional events

May 04, 2017 10:41 AM PDT

Postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Michigan, Alan Kooi Davis, discusses his 5-MeO-DMT online survey and forthcoming human research at Johns Hopkins. You can find the survey here: http://www.facebook.com/groups/433388667010024/?hc_ref=SEARCH

April 24, 2017 09:46 AM PDT

Aryshta shares her thoughts on cannabis and spirituality from her talk at Peace Village Festival. Aryshta will also be joining us again for Exploring Psychedelics 2017 with a talk on Blue Lotus

April 10, 2017 09:53 AM PDT

We now move on to a few recorded talks from the Entheogenic Wisdom Forums at Peace Village Festival. To start us off, we have Ana Holub discussing entheogens and forgiveness

March 22, 2017 09:04 AM PDT

Tom shares more info on psychedelic European witchcraft, all while stunning the audience by going au natural - catch more of Tom (with clothes on, presumably) at the upcoming 2017 Exploring Psychedelic conference in a debate about mushroom use in Christianity

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The Entheogenic Evolution | Free Podcasts | PodOmatic

Get into a trance with nature’s sounds – The New Indian Express

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CHENNAI : Trance music came to India in the 90s and has been a sensation since then. Although psychedelic trance, a sub-genre of trance music, has been making its way to the hearts of young people, there continues to be misconceptions and myths about it. DJ Sandeep Sharma, who was in the city recently to play his project White Wizard, tells more about this genre of music.

When I started in 1997, I was playing a lot of electronic music and used to listen to a lot of other people who played psychedelic trance music. And soon, I started researching more on it, and before I knew it, I was playing it too he smiles.

Sandeep, who has played across the country and also abroad, says this is his second time in Chennai. I have met a lot of people from Chennai when I play in Goa. The response last time was great too, and that makes me really happy. I learn a lot from all my listeners, he adds.

White Wizard is a night-time psychedelic trance music project that is inspired from a lot of organic sounds of the forests and nature with some percussion and groove-ridden baseline. I am from Dalhousie in Himachal Pradesh and have a great connect with nature. My music too is inspired from the sounds of nature. It is organic and I want to be able to connect with my listeners that way. It is a way of opening your mind and becoming conscious of yourself and your surroundings, he says.

Sandeeps passion for music drove him to pursue a career in it. Music is really close to my heart, and honestly, every day is a learning experience for me. I am always looking at evolving and expanding as much as I can.

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Get into a trance with nature's sounds - The New Indian Express

Card cloning racket: Waiters earned 1000 for each card they sold details of, say Mumbai cops – Hindustan Times

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The investigation into a card cloning racket, unearthed by the Bandra police this month, has revealed that the racketeers allegedly paid Rs1,000 to each waiter for sharing details,including password, of each debit or credit card of customers.

The police last week arrested six waiters who worked at restaurants in Mumbai, Pune and Thane and two ITexperts. The waiter allegedly stole credit and debit card details of 1,028 customers. Officials said IT professionals had contacted the waiters through an acquaintance in the hotel management industry.

Pandit Thackeray, senior inspector of Bandra police station, confirmed that each waiter was paid Rs1,000 for each card.

By selling credit and debit card details, each waiter earned around Rs50,000 per month, according to an officer.

Thackeray added that the duped customers had accounts in 108 banks. The police have recovered 106 skimmers devices used to obtain card details from the eight men. The accused men made these devices from the scratch and uploaded the stolen data on empty cards. The accused then withdrew money from the customers account using these cloned cards. The waiters in the beginning copied details of one or two card. As they grew confident, they began cloning 40 to 50 cards in a month, added the police officer.

Three of these waiters worked at a restaurant at Sakinaka in Andheri (East). The unsuspecting customers handed over their cards and pin code to the waiters who secretly swiped them on the skimmers. In some cases, they clandestinely saw customers punching in card pin code on the swipe machine.

The Bandra police received a complaint from Citi Bank in May which led to the racket. Apart from the 106 skimmers, the police seized a laptop and a unique software used to clone cards. The police have also seized 50 cloned cards from the accused which are rewritable.

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Card cloning racket: Waiters earned 1000 for each card they sold details of, say Mumbai cops - Hindustan Times

Subcloning – Wikipedia

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In molecular biology, subcloning is a technique used to move a particular DNA sequence from a parent vector to a destination vector.

Subcloning is not to be confused with molecular cloning, a related technique.

Restriction enzymes are used to excise the gene of interest (the insert) from the parent. The insert is purified in order to isolate it from other DNA molecules. A common purification method is gel isolation. The number of copies of the gene is then amplified using polymerase chain reaction (PCR).

Simultaneously, the same restriction enzymes are used to digest (cut) the destination. The idea behind using the same restriction enzymes is to create complementary sticky ends, which will facilitate ligation later on. A phosphatase, commonly calf-intestinal alkaline phosphatase (CIAP), is also added to prevent self-ligation of the destination vector. The digested destination vector is isolated/purified.

The insert and the destination vector are then mixed together with DNA ligase. A typical molar ratio of insert genes to destination vectors is 3:1;[1] by increasing the insert concentration, self-ligation is further decreased. After letting the reaction mixture sit for a set amount of time at a specific temperature (dependent upon the size of the strands being ligated; for more information see DNA ligase), the insert should become successfully incorporated into the destination plasmid.

The plasmid is often transformed into a bacterium like E. coli. Ideally when the bacterium divides the plasmid should also be replicated. In the best case scenario, each bacterial cell should have several copies of the plasmid. After a good number of bacterial colonies have grown, they can be miniprepped to harvest the plasmid DNA.

In order to ensure growth of only transformed bacteria (which carry the desired plasmids to be harvested), a marker gene is used in the destination vector for selection. Typical marker genes are for antibiotic resistance or nutrient biosynthesis. So, for example, the "marker gene" could be for resistance to the antibiotic ampicillin. If the bacteria that were supposed to pick up the desired plasmid had picked up the desired gene then they would also contain the "marker gene". Now the bacteria that picked up the plasmid would be able to grow in ampicillin whereas the bacteria that did not pick up the desired plasmid would still be vulnerable to destruction by the ampicillin. Therefore, successfully transformed bacteria would be "selected."

In this example, a gene from mammalian gene library will be subcloned into a bacterial plasmid (destination platform). The bacterial plasmid is a piece of circular DNA which contains regulatory elements allowing for the bacteria to produce a gene product (gene expression) if it is placed in the correct place in the plasmid. The production site is flanked by two restriction enzyme cutting sites "A" and "B" with incompatible sticky ends.

The mammalian DNA does not come with these restriction sites, so they are built in by overlap extension PCR. The primers are designed to put the restriction sites carefully, so that the coding of the protein is in-frame, and a minimum of extra amino acids is implanted on either side of the protein.

Both the PCR product containing the mammalian gene with the new restriction sites and the destination plasmid are subjected to restriction digestion, and the digest products are purified by gel electrophoresis.

The digest products, now containing compatible sticky ends with each other (but incompatible sticky ends with themselves) are subjected to ligation, creating a new plasmid which contains the background elements of the original plasmid with a different insert.

The plasmid is transformed into bacteria and the identity of the insert is confirmed by DNA sequencing.

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Subcloning - Wikipedia

Centennial: The evolution of friendly, efficient Hoffmann Automotive – Davis Enterprise

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Hoffmann 76 was the last downtown service station standing when its owners decided it was time to shift gears.

So successful was the repair and maintenance aspect of Jeff and Rick Hoffmanns business, they often couldnt find enough space to queue the cars to which they wereattending.

In 2005, the brothers sold their property at Fifth and G streets, moving to new digs at 2613Second St. where Hoffmann Automotive was born.

The business legacy began in the 1970s when Davis High graduates Jeff and Rick worked at what once was known as Ray Moss Union.

I was working nights, my wife was at the university days and we never really saw each other, recalls Jeff, who with wife Susan was expecting the birth of son Jason.

Then in 1979, Jeff had an opportunity to buy the place from Ray, explains Rick, who had served six years in the National Guard and hadnt worked at Moss when his brother did.

No escrow, nothing like that, Jeff says. I just wrote Ray a check at the dinner table and it was done. It was a different time.

That was 1979. The Union 76 folks had a mandate called Minuteman Service.

(Union) was really, really big on customer service, customer focus and we believed it, too, Rick says.

We knew how to treat people, or we thought we did: Treat them the way youd want to be treated, Jeff explains. I didnt know (anything) about being in business for myself. I just knew I liked cars and I had the opportunity to buy this gas station.

Rick concurs: We just did (business) the common-sense way. We were nice to people, we did things other places didnt do.

Remember getting your oil checked, windows washed, tire pressure topped off? Long time ago, but

To this day, that lets-get-it-right approach remains evident at Hoffmann Automotive.

Nine employees, including Jeffs wife and son Jason, are on staff.

The elements that 26-year-old Jeff Hoffmann embraced when he took over as one of the youngest 76 dealers in America are stillin place.

Its pretty simple, Rick adds.

Oh, and about that policy of being nice to customers?

Rick Hoffmann met his wife Diane the gas station

She kept coming in kept dropping hints and dropping hints. She kept trying to ask me out, but I was oblivious to all this, he remembers.

We had a rule: we were nice to everybody and waited on customers, right? We kept work and play separate.

Finally, Diane had to ask Mr. Nice Guy out.

hoffman old W

Bob Isaacs aims to get a hole-in-one in this June 1979 photo to promote a Kiwanis golf tournament. Jeff Hoffmann shows off the tires to be given to the best golfer. Enterprise file photo

hoffman aerialW

An aerial photo shows the site of the Hoffmanns Union 76 station at Fifth and G streets in downtown Davis. Courtesy photo

HoffmannNewW

Rick Hoffmann, left, and his brother Jeff have owned Hoffmann Automotive since 1979. They moved their business from Fifth and G streets where they owned a Union 76 station for 26 years to 2613 Second St. in 2005. Sue Cockrell/Enterprise photo

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Centennial: The evolution of friendly, efficient Hoffmann Automotive - Davis Enterprise

Burning Man exhibit documents evolution of Nevada event – Honolulu Star-Advertiser

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Briefs| Travel

By Star-Advertiser News Services

Posted July 02, 2017

July 2, 2017

Updated July 2, 2017 12:05am

ASSOCIATED PRESS / 2007

A stilt walker cruised the playa during the Burning Man festival in Gerlach, Nev. The festival is featured in an exhibit at the Nevada Museum of Arts.

RENO, Nev. >> The City of Dust exhibit is on display at the Nevada Museum of Arts in Reno.

The Reno Gazette-Journal reports the exhibit, which traces the more than three-decade evolution of Burning Man, opened to the public Saturday.

Burning Man is an annual event that started as a bohemian beach gathering in San Francisco in 1986 and has morphed into a modern-day pop-up city in Nevadas Black Rock Desert.

More than 68,000 people flock to the desert each year to form a temporary metropolis dedicated to community, art, music, self-expression and self-reliance.

The 300-piece collection of Burning Man relics will remain open until Jan. 7.

After the exhibition in Reno, it will travel to the Renwick Gallery of the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C., in spring 2018.

This years Burning Man gathering is scheduled for Aug. 27 to Sept. 4.

Genoa creates special airport waiver for famed pesto sauce

ROME >> The Italian port city of Genoa has taken pride in its famed pesto sauce to new heights by granting special airport waivers for those who cant get enough of the basil and pine nut pasta sauce.

Genoas airport is letting travelers take as much as 500 grams of pesto (about 2 cups) in their carry-on luggage, exempting them from the 100-milliliter rule (about 6 tablespoons) for liquids in carry-on baggage. The catch: Passengers must make a donation of 50 cents or more to a charity that airlifts sick children to hospitals.

The airport said in a statement this week that some 500 euros (about $558) had been raised in the first 20 days of the initiative, which was inspired by the anguish of having to confiscate so many jars of pesto from foodies trying to get them through security.

thefamilybackpack.com

If mother knows best, why not turn to a whole lot of moms and dads for help in planning your next family adventure?

>> Name: thefamilybackpack.com

>> What it does: The easy-to-use website curates the best of family travel blogs for tips, advice, information and inspiration.

>> Whats hot: The website is not just about where to go; it is also stocked with important articles about allergies, vaccinations, bedbugs and illness. The site is particularly good for new parents and families who have not traveled a lot with young kids. Find articles such as Six Tips for Surviving Airline Travel With a Baby (The Wandering Daughter) and Flying With an Infant: Long-Haul (Babies Who Travel). The tips section aims to relieve stress with articles such as How to Get Your Kids More Excited About Vacation (Stuffed Suitcase) and Advice From Seven Years of Traveling With My Kids (This Is My Happiness). Dont miss the Educational Resources section for activities and games, photography tips, printables and more.

>> Whats not: The Destination section is divided into North America, Africa, Asia, Europe, South America and Oceania. There are plenty of posts within each, but the section could benefit from a city directory or a map of articles within.

Jen Leo, Los Angeles Times

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Burning Man exhibit documents evolution of Nevada event - Honolulu Star-Advertiser

Arsenal: 52 million Alexandre Lacazette signals change and evolution – Pain In The Arsenal

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LISBON, PORTUGAL - JULY 23: Lyon's forward Alexandre Lacazette celebrates scoring Lyons goal during the Friendly match between Sporting CP and Lyon at Estadio Jose Alvalade on July 23, 2016 in Lisbon, Portugal. (Photo by Carlos Rodrigues/Getty Images)

Arsenal: Alexandre Lacazette the last nail in Kylian Mbappe coffin by Andrew Dowdeswell

Arsenal: Riyad Mahrez the perfect Alexandre Lacazette sequel by Andrew Dowdeswell

Alexandre Lacazette is seemingly set to sign for Arsenal. The Lyon striker has arrived in North London for a medical, ahead of completing a 52-million move. It is an extremely exciting move that is the type of high-profile signing that fans have been pining for. But there is much more to this addition than meets the surface.

To provide a little context for the impending signing of Lacazette, we must travel back to last summer. In very similar circumstances, Arsene Wenger was searching for a replacement for Olivier Giroud. But it is not a simple like for like replacement that Wenger is wanting to find.

In his quest to find an alternative striking option, Wenger was looking for a very particular type of player: a pacy, dynamic, direct centre-forward who can run the channels, stretch defences with their quickness and sharpness, and create space for the plethora of creative, ingenious attacking midfielders behind them as a result.

That is most definitely not the player that Giroud is. That is not to say that he is a bad player. He has a unique set of skills that few others in European football can replicate. His strength and size cause problems for opposing defences, while he boasts an excellent first touch with great awareness, meaning he is the perfect focal point with his back to goal, excelling in the neat interplay that Wenger demands of his teams.

Lacazette arriving is a sign that Wenger is wanting to alter his tactics.

There is a change and an evolution coming to the Arsenal. But there is more than just an alteration on the pitch that the addition of Lacazette eludes to.

His signing is also very different to that of the usual Arsenal transfer dealings. He will break the clubs record fee for a player, he is a big-name, high-profile star who has been pursued by several other sides, and will be added to the squad early in the window, showing a convictionand intention in the transfer window that is usually criticised for being so painfully absent.

The transfer is an exciting one, one that brings an element of optimism and hopefulness to the future. But it is also one that signals a changing of the times at the Emirates, and that is perhaps the most promising element of all.

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Arsenal: 52 million Alexandre Lacazette signals change and evolution - Pain In The Arsenal

Country School competes in robotics – New Canaan Advertiser

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New Canaan Country Schools Middle School Robotics Team participated in the eighth annual ROBOnanza!, a competition for Westchester and Fairfield county independent schools held in Greenwich on May 13. The Country School Cougar Bots, robots built completely out of LEGOs and programmed by the fifth and sixth graders, contended against robots from other schools in three levels of challenges.

The CSI-inspired theme of this years ROBOnanza! was Forensic Frenzy. With that in mind, the students were challenged to build robots that could travel down a lane and knock over as many burglars (pins) as possible in a 5-frame game (Bowling For Burglars); navigate to five numbered areas with various LEGO evidence worth various point values (Collect the Evidence); and complete an obstacle course autonomously (Police Academy Training).

Country School sixth graders Sofie Petricone (Rowayton) and Charlotte Calderwood (Darien) took home the first-place trophy for Police Academy Training, while the fifth grade team of Malcolm Stewart (Darien), Cyrus Pearson (New Canaan) and Decatur Boland (Rowayton) netted second-place honors in the same category. The Cougar Bot designed by sixth graders Tyler Rosolen (Norwalk) and Sam Cherry (Westport) scored second place in Collect the Evidence, and the fifth grade team consisting of Waverly Walters (New Canaan), Katey Charnin (Darien) and Annie Nichols (New Canaan), placed third. Sixth grader Parakram Karnik (New Canaan) scored second place in Bowling for Burglars.

Fifth grader Peter Metcalf (Darien) won a special trophy for being the only person in the competition to fully complete the Police Academy challenge. He was also cited for successfully navigating his robot around the outline of a human body.

Sixth grader Rebecca McKee (Stamford) earned praise for designing a robot which successfully navigated almost all of the line challenges, in addition to getting out of a box.

All team members took home certificates for successfully completing challenges.

It was a great combination of STEM challenge, creative problem-solving and teamwork, said sixth grade teacher Fraser Randolph. Once again, the students worked hard and showed their resiliency in the face of challenges. Many of the robots had to be completely reprogrammed on the spot and the students did so successfully with great results.

New Canaan Country Schools Middle School (fifth and sixth grades) Robotics Team members recently demonstrated their skills in ROBOnanza!, a competition for Westchester and Fairfield county independent schools. In front, from left, are Charlotte Calderwood (Darien), Annie Nichols (New Canaan) Waverly Walters (New Canaan), Cyrus Pearson (New Canaan), and Katey Charnin (Darien). In back are sixth grade teacher Fraser Randolph, Sam Cherry (Westport), Tyler Rosolen (Norwalk), Sofie Petricone (Rowayton), Decatur Boland (Rowayton), Malcom Stewart (Darien), Rebecca McGee (Stamford), Parakram Karnik (New Canaan), Peter Metcalf (Darien) and technology teacher Bruce Lemoine. Torrance York photo. New Canaan Country School middle school students recently competed in robotics.

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Country School competes in robotics - New Canaan Advertiser