Betül Kaçar: Origin of Life, Ancient DNA, Panspermia, and Aliens | Lex Fridman Podcast

Big Bear Bald Eagle Live Nest Cam

ℹThe nest is located in Big Bear Valley in the San Bernardino Mountains of Southern California. It is about 145 feet up in a Jeffrey Pine tree. The nest is the current home for Jackie and Shadow, a local bald eagle pair.

🔵Wide View Cam (Cam 2): https://youtu.be/Qk_rwltHYpc

🔴Recaps & Observations: https://bit.ly/3Md8TSz

The Quotes of Steven Wright

1 – I’d kill for a Nobel Peace Prize.

2 – Borrow money from pessimists — they don’t expect it back.

3 – Half the people you know are below average.

4 – 99% of lawyers give the rest a bad name.

5 – 82.7% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

6 – A conscience is what hurts when all your other parts feel so good.

7 – A clear conscience is usually the sign of a bad memory.

8 – If you want the rainbow, you got to put up with the rain.

9 – All those who believe in psycho kinesis, raise my hand.

10 – The early bird may get the worm, but the second mouse gets the cheese.

11 – I almost had a psychic girlfriend, ….. But she left me before we met.

12 – OK, so what’s the speed of dark?

13 – How do you tell when you’re out of invisible ink?

14 – If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.

15 – Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.

16 – When everything is coming your way, you’re in the wrong lane.

17 – Ambition is a poor excuse for not having enough sense to be lazy.

18 – Hard work pays off in the future; laziness pays off now.

19 – I intend to live forever … So far, so good.

20 – If Barbie is so popular, why do you have to buy her friends?

21 – Eagles may soar, but weasels don’t get sucked into jet engines.

22 – What happens if you get scared half to death twice?

23 – My mechanic told me, “I couldn’t repair your brakes, so I made your horn louder.”

24 – Why do psychics have to ask you for your name

25 – If at first you don’t succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried.

26 – A conclusion is the place where you got tired of thinking.

27 – Experience is something you don’t get until just after you need it.

28 – The hardness of the butter is proportional to the softness of the bread.

29 – To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research.

30 – The problem with the gene pool is that there is no lifeguard.

31 – The sooner you fall behind, the more time you’ll have to catch up.

32 – The colder the x-ray table, the more of your body is required to be on it.

33 – Everyone has a photographic memory; some just don’t have film.

34 – If at first you don’t succeed, skydiving is not for you.

35 – If your car could travel at the speed of light, would your headlights work?

The problem with the world

Jordan Peterson: Life, Death, Power, Fame, and Meaning

OUTLINE: 0:00

– Introduction 0:47 – Dostoevsky 11:48 – God 19:58 – Science 32:21 – Death 35:15 – Elon Musk 39:13 – Global Crisis 51:26 – Dangerous ideologies 1:02:40 – Justin Trudeau 1:16:46 – War in Ukraine 1:34:14 – Day in the life 2:10:18 – How to think 2:25:26 – Depression 2:33:33 – Advice for young people 2:47:22 – Russian literature 2:59:10 – Meaning of life

Ex-NASA Scientist “Convinced” Alien Life Was Found on Mars Over 40 Years Ago

The respected scientist believes that he found proof of life on Mars in 1976, but NASA is unwilling to acknowledge it.

Ex-NASA Scientist “Convinced” Alien Life Was Found on Mars Over 40 Years Ago

TheMindUnleashed.com

ELIAS MARAT

OCT 14, 2019

(TMU) — A former NASA scientist has written that he is convinced that the U.S. space agency “found evidence of life” on Mars in the 1970s, but the data was largely ignored.

The stunning admission by Gilbert Levin—the former principal investigator for the Labeled Release (LR) experiment on NASA’s Viking mission to Mars—came in an op-ed recently published in Scientific American.

In the article, the engineer and inventor is clear that he believes he found convincing proof of the existence of living microorganisms on Mars in 1976, but the agency has since been unwilling to acknowledge what he sees as a clear fact.

Levin is hardly a conspiracy theorist or fringe “UFOlogist,” either—in addition to participating in that important 1976 NASA mission, he’s a respected engineer and inventor who founded the successful research company Spherix.

In the op-ed titled “I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s,” the scientist wrote:

“On July 30, 1976, the LR returned its initial results from Mars.

“Amazingly, they were positive. As the experiment progressed, a total of four positive results, supported by five varied controls, streamed down from the twin Viking spacecraft landed some 4,000 miles apart.”

Continuing, he wrote:

“The data curves signaled the detection of microbial respiration on the Red Planet. The curves from Mars were similar to those produced by LR tests of soils on Earth.

“It seemed we had answered that ultimate question.

The LR experiment led by Levin took samples from the Red Planet’s soil containing organic compounds, and then it looked for carbon dioxide. According to the former NASA researcher, the results indicated that the carbon dioxide was “being regenerated, possibly by microorganisms as on Earth.”

Jonathan D. Major@JonathanDMajor1

Some very cool points from Gilbert Levin.https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/im-convinced-we-found-evidence-of-life-on-mars-in-the-1970s/ …

I’m Convinced We Found Evidence of Life on Mars in the 1970s

The Labeled Release experiment on the Viking mission reported positive results, although most have dismissed them as inorganic chemical reactions

blogs.scientificamerican.com

8:54 AM – Oct 12, 2019

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See Jonathan D. Major’s other Tweets

However, NASA believed that the LR had only found a substance that mimicked life, but wasn’t truly alive. Levin accuses the space agency of then proceeding to ignore the findings.

Continuing, he wrote:

“Inexplicably, over the 43 years since Viking, none of NASA’s subsequent Mars landers has carried a life detection instrument to follow up on these exciting results.

“Instead the agency launched a series of missions to Mars to determine whether there was ever a habitat suitable for life and, if so, eventually to bring samples to Earth for biological examination.”

NASA continues to prioritize the search for life on Mars, with top NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine saying that microbial life could be found on Mars.

