Comets boys start with clean slate | Prep Sports | yourgv.com – YourGV.com

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After having concluded a tough last stretch of the regular season in which it played three games a week over the last three weeks, the Halifax County High School varsity boys basketball team faces a new challenge Monday night.

The third-seeded Comets (14-7 overall) will face sixth-seeded Patrick Henry High School-Ashland Monday night at 7 p.m. at Halifax County High School in a first-round game of the 5A North Region Conference 16 Tournament.

Monday nights bottom line is simple win or go home.

Its a brand new season, remarked Comets Head Coach Sterling Williams.

Everybody is 0-0. It doesnt matter what you did in the games before. You can have played your worst game, and hopefully we did.

Hopefully, Williams continued, we will start playing our best games and start playing some good basketball, moving the ball around, sharing the ball and picking our intensity back up on the defensive end and enjoying playing the game we had been playing earlier in the season.

The Comets, who have won the 5A North Region Conference 16 Tournament two of the last three years, earning conference titles in 2014 and 2015 and finishing as the runner-up last season, know that while Patrick Henry-Ashlands record is not as good as theirs ,it doesnt mean that PH is a bad team.

They (Patrick Henry-Ashland) dont have a record that looks the best, but theyre playing in a tough district with teams like Varina and Henrico, and they played them pretty close, Williams noted.

It doesnt matter who you play. We cant worry about what PH does. Weve got to worry about taking care of the things we need to take care of. Weve got to take care of the Comets.

Weve got to take care of the basketball, play our type of game, play our type of defense, get in the gaps on the help side, just take care of the things we know we can take care of.

The Comets enter the tournament having lost two of their last three games including Thursday nights regular-season finale against Martinsville High School. Williams says despite that his team will be ready to play Monday night.

I dont think it will be hard to get the guys up for Monday, he remarked.

We look for challenges. I think the guys will be ready to play.

The Comets had a tough stretch of games to end the season, playing three games a week over the last three weeks.

Its been kind of rocky right here at the end playing three games a week for three weeks straight, Williams said following Thursday nights loss to Martinsville High School.

Thats not what were used to. I think our conditioning has been a little bit of a factor because we have been playing so many games and guys have been logging a lot of minutes.

But, we cant worry about that now, he added.

We werent the only team that faced that. Everybody had to play because of snow days. Were not going to make any excuses.

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Three Comets wrestlers collect wins at regionals – YourGV.com

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Three Halifax County High School wrestlers, Patrick Simmons, Tyler Mabe and Cameron Blunt, each collected wins in the 5A North Region Wrestling Tournament held Friday and Saturday at Orange County High School.

The Comets qualified five wrestlers to compete in the regional tournament but fell short of qualifying any wrestlers for the upcoming Group 5A state tournament.

Every season our goal is states, said Comets Head Coach David Riddle.

We talk about it on Day One, and we fell short there, but there were some positives. We had three out of five wrestlers advance to the second day of the tournament.

We always hate to see a season come to an end, Riddle added, but Coach (Jay) Cole and myself were extremely pleased with the progress we saw this year.

We had double the wins as a team, a solid majority of the team finished the year with winning records individually, and we are looking at returning almost everyone next year.

Simmons, wrestling in the 220-pound weight class, won his first-round match, but lost matches in the quarterfinal and consolation rounds.

Mabe, wrestling in the 145-pound weight class, lost his first round match, won a match in the first round of the consolation round, but lost his match in the second round of consolations.

Blunt lost his opening-round match, won his first-round match in the consolation bracket, and lost his match in the second round of the consolation bracket.

Tyler Hudson in the 138-pound weight class, and Matthew Jones in the 182-pound weight class each went 0-2 at the regional tournament.

Hudson and Jones lost out the first day, but both had strong matches in the second round of consolations, and they will both be able to use this experience for next season, Riddle pointed out.

Riddle noted Simmons had perhaps the most impressive performance at the regional tournament.

One of the most impressive things we had happen on day one was the round one match for Pat Simmons, Riddle explained.

He was wrestling as a three seed and beat the two seed from Marshall.

Pat was new to the sport this year, so that was huge for him. He had two solid matches after that against tough opponents to lose out, but that first win was big for us as a team. I think it woke the entire group up.

Mabe and Blunt lost their first matches, Riddle continued, then had impressive wins in consolation round one, added Riddle.

Unfortunately, they both lost the next day in their first matches but both fought very tough opponents from Patrick-Henry Roanoke.

For Blunt, a senior, the regional tournament was his last competition for the Comets wrestling team.

We hate to lose Blunt and the experience that he brought with him, Riddle said, but the future for Comet wrestling looks like it is going to continue to be bright.

VHSL Region 5A North

Results for Halifax

138 - Tyler Hudson (0-2) place is unknown and scored 0.00 team points.

Champ. Round 1 - Payton O`Selmo (Potomac Senior) 3-2 won by fall over Tyler Hudson (Halifax) 0-2 (Fall 0:00)

Cons. Round 1 - Brandon Battista (Stone Bridge) 1-2 won by decision over Tyler Hudson (Halifax) 0-2 (Dec 8-6)

145 - Tyler Mabe (1-2) place is unknown and scored 3.00 team points.

Champ. Round 1 - Matt Mitchler (Mountain View) 46-4 won by fall over Tyler Mabe (Halifax) 1-2 (Fall 0:00)

Cons. Round 1 - Tyler Mabe (Halifax) 1-2 won by fall over Gaurav Baireddy (Stone Bridge) 0-2 (Fall 3:43)

Cons. Round 2 - Nick Debonte (Patrick Henry-Roanoke) 2-3 won by fall over Tyler Mabe (Halifax) 1-2 (Fall 3:18)

182 - Matthew Jones (0-2) place is unknown and scored 0.00 team points.

Champ. Round 1 - Andrew Mason (Wakefield) 11-3 won by fall over Matthew Jones (Halifax) 0-2 (Fall 1:24)

Cons. Round 1 - Ulises Cruz (Potomac Falls) 1-2 won by fall over Matthew Jones (Halifax) 0-2 (Fall 0:59)

220 - Patrick Simmons (1-2) place is unknown and scored 2.00 team points.

Champ. Round 1 - Patrick Simmons (Halifax) 1-2 won by decision over Robert McCaleb (Marshall) 11-10 (Dec 8-4)

Quarterfinal - Carlos Herring (North Stafford) 2-1 won by fall over Patrick Simmons (Halifax) 1-2 (Fall 1:25)

Cons. Round 2 - Bobby Caldwell (Tuscarora) 3-1 won by fall over Patrick Simmons (Halifax) 1-2 (Fall 2:18)

285 - Cameron Blunt (1-2) place is unknown and scored 3.00 team points.

Champ. Round 1 - Jacob Glogowski (Wakefield) 9-6 won by decision over Cameron Blunt (Halifax) 1-2 (Dec 3-2)

Cons. Round 1 - Cameron Blunt (Halifax) 1-2 won by fall over James Foster (Stone Bridge) 0-2 (Fall 3:21)

Cons. Round 2 - Omega Webb (Patrick Henry-Roanoke) 3-2 won by fall over Cameron Blunt (Halifax) 1-2 (Fall 4:03)

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Maintain a healthy diet to restrict psoriasis flare-ups – NewsOK.com

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Maintaining a healthy diet including leafy green vegetables may be of help to those with psoriasis.

Dear Doctor: I've had psoriasis for close to seven years, and lately it has been flaring up more often. Is there anything I can do with my diet to control this, or even prevent it from happening?

Dear Reader: That's a good question. Thanks to the growing body of research detailing the link between inflammation and chronic disease, there are some equally intriguing answers.

To explore it further, let's start with what psoriasis is.

When you have psoriasis, your immune system has gone a bit haywire. It's sending faulty danger signals that cause skin cells to grow at 10 times their normal rate. That's much faster than your body can process and shed them, and the result is raised and itchy patches of red skin, often covered with silvery scales. Typically, these appear on the knees, elbows and scalp, but may also be present on the palms of the hands, soles of the feet and along the torso.

Although there is a complex genetic component to psoriasis, environmental factors are also at play. Stress, infection, certain medications, smoking and alcohol use have all been shown to be potential triggers for flare-ups. The results of that research we mentioned make it increasingly clear that inflammation is a factor in many chronic and degenerative diseases, including heart disease, diabetes and many cancers. Since inflammation plays a significant role in psoriasis, a lot of attention is now being paid to your question of whether diet may affect the disease.

Because of the way psoriasis behaves, drawing conclusions can be difficult. Flare-ups are followed by periods of dormancy, which give way again to subsequent flare-ups. Since the nature of the disease is to fluctuate, connecting the dots between a specific dietary or behavioral change, and the absence or presence of flare-ups, is a challenge.

Still, scientists are beginning to find answers. In studies of psoriasis patients whose diets included fish oil supplements to add omega-3 polyunsaturated fatty acids, a measurable number of participants reported fewer and less severe flare-ups. When they stopped following the diet, the benefits also waned.

Gluten sensitivity may also play a role. In a study of individuals with antibodies to gliadin, one of the proteins that are present in wheat, following a gluten-free diet lessened psoriasis symptoms. When gluten was reintroduced to the diet, flare-ups became more frequent.

If you're interested in modifying your own diet, the National Psoriasis Foundation offers some guidelines. Foods to add to your diet include leafy green vegetables and colorful fruits such as spinach, kale, broccoli, squash and blueberries. Foods that are a natural source of omega-3 fatty oils are also on the list. They include cold-water fish, olive oil, walnuts and pumpkin seeds.

The foundation recommends that people with psoriasis avoid processed foods, refined sugar and fatty red meat. Research shows that maintaining a healthy weight is important, as well.

The idea is that when you have an inflammatory disease, steering clear of foods with inflammatory effects can help. Whatever the outcome, the result is a more healthful diet.

Dr. Eve Glazier is an internist and assistant professor of medicine at UCLA Health. Dr. Elizabeth Ko is an internist and primary care physician at UCLA Health. Send your questions to askthedoctors@mednet.ucla.edu, or write: Ask the Doctors, c/o Media Relations, UCLA Health, 924 Westwood Blvd., Suite 350, Los Angeles, CA, 90095.

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The Cheapest Ways To Travel To The World’s Most Expensive Places – Forbes

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Forbes
The Cheapest Ways To Travel To The World's Most Expensive Places
Forbes
These travel gurus share their tips on how to plan an affordable trip to some of the world's most expensive vacation destinations. ITALY. The Expert: Erica Firpo, a travel journalist who along with her husband archaeologist Darius Arya offers ...

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The Cheapest Ways To Travel To The World's Most Expensive Places - Forbes

Woman Shatters World Traveling Record | TravelPulse – TravelPulse

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Cassie De Pecol just had a historic trip around the world. (Photo via Flickr/Wendy Cope)

Cassie De Pecol has quite the passport, a historic one even.

CNN reports on the first woman to visit every country on the planet. More remarkably, she did it at an amazing pace.

As the report states, conquering 196 nations took this travelerall of 18 months and 26 days, which begs the question of what we managed to accomplish over the last year and a half.

Not many of us can beat a Guinness World Record in half the time, which is what De Pecol is able to claim.

But the journey wasnt about fame and glory. Its about spreading an important message of peace, love and conservation.

In fact, De Pecol is determined to plant a massive amount of trees to offset the carbon footprint of this remarkable adventure.

It's tough to figure out to get permission to plant a tree in a lot of countries, but I've been trying to do that as much as possible. I've planted close to 50 trees now but there's about 500 more, so that's just a goal, she tells CNN.

Here she is back in August 2015 explaining the impetus behind her trip.

As noted, her trip around the world was part of her ambassadorship for the International Institute of Peace Through Tourism. Its mission statement explains the IIPTT is, a not for profit organization dedicated to fostering and facilitating tourism initiatives which contribute to international understanding and cooperation, an improved quality of environment, the preservation of heritage, and through these initiatives, helping to bring about a peaceful and sustainable world.

Its this work that allowed De Pecol to spread the organizations vision of peace and sustainable tourism as she met with mayors and dignitaries from around the world.

As for the brevity of each stop on the itinerary, De Pecol tells CNN: It all comes down to two words: time management. One could spend Saturday and Sunday chilling at home watching Netflix -- totally OK, I am guilty of that at times -- or traveling to five places within one country, five countries within those two days.

Of course, you may be wondering what a trip like this costs. According to CNN, the initial budget was nearly $200,000.

De Pecol reportedly acquired various sponsors to aid her journey and utilized a frugal travel manner she honed in a post-graduate trip to Europe.

READ MORE: Donald Trump Responds to Court's Denial of Travel Ban Reinstatement

There were the obvious hardships, such as getting into some countries that prove difficult for American tourists.

When it comes to North Korea, you better save up if you ever want to enter the hermit country: The visa was like $1,000 for three days, whereas I went in with a group of Chinese tourists and their visa was like $300 for three days.

De Pecol still managed to enter North Korea, which was just one of 196 sovereign nations the 27-year-old can now lay claim to having visited.

But its not like the travel bug dies easily because this prolific traveler now aims to visit Antarctica. And with it, she can cross off every last continent on this planet. The only thing left for her to go now, it would seem, is up.

You may use your Facebook account to add a comment, subject to Facebook's Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. Your Facebook information, including your name, photo & any other personal data you make public on Facebook will appear with your comment, and may be used on TravelPulse.com. Click here to learn more.

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High-resolution regional modeling (no supercomputer needed … – UCAR

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Annual precipitation over Colorado as modeled by the low-resolution, global Community Earth System Model (top) compared to the high-resolution, regional Weather Research and Forecasting model (below). (Images courtesy Ethan Gutmann, NCAR.)

February 13, 2017 | In global climate models, the hulking, jagged Rocky Mountains are often reduced to smooth, blurry bumps.

It's a practical reality that these models, which depict the entire planet, typically need to be run at a relatively low resolution due to constraints on supercomputing resources. But the result, a virtual morphing of peaks into hills, affects the ability of climate models to accurately project how precipitation in mountainous regions may change in the future information that is critically important to water managers.

To address the problem, hydrologists have typically relied on two methods to "downscale" climate model data to make them more useful. The first, which uses statistical techniques, is fast and doesn't require a supercomputer, but it makes many unrealistic assumptions. The second, which uses a high-resolution weather model like the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), is much more realistic butrequires vast amounts of computing resources.

Now hydrologists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) are developing an in-between option: The Intermediate Complexity Atmospheric Research Model (ICAR) gives researchers increased accuracy using only a tiny fraction of the computing resources.

"ICAR is about 80 percent as accurate as WRF in the mountainous areas we studied," said NCAR scientist Ethan Gutmann, who is leading the development of ICAR. "But it only uses 1 percent of the computing resources. I can run it on my laptop."

How much precipitation falls in the mountains and when is vitally important for communities in the American West and elsewhere that rely on snowpack to act as a frozen reservoir of sorts. Water managers in these areas are extremely interested in how a changing climate might affect snowfall and temperature, and therefore snowpack, in these regions.

But since global climate models with low resolution are not able to accurately represent the complex topography of mountain ranges, they are unsuited for answering these questions.

For example, as air flows into Colorado from the west, the Rocky Mountains force that air to rise, cooling it and causing moisture to condense and fall to the ground as snow or rain. Once these air masses clear the mountains, they are drier than they otherwise would have been, so there is less moisture available to fall across Colorado's eastern plains.

Low-resolution climate models are not able to capture this mechanism the lifting of air over the mountains and so in Colorado, for example, they often simulate mountains that are drier than they should be and plains that are wetter. For a regional water manger, these small shifts could mean the difference between full reservoirs and water shortages.

"Climate models are useful for predicting large-scale circulation patterns around the whole globe, not for predicting precipitation in the mountains or in your backyard," Gutmann said.

Precipitation in millimeters over Colorado between Oct. 1 and May 1 as simulated by the Weather Research and Forecasting model (WRF), the Intermediate Complexity Atmospheric Research model (ICAR), and the observation-based Parameter-Elevation Regressions on Independent Slopes Model. (Images courtesy Ethan Gutmann.)

A simple statistical fix for these known problems may include adjusting precipitation data to dry out areas known to be too wet and moisten areas known to be too dry. The problem is that these statistical downscaling adjustments don't capture the physical mechanisms responsible for the errors. This means that any impact of a warming climate on the mechanisms themselves would not be accurately portrayed using a statistical technique.

That's why using a model like WRF to dynamically downscale the climate data produces more reliable results the model is actually solving the complex mathematical equations that describe the dynamics of the atmosphere. But all those incredibly detailed calculations also take an incredible amount of computing.

A few years ago, Gutmann began to wonder if there was a middle ground. Could he make a model that would solve the equations for just a small portion of the atmospheric dynamics that are important to hydrologists in this case, the lifting of air masses over the mountains but not others that are less relevant?

"I was studying statistical downscaling techniques, which are widely used in hydrology, and I thought, 'We should be able to do better than this,'" he said. "'We know what happens when you lift air up over a mountain range, so why dont we just do that?'"

Gutmann wrote the original code for the model that would become ICAR in just a few months, but he spent the next four years refining it, a process that's still ongoing.

Last year, Gutmann and his colleagues Martyn Clark and Roy Rasmussen, also of NCAR; Idar Barstad, of Uni Research Computing in Bergen, Norway; and Jeffrey Arnold, of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers published a study comparing simulations of Colorado created by ICAR and WRF against observations.

The authors found that ICAR and WRF results were generally in good agreement with the observations, especially in the mountains and during the winter. One of ICAR's weaknesses, however, is in simulating storms that build over the plains in the summertime. Unlike WRF, which actually allows storms to form and build in the model, ICAR estimates the number of storms likely to form, given the atmospheric conditions, a method called parameterization.

Even so, ICAR, which is freely available to anyone who wants to use it, is already being run by teams in Norway, Austria, France, Chile, and New Zealand.

"ICAR is not perfect; it's a simple model," Gutmann said. "But in the mountains, ICAR can get you 80 to 90 percent of the way there at 100 times the speed of WRF. And if you choose to simplify some of the physics in ICAR, you can get it close to 1,000 times faster."

Title: The Intermediate Complexity Atmospheric Research Model (ICAR)

Authors: Ethan Gutmann, Idar Barstad, Martyn Clark, Jeffrey Arnold, and Roy Rasmussen

Journal:Journal of Hydrometeorology, DOI: 10.1175/JHM-D-15-0155.1

Funders: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers U.S. Bureau of Reclamation

Collaborators:Uni Research Computing in Norway U.S. Army Corps of Engineers

Writer/contact:Laura Snider, Senior Science Writer

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Exabyte Measures Linpack Performance Across Major Cloud Vendors – TOP500 News

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Exabyte, a materials discovery cloud specialist, has published a study that compares Linpack performance on four of the largest public cloud providers. Although the studys methodology had some drawbacks, the results suggested that with the right hardware, HPC applications could not only scale well in cloud environments, but could also deliver performance on par with that of conventional supercomputers.

Overall, HPC practitioners have resisted using cloud computing for a variety of reasons, one of the more significant being the lack of performant hardware available in cloud infrastructure. Cluster network performance, in particular, has been found wanting in generic clouds, since conventional Ethernet, both GigE and 10GigE, do not generally have the bandwidth and latency characteristics to keep up with MPI applications running on high core-count nodes. As well see in a moment, it was the network that seemed to matter most in terms of scalability for these cloud environments.

The Exabyte study used high performance Linpack (HPL) as the benchmark metric, measuring its performance on four of the most widely used public clouds in the industry: Amazon Web Service (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM SoftLayer, and Rackspace. (Not coincidentally Exabyte, a cloud service provider for materials design, device simulations, and computational chemistry, employs AWS, Azure, SoftLayer and Rackspace as the infrastructure of choice for its customers.) Linpack was measured on specific instances of these clouds to determine benchmark performance across different cluster sizes and its efficiency in scaling from 1 to 32 nodes. The results were compared to those on Edison, a 2.5 petaflop (peak) NERSC supercomputer built by Cray. It currently occupies the number 60 spot on the TOP500 rankings.

To keep the benchmark results on as level a playing field as possible, it looks like the Exabyte team tried to use the same processor technology across systems, in this case, Intel Xeon processors of the Haswell or Ivy Bridge generation. However, the specific hardware profile clock speed, core count, and RAM capacity -- varied quite a bit across the different environments. As it turns out though, the system network was the largest variable across the platforms. The table below shows the node specification for each environment.

Source: Exabyte Inc.

As might be expected, Edison was able to deliver very good results, with a respectable 27-fold speedup as the Linpack run progressed from 1 to 32 nodes, at which point 10.44 teraflops of performance was achieved. That represents decent scalability and is probably typical of a system with a high-performance interconnect, in this case Crays Aries network. Note that Edison had the highest core count per node (48), but one of the slower processor clocks (2.4 GHz) of the environments tested.

The AWS cloud test used the c4.8xlarage instance, but was measured in three different ways: one with hyperthreading enabled, one with hyperthreading disabled, and one with hyperthreading disabled and with the node placements optimized to minimize network latency and maximize bandwidth. The results didnt vary all that much between the three with maximum Linpack performance of 10.74 being recorded for the 32-node setup with hyperthreading disabled and optimal node placement. However the speedup achieved for 32 nodes was just a little over 17 times that of a single node.

The Rackspace cloud instance didnt do nearly as well in the performance department, achieving only 3.04 teraflops on the 32-node setup. Even with just a single node, its performance was much worse than that of the AWS case, despite having more cores, a similar clock frequency, and an identical memory capacity per node. Rackspace did, however, deliver a better than an 18-fold speed as it progressed from 1 to 32 nodes -- slightly better than that of Amazon. That superior speedup is not immediately explainable since AWS instance provides more than twice the bandwidth of the Rackspace setup. Its conceivable the latters network latency is somewhat lower than that of AWS.

IBM SoftLayer fared even worse, delivering just 2.46 Linpack teraflops at 32 nodes and a speedup of just over 4 times that of a single node. No doubt the relatively slow processor clock (2.0 GHz) and slow network speed (1 gigabit/sec) had a lot to do with its poor performance.

Micrsofts Azure cloud offered the most interesting results. Here the Exabyte team decided to test three instances F16s, A9, and H16. The latter two instances were equipped with InfiniBand, the only platforms in the study where this was the case. The A9 instance provided 32 gigabits/sec and the H16 instance provided 54 gigabits/sec nearly as fast as the 64 gigabits/sec of the Aries interconnect on Edison.

Not surprisingly, the A9 and H16 exhibited superior scalability for Linpack, specifically, more than a 28-fold speedup on 32 nodes compared to a single node. Thats slightly better than the 27x speedup Edison achieved. In the performance area, the H16 instance really shined, delivering 17.26 Linpack teraflops in the 32-node configuration. Thats much higher than any of the other environments tested, including the Edison supercomputer. Its probably no coincidence that the H16, which is specifically designed for HPC work, was equipped with the fastest processor of the bunch at 3.2 GHz. Both the A9 and H16 instances also had significantly more memory per node than the other environments.

One of the unfortunate aspects of the Edison measurement is that they enabled hyperthreading for the Linpack runs, something Intel explicitly says not to do if you want to maximize performance on this benchmark. With the exception of one of the AWS tests, none of the others ran the benchmark with hyperthreading enabled.

In fact, the poor Linpack yield on Edison, at just 36 percent of peak in the 32-node test run, suggests the benchmark was not devised very well forthat system. The actual TOP500 run across the entire machine achieved a Linpack yield of more than 64 percent of peak, which is fairly typically of an HPC cluster with a high-performance network. The Azure H16 in this test had a 67 percent Linpack yield.

Theres also no way to tell if other hardware variations things like cache size, memory performance, etc. -- could have affected the results across the different cloud instances. In addition, it was unclear if the benchmark implementations were optimized for the particular environments tested. Teams working on a TOP500 submission will often devote weeks to tweaking a Linpack implementation to maximize performance on a particular system.

It would have been interesting to see Linpack results on other InfiniBand-equipped clouds. In 2014, an InfiniBand option was added to SoftLayer, but the current website doesnt make any mention of such a capability. However, Penguin Computing On Demand, Nimbix, and ProfitBricks all have InfiniBand networks for their purpose-built HPC clouds. Comparing these to the Azure H16 instance could have been instructive. Even more interesting would be to see other HPC benchmarks, like the HPCG metric or specific application kernels tested across these platforms.

Of course, what would be ideal would be some sort of cloud computing tracker that could determine the speed and cost of executing your code on a given cloud platform at any particular time. Thats apt to require a fair amount of AI, not to mention a lot more transparency by cloud providers on how their hardware and software operates underneath the covers. Well, maybe someday...

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Paralyzed Easton Teen Seeking Stem Cell Treatment In Bid To … – Wilton Daily Voice

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EASTON, Conn. --Hope is a big word in the Standen household in Easton these days.

Through a procedure at the Cell Medicine Institute in Panama, there is a 60 percent to 70 percent chance that Zach Standen a 17-year-old who became paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident last summer may regain some feeling and movement in his legs.

In the procedure, The stem cells are taken from your own bone marrow and human umbilical cords and are re-injected into your body," Zachs mother, Christine Standen, said in a phone interview.

The ultimate goal is for the stem cells from Zach's body to regenerate the nerves and neural connections for him to regain some feeling and function in his legs.

It's extremely important that Zach gets the treatment as soon as possible, his mother said. "He should get the stem cell therapy within a year of the accident since this is when the most healing occurs and before scar tissue is laid down," Christine Standen said. Once this happens, she said, muscle mass is lost and muscles begin to atrophy.

Related story: Easton teen is left paralyzed after car crash.

Zach's family has set up a GoFundMe page to raise the nearly $40,000 needed to pay for the treatment. So far, the page has been shared 687 times. With 313 donations, it has raised $18,194 out of a $100,000 goal.

The family is hoping to raise enough money to get Zach two stem cell treatments, which would greatly increase his chances for recovery.

In addition, a fundraiser has been established to benefit the cause for Zach. Through Feb. 28, a total of 15 percent of the cost of the Arbonne products from this page will be donated to Zach Standens Stem Cell Therapy Fund.

Zach and his mother, as well as Zachs girlfriend, Constance Rude, plan on taking the month-long trip to Panama.

We are hoping that Zach [who attends Joel Barlow High School in Redding] will get his homework assignments ahead of time," she said, adding that he will most likely have to take summer classes or make up some timein the fall.

In a post on Zachs GoFundMe Page, his mother wrote, As of right now, there has been very little progress physically and I can't see him being like this for the rest of his life. No walking, no bowel or bladder control, no sexual function, no feeling. This is no way to live if we can help it, especially for a 17 year old."

She said Zach's spirits are waning. "He is finding it difficult to study and is trying to maintain hope."

Aside from his medical issues, Zach has the life of a typical teenager he goes to school and hangs out with his friends.

Related story: A family seeks support for treatment for paralyzed son.

Zach goes twice a week to physical therapy at Gaylord Hospital in Wallingford. "He is working really hard, every day," said his mother.

Another fundraiser for Zachwill be a concert by the Grayson Hugh & The Moon Hawks & The Bobby Paltauf Band on March 11 at 7 p.m. at the Fairfield Theatre Company. A total of 25 percent of ticket sales will go toward Zach's Stem Cell Therapy Fund.

Christine Standen said she feels extreme gratitude toward for the support the family has received through this tough time. "We are so grateful to the entire community," she said.

For previous Daily Voice articles on Zach Standen, click here and here .

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Paralyzed Easton Teen Seeking Stem Cell Treatment In Bid To ... - Wilton Daily Voice

Paralyzed Easton Teen Seeking Stem Cell Treatment In Bid To Move Legs Again – Bridgeport Daily Voice

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EASTON, Conn. --Hope is a big word in the Standen household in Easton these days.

Through a procedure at the Cell Medicine Institute in Panama, there is a 60 percent to 70 percent chance that Zach Standen a 17-year-old who became paralyzed from the waist down after a car accident last summer may regain some feeling and movement in his legs.

In the procedure, The stem cells are taken from your own bone marrow and human umbilical cords and are re-injected into your body," Zachs mother, Christine Standen, said in a phone interview.

The ultimate goal is for the stem cells from Zach's body to regenerate the nerves and neural connections for him to regain some feeling and function in his legs.

It's extremely important that Zach gets the treatment as soon as possible, his mother said. "He should get the stem cell therapy within a year of the accident since this is when the most healing occurs and before scar tissue is laid down," Christine Standen said. Once this happens, she said, muscle mass is lost and muscles begin to atrophy.

Related story: Easton teen is left paralyzed after car crash.

Zach's family has set up a GoFundMe page to raise the nearly $40,000 needed to pay for the treatment. So far, the page has been shared 687 times. With 313 donations, it has raised $18,194 out of a $100,000 goal.

The family is hoping to raise enough money to get Zach two stem cell treatments, which would greatly increase his chances for recovery.

In addition, a fundraiser has been established to benefit the cause for Zach. Through Feb. 28, a total of 15 percent of the cost of the Arbonne products from this page will be donated to Zach Standens Stem Cell Therapy Fund.

Zach and his mother, as well as Zachs girlfriend, Constance Rude, plan on taking the month-long trip to Panama.

We are hoping that Zach [who attends Joel Barlow High School in Redding] will get his homework assignments ahead of time," she said, adding that he will most likely have to take summer classes or make up some timein the fall.

In a post on Zachs GoFundMe Page, his mother wrote, As of right now, there has been very little progress physically and I can't see him being like this for the rest of his life. No walking, no bowel or bladder control, no sexual function, no feeling. This is no way to live if we can help it, especially for a 17 year old."

She said Zach's spirits are waning. "He is finding it difficult to study and is trying to maintain hope."

Aside from his medical issues, Zach has the life of a typical teenager he goes to school and hangs out with his friends.

Related story: A family seeks support for treatment for paralyzed son.

Zach goes twice a week to physical therapy at Gaylord Hospital in Wallingford. "He is working really hard, every day," said his mother.

Another fundraiser for Zachwill be a concert by the Grayson Hugh & The Moon Hawks & The Bobby Paltauf Band on March 11 at 7 p.m. at the Fairfield Theatre Company. A total of 25 percent of ticket sales will go toward Zach's Stem Cell Therapy Fund.

Christine Standen said she feels extreme gratitude toward for the support the family has received through this tough time. "We are so grateful to the entire community," she said.

For previous Daily Voice articles on Zach Standen, click here and here .

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Paralyzed Easton Teen Seeking Stem Cell Treatment In Bid To Move Legs Again - Bridgeport Daily Voice

A Spirituality For Hot-Mess Times #LoveIsResistance – Huffington Post

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Im not a yoga, sit-on-a-mat cross-legged kind of gal. I want to be; Im just not. And because I am not, I tell myself that I am not a mystic. I like mystics, some of my best friends are mystics. I admire them!

Me? I am always in motion. I pray walking around Manhattan. I meditate jumping through waves, thanking God for the saltiness. I restore my soul up on my feet listening to the choirs sing, rocking, clapping. When I am out on the street, joyfully jostled by the crowd, enjoying friendly anonymity, I feel God there; She is marching, dancing, singing, chanting with us.

My rabbi, Jesus, was also in motion. Calling disciples, healing and feeding folk, preaching the good news, kicking it with the outsiders at supper. In a hot-mess time, a time when the Roman empire crushed the spirits of the people; in a time of oppression and domination, Jesus was a movement-builder.

And my friend, the late Marcus Borg, says Jesus was a mystic as well. Jesus knew God deeply; he called God, Abba, daddy. He was grounded in God, located in God, conversant with Gods vision for a healed and whole world. Jesus was merged with the heart of God, connected to the dream of God.

Jesus saw visions; he saw God as a dove and heard God say, This is my son, the Beloved. Jesus, like other mystics, could see the world not just as it was, but as it could be. Jesus could see that we are all one.

Once at temple, Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free. (Luke 4:18)

Grounded in Gods Spirit, Jesus began a movement of preaching and healing designed to liberate the captives, and bring good news to the poor. He sustained that movement with spiritual practices: With time for celebration (Jesus seemed to like a party!), time in temple, and time alone in prayer.

Make no mistake about it, these are hot-mess times, as well. We are in culture wars: Will the values of empire, domination and oppression prevail? Or will the values of revolutionary love, compassion and justice claim our allegiance?

For our interfaith, multiracial movement for justice to be sustained, all of us those in motion and those who are mystics need to care for our mortal flesh with Spirit.

It might be helpful to imitate the spiritual practices of Rabbi Jesus.

I am a Christian pastor who follows Rabbi Jesus into a movement for love and justice. These hot-mess times call us to stand with our neighborsour refugee, Muslim, LGBTQ, Black and immigrant sisters and brothersas an act of solidarity and love. This is how we non-violently resist oppression. And these times also demand that we resist violence to our own bodies and souls, and give them tender care as an act of love.

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A Spirituality For Hot-Mess Times #LoveIsResistance - Huffington Post

Martin Scorsese’s lifelong obsession with spirituality surfaces once more in Silence – ABC Online

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Posted February 14, 2017 13:15:35

A lifelong obsession with Catholicism is one of the main themes in Martin Scorsese's latest film, as he continues what he calls a search for the spiritual human condition.

Silence is a period drama, starring Andrew Garfield and Adam Driver, about Portuguese Jesuit and Christian martyrs in 17th century Japan.

In an interview with The Final Cut, Scorsese said he had been wanting to make the film since the late 80s, when he first read the novel of the same name by Shusaki Endo.

"I knew immediately that I wanted to make it into a film," he said.

"I think my instinct was because elements that I was researching for The Last Temptation of Christ, Mean Streets, Raging Bull and all these other movies seemed to be crystallised or synthesised into this one story."

Catholicism has been present in many of Scorsese's films. He says what he saw in Silence was "the essence of faith, the struggle for faith, to understand what it is or maybe not understand what it is but just have it".

"I'm not trying to convert anyone or change anybody's minds," he said.

"I just feel that for me, this has been something from when I first remember, at seven or eight years old, searching for a way to come to terms with that part of the human being or the human condition that is spiritual, especially in a material world."

In Raging Bull, Scorsese was influenced by the 1951 French film by Robert Bresson, Diary of a Country Priest. In Bresson's film the pastor says: "God is not a torturer, he wants us to be merciful with ourselves."

"And so you had that in Raging Bull, whereby at the end of the story he's sitting in front of a mirror and he's talking to himself and the lines from On the Waterfront," Scorsese said.

"He's saying: 'It's you, Charlie.' And he seems to be comfortable with himself for the first time in the story.

"When I made the movie that's where I wanted to go, but after making the film I hadn't reached that; I didn't know I was saying that ... that's one of the reasons there was sort of a crazed passion to make [Raging Bull] that way, to get to that point.

"If he could forgive himself, he would be less punishing on himself and therefore the people around him."

The story puts the modern viewer in a complicated position when it comes to empathising with the priests, especially Rodrigues Garfield's character and his unswerving belief.

While the priests could be seen as agents of colonialism, Scorsese says he wanted to get past that and dig into the essence of what they believed.

But as an Asian Jesuit told the director in Rome: "the Asian culture may have perceived this Western truth as arrogance".

"Therefore, what they had to do was break that arrogance down particularly because it meant the undoing of their entire culture and who they are," Scorsese said.

"It's interesting to think you're with Rodrigues, but then to watch him learn. And maybe we learn from what he learns, which is the real essence of the true Christianity.

"Do we have to emphasise with Rodrigues? I'm taking you through a maze in a way. You think you're going Rodrigues's way, but by the time Rodrigues has to make his choice and how he winds up at the end of the story, it becomes a different kind of journey.

"I'm not asking you to really emphasise with the people who may have the best of intentions, but may have caused some damage."

When it came to shooting in Taiwan, the film took on a life of its own, at times moving in an entirely new direction to Scorsese's original concept.

He says much of that had to do with the rhythm of life in Asia, and Taiwan's landscape.

"I didn't expect the green, the lushness and I certainly didn't expect the mist," he said.

"And minute by minute or every 30 seconds it would change.

Scorsese said it was a great experience for him as an "urban" director, best known for films that take place in cities like New York.

"The landscape itself dictated very often the visual approach to a film that I had planned in the hotel room in a different way," he said.

"When I got to the location and the location scouting I planned it another way and then when it came to shoot the location looked different.

"So I went with what we had that day and it was constant issue of juggling possibilities and taking advantage."

Listen to the full interview on the Final Cut on Friday, or subscribe to the podcast now on iTunes, the ABC Radio app or your favourite podcasting app.

Topics: film-movies, arts-and-entertainment, religion-and-beliefs, catholic, united-states, taiwan, japan

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Martin Scorsese's lifelong obsession with spirituality surfaces once more in Silence - ABC Online

Poet: Thy name is spirituality – The New Indian Express

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HYDERABAD:Mysticism is another synonym associated with poet-editor Arundhathi Subramaniam. It radiates and covers the listener as she talks about the images that sway around seeping in her poetry: compact, terse, evocative blended with rain-washed clarity that stay with you long after you have finished reading her poetry collection When God is a Traveller. Her works leave you on a trail of an eternal search bringing you closer to yourself. As a translator of Bhakti poetry she makes the reader arrive to a better understanding of himself, an indescribable enrichment. The Bombay-based poet was in city recently. Excerpts from the interview:

The Book of Buddha and Sadhguru: More Than A Life, these two books are on spiritualism. What drew you closer to spirituality? (Smiles). One one level, poetry in itself is a way to understand yourself. It is a way of making sense in the world you live in. To me, the spiritual journey is also not so different; it is also a way of trying to understand universe that you suddenly find yourself hurled into and trying to find your own personal way of making sense of that. In some fundamental way, both are deeply connected. They start with the same questions. They start with the same sense of wonder about the world into which we are born and which makes no sense to us at all. The excitement about poetry started very early. When I look back at my teens and the time I was in college, the excitement about philosophy was just as intense. I think, it was a preoccupation with philosophy because there seemed to be a place you can ask questions about: why, what is it all about? That question why perhaps drew me fundamentally to spirituality.

How do you as a translator bridge the gap of centuries when translating the works of Medieval saint-poets? One of the poets that I have translated into this book called Eating God is Abirami Pattar, an eighteenth century Tamil poet, and ardent devotee of the Devi. So, I chose to translate him. There are many other poets in this country, who have also chosen to translate other mystic poets. In my book Eating God which is a celebration of Bhakti poetry, I actually invited many poets to undertake translation of those mystics, who I thought deserved a wider hearing Some of these already were already existent and others were commissioned.

Why did you name the book as Eating God? Interesting question. (Smiles) Actually, it is a line from a poem of Nammalvar, the mystic, who actually tells it to God in an address. He says: Vishnu, if I see you anywhere, I will catch you and eat you up. And this idea of eating, to me, was a fascinating image because of two reasons. One is because there is God, sublime, exalted, unfathomable and profound and yet there is this very sensual act of eating bringing the two together, the suddenness of eating God works fabulously as an image for me. It is an image which stays with you because of its unexpectedness. But it is also a reminder of the fact that the finest Bhakti poetry is as sensual as it is sacred. The two are not separate. So, you are not being invited to deny the physical to move towards the metaphysical. You are being invited to this great celebration of the mystery of the simultaneous existence of the metaphysical and the physical. The two exist simultaneously. You are being invited to be a part of that mystery in a way.

Is this something like a mortal consumed in too-powerful Godly splendour? What was interesting about Bhakti Movement in this country is that it actually sought to say that God is wonderful, beyond our comprehension, but we also retain the license to invoke Him as deeply familiar as someone who can be treated as the habitual disobedient member of the family. And He is loved for no less reason. Theres a tone of deep intimacy in the works of such poets you have the license to get angry with this God, make love to Him, eat this God; there is a totality of deep intimacy in this God.

The popular couplet: Har saans yeh kahti hai, jo hum hain toh khuda bhi hai focuses on the eternal search. Do you think God and mortals are constantly in search of each other? Yes, of course. Theres this beautiful strain in this couplet. Theres almost always the suggestion that the Divine wants to be found as much as you want to find the Divine. That idea of mutuality lies in the heart of mystical traditions across all faiths. I mean, this happens to be Bhakti poetry, but there are ideas across faiths that the Divine is waiting to be discovered. And thats special. How important is it for a poet to belong to a certain genre, place and language? Across history we find that poets have not just belonged, but the finest poets recreated the sense of belonging. They changed the way we belong. They changed the way we looked at it before. Theres one kind of poetry which is merely propagandist echoing the inherited notions of what it means to belong to. But the finest poets have always extended our ideas of culture and belonging. You suddenly realise that you have a deeper sense of citizenship. In that sense, poets are reminders of the citizenship of the world.

In one of the interviews you said that poetry is a dark art. How? Good question. Its dark art because it involves a level of compression like a pressure cooker utterance. Its like compressing language and under great heat the properties of language change. Thats the magic of poetry. So, because of that intense distillation and compression something happens. That something is dark as there is a kind of sorcery in it that even the poets are not fully aware of. They only know that it is an extremely distilled utterance and from that arises a particular kind of sorcery that you do not find in prose.

Fictionalising memory how much do poets use the same as a literary device? Good question again. I use it all the time. I may use the first person singular in my poems, but that doesnt mean I dont fictionalise. I fictionalise a great deal. Your attempt is to arrive at an inner truth of your life, not the external details. This inner truth is an ongoing process of discovery. I am not talking about some state of nirvana, but about a deepening sense of understanding which I hope is reflected in my work.

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Poet: Thy name is spirituality - The New Indian Express

Diving Into Spirituality: Michele Saracino Studies The Link Between Water and Religion – The Quadrangle

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By RikkiLynn Shields, Editor

Michele Saracino, professor and chair of the religious studies department was inspired by her minor knee surgery to conduct a study on the connection between swimming and spirituality. Saracinos research will be published this summer. Along with that, this fall she is also teaching a religious studies majors seminar on Water and Spirituality.

The Quadrangle: Where are you from and where did you go to school?

Michele Saracino: I was born and raised on Long Island. After attending 12 years of public school, I did my undergraduate work at Duke University in English, and earned a Master of Religion from Yale Divinity School, and my doctorate in religious studies from Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

TQ: What made you decide to study religion?

MS: I took a class in religious studies my senior year in college and was fascinated by the diversity of perspectives in the field and the many critical approaches to religion, culture, and gender. Professors at Duke encouraged me to apply to graduate school in religious studies. I did and it was one of the best decisions I have ever made.

TQ: What inspired you to conduct your research on swimming and spirituality?

MS: I began swimming regularly at my local health club several years ago after undergoing minor knee surgery. I was striving to change up my fitness routine and reinvent myself so to speak. The first few times in the lap pool were strange and awkward. I had entered a new community with rules about swim caps, swim times, and lane etiquette. Now, each time I plunge into the water, thankfully, all those distractions fade away. Something spiritual happens. It is not always pleasurable. In fact, most of the time it is unsettling, and that is the frame used in my research for approaching relationships with God and others. These relationships are unsettling because we dwell with others in the middle of things. Like entering a party that is already underway, in which guests already are mingling, the wine is running out, and the inside jokes are established, we are thrust into relationships. We need a strategy to deal with the fluidity and unpredictability of them. The practice of swimming can offer such strategies.

TQ: Can you explain what exactly it was you studied?

MS: I studied by reading a ton on swimming, both in terms of technique and in terms of philosophy. I spoke with friends at health club about what happens to our body with each stroke. And, I paid attention to how it feels to be in the watersubmerged in something radically other that can neither be controlled nor avoided. The water summons us to attention and engagement. Weaving these intellectual threads allowed me to develop an essay which will be published this summer, entitled Into the Blue: Swimming as a Metaphor of Revelation.

In some ways, even more exciting, my research has overflowed into my teaching. This fall I am teaching the Religious Studies Majors Seminar on Water and Spirituality. I am hoping the students find the topic as exciting as I do!

TQ: How has studying religion shaped you as a person?

MS: Studying religion has allowed me to connect with others, meaning students and colleagues, in deep and challenging ways. Everyone goes through life with burdens. We are all broken in some way or another. Religious studies has given me the grammar and vocabulary to communicate the reality of that brokenness, the pervasiveness of it, and together with my students, we are encouraged to find ways to overcome that brokenness and forge life-giving relationships.

As my colleagues and I say, religion matters. All one has to do is pop on any newsfeed to see that reality. Studying religion from an academic perspective with students, asking the big questions, getting to teach that religion matters has been a tremendous gift for me for almost 14 years now here at MC, for which I am beyond grateful.

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Diving Into Spirituality: Michele Saracino Studies The Link Between Water and Religion - The Quadrangle

Blue jets studied from Space Station – Space Daily

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For years, their existence has been debated: elusive electrical discharges in the upper atmosphere that sport names such as red sprites, blue jets, pixies and elves. Reported by pilots, they are difficult to study as they occur above thunderstorms.

ESA astronaut Andreas Mogensen during his mission on the International Space Station in 2015 was asked to take pictures over thunderstorms with the most sensitive camera on the orbiting outpost to look for these brief features.

Denmark's National Space Institute has now published the results, confirming many kilometre-wide blue flashes around 18 km altitude, including a pulsating blue jet reaching 40 km. A video recorded by Andreas as he flew over the Bay of Bengal at 28 800 km/h on the Station shows the electrical phenomena clearly - a first of its kind.

Satellites had probed these events but their viewing angle is not ideal for gathering data on the scale of the blue jets and smaller blue discharges. In contrast, the Station's lower orbit is ideally placed to capture the sprites and jets.

Andreas aimed for cloud turrets - cloud pillars extending into the upper atmosphere - and shot a 160 second video showing 245 blue flashes from the top of a turret that drifted from the Bay of Bengal's thunderstorm.

The blue discharges and jets are examples of a little-understood part of our atmosphere. Electrical storms reach into the stratosphere and have implications for how our atmosphere protects us from radiation.

Permanent observation This experiment confirms that the Space Station is a suitable base for observing these phenomena. As a follow-up, the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor is being prepared for launch later this year for installation outside Europe's Columbus laboratory to monitor thunderstorms continuously to gather information about such 'transient luminous events'.

Andreas concludes, "It is not every day that you get to capture a new weather phenomenon on film, so I am very pleased with the result - but even more so that researchers will be able to investigate these intriguing thunderstorms in more detail soon."

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Blue jets studied from Space Station - Space Daily

Turbine-driven Robot to Navigate Inside Space Station – Hackaday

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It may look more like a Companion Cube than R2-D2, but the ISS is getting an astromechdroid of sorts.

According to [Trey Smith] of the NASA Ames Research Center, Astrobee is an autonomous robot that will be able to maneuver inside the ISS in three dimensions using vectored thrust from a pair of turbines. The floating droid will navigate visually, using a camera to pick out landmarks aboard the station, including docking ports that let it interface with power and data. A simple arm allows Astrobee to grab onto any of the hand rails inside the ISS to provide a stable point for viewing astronaut activities or helping out with the science.

As cool as Astrobee is, were intrigued by how the team at Ames is testing it. The droid is mounted on a stand that floats over an enormous and perfectly flat granite slab using low-friction CO gas bearings, giving it freedom to move in two dimensions. We cant help but wonder why they didnt suspend the Astrobee from a gantry using a counterweight to add that third dimension in. Maybe thats next.

From the sound of it, Astrobee is slated to be flight ready by the end of 2017, so well be watching to see how it does. But if they find themselves with a little free time in the schedule, perhaps adding a few 3D-printed cosmetics would allow them to enter the Hackaday Sci-Fi Contest.

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Turbine-driven Robot to Navigate Inside Space Station - Hackaday

Photographer explains how he captured rare space station moon photo – FOX 5 DC

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TAMPA (FOX 13) - Last week, you probably heard a lot about the full 'snow moon,' the lunar eclipse, and even the faint green comet passing close to Earth. But the most stunning photo of the week involved none of those things.

Florida photographer James Boone captured a series of photos Thursday night showing the International Space Station passing in front of the bright nearly-full moon, which is known as a lunar transit. It's an incredibly difficult feat to achieve -- many photographers plan and practice for years to be ready for such an occasion.

That was indeed the case for James, who's a regular contributor of stunning weather photos to FOX 13 (see his other photos above or click over to his website). We asked him to elaborate a little on how he managed to get the shot, and if he had any advice for other astrophotographers out there.

Here are his answers:

When and where did you shoot this photo?

I shot this from near the Orlando Airport [Thursday night] around 10pm. Exact time was 10:05:38...the ISS takes less than a second to transit the Moon.

How long have you been trying to get a shot like this?

I've wanted this shot as soon as I saw similar photos online of ISS transits. I've probably planned this photo around a dozen times over the past four years...mostly missed my chances due to the weather not cooperating or because I wasn't able to drive to the location the day of the transit.

What inspired you to try for this shot?

There are a few photographers / amateur astronomers who do some incredible work and post their techniques online. Thierry Legault, a French astronomer, is probably the most inspiring. He has captured lunar and solar transits with the ISS and even the space shuttle.

Let's talk about the technical details: What kind of camera, how many exposures? How did you determine what settings to use?

For last night's transit, I had two camera setups -- one with a traditional DSLR lens and the other hooked up with a telescope. The traditional setup was a Nikon D500, Nikkor 300mm f/4 lens and a Nikkor TC-20e Teleconverter (which gives the lens two times the reach). This setup is equivalent to a 900mm lens on a 35mm camera. I also used a polar aligned tracking mount - SkyWatcher Star Adventurer on a tripod. This moves the camera at the same speed as the Earth's rotation so that the Moon stayed center of the frame during the time I was shooting.

My telescope setup was a Nikon D750 and Orion 10" Dobsonian DSE telescope with an adapter to hook the camera up to the eyepiece. The telescope setup was the most difficult one to get as you're only working with a section of the moon so you have to hope that the ISS will cross where you have the telescoped pointed. Also the D750's memory buffer fills up at around 5 seconds so I can't start shooting until the last moment.

I fired off around 20 seconds worth of exposures with my D500, so that ended up being around 200 exposures total...only six of those frames ended up showing the transit. The telescope setup I probably shot 30 exposures and it only showed up in one (and it was the first shot I took...so I was cutting it close).

And the logistics: How did you know where and when to shoot from in order to get the station lined up with the moon?

I use two sites in order to prepare for shots like this. Calsky is the standard as it's been around for years but it's also somewhat tricky to use. Thankfully they've made it a little easier to find these transits within the last couple of years. Also, Transit-Finder.com is a relatively new site but uses the same basic data as Calsky but is more focused and way more user-friendly to use. I'll probably use that one from now on. Also there are a few apps out there, like ISS Finder and SkyView, that I use for tracking the ISS that are handy when I'm shooting. I've attached one of the screenshots from the SkyView app I use.

A little about you: How long have you been shooting? Do you have a 'day job'?

I've been taking photos since I was a kid but didn't pick up a DSLR until 2008. Outside of shooting astronomical objects, I'm a motorsports shooter for races like the Rolex 24 at Daytona, the 12 Hours of Sebring and St. Pete Grand Prix. I also take photos of lightning during our storm season. And yes, I have a day job. I'm not good enough to earn a living as a full-time photographer.

What are some of your other favorite shots through the years?

Probably my most popular photos are some of my moonrise photos, storm shots and some motorsports stuff. Not everyone is into racecars, which I understand, but it is some of the toughest, most demanding photography out there. Plus I love how technically difficult it is when shooting fast cars at slow shutter speeds. Also shooting some astrophotography objects can be really rewarding once you get the image fully processed, which is a lot of work. See attached.

Any advice for aspiring photographers on getting this photo or any other tough shot?

Planning is key. For most of these transit shots, you can't actually see the ISS moving across the sky as it's either too late in the evening for the lunar transits or during the day for the solar transits. You really have to trust the data from the websites. Having a long lens or telescope is definitely a plus but this shot can be done relatively inexpensively. Also, don't give up if you don't get it the first trying to get a difficult shot. I miss plenty of shots but I also love the challenge of a truly difficult photo.

LINK: http://www.JamesBoonePhoto.com

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Photographer explains how he captured rare space station moon photo - FOX 5 DC

Scientists narrow list of landing sites for NASA’s next Mars rover – Spaceflight Now

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The delta inside Jezero Crater offers one of the best locations on Mars to look for the remains of ancient microbes, according to scientists. Jezero Crater received the most votes during a ranking of potential destinations for NASAs Mars 2020 rover last week. This image combines information from two instruments on NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter: the context camera and CRISM spectrometer. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHUAPL

A rover NASA plans to launch to Mars in 2020 will likely explore one of three locations selected last week by a scientific advisory group, which picked candidate landing sites that were once homes to ancient lakes and hot springs.

Were looking for a site thats ancient around 4 or so billion years old because thats when we think Mars had water flowing and a more clement environment, said Jack Mustard, a professor at Brown University who sits on the Mars landing site selection board. We need to be able to characterize the habitability of that environment and look for preserved biosignatures. And in addition to the science on the ground, we need to find the right samples to return later.

The six-wheeled robot, similar in appearance and capability to NASAs Curiosity rover currently on Mars, will look for signs of past Martian life, assess the habitability of the environment, and measure the chemical, mineral and organic make-up of rocks, with an emphasis on hunting for biosignatures, the natural relics left behind by alien microbes.

Its other chief objectives will be to collect at least 30 test tube-sized core samples for possible retrieval and return to Earth on a future mission, and test a new device to generate oxygen from carbon dioxide in the Martian atmosphere, validating a tool future missions could employ to produce breathable air, water and rocket fuel.

Scientists met last week in California to narrow a list of eight potential destinations selected in 2015. Acting on the advice of the 172 researchers, NASA settled on three finalists Saturday, setting the stage for a final decision by top agency managers in 2018 or 2019.

The robotic mission, officially named Mars 2020 for now, will launch in July 2020 aboard a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 rocket and reach the red planet in February 2021, descending through the atmosphere with the assistance of a heat shield, parachutes and braking rockets before cables unreel to place the rover on the surface.

The sky crane descent system is based on the technology demonstrated with the landing of Curiosity on Mars in August 2012.

The shortlist of landing sites includes the Columbia Hills, a range of heights in 4-billion-year-old Gusev Crater where NASAs Spirit rover landed in January 2004.

Spirit found evidence that the region had a watery past after climbing from its touchdown point in the basin of Gusev Crater into rounded highlands named for the astronauts who died aboard the shuttle Columbia.

The rover drove 4.8 miles (7.7 kilometers) during its mission, and kept going after one of its wheels stopped turning. The inoperable right-front wheel dragged up white soil the rovers spectrometer determined the material was nearly pure silica and scientists linked the unexpected discovery with the presence of ancient hot springs and steam vents.

Such an environment could have hosted microbes billions of years ago, making it an ideal location to land the Mars 2020 rover, scientists said.

Spirit reached a feature named Home Plate, the remnant of a hydrovolcanic explosion involving three key ingredients for life: heat, energy and water. The Spirit rover, which functioned 25 times longer than its 90-day design life, also found outcrops of carbonate in the Columbia Hills, deposits which scientists say were emplaced during a wetter period of Martian history.

Data gathered by Spirit also indicate Gusev Crater could have periodically flooded and made shallow lakes.

Proponents of the Columbia Hills site also tout the possibility of sending the Mars 2020 rover to inspect Spirit where it bogged down in a sand pit in 2009 and likely froze its internal electronics during a frigid Martian winter. NASA last heard from Spirit in March 2010 and gave up on recovering the mission in May 2011.

Information on Spirits condition could give engineers insight into how extreme temperature swings, dust storms and possible micrometeorites affect hardware like coatings, optics, actuators and cabling on Mars, providing a bonus opportunity for a long duration exposure experiment, scientists said.

This data will aid in design of future surface systems, equipment and structures for both manned and robotic exploration of Mars, scientists wrote in a presentation backing the Columbia Hills site.

Spirit ended its mission before reaching several more geologic features scientists wanted to visit.

The other two potential targets for the Mars 2020 rover are Jezero Crater, home to an ancient river delta, and a region named Northeast Syrtis, a location that appears to be rich in layered clays with some of the oldest terrain found on Mars.

Jezero and Northeast Syrtis about 30 miles (50 kilometers) apart lie at about 18 degrees north latitude. Neither place has been explored on the surface.

Jezero Crater tells a story of the on-again, off-again nature of the wet past of Mars, NASA wrote in a description accompanying the landing site announcement. Water filled and drained away from the crater on at least two occasions. More than 3.5 billion years ago, river channels spilled over the crater wall and created a lake.

Imagery obtained from NASAs Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter show clear evidence of a dried-up river delta that fed a lake. Scientists think the delta deposits, which came from a watershed stretching 4,600 square miles (nearly 12,000 square kilometers), offer one of the best places on Mars to look for preserved organic matter and biomarkers in samples the rover could scoop up and store for return to Earth by a later mission.

Any organic matter that might have been in that [watershed] is going to get concentrated in an area we can explore with a rover, said Tim Goudge, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Texas at Austin who made the case for Jezero Crater.

That makes it easier to maybe find the needle in the haystack because youre potentially collecting lots of needles in one spot, Goudge said in a Brown University press release.

Once the Jezero lake dried up, water may have continued to flow into the crater, stacking layers of clay minerals that hardened to form sedimentary rock.

Conceivably, microbial life could have lived in Jezero during one or more of these wet times, officials wrote in Saturdays announcement following the science meeting. If so, signs of their remains might be found in lakebed sediments.

Jezero received the most votes during the landing site conclave.

Orbital observations show the nearby Northeast Syrtis site, the second-leading vote-getter, is covered in the remains of an underground hydrothermal system. Supporters of this landing destination point to scattered patches of carbonate, made from interactions between water and the mineral olivine, a process that produces hydrogen molecules, a possible energy source for microbes.

On Earth, we have evidence of these ancient lineages of bacteria that lived off of rocks in the subsurface, feeding off of chemical energy, Mustard said in Browns press release. Here we have that feedstock and there was water, so that makes it really exciting.

The age of some of the exposed rocks at Northeast Syrtis also makes for an attractive target.

The rocks we would touch down on would be 4 billion years old, older than any rocks on Earth, said Mike Bramble, a Brown graduate student who also presented at last weeks landing site meeting. So thats a chance to answer all kinds of questions about the formation of Mars and the formation of planetary surfaces in general.

All three candidate landing sites meet NASAs engineering requirements, providing a safe, relatively flat and boulder-less location for the rover to touch down on the surface.

Scientific concerns will drive mission managers recommendation of one or two primary landing sites at a future meeting. Officials at NASA Headquarters charged with a final decision are expected to endorse one of the top destinations scientists recommend.

Email the author.

Follow Stephen Clark on Twitter: @StephenClark1.

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Scientists narrow list of landing sites for NASA's next Mars rover - Spaceflight Now

Air Force’s X-37B prepares for landing at KSC’s Shuttle Landing Facility – NASASpaceflight.com

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February 14, 2017 by Chris Gebhardt

Not even two days after historic launch complex 39A at the Kennedy Space Center was revived by SpaceX following retirement of the Space Shuttle, the historic Shuttle Landing Facility at the Florida spaceport is preparing toonce again host an end of mission landing as the Air Forces X-37B mini spaceplane returns from a near two year mission on orbit.

Kennedy Space Center shines as a multi-user spaceport:

The retirement of the Shuttle fleet left a rather large hole in the Kennedy Space Centers (KSCs) ability to launch and conduct human orbital space operations.

At the conclusion of the historic reusable spaceplane program, NASA vowed to transition KSC from a single-user, single rocket facility into a multi-user, multi rocket spaceport for the 21st century.

The first two steps in that plan were the initiation of reconstruction efforts of pad 39B to prepare it for the ability to launch NASAs Space Launch System rocket for Beyond Earth Orbit missions and the 2014 agreement for a 20-year lease of pad 39A to SpaceX for its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

With the final Shuttle launch from pad 39A on 8 July 2011, the pad lay dormant as reconstructive efforts took place ahead of this past weekends return of fire and thrust from rocket engines for SpaceXs static fire of the Falcon 9 rocket that will loft the SpX-10 mission to the Space Station later this week.

After Atlantis final launch from Pad A, the vehicle returned for the final landing of the Shuttle program back at the Kennedy Space Center on 21 July 2011 after which the Shuttle Landing Facility (SLF) has not since hosted an End Of Mission (EOM) landing of an orbital mission.

Tomorrow, weather permitting, that will change, and two of the Kennedy Space Centers iconic elements will be back in operation within two days of each other.

With Boeing building and processing its CST-100 capsule inside former OPF Bay 3 as part of NASAs Commercial Crew Transportation services contract and last weeks completion of platform installation in the VAB for SLS stacking operations, the Kennedy Space Center is truly shining as a multi-user spaceport.

Specifically for the Air Force, the ability to use the SLF at Kennedy marks what is hoped to be the first of many uses of the SLF as the primary EOM landing facility for the X-37B which the Air Force hopes to launch, land, and refurbish at KSC and the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station.

In fact, after landing, the X-37B is expected to be towed to OPF-1 for post-flight servicing operations.

OTV-4 Fourth flight for X-37B comes to an end:

The fourth flight of the Air Forces experimental X-37B spacecraft assuming a landing on Monday, 14February 2017 will clock in at 636 days and 22 hours (approximate to its anticipated landing time).

If all goes according to plan, the X-37B will approach the Kennedy Space Center for a landing no early than0800EST (1300 UTC) though this time is approximate and based on unverified orbital tracking observations of the X-37B.

Depending on the specific path the X-37B follows in its entry sequence currently understood to be a descending node entry over portions of the United States and Florida large swathes of Central Florida could be graced with twin sonic booms during the morning commute as the X-37B rather insistently heralds its arrival back home.

The ability for this fourth mission to attempt a return to the runway at Kennedy follows three highly successful, completely autonomous deorbit, entry, and landing sequences of the first three X-37B flights, which all ended with precise touchdowns at the runway at Vandenberg Air Force Base, CA.

OTV-2 and OTV-3 landed without incident following a blown tire that led to minor underbelly damage of the OTV-1 vehicle (which subsequently flew the OTV-3 mission).

With an expected mission duration of just under 637days, the fourth flight of the X-37B program will not be the longest with that distinction going to the OTV-3 flight which lasted 674 days and 22 hours.

Nonetheless, the mission will resoundingly beat the OTV-2 mission duration of 468 days and 14 hours and the OTV-1 mission duration of 224 days and 9 hours.

Moreover, the prolonged duration of the current and previous X-37B missions highlight the secretive nature of the spaceplane, its missions, end its designed orbital lifetime which is currently listed as 270 days something which three of the four missions to date have shattered.

Presently, two X-37Bs are known to exist, with the first flying the OTV-1 and -3 missions and the second flying the OTV-2 and -4 (presumably) missions.

In all, each X-37B is 8.92 m (29 feet 3 inches) in length, has a 4.55 m (14 foot 11 inch) wingspan, has a height of 2.9 m (9 feet 6 inches), and has a maximum lift off weight of 4,990 kg (11,000 lbs).

The vehicles are powered by gallium arsenide solar cells with Lithium-ion batteries and contain a 2.1 x 1.2 meters (7 feet x 4 feet) payload bay.

In preparation for landing at Kennedy, teams practiced landing drills and post-landing safing operations as well as emergency drills at the SLF last week.

The X-37B landing also helps explain the until now curious delay to SpaceXs launch of the SpX-10 resupply mission for the International Space Station which had originally been scheduled for the 14th as well the opening day of the X-37Bs landing attemptsat Kennedy.

When the SpaceX mission was delayed, it was stated that range assets necessary for the return to launch site landing of the Falcon 9 core stage were not available from 14-17 February, while all other range assets necessary for launch were available during that window.

While the secretive nature of the mission precludes any exact knowledge of the ground track the X-37B will take, a descending node reentry over large portions of the United States is the likely option given the landing window for the restricted air space in and around the Kennedy Space Center.

A descending node entry would lead toan earliest possiblelanding at 0800EST at Kennedy, which shouldsee the X-37B put on quite a light show for portions of the United States as it reenters the atmosphere in the early morning darkness before crossing the night-day Terminator and heading for a post-sunrise landing in Florida.

While the landing per the restriction notices originally slated to occur on 14 February, there is now evidence that the USAF has scheduled a back-upopportunity fortomorrow, 15 February.

Nonetheless, the NOTAM and flight restriction zone through 3,000 feet around the SLF extendsfrom 0800-1600L on the 14th meaning a landing is possible at any time in that window when orbital mechanics allow.

Thus, 0800 EST was only the earliest possible landing for Tuesdays attempt.

With no proven orbital ground track for OTV-4 since its maneuver last week, there are only good approximations of its suspected landing time hence the estimate of 0748-0800L for the first possible landing opportunity Tuesday.

Moreover, Tuesday was just theopen day of several landing possibilities as the EasternRange, per SpaceXs slip from today to the 18th, was in conflict from 14-17 Februaryshowing that X-37Bs opportunities to land are over days, not hours.

Additionally, after the 0800 hour passed at Kennedy, the NOTAM that was in effect was officially extended to the 15th, with the same general 0800-1600L restriction times.

On Tuesday, the Pentagon aimed at deflecting the interest in the potential landing, citing it the program was conducting a regularly scheduled exercise. However, the NOTAMs remain in place at the time of the update.

(Images: USAF, ULA, Boeing, and NASA)

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Air Force's X-37B prepares for landing at KSC's Shuttle Landing Facility - NASASpaceflight.com

New Horizons posters, studies, to be presented at Lunar and Planetary Science Conference – SpaceFlight Insider

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Laurel Kornfeld

February 14th, 2017

Zooming in on Plutos pattern of pits, as seen by New Horizons. Image Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI

Seven poster sessions and seven studies based on data returned by the New Horizons mission will be presented at the 48th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, which will be held in The Woodlands, Texas, on March 2024 of this year (2017).

Centered on Pluto and its moons, the Kuiper Belt, and KBOs, the 14 presentations are humorously titled New Horizons Views of Pluto and Charon: So Long, and Thanks for All the Bits.

The posters will be displayed on Tuesday, March 21, at 5:30 p.m. CDT in the Town Center Exhibit Arena, while the papers will be presented on Wednesday, March 22, between 8:30 a.m. and 10 a.m. CDT in the Montgomery Ballroom.

William McKinnon and Adrienn Luspay-Kuti are chairing the paper presentation event.

Data from NASAs New Horizons mission indicates that at least two (and possibly all four) of Plutos small moons may be the result of mergers between still smaller moons. If this discovery is borne out by further analysis, it could provide important new clues to the formation of the Pluto system. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI

Poster sessions include the following:

This annotated version (enhanced) includes an inset diagram showing Charons north pole, equator, and central meridian, with the features highlighted. Image & Caption Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI

Paper presentations are as follows:

The posters and papers come just after the New Horizons team was awarded the NASA Group Achievement Award, which recognized over 600 people for developing the spacecraft and working on the mission.

Ralph Semmel, director of the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, emphasized that unlike many other awards given to the mission team, which focused on specific aspects of the mission, this one acknowledged teamwork by the group as a whole.

This team has worked flawlessly for long periods of time, and very few people understand what it takes to do that, said NASA Planetary Science Director Jim Green. That takes dedication; that takes concentration, [and] that takes everything each and every one of you have to have to burn a hole in steel. Thats what puts you above everything else.

The awards were presented at JHU-APL on January 19, the 11th anniversary of New Horizons launch.

New Horizons team members give the Pluto salute after the NASA Group Achievement Award presentation at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory on Jan. 19 the 11th anniversary of the launch that sent New Horizons toward Pluto and Kuiper Belt. Photo Credit: NASA / JHU-APL / SwRI

Tagged: Charon Lunar and Planetary Science Conference NASA New Horizons Pluto The Range

Laurel Kornfeld is an amateur astronomer and freelance writer from Highland Park, NJ, who enjoys writing about astronomy and planetary science. She studied journalism at Douglass College, Rutgers University, and earned a Graduate Certificate of Science from Swinburne Universitys Astronomy Online program. Her writings have been published online in The Atlantic, Astronomy magazines guest blog section, the UK Space Conference, the 2009 IAU General Assembly newspaper, The Space Reporter, and newsletters of various astronomy clubs. She is a member of the Cranford, NJ-based Amateur Astronomers, Inc. Especially interested in the outer solar system, Laurel gave a brief presentation at the 2008 Great Planet Debate held at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, MD.

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New Horizons posters, studies, to be presented at Lunar and Planetary Science Conference - SpaceFlight Insider

Strong Evidence of Extraterrestrial Artificial Surface Interventions Found On Mars, According To New Study – Collective Evolution

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A new study published in theJournal of Space Exploration titled The Mounds of Cydonia: Elegant Geology, or Tetrahedral Geometry and Reactions of Pythagoras and Dirac?has added to the already robust evidence pointing toartificial surface interventions on Mars. The main premise of the article is that these structures, if indeed artificial, provide an elegant and concise way for an intelligent species to transmit to another intelligence evidence that it understands the basics of tetrahedral geometry, prime numbers, and the quantum mechanics of the electrons spin, thereby giving additional evidence for the possibility of intelligent intervention.

In 1976, the United States sent a pair of space probes, known as Viking 1 and Viking 2, to Mars. Viking 1 was launched on August 20th, 1975, and Viking 2was launched in September of the same year. Both probesphotographed the surface of Mars from orbit, and one studied the planet from the surface. Since then, more pictures have been taken, and this particular study is based on high resolution images from the ESA Mars express and NASA orbiter HiRise cameras, and deals with the structures thathave been found in the Cyndonia region of Mars.

An initial analysis, published in theJournal of Scientific Explorationin 1999, was conducted by Dr. Horace Crater, a physics professor at the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI), alongside Professor Stanley V. McDaniel. During this time,only the 1976 Viking photos were available, taken from many kilometres above the surface of the planet, with a resolution of 47 metres per pixel. In 2006, the European Space Agency (ESA) rephotographed the same area at a much better resolution, confirming the existence of the mounds as well as the tight, precise mound layout.

The recent paper, published inSpace Exploration, andalso authored by Horace Crater alongsideProfessor Stanley V. McDaniel, the Founder ofThe Society for Planetary SETI Research.

McDaniel andAnanda Sirisena,reinforces the strange configuration by comparing three datasets. The resolution of the ESA 2006 photos is 13.7 metres per pixel and that of NASAs MRO HiRise 2014 images is 5 metres per pixel. This is compared to the original 47m per pixel Viking shots. Presented below are the mounds from all three spacecraft, showing clearly the parallel lines and right-angled triangles formed by their layout. Is there a message implicit in this ground plan?

Below is a set of slides sent to me by one of the authors that he commonly uses in his presentations to elaborate on the uniqueness of the layout and it implications.

Be sure to check out the details in the actual studyfor an in-depth analysis and more photos of why this geology and these mathematicalmeasurements are so intriguing.

As Viking 1 spacecraft was circling the planet, it spotted the shadowy likeness of a human face. An enormous head nearly two miles from end to end seemed to be staring back at the cameras from a region of the Red Planet called Cydonia. Apyramid structure was also seen. This will be the main topic of this article.

As a quick side note here, for years weve been made to believe that Mars is a dry and arid planet, completely devoid of life, but thats just not the case. Mars actually used to be an Earth-like planet, with giant oceans and extensivegreenery. The soil is moist and wet, and there is a very high likelihood that some type of life exists within the interior of Mars today. You can watch that full press conference HERE.

The question to ask here is, did NASA know this information from the Viking data in 1976? According to multiple insiders who have worked for the agency, NASA is not always honest,and we are only being told this now because they believe we are ready toprocess and accept these facts. For example, Bob Dean, a retiredUnited States Army Command Sergeant Major who also served at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe (SHAPE) of NATO as an intelligence analyst, gave a lecture on footage and photos that had been erased and kept hidden for decades:

Ladies and gentlemen, my government, NASA, which many of us in the United States say stands forNever A Straight Answer,proceeded to erase 40 rolls of film of the Apollo Program the flight to the Moon, the flight around the Moon, the landings on the Moon, the walking guys here and there. They erased, for Christs sake, 40 rolls of film of those events. Now were talking about several thousand individual frames that were taken that the so-called authorities determined that you did not have a right to see. Oh, they were disruptive, socially unacceptable, politically unacceptable. Ive become furious. Im a retired Command Sergeant Major. I was never famous for having a lot of patience.

You can watch the full lectureHERE.

He is one of multiple people accusing NASA of doing this. The Russian government did the same last year. You can read more about that here.

Above, youll see the original picture taken by Viking which, as you can imagine, created quite the buzz when the world got to see it. To the left, you can see a closeup of the face, as well as a pyramid in close proximity, taken by Viking. To the right, you will see the original picture taken by NASA,straight from their website in 1976. Above the picture to your left and right you will see three different images which, according to NASA, are clearer versions of the pictures taken with improved instruments.In their original caption of the picture, NASA described it as a huge rock formation . . . which resembles a human head . . . formed by shadows giving the illusion of eyes, nose and mouth. The authors reasoned it would be a good way to engage the public and attract attention to Mars.

Well, according to multiple insiders with extensive backgrounds, this is not the case, and NASA lied about the images and data they collected, as well as fudged data and images. Based on thesetestimonies, among others, the photos released in 1998 and 2001 were meant to debunk rumours and put the issue to rest.

Dr. John Brandenburg

The picture above, which includes the pyramid, was taken from a lecture given by Dr. John Brandenburg (atthe 26:46 mark). Any scientist who publicly shares information that challenges commonly held belief systems, as well as whats been put out by mainstream media, will always come under public scrutiny and ridicule. But when you have worked on space plasma technologies, nuclear fusion, and advanced space propulsion, and invented the Microwave Electro-Thermal plasma thruster using water propellant for space propulsion,you deserve to be taken seriously.

This is the case with Dr. John Brandenburg. Hehas also worked for the government with top-secret security clearances on various projects. He worked on the Rocket Plume Regolith Interactions on the Moon and Mars, Vortex theory of Rocket engine design, and the combined Sakharov-Kaluza-Klein theory of Field Unification for purposes of space propulsion and Mars science.

Brandenburg was alsothe Deputy Manager of the Clementine Mission to the Moon,which was part of a joint space project between the Ballistic Missile Defence Organization (BMDO) and NASA. The mission discovered water at the Moons poles in 1994. (Source: page 16 of 18)(source)(source)

He currently works as a consultant to Morningstar Applied Physics. Here is one of his latest research endeavours. Brandenburg also works as a part time instructor of astronomy, physics, and mathematics at Madison College, and other learning institutions in Madison, Wisconsin.

Heres what he had to say:

Someone complained to me, John, why do you have to bring Cydonia into this? And I said, because I can read a map. . . . Heres whats at Cydonia Mensa. Theres the face on Mars, theres the D & M pyramid. . . . Here it is in a second shot, this was taken July 25th, this was taken 30 days later, the government was apparently doing a follow-up investigation. These two pictures (pictures above to your left) tell you everything you need to know about whats at Cydonia Mensa (region of Mars). If you see on a planet that used to be Earth-like, a carved human face and a pyramid within 5 km of each other . . . it doesnt take a rocket scientist to figure out what this all means, you can connect the dots. . . . I mean sometimes, and I can tell you as a scientist and Ive seen other scientists do this, if youre cornered, youre just brazing it out, you hold up a picture of a buffalo and insist that its a dog.

You can watch his entire lecture, or read THIS article we recently published on it to get his main points.

Dr Brain OLeary

Dr. Brian OLeary was a NASA astronaut, and a member of the sixth group of astronauts selected by NASA in 1967. After this, he was recruited by Carl Sagan to teach at Cornell University in the late 1960s, where he researched and lectured in the Department of Astronomy and Physics. After Cornell, he taught physics, astronomy, and science policy assessment at various academic institutions, including the University of California Berkeley, Hampshire College, and finishing off at Princeton University from 1976 to 1981. After that, he went on to Washington, where he would become an advisor to various political leaders, presidential candidates, and the United States Congress. OLeary was also a member of theAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science, as well as secretary of the American Geophysical Unions Planetology Section. Furthermore, he was the team leader of the Asteroidal Resources Group for NASAs Ames Summer Study on Space Settlements. He was a founding board member of the International Association for New Science as well as founding president of the New Energy Movement.

OLeary was always skeptical about Mars, and there are several others within these circles who were as well. I will be focusing on three.

He had some interesting things to say during alive interview with Kerry Cassidy of Project Camelot(view full live interview here, read transcript of video here).OLeary and Carl Sagan were close for a number of years, but had a falling out when OLeary decided to leave Cornell.

In the interview, he remarked:It was One very cold snowy day in May, I landed in Syracuse, and there was a horizontal blizzard in May and I said:Thats it for upstate New York. And Carl thought that was very frivolous. Because, of course, he was kind of an empire-builder kind of guy; and he also had a huge ego.

After he left, OLeary started to examine some of Carls work. He said that the famous Face in Cydonia on Mars photographed by Viking in 1975, this enormous formation (about a mile across) resembled a human face and created a major buzz at the time was tampered with by Sagan before being releasedto the public: It was very, very disappointing to me, because not only was Carl wrong, he also fudged data. He published a picture of the Face inParade Magazine, a popular article, saying that the Facewas just a natural formation, but he doctored the picture to make it not look like a face.

At this time,Sagan and OLeary were arguably the worlds two leading experts on Mars, and they entered into manydisagreements over that face. This rift was made clear inOLearys publication in 1998, Carl Sagan & I: On Opposite Sides of Mars. It can be found inThe Case for the Face: Scientists Examine the Evidence for Alien Artifacts on Mars, eds. Stanley V. McDaniel and Monica Rix Paxson. Kempton, IL: Adventures Unlimited Press.

InMay of 1990, OLeary releaseda paper titled Analysis of Images of the Face on Mars and Possible Intelligent Originwhich only further demonstrated his skepticism. It was published in the Journal of the British Interplanetary Society,Vol.43 No.5.

OLeary also went on the record and stated:

I began to realize, just directly from the scientific point of view, not only hearsay, that this man was colluding with NASA, that there might be more to this than before. . . .Carl was on a committee with a number of notable people. There was a report issued by the Brookings Institution in 1961 and thats about when I knew Carl, during those years; the 60s mostly was when I worked closely with him that he and this other group said:Well, if any ETs ever showed up on the Earth, it has to be covered up. Thats the only way were going to be able to manage this, because if we cant, then it would be too much of a culture shock.

Quite a shocking statement from someone of Brians stature, isnt it? In the interview, he goes on to say that Carl and his colleagues recommended that the governments cover up the UFO phenomenon, and that hebelieves this provided justification for the ongoing coverup.

When it comes to Mars, as mentioned earlier in the article, Sagan was a big debunker of the face, publishing multiple works stating that it was not a face, there were no pyramids, and that these are allthe stuff of conspiracy theories.

Whats interesting here is that not only does OLeary mention Sagan and his relationship with him, but so does Dr. John Brandenburg. In the lecture he gave, cited earlier in the article, Brandenburg also mentionsthat he was in contact with Sagan, that he sent Sagan the images of Mars with an analysis of the Face and Pyramids, and thatit was clear that thats what they were. The response from Sagan to Brandenburg? I never received them.

Dr. Norman Burgrun

Amechanical engineer, Dr. Bergrun has worked forAmes Research Laboratory, NACA (National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics), andLockheed Missiles and Space Company, now known as Lockheed Martin. He thenwent on to foundBergrun Engineering and Research. Obviously, he is another qualified individual with an impressive background. You can view some of his publications for NASA, where he worked for more than a decade,here.

In THIS interview, Bergrun accuses that agency of garbling photos and fudging data, as well as the face that was found in Mars in 1976.

We live in an age where more and more people are waking up to the secrecy that plagues our planet. Ten years ago, if you were to mention that we are being watched throughvarious high tech means, it would have been unbelievable, but thanks to people like Edward Snowden, we know this to be true.

Its unfortunate to realize that so many facts about our world are kept hidden from us, supposedly for the sake of national security, but its quite evident that there are also special interests at stake, and secrecy is used to preserve and uphold these interests, whatever they may be.

Today we have many whistleblowers with verified credentials from various agencies and branches of government who are spilling the beans on several different topics, as well as other evidence to corroborate and back up what the say. Our website is full of examples; the ones presented in this article representjust a select few.

While witness testimony is not always deemed credible,when you have up to, arguably, more than one thousand qualified people coming forward, it becomes difficult to ignore.

Today, in 2016, its important to keep an open mind, because information will keep emerging that threatens the belief systems of many. Too often we completely shut down any chance of even entertaining this type of information, and thats done out of fear. When weve been shielded from the truth for so long it can indeed be scary, and sometimes downright unbelievable, to wake up to the truth.

Secrecy is a great way for the establishment to keep us in line and prevent the human race from growing, expanding, and exploring, but our consciousness is shifting. We are becoming more aware, more curious, and more passionate about creating a better human experience for the entire race. We are constantly distracted with our own lives, trying to put food on the table and make it through another work week, having our minds, thoughts, and wants programmed into our brains through mass marketing, butmany people are no longer resonating with this type of human experience.

Its time to start asking the bigger questions. Its time for the human race to leave its infancy and grow into adulthood, and transparency is the first step. Proper progress cannot be made if a civilization tries to move forward blindly, unconscious of the true nature of reality.

Thanks for reading.

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Strong Evidence of Extraterrestrial Artificial Surface Interventions Found On Mars, According To New Study - Collective Evolution