Methuselah
The world’s oldest individual tree lives 10,000 feet above sea level in the Inyo National Forest, California. A staggering 4,765 years old, this primeval tree was already a century old when the first pyramid was built in Egypt. The tree is hidden among other millennia-old Great Basin bristlecone pines in a grove called the Forest of Ancients. To protect the tree from vandalism, the forest service keeps its exact location secret, but this one looks like it could be Methuselah.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
25 Inspiring Quotes:
25 Inspiring Quotes:
I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
–Muhammad Ali
“You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.”
–Robert Anthony
“There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.”
“Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.”
–J.C. Penny
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
–Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee
“It’s not about time, it’s about choices. How are you spending your choices?”
“Success…seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
“That’s precisely the question everyone should be asking—why the hell not? – Why not you, why not now…”
“Intolerance of your present creates your future.”
“The dreamers are the saviors of the world.”
“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it’s a matter of choice.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”
–Vince Lombardi
“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
“How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
“Do not let what you can not do; interfere with what you can do.”
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
“Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.”
–Albert Einstein
“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men/women, and men/women are great only if they are determined to be so. For glory gives itself only to those who have always dreamed of it.”
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.”
“You can not retain a true and clear vision of wealth if you are constantly turning your attention to opposing pictures, whether they be external or imaginary.”
“Every great story on the planet happened when someone decided not to give up, but kept going no matter what.”
–Spryte Loriano
"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn"
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thank you for reading, be sure to pass this along!
I hated every minute of training, but I said, “Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion.”
–Muhammad Ali
“You can have anything you want if you are willing to give up the belief that you can’t have it.”
–Robert Anthony
“There is no man living that can not do more than he thinks he can.”
“Give me a stock clerk with a goal, and I will give you a man who will make history. Give me a man without a goal, and I will give you a stock clerk.”
–J.C. Penny
“The best way to predict the future is to create it.”
–Dr. Forrest C. Shaklee
“It’s not about time, it’s about choices. How are you spending your choices?”
“Success…seems to be connected with action. Successful people keep moving. They make mistakes, but they don’t quit.”
“That’s precisely the question everyone should be asking—why the hell not? – Why not you, why not now…”
“Intolerance of your present creates your future.”
“The dreamers are the saviors of the world.”
“Destiny is not a matter of chance; it’s a matter of choice.”
“The future belongs to those who believe in the beauty of their dreams.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
“The quality of a person’s life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.”
–Vince Lombardi
“It takes courage to grow up and turn out to be who you really are.”
“It is never too late to be what you might have been.”
“How does one become a butterfly? You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.”
“Do not let what you can not do; interfere with what you can do.”
“One man with courage makes a majority.”
“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.”
“Try not to become a man of success but rather try to become a man of value.”
–Albert Einstein
“Nothing great will ever be achieved without great men/women, and men/women are great only if they are determined to be so. For glory gives itself only to those who have always dreamed of it.”
“The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a heaven of Hell, a hell of Heaven.”
“You can not retain a true and clear vision of wealth if you are constantly turning your attention to opposing pictures, whether they be external or imaginary.”
“Every great story on the planet happened when someone decided not to give up, but kept going no matter what.”
–Spryte Loriano
"The creation of a thousand forests is in one acorn"
– Ralph Waldo Emerson
Thank you for reading, be sure to pass this along!
Positivity Once Again Shown to Halt and Reverse Health Risks, Even in Old Age
Positivity Once Again Shown to Halt and Reverse Health Risks, Even in Old Age
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/positivity-helps-reduce-health-risks-reverse-disease/#ixzz2BGlf3p3F
It’s true: happiness helps us live longer. But what about seniors facing years of gradual decline in health? A new study published in Psychosomatic Medicine says that seniors who maintain a positive outlook despite increasing health problems can reduce—and even reverse—health risks. And this certainly isn’t the only research outlining the powers of positivity and optimism.
“Older adults can be taught through counseling or therapy to engage in self-protective thoughts like staying positive when it comes to their own health,” says co-author Carsten Wrosch. “That means a better quality of life, both physically and mentally, something we all want at any age.”
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/positivity-helps-reduce-health-risks-reverse-disease/#ixzz2BGlYhXq7
Stress, Negativity, and Self-Blame Accelerate Aging
Wrosch and his team observed 122 senior citizens for the Centre for Research in Human Development study. The participants answered questionnaires determining individual usage of strategies designed to protect them from stress, negativity, and self-blame—all emotional threats to health that increase stress hormones and inflammatory biomarkers.
“Even if my health is in very difficult condition, I can find something positive in life,” and “When I find it impossible to overcome a health problem, I try not to blame myself,” were among the questions in the inquiry. Participants were also asked to measure their loneliness and isolation.
Aside from questionnaires, researchers obtained the seniors’ stress information by examining cortisol and C-reactive protein (CRP) levels in saliva and blood samples. Both are indicators of stress (which is inflammatory) and related illnesses like hypertension, diabetes, cardiovascular conditions, and even Alzheimer’s disease. Even mild anxiety and depression raise chances of early death—and not just for seniors—either through inflammation-related diseases or risky behavior. High stress levels raise this risk by 50 percent.
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/positivity-helps-reduce-health-risks-reverse-disease/#ixzz2BGlP0DLQ
Results of the study indicate that even lonely adults with health problems could lower stress hormones and therefore inflammation with positivity
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/positivity-helps-reduce-health-risks-reverse-disease/#ixzz2BGlUUhaF
Slowing Aging with Positive Thinking
This isn’t the first time that positive thinking and lowered stress levels have been attributed to longevity. Harvard-affiliated Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston found that chronic anxiety can accelerate aging by shortening telomeres, the DNA-protein complexes whose lengths serves as biomarkers of cells’ biological ages. Meanwhile, an active sex life as well as social interaction and shifts in lifestylecan slow and even reverse the aging process.
Read more: http://naturalsociety.com/positivity-helps-reduce-health-risks-reverse-disease/#ixzz2BGl9TCDP
Friday, November 2, 2012
Predicting Trends
Predicting Trends Beforehand
In this age of constant advertisement and brand placement, trending topics on Twitter have become a great free way for advertisers to get their message in front of more potential customers. The only problem is that no one can predict what will be come a trending topic, at least until now. A professor at M.I.T. in conjunction with one of his students, developed an algorithm that they claim will be 95% accurate in predicting those trending topics as much four to five hours before they are trending.
Picture: Unmadindu (CC)
Via M.I.T.
At the Interdisciplinary Workshop on Information and Decision in Social Networks at MIT in November, Associate Professor Devavrat Shah and his student, Stanislav Nikolov, will present a new algorithm that can, with 95 percent accuracy, predict which topics will trend an average of an hour and a half before Twitter’s algorithm puts them on the list — and sometimes as much as four or five hours before.
The algorithm could be of great interest to Twitter, which could charge a premium for ads linked to popular topics, but it also represents a new approach to statistical analysis that could, in theory, apply to any quantity that varies over time: the duration of a bus ride, ticket sales for films, maybe even stock prices.
Shah and Nikolov’s experiments used a relatively small data set to “train” the algorithm. The team loaded 200 tweets containing topics that ended up trending and 200 that did not. After “training” the algorithm they ran it using real-time random tweets, and found that they had a 95% success rate and only a 4% false positive rate. Shah believes that this algorithm’s accuracy will increase over time as the data sets used to “train” it are increased. While this algorithm doesn’t seem to have the privacy implications as William Binney’s algorithms used by the NSA do, it is worth noting that it could be applied to any data set with regular updates such as Facebook or G+, and there is every reason to believe that it will be.
Leaks Found in Earth's Protective Shield
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| When Earth’s magnetic field and the interplanetary magnetic field are aligned, for example in a northward orientation as indicated by the white arrow in this graphic, Kelvin–Helmholtz waves are generated at low (equatorial) latitudes. CREDIT: AOES Medialab View full size image |
Our planet's protective magnetic bubble may not be as protective as scientists had thought. Small breaks in Earth's magnetic field almost continuously let in the solar wind — the stream of magnetic, energized plasma launched by the sun toward the planets — new research has found.
"The solar wind can enter themagnetosphere at different locations and under different magnetic field conditions that we hadn't known about before," Melvyn Goldstein, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a statement.
Charged particles in the solar wind can interrupt GPS signals and power systems, as well as create dazzling auroras.
The magnetosphere is the planet's first line of defense against the solar wind.
"That suggests there is a 'sieve-like' property of the magnetopause [the outer edge of the magnetosphere] in allowing the solar wind to continuously flow into the magnetosphere," Goldstein said.
Plasma swirls break magnetic field
The European Space Agency's Cluster mission, a set of four satellites that fly in close formation through the Earth's magnetic field, gathered the data that show how the solar wind can get through. Equipped with state-of-the-art instruments for measuring electric and magnetic fields, the Cluster satellites fly in and out of the magnetosphere and document the microscopic magnetic interactions between the Earth and the sun.
From 2006 Cluster observations, scientists found that huge swirls of plasma along the magnetopause could help the solar wind penetrate the magnetosphere when the terrestrial and solar wind magnetic fields were aligned. Those swirls of plasma are known as Kelvin-Helmholtz waves, and they can be 24,850 miles (40,000 kilometers) in diameter.
As Kelvin-Helmholtz waves slide past the magnetopause, they can create giant vortices, similar to how wind blowing across the ocean causes waves. The huge waves can spontaneously break and reconnect magnetic field lines, creating openings that let the solar wind slip through.
When the interplanetary magnetic field, indicated by the white arrow, is oriented westward (dawnward) or in the opposite, eastward (duskward) direction, magnetopause boundary layers at higher latitude become most subject to Kelvin–Helmholtz instabilities.
CREDIT: AOES Medialab
View full size image
'Not a perfect magnetic bubble'
The new findings suggest that these magnetic field line breaks can also occur where the terrestrial and solar wind magnetic fields are perpendicular, at high latitudes near the poles.
The alignments of the solar wind magnetic field and Earth's magnetic field are key factors. A perpendicular alignment makes the boundary between the two fields less stable and likely generates more Kelvin-Helmholtz waves — and more magnetic field breaches. [Video: Sun's Energy Shocks Earth's Magnetic Field]
"We found that when the [solar wind] magnetic field is westward or eastward, magnetopause boundary layers at higher latitude become most subject to Kelvin-Helmholtz instabilities, regions quite distant from previous observations of these waves," Kyoung-Joo Hwang, a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center who led the study, said in a statement.
"In fact, it's very hard to imagine a situation where solar wind plasma could not leak into the magnetosphere, since it is not a perfect magnetic bubble," Hwang said.
By Crystal Gammon, OurAmazingPlanet Contributor - Oct 31, 2012 09:47 AM ET
http://www.ouramazingplanet.com/3715-earth-magnetic-field-sieve.html
China Is Building A Huge Eco-City Where No One Will Need To Drive
China Is Building A Huge Eco-City Where No One Will Need To Drive
Alex Davies
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-building-a-nearly-car-free-city-2012-11?op=1#ixzz2B5FZbq1V
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-building-a-nearly-car-free-city-2012-11?op=1#ixzz2B5Et6Q2l
Click here to see the master plan >
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-building-a-nearly-car-free-city-2012-11?op=1#ixzz2B5ExHimS
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-building-a-nearly-car-free-city-2012-11?op=1#ixzz2B5ExHimS
The "Great City" is a plan for an ambitious urban center designed to limit its residents environmental impact by producing clean energy, reducing waste, and promoting public transportation over individual car use.
The project is the work of Adrian Smith + Gordon Gill Architecture, who note that "Chinese planning officials [are] beginning to see the effects of automobile-dependent design and are open to better alternatives to urban sprawl."
It has been called the "Car-Free City," a moniker that is not entirely accurate. The architecture firm notes that the vision is for a city where "cars will be essentially unnecessary," but allowed.
The master plan includes many good ideas. Half the road space will be reserved for non-motorized traffic, and electric shuttles will get people where they cannot or do not want to walk. All homes will be within a two-minute walk of a public park.
An "eco-park" will treat wastewater and solid waste, and generate power. Land outside the city will be reserved for farming. Wildlife habitat will be protected. Buildings have been designed to maximize the use of wind power; the planners decided Chengdu's hazy climate is not conducive to solar power.
All told, Smith and Gill expect to cut energy use by 48 percent, water use by 58 percent, and produce 89 percent less waste, compared to a conventional development with a similar population.
Going beyond environmental impact, Smith and Gill designed Great City to provide residents with affordable housing, education, and medical care, all clustered in the city center to encourage a thriving civic life.
It's a lovely vision for anyone concerned by climate change and social inequity, and the effectiveness of the power, transportation, and recycling systems will be judged once in place. But the project as a whole raises some questions.
Can a city built so quickly stand the test of time? What happens to the architects' scheme if residents don't behave as expected? And even if this eco-city works as planned, what can China do to translate this program to the hundreds of millions of people living in older cities?
Still, considering the rate at which China is urbanizing, a proven plan for minimizing the environmental impact of new cities would be worth a lot.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-building-a-nearly-car-free-city-2012-11?op=1#ixzz2B5En8PV2
It will be built on the fringes of Chengdu, a city of 17 million people.
The master plan calls for a dense city surrounded by farmland. The team is also considering vertical farming in buildings.
Tall buildings will provide room for 80,000 residents.
A system of electric shuttles will make cars unnecessary.
The architects want to create a city with a vibrant street life.
There will be lots of parkland, open space, and places to gather.
The focus will be on walking, not driving.
A network of pedestrian trails will allow access to trails that run through the farmland and forest around the city.
Residents will have the choice of owning a car, but the hope is that they will not need it to move about the city center.
Buildings will be placed to maximize the generation of power from wind.
Here's another big project going on in China.
Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/china-is-building-a-nearly-car-free-city-2012-11?op=1#ixzz2B5FQ8CfK
Thursday, November 1, 2012
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