The agency has also made repeated visits to the planet.

And last November, the InSight lander touched Martin ground. Earlier this year, the InSight rover found evidence of a potentially vast global reservoir of water on Mars.

In August 2012, the Curiosity rover landed on Mars and detected a spike in methane levels that it still hasn’t been able to explain. On Earth, methane is the product of both geological and biological processes.

In a statement released in June, Sample Analysis at Mars Principal Investigator Paul Mahaffy of NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center said:

“With our current measurements, we have no way of telling if the methane source is biology or geology, or even ancient or modern.” 

NASA’s Mars 2020 rover is set to launch next July before making the 140-million mile trek to Mars and landing on its Jezero Crater in February 2021. However, Levin criticized the Mars 2020 mission for not including “a life-detection test.”

Levin criticized the move, pleading:

“In keeping with well-established scientific protocol, I believe an effort should be made to put life detection experiments on the next Mars mission possible.”

This isn’t the first time that Levin has insisted that life was found on Mars over 40 years ago. On his website, a 1997 article notes that he had already concluded “that the LR had, indeed, discovered living microorganisms on the Red Planet.”

Concluding, the scientist proposed that an independent panel of experts should review the data from the Viking LR experiment he spearheaded. He wrote:

“Such an objective jury might conclude, as I did, that the Viking LR did find life. In any event, the study would likely produce important guidance for NASA’s pursuit of its holy grail.”

 

Scientists have detected strange magnetic pulses on Mars that only happen at midnight. The cause is unknown

 

Strange Magnetic Pulses Discovered on Mars Leave Scientists Baffled

TheMindUnleashed.com

ELIAS MARAT

SEP 22, 2019

(TMU) — NASA’s robotic space rover has made a shocking discovery on Mars which, while puzzling to researchers so far, may be key to understanding the unique environment of the Red Planet.

The InSight space rover designated to study Mars has discovered strange magnetic pulsations on the surface of the planet at midnight. The bizarre bursts of magnetic energy were detected by the magnetometer attached to the cutting-edge spacecraft, reports National Geographic.

Since last November, the InSight capsule has gathered information about the planet’s evolution and make-up, as well as recording its tremendous “Marsquakes,” measuring its upper crust’s temperature, and gauging the planet’s magnetic field.

But at a joint meeting of the American Astronomical Society and European Planetary Science Congress (EPSC), it was revealed that not only were there these strange pulses that “jiggled” the magnetic field, but the crust of Mars is also far more magnetic than researchers had expected.

The lander’s data also revealed that about 62 miles below the planet’s surface lies a 2.5-mile-thick layer of some electrically conductive substance. While scientists are less than certain, some are speculating that the layer could potentially be a massive body of water, either consisting of dissolved solids, or water and ice—and it may even be possible that the layer stretches across the entire plant.

National Geographic Magazine✔@NatGeoMag

Preliminary data from the InSight lander’s magnometer suggest that the red planet’s magnetic field wobbles in inexplicable ways at night. https://on.natgeo.com/30jQv5Y 

Mysterious magnetic pulses discovered on Mars

The nighttime events are among initial results from the InSight lander, which also found hints that the red planet may host a global reservoir of liquid water deep below the surface.

Dave Brain, an atmospheric and space physics scientist at the University of Colorado who is familiar with InSight’s data, noted that because the rover can only dig as deep as 16 feet below the surface, it remains to be proven whether or not such vast water reserves exist. In the future, however, scientists will hopefully find other ways to find out what is causing the signals from the potential watery layer.

What also makes the discovery especially enticing for space scientists is the fact that Mars, unlike our planet Earth, suffered a collapse in its global magnetic field roughly four billion years. Lacking that crucial shield to defend itself from the sun’s solar winds, the planet was stripped of its atmosphere and became what it is now: a cold desert with bone-dry water reservoirs that’s incapable of supporting life.

However, InSight has been able to measure strong magnetic signals from the rocks lying near it which are both more stable and up to 20 times strong than what had been predicted based on past measurements taken from orbit.

The scientists involved with the work haven’t yet identified whether these rocks lie deep underground or are closer to the surface—an important distinction to make, because if the rocks are younger and near the surface, this would mean that Mars’s magnetic field lasted far longer than scientists currently believe.

While the data hasn’t yet undergone a peer review, the information gained in less than a year before the InSight robot landed on Mars has been stunning.

Paul Byrne, a planetary geologist at North Carolina State University who wasn’t involved with the NASA probe’s work, commented:

“We’re getting an insight into Mars’s magnetic history in a way we’ve never had before.” 

 

Life on Mars: Meteorite from Mars shows evidence of “fossilized bacteria”

Source

Natural News

by: Edsel Cook

Sunday, September 22, 2019 

Two decades ago, NASA researchers presented a meteorite from Mars that reportedly displayed signs of microbial life. Now, their Hungarian counterparts have made a similar announcement with a different sample obtained from the same region in Antarctica.

Assigned the dry designation of ALH-77005, the new meteorite displayed features and impressions that might have originated from microorganisms. These biosignatures offered additional evidence that ancient Mars might have supported alien life.

Researchers from the Hungarian Academy of Science (HAS) applied imaging technologies that were unavailable to NASA during the 1990s. They found tiny filaments that might have been made by fossilized Martian microorganisms.

Their report mirrored the 1996 announcement by a NASA research team that they discovered signs of life on Mars by way of a meteorite. The earlier study was said to have offered an astonishing insight into the workings of the universe.

However, other researchers doubted the NASA claim. They pointed out that the microfilaments might have formed without the participation of living organisms. The counterclaim ran along the lines of it being impossible to prove or refute the findings of the study. (Related: Experts believe that Mars once had a thick hydrogen atmosphere that could sustain “key ingredients of life”.)

Hungarian researchers report finding marks made by rust-eating bacteria on Martian meteorite

ALH-77005 came from the Allan Hills ice field in Antarctica. Explorers from Japan’s National Institute of Polar Research (NIPR) found the meteorite during the 1977-1978 expedition.

HAS researcher Dr. Ildiko Gyollai oversaw the examination of ALH-77005. They took a thin section from the Martian meteorite and subjected the material to intense scrutiny.

The Hungarians used optical microscopes, infrared imaging, and other technologies to examine the texture of the space rock. They also looked at the minerals and other materials inside the meteorite.

Finally, they used isotope tests to look for the chemical compounds that were essential to the formation and survival of life: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur.

In their paper, Gyollai’s team reported that the tiny filaments inside the ALH-77005 sample might be the work of bacteria. They believed that the microorganisms fed on rust, which was plentiful inside the metallic meteorite.

“Comparing recent results and interpretation with other meteorites, it can be raised, that on these similarities the microbially mediated biosignatures can be proposed microbial mediation by [iron oxidising bacteria] on Mars,” concluded Gyollai. He and the other authors published their findings on the journal Open Astronomy.

NASA made the same claims in 1996

In 1984, a NASA expedition unearthed a different Martian meteorite in the same Allan Hills region of Antarctica. Resembling a potato and tipping the scales at 4.3 lbs (1.93 kg), the space rock received the designation ALH 84001.

The researchers estimated the age of the meteorite to be 4.5 billion years, making it roughly as old as Mars itself. The rock first took shape deep below the surface of the young planet and emerged via volcanic activity.

Around 15 million years ago, an asteroid or comet slammed into Mars. The enormous impact hurled ALH 84001 away from the Red Planet, and it eventually arrived on Earth 13,000 years ago.

In their initial investigation of ALH 84001, the NASA researchers discovered tiny strands and filaments throughout the meteorite. They announced that microorganisms on Mars created the textures in the rock.

Based on their findings, they also proposed that ancient Mars contained shallow lakes and pools. These theoretical bodies of water supported numerous microbes, some of which would have etched their mark on the meteorite.

The prerequisite grain of salt came from British counterparts, who argued that many non-biological processes might have produced the microfilaments in ALH 84001. The 2001 study remains controversial to this day.

Sources include:

DailyMail.co.uk

TheSun.co.uk

DeGruyter.com [PDF]

Scientists Now Believe Other Planets May Have Even More Life Than Earth Does

Source

TheMindUnleashed.com

ELIAS MARAT

AUG 23, 2019 

A new study indicates that other planets may have better conditions for life to thrive than Earth itself has.

(TMU) — The idea that there is no “Planet B” has long been a slogan for environmentalists trying to convey the gravity of the unfolding ecological catastrophe on our planet, but new research could render the mantra moot as scientists have revealed that exoplanets may exist in the universe that are capable of supporting abundant life-forms—and they could, in fact, be more hospitable a home than Earth.

Researchers have released a new study revealing the “surprising conclusion” that “conditions on some exoplanets with favorable ocean circulation patterns could be better suited to support life that is more abundant or more active than life on Earth,” according to geophysicist Stephanie Olson of the University of Chicago.

And while these exoplanets are so distant from our own solar system as to render it impossible to reach them with space probes, scientists are working on new remote sensing tools such as telescopes that would allow us to better understand what condition are actually like on these planets which may have the ability to support life on a scale unknown on our own planet.

Scientists have long estimated that roughly 35 percent of all known exoplanets larger than Earth are likely to be rich in water.

“NASA’s search for life in the Universe is focused on so-called Habitable Zone planets, which are worlds that have the potential for liquid water oceans,” Olson said.

NASA Space Place

✔@NASAspaceplace

What is an #exoplanet?

Planets that orbit around other stars are called exoplanets. Exoplanets are very hard to see directly with telescopes. So how do we look for Earth-like planets in other solar systems?

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Continuing, she explained:

“Our work has been aimed at identifying the exoplanet oceans which have the greatest capacity to host globally abundant and active life. Life in Earth’s oceans depends on upwelling (upward flow) which returns nutrients from the dark depths of the ocean to the sunlit portions of the ocean where photosynthetic life lives. More upwelling means more nutrient resupply, which means more biological activity. These are the conditions we need to look for on exoplanets.”

Olson’s team modeled a number of different types of exoplanets using ROCKE-3D software designed by NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) to create simulations of planetary bodies with their own unique climates and ocean habitats.

The research discovered that those planets with thicker and more dense atmospheres, slower rates of rotation, and the presence of continents all created higher upswelling rates. Olson noted:

“A further implication is that Earth might not be optimally habitable—and life elsewhere may enjoy a planet that is even more hospitable than our own.”

The research, which was presented as a keynote lecture at the Goldschmidt Geochemistry Congress in Barcelona, Spain, serves as a reminder that life is always more common than “detectable” life that lies in plain sight, Olson said. In the future, scientists should “should target the subset of habitable planets that will be most favorable to large, globally active biospheres because those are the planets where life will be easiest to detect—and where non-detections will be most meaningful,”she added.

Chris Reinhard of the Georgia Institute of Technology commented:

“We expect oceans to be important in regulating some of the most compelling remotely detectable signs of life on habitable worlds, but our understanding of oceans beyond our solar system is currently very rudimentary. Dr. Olson’s work represents a significant and exciting step forward in our understanding of exoplanet oceanography”.

Equipped with the knowledge contained in the study, scientists can now devise the best means through which to detect these new planets teeming with life. Olson concluded:

“Now we know what to look for, so we need to start looking.”

 

41 Interesting Facts About the World That Will Surprise the Most Intelligent People

41 Interesting Facts About the World That Will Surprise the Most Intelligent People

realfarmacy.com

July 14, 2019

We’ve compiled some worldly facts that are sure to make even the most intelligent and knowledgeable person wide-eyed and surprised.

41 Interesting Facts About the World

1. A strawberry is not a berry, but a banana is a berry

2. The average chocolate bar contains eight insect pieces

3. There are more stars in the sky than grains of sand in the world

4. Humans completely replace their outer skin every month

5. You can use your hand for a quick measurement of angles. Spread out your fingers as far as they can. Your little finger represents 0°. The angle between the thumb and the little finger will be 90°, the angles between the little finger and the other fingers are 30°, 45°, and 60°, respectively.

6. You can also use your hand to remember which months have 31 days. Make a fist and start counting your knuckles and spaces between your knuckles. The knuckle of your index finger is January (knuckle means 31 days), then the space between your index and middle fingers is February (space means less than 31 days)and so on. Once you reach your little finger knuckle (July) count it again (August) and move in the opposite direction.

7. Mosquitoes have killed more humans than all wars in history

8. You’re twice as likely to get killed by a vending machine than a shark

9. For every human on earth, there are 1.6 million ants

10. France was still executing people by guillotine up until 1977

11. The word ‘set’ has the most number of definitions (464) in the English language

12. In an average lifetime, a person will walk the equivalent of 5 times around the equator

13. The jaw is the most commonly used joint in the human body

14. Starfish are not fish (they’re sea urchins) and killer whales are not whales (they’re dolphins)

15. Speaking of dolphins, they can actually call each other by name

16. One piece of space junk returns to earth every day

17. The naked mole rat is immune to cancer and can live with almost no oxygen

18. Due to gravity, the theoretical maximum height of a tree is 130 meters

19. The mouth of a blue whale can hold its own bodyweight in water

20. An average adult contains 7 quintillion joules of potential energy (or, 30 hydrogen bombs)

21. The technology in one Gameboy exceeds all the computing power used to put man on the moon

22. 99% of the earth’s gold is located in its core

23. Getting struck by lightning heats skin up to 50,000 degrees Fahrenheit

24. Honey is the only food that does not spoil

25. The Hawaiian alphabet only has twelve letters (A, E, I, O, U, H, K, L, M, N, P, and W)

26. The lighter was invented ten years earlier than the match

27. The strongest muscle in the human body (proportional to its size) is the tongue

28. Whips make a cracking sound because the tip actually moves faster than the speed of sound, creating a small sonic boom

29. Charles Darwin was the first person who had the idea to attach wheels to his office chair to move around more quickly

30. To tell a real diamond from a fake one, breathe on it. Fake ones will fog up while real ones will stay clear

31. The 3 most sold products in human history are the iPhone, Harry Potter books, and Rubik’s Cube

32. A cockroach can live a few weeks without its head, before eventually dying of hunger.

33. Besides the 5 senses, you also have proprioception, awareness of the position of your body parts.

34. The Spanish word ‘esposas’ means both ‘handcuffs’ and ‘wives’

35. When you gain or lose weight, your fat cells don’t disappear — they simply change in size..

36. 99% of the microbes that live inside humans are unknown to science.

37. Paper cuts are more painful than regular cuts because such a wound almost never bleeds; instead, nerve endings stay open to the air which irritates them.

38. If you wanted to burn 1 calorie by clicking on a mouse, you would need to click a mouse button 10 million times

39. If you make ice cubes with tap water, they will be white; if you use boiled water, they will be transparent

40. It takes such little electricity to charge your phone that if you calculated the yearly cost of it, it would be less than $1

41. Animals avoid power lines because they are scared of ultraviolet flashes invisible to the human eye

Remember…

As much as we think we know about this world, there’s still a beautiful mystery to it! These surprising facts just help prove that there’s so much more to explore.

If you enjoyed and even gleaned something new from these amazing facts, you will love this one: 100-year-old life hacks that are surprisingly useful today. They’re ingenious!

Source: theheartysoul.com

Swarm of Bees Follows Car for Two Days to Rescue Queen Trapped in Back

Swarm of Bees Follows Car for Two Days to Rescue Queen Trapped in Back

realfarmacy.com

By Melissa Breyer

May 27, 2019

Devotion knows no bounds when it comes to bees and their leader.

When Carol Howarth parked her Mitsubishi in the town of Haverfordwest, Wales, to do some shopping, little did she know the mayhem that would ensue.

While she attended to her errands, a swarm of 20,000 bees was drawn to her car. A local man, Tom Moses, saw the buzzing hubbub and concerned that the bees might be poorly handled, called in a team of beekeepers. “It was spectacular.

I was driving through when I spotted the big brown splodge,” he said. “A lot of people were really amazed by it, cars were slowing down and people were taking pictures of it.”

“I was a little bit concerned, with it being in the middle of town outside a pub, that someone might do something stupid and get hurt or do something stupid and hurt the bees,” he said.

With the beekeepers on the job, by the time Howarth returned the situation appeared to be resolved.

But, no. The swarm kept her in their sights and managed to track her down.

“The next day I realized that some of the bees had followed me home,” she said. So she summoned the beekeepers, who arrived ready for rescue.

“We think the queen bee had been attracted to something in the car, perhaps something sweet, and had got into a gap on the boot’s wiper blade or perhaps the hinge,” says Roger Burns of Pembrokeshire Beekeepers. “The swarm of around 20,000 had followed her and were sat around on the boot of the car.”

In the end, the adventurous queen and her subjects were reunited without harm.

Burns says that it was the strangest bee-thing he’d seen in three decades of beekeeping. “It is natural for them to follow the queen but it is a strange thing to see and quite surprising to have a car followed for two days. It was quite amusing.”

Source: Treehugger.com

Brutally Honest Illustrations Reveal The Truth About Modern Society

Gunduz Aghayev is a cartoonist from Azerbaijan who isn’t afraid to raise awareness about some of the most significant issues in the world. His artwork shows modern problems like social media addiction or mindless consumption of trashy television. He can spot the underlying issues in many different areas of society…

http://www.thinkinghumanity.com

March 2019

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Caitlin Johnstone: Terence McKenna Offers Another Reason To Have Hope For Humanity

“Maybe we really are all along for the ride in the universe’s playful expansion into greater and greater complexity, a transitionary phase between simpler animal life and whatever vastly more complex thing we’ll give rise to in the future.”

Source: Terence McKenna Offers Another Reason To Have Hope For Humanity – Caitlin Johnstone

caitlinjohnstone.com

Caitlin Johnstone

Jan 20, 2019

I often talk about the various reasons I still believe humanity has a fighting chance at rescuing itself from extinction and Orwellian dystopia, like the fact that our ability to network and share information is at an all-time high while trust in the mass media is at an all-time low, or the fact that humans have the capacity to radically transform their relationship with thought in a way that longtime teachers of this art say is becoming easier and more common. I just stumbled across another such reason to hope, and I figured I’d tap it out with a few thoughts in case anyone wants to add it to the pile.

I like to listen to talks from the late philosopher/psychonaut Terence McKenna sometimes while I’m relaxing; I find it to be good mental hygiene. One particular video was on in the background today and something he said caught my ear that I’d heard many times before but never really ingested, arguing that there’s an unbroken trend in the known universe’s history which suggests that humans are going to make it past our challenges after all.

McKenna introduces the bit I’d like to highlight by saying that, while it is difficult to be both well-informed and optimistic about humanity’s future, there are some things science has tended to overlook about the big picture which gives optimism a more rational place in the grand scheme of things.

“What was overlooked was what I call the Conservation of Novelty,” McKenna’s odd, reedy voice said through my laptop speakers. “Now what I mean by this is something very easy for you to convince yourself is happening. The Conservation of Novelty is simply that over time, the universe has become more complicated. New levels of complexity become the foundations for yet deeper levels of complexity. And this phenomenon of the production and conservation of what I call novelty is not something which goes on only in the biological domain, or only in the cultural domain, or only in the domain of physics. It is a trans-categorical impulse in reality, meaning it’s everywhere. Everywhere.”

“The universe was born in a state of great simplicity,” McKenna explained. “There were no atoms, there were no molecules, there were no stars; there was only a plasmic ocean of energy. The physics for describing this were very simple. As time passed, you could almost imagine complexity crystalizing out of a universe that cools. As it cools new properties emerged; what David Baum called emergent properties come out of the universal mix.”

“Atomic systems form. This creates an entirely new domain of matter, different from the plasma that preceded it. As the universe cools, matter aggregates into stars. Stars cook out heavier elements, among them carbon. Carbon sets the stage for four-valent complex polymer chemistry, that sets the stage for life. Simple life sets the stage for complex life. Complex life sets the stage for multicellular advanced animals, land animals, so forth and so on. You see what the process is here: it’s that each emergent property becomes a building block for a new set of phenomena. The concrescence of atomic systems allows the physical world. The generation of carbon chemistry allows the organic world. The complexification of advanced animals allows the conscious world of human culture and civilization.”

Do you see where he’s going with this? The universe, for some mysterious reason, has been marching toward greater and greater complexity since its birth. Everything we know about our universe and our world tells us plainly that this is true; you don’t need to believe in any kind of deity or woo woo philosophy to see it, it’s evidenced in the behavior of the universe itself.

The most complex structure in the known universe is the human brain. As far as we know it is the pinnacle of material complexity at this point in spacetime. If what we know about this ongoing trend from plasma giving rise to particles giving rise to stars giving rise to elements giving rise to life giving rise to humanity giving rise to to increasingly complex cultural and societal structures is as reliable as it appears to be, does it make sense to believe the human brain would suddenly disappear from the equation and revert back to the lesser complexity of an earth without humans, or without life altogether?

It’s at least an interesting idea to consider and toy with the implications. Maybe we really are all along for the ride in the universe’s playful expansion into greater and greater complexity, a transitionary phase between simpler animal life and whatever vastly more complex thing we’ll give rise to in the future. Maybe our idea that the fate of the world rests in our little monkey hands is as precious and ridiculously self-important as one of the hundreds of side characters in a Where’s Waldo? illustration thinking that the whole book is about her. Maybe we’re just the earliest sprouting from the tiniest seed of what is on its way to becoming a towering tree, but mistaking ourselves for the finished product instead of a brief phase along the way toward something unimaginably grander. Maybe this fascinating adventure necessarily continues after all.

That’s not to say we shouldn’t try, of course we should. Partly because maybe ol’ Terence was mistaken in this particular case, but also because what the hell else are we going to do? Even if we are some awkward transitionary stage between the simpler and the more complicated, our trying and our fight to survive would be just as much a part of that march toward complexity as our little herbivore dinosaur ancestors scrambling to avoid the sharp teeth of carnivorous predators. The only thing to do is fight for life, but this perspective takes the pressure and hopelessness out of it.

So where are we headed, if McKenna’s theory of novelty conservation continues to bear out? Well, the early single-celled organisms wouldn’t have been able to predict the emergence of multicellular organisms. Early multicellular organisms wouldn’t have been able to anticipate the emergence of land animals. A prehistoric land animal never would have imagined that there would one day be humans driving around in cars and making street art and arguing with strangers on the internet. Maybe any attempt on our part to predict where this trend in complexification is headed would be just as futile. All we can do is keep alive, do our very best, and hope.

______________________________

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20 Things You Can Do This Year To Change Your Life

Source: 20 Things You Can Do This Year To Change Your Life

preventdisease.com

by JOSH RICHARDSON

JANUARY 4, 2019

There is no secret to happiness, but there is a science to it, says Tim Bono, a psychology lecturer in Arts & Sciences who teaches courses on happiness at Washington University in St. Louis.

How can we be happier? In a world where stress, anxiety and bad days can easily overtake the good.

In his recent book, “When Likes Aren’t Enough: A Crash Course in the Science of Happiness,” Bono explores how the often overlooked details of day-to-day life can have a sizeable influence on our personal sense of well-being and happiness.

It’s a comprehensive primer in the relatively young field of positive psychology, with a particular focus on young adults. The book, which closely follows the structure of his popular, in-demand undergraduate course “Positive Psychology: The Science of Happiness,” offers explanations of factors that contribute to happiness.

Based on his own research and other scientific studies, Bono offers the following tips for getting and staying happier in the coming year:

1) Get outside, move around, take a walk. Research confirms that a few minutes of exercise in nature can boost both mood and energy levels. Exercise is key to our psychological health because it releases the brain’s “feel good” chemicals.

2) Get more happiness for your money. Studies show little connection between wealth and happiness, but there are two ways to get more bang for your happiness buck — buy experiences instead of things and spend your money on others. The enjoyment one gets from an experience like a vacation or concert will far outweigh and outlast the happiness from acquiring another material possession. Doing good things for other people strengthens our social connections, which is foundational to our well-being.

3) Carve out time to be happy, then give it away. People dream of finding an extra 30 minutes to do something nice for themselves, but using that time to help someone else is more rewarding and actually leaves us feeling empowered to tackle the next project, helping us feel more in control of our lives and even less pressed for time. This translates to higher levels of happiness and satisfaction.

4) Delay the positive, dispatch the negative. Anticipation itself is pleasurable, and looking forward to an enjoyable experience can make it all that much sweeter. Wait a couple of days before seeing a new movie that just came out, plan your big vacation for later in the summer and try to take time to savor each bite of dessert. On the flip side, get negative tasks out of the way as quickly as possible — anticipation will only make them seem worse.

5) Enjoy the ride. People who focus more on process than outcome tend to remain motivated in the face of setbacks. They’re better at sticking with major challenges and prefer them over the easy route. This “growth mindset” helps people stay energized because it celebrates rewards that come from the work itself. Focusing only on the outcome can lead to premature burnout if things don’t go well.

6) Embrace failure. How we think about failure determines whether it makes us happy or sad. People who overcome adversity do better in life because they learn to cope with challenges. Failure is a great teacher, helping us realize what doesn’t work so we can make changes for the better. As IBM CEO Thomas Watson once said, “If you want to increase your success rate, double your failure rate.”

8) Sweet dreams. Get a full night’s sleep on a regular basis. Our brains are doing a lot of important work while we sleep, including strengthening neural circuits that enhance mental acuity and help us to regulate our moods when we are awake. Sleep deprivation can lead to cognitive impairment similar to that of intoxication, and often is the prelude to an ill-tempered day.

9) Strengthen your willpower muscles. Just like exercising arm muscles strengthens our capacity to lift heavy things, exercising willpower muscles in small, everyday behaviors strengthens our ability to stay focused at work. Resist the temptation to check the cellphone for new text messages or emails while walking somewhere, or resist the temptation to get the candy bar when in the checkout line at the grocery store. That will allow willpower muscles to become stronger and, in turn, resistant to temptations that could sidetrack us in other aspects of our lives.

10) Introduce variety into your day-to-day activities. Human beings are attracted to novelty, and we can get bored if we have to do the same thing over and over. Changing things up every once in a while by taking on new projects, or by doing the same task but with music in the background, or by interacting with different people, can be one way to introduce variety and remain motivated to complete a task.

11) Stop comparing yourself to others. It’s hard to avoid tuning into what everyone else is doing, who just got the latest raise or promotion, or who’s moving into a new house or going on a fancy vacation. But social comparison is one of the biggest barriers to our overall happiness and motivation. Redirecting attention to our own internal standards for success and making progress based on what’s realistic for us — instead of getting caught up in how we measure up to others — can go a long way for our psychological health and productivity.

12) Reach out and connect with someone. Nothing is more important for our psychological health than high-quality friendships. Find an activity that allows you to get together with friends on a regular, ongoing basis. A weekly happy hour, poker night or TV show ensures consistency and momentum in your social interactions. People with high-quality relationships are not only happier, they’re also healthier. They recover from illnesses more quickly, live longer and enjoy more enriched lives.

13) Limit time on social media. Facebook and Instagram often exaggerate how much better off others are compared with how we might feel about ourselves at the moment. Many studies have shown that too much time spent on social media usually is associated with lower levels of self-esteem, optimism and motivation while leaving people feeling — ironically enough — less socially connected to others.

14) Seek the beauty in all things. Our world is overwhelmed with distrust, antagonism, anger and fear. Reflect on why things bother you, use introspection and talk to more compassionate sources regarding all of the things that make you feel uncomfortable, it will allow you to see the beauty in them.

15) Use your phone in the way phones were originally intended. The next time you are tempted to use your phone to scroll through social media, scroll through your list of contacts instead. Find someone to call or FaceTime. The happiness you derive from an authentic connection with another person will be far greater than any comments or likes you get on social media.

16) Practice gratitude. It’s easy to get bogged down with life’s inevitable hassles, so make an effort to direct attention to things that are still going well. On the way home from work, fill the time that could go toward ruminating over bad parts of your day with the things that went well. Study after study has shown gratitude to be one of the simplest yet most robust ways to increase psychological well-being.

17) Identify an important reason why you are resolving to change something in your life (e.g., “I’m doing it for my kids” or “This is to improve my overall health”). Research shows that reminding yourself of how your daily behaviors fit into big-picture goals will keep you motivated to stay on track.

18) Acknowledge potential barriers that might get in the way of implementing your goals (you might get lazy, tired, forget or be lured away by another temptation), and then identify contingency plans for how you will respond in those moments: “When I start getting distracted in the middle of a big work project, I’ll give myself a quick break and then remind myself how rewarding it will feel to be finished with it.” Better yet, select environments that are free from distractions altogether. If you know you’re always tempted to surf the web while completing work, take your laptop to a place where there’s no wifi and leave your phone behind.

19) Set specific dates and times when you will incorporate the behavior — when you make a schedule for new behaviors you’d like to incorporate into your life, they require less psychological strength to implement. When you get in the habit of running every Tuesday and Thursday morning, the behavior becomes much easier to initiate because it simply becomes part of your routine, like brushing your teeth or taking the dog on a walk.

20) Make your goals measurable, break them up into smaller sub-goals, and the reward yourself each time you hit a particular milestone. If your goal is to lose 50 pounds in the new year, treat yourself to a movie or other fun outing for each five pounds you lose.

25 Profound Questions To Start Asking Yourself Everyday

10 Powerful Things That Extend Your Life

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preventdisease.com

Marco Torres

Aug 17, 2018

Differences in lifestyle patterns rather than mortality or health outcomes appear to have immense research potential in gauging life expectancy. How do patterns in thought, actions, supplements, and diet interact, synergize, or interfere with one another? Here’s a look at 10 powerful things that influence our aging processes.

By examining how chronological age lines up with biological age across the population, researchers are starting to pin down how these two measures should sync up — and what it means for how long we have left when they don’t.

1. Love: Theories about love’s purpose range from the biologically practical to the biologically complicated. In one study, men who are married or in close relationships have 7% lower mortality than singles. The number is 4% for women. These numbers correspond to less than a year of life expectancy. A different study finds loneliness increases mortality by 50%, corresponding to almost 5 years of life. Choosing a life partner may be one of the most important decisions we can make. Love also increases joy and happiness which can make our hearts healthier, our immune systems stronger, and our lives longer through enhancements of our cellular structure. With more love between couples often comes more sex which too promotes heart health, and balances hormone levels.

2. Empowerment: Staying employed is worth up to 14 years, and it’s often more about being needed than making money. Trumping general intelligence, previous academic achievement and personality, hope “uniquely predicts objective academic achievement,” showed a three-year longitudinal study out of the University of Manchester. A study in elementary schools in Hawaii has found that a focused program to build social, emotional and character skills resulted in significantly improved overall quality of education, as evaluated by teachers, parents and students. Specific methods of internal shifting can lead to incredible self empowerment which changes the way we experience every event in our lives.

3. Natural Anti-inflammatories: Daily supplements of curcumin combined with diet and exercise strategies have been found to be associated with more than a 60% reduction in triglyceride levels. It inhibits inflammatory reactions, has anti-diabetic effects, reduces cholesterol among other powerful health effects. Curcumin exerts anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidative effects. Omega-3s are another powerful anti-inflammatory. They convert into hormone-like substances that decrease inflammation and pain. According to Dr. Alfred D. Steinberg, an arthritis expert at the National Institute of Health, fish oil is an anti-inflammatory agent which acts directly on the immune system by suppressing 40 to 55 percent of the release of cytokines, compounds known to destroy joints. Many other studies also demonstrate that eating moderate amounts of fish or taking fish oil reduces pain and inflammation.

4. High Fiber and Fermented Foods: Our bowel movements are key predictors to our well-being and fiber is truly a proxy for healthy gut flora. Health care of the future may include personalized diagnosis of an individual’s “microbiome” to determine what prebiotics or probiotics are needed to provide balance.Your gut bacteria can reveal whether you suffer from many different diseases such as diabetes and many others. Increased intakes of fermented foods are associated with significantly reduced risks of skin conditions, digestive problems and even autoimmune disease. The potential health benefits of fermented foods like doenjang, chungkookjang, kimchi, kombucha, miso, tempeh, pickles, fermented seafood, makgeolli, and beer may be linked directly to the ingestion of live microorganisms which all have tremendous benefits on the overall functioning of the human body as we age.

5. Meditation: Almost every disease in the body is initiated or aggravated by high cortisol levels which are elevated in people who lack the ability to calm their thoughts and minds. Regular meditation effectively supports mental, emotional and physical health in numerous tangible ways. In building upon this strong body of evidence, researchers are continuing to deepen our understanding of the profound and inspirational benefits of regular meditation practice in everyday life. The data itself is encouraging. Some studies link meditation to enhanced telomerase activity. Most of scientific studies on meditation have shown it benefits our cardiovascular and mental health and wellness. More than 350 peer-reviewed research studies on the Transcendental Meditation technique have been published in over 160 scientific journals.

6. Intermittent fasting: Intermittent fasting allows the body to use fat as it’s primary source of energy instead of sugar and there are many benefits. Extends lifespan and lowers mortality. According to MIT biologists, age-related loss of stem cell function can be reversed by a 24-hour fast. Some studies show that after periods of fasting, insulin becomes more effective in telling cells to take up glucose from blood. Intermittent fasting improves the immune system because it reduces free radical damage, regulates inflammatory conditions in the body and starves off cancer cell formation.

7. Interval Training: One of the most efficient paths towards cardiovascular fitness is interval training. There is now enough documentation to suggest that it does benefit all-cause mortality. By recruiting new muscle fibers and increasing the body’s ability to use fuel, interval training potentially lowers the risk of metabolic syndrome. This type of vigorous exercise cuts deep belly fat and fat around the waist. After interval training, the amount of fat burned in an hour of continuous moderate cycling increased by 36 percent, said Jason L. Talanian, the lead author of the study and an exercise scientist at the University of Guelph in Ontario. Cardiovascular fitness — the ability of the heart and lungs to supply oxygen to working muscles — improved by 13 percent. Results were independent from any type of special dieting or food plans.

8. NAC and Glutathione: N-acetylcysteine is converted by the body into an amino acid called cysteine. Cysteine also helps synthesize glutathione, one of the body’s most important natural antioxidants and detoxifiers of chemicals into less harmful compounds. Glutathione is known to aid in the transport of nutrients to lymphocytes and phagocytes, two major classes of immune cells, and to protect cell membranes. Researchers found that mushrooms have high amounts of glutathione known for immune system boosting propertiesand anti-cancer capabilities. NAC can protect against a wide range of health problems and the science backs up the claim. In one studythere was a 30% increase in lifespan of mice. This powerful metabolite is also used against environmental pollutants including carbon monoxide, chloroform, urethanes, herbicides, pesticides, reducing toxicity of cancer drugs, hangover remedy, damage due to certain X-ray dyes; and for human immunodeficiency virus (HIV).

9. Decreasing Calories: Calorie restriction leads scientists to molecular pathways that slow aging, improve health. Organisms from yeast to rodents to humans all benefit from cutting calories. Restricting calories can double or even triple lifespan. About 30 percent of the animals on calorie restriction diets die at an advanced age without any diseases normally related to aging. The less you eat the longer you will live. Studies have shown how the lifespan of people in certain cultures increased due to their diets. One of the primary effects of aging is a slower metabolism, the younger your body is, the faster and more efficient your metabolism. The less you eat, the less toll it takes on your digestive system. Aware of the profound influence of calorie restriction on animals, some people are cutting their calorie intake by 25 percent or more in hopes of lengthening lifespan.

10. Vitamin D: In the absence of vitamin D from sunlight, disease increases more than 1000 percent. Vitamin D is lacking in some 70 percent of American children. Data from a systematic review of almost 200 population-based studies shows that more than a third of populations worldwide may suffer from low levels of vitamin D. Researchers have discovered that it’s active in many tissues and cells besides bone and controls an enormous number of genes, including some associated with cancers, autoimmune disease, and infection. It’s been known that vitamin D can prevent that genetic damage. The best way to get vitamin D is getting out in the sun and stop lathering on sunscreen. Researchers at the University of Leeds suggest that people with very pale skin may be unable to spend enough time in the sun to make the amount of vitamin D the body needs — while also avoiding sunburn. So it’s important to have your vitamin D levels assessed by a qualified health practitioner who can order the appropriate tests.

Walt Whitman on Democracy and Optimism as a Mighty Form of Resistance

“I can conceive of no better service… than boldly exposing the weakness, liabilities and infinite corruptions of democracy.”

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http://www.brainpickings.org

By Maria Popova

July 29, 2018

 

“Progress is never permanent, will always be threatened, must be redoubled, restated and reimagined if it is to survive,” Zadie Smith wrote in her spectacular essay on optimism and despair. The illusion of permanent progress inflicts a particularly damning strain of despair as we witness the disillusioning undoing of triumphs of democracy and justice generations in the making — despair preventable only by taking a wider view of history in order to remember that democracy advances in fits and starts, in leaps and backward steps, but advances nonetheless, on timelines exceeding any individual lifetime. Amid our current atmosphere of presentism bias and extreme narrowing of perspective, it is not merely difficult but downright countercultural to resist the ahistorical panic by taking such a telescopic view — lucid optimism that may be our most unassailable form of resistance to the corruptions and malfunctions of democracy.

That is what Walt Whitman (May 31, 1819–March 26, 1892) insisted on again and again in Specimen Days (public library) — the splendid collection of his prose fragments, letters, and diary entries that gave us his wisdom on the wisdom of trees, the singular power of music, how art enhances life, and what makes life worth living.

Walt Whitman (Library of Congress)

Shortly before his sixtieth birthday and a decade after issuing his immensely prescient admonition that “America, if eligible at all to downfall and ruin, is eligible within herself, not without,” Whitman writs under the heading “DEMOCRACY IN THE NEW WORLD”:

I can conceive of no better service in the United States, henceforth, by democrats of thorough and heart-felt faith, than boldly exposing the weakness, liabilities and infinite corruptions of democracy.

Having lived and saved lives through the Civil War, having seen the swell of “vast crops of poor, desperate, dissatisfied, nomadic, miserably-waged populations,” having witnessed the corrosion of idealism and the collapse of democratic values into corruption and complacency, Whitman still faces a dispiriting landscape with a defiant and irrepressible optimism — our mightiest and most countercultural act of courage, then and now and always:

Though I think I fully comprehend the absence of moral tone in our current politics and business, and the almost entire futility of absolute and simple honor as a counterpoise against the enormous greed for worldly wealth, with the trickeries of gaining it, all through society in our day, I still do not share the depression and despair on the subject which I find possessing many good people.

Zooming out of the narrow focus of his cultural moment — as we would be well advised to do with ours — Whitman takes a telescopic perspective of time, progress, and social change, and considers what it really takes to win the future:

The advent of America, the history of the past century, has been the first general aperture and opening-up to the average human commonalty, on the broadest scale, of the eligibilities to wealth and worldly success and eminence, and has been fully taken advantage of; and the example has spread hence, in ripples, to all nations. To these eligibilities — to this limitless aperture, the race has tended, en-masse, roaring and rushing and crude, and fiercely, turbidly hastening — and we have seen the first stages, and are now in the midst of the result of it all, so far. But there will certainly ensue other stages, and entirely different ones. In nothing is there more evolution than the American mind. Soon, it will be fully realized that ostensible wealth and money-making, show, luxury, &c., imperatively necessitate something beyond — namely, the sane, eternal moral and spiritual-esthetic attributes, elements… Soon, it will be understood clearly, that the State cannot flourish, (nay, cannot exist,) without those elements. They will gradually enter into the chyle of sociology and literature. They will finally make the blood and brawn of the best American individualities of both sexes.

Three years later, and ten presidencies before a ruthless government began assaulting and exploiting nature as a resource for commercial and political gain, Whitman revisits the subject under the heading “NATURE AND DEMOCRACY—MORTALITY”:

American Democracy, in its myriad personalities, in factories, work-shops, stores, offices — through the dense streets and houses of cities, and all their manifold sophisticated life — must either be fibred, vitalized, by regular contact with out-door light and air and growths, farm-scenes, animals, fields, trees, birds, sun-warmth and free skies, or it will morbidly dwindle and pale. We cannot have grand races of mechanics, work people, and commonalty, (the only specific purpose of America,) on any less terms. I conceive of no flourishing and heroic elements of Democracy in the United States, or of Democracy maintaining itself at all, without the Nature-element forming a main part — to be its health-element and beauty-element — to really underlie the whole politics, sanity, religion and art of the New World.

Specimen Days remains one of the most timelessly insightful books I have ever encountered. Complement this particular portion with Iris Murdoch on why art is essential for democracy, Rebecca Solnit on lucid optimism in dark times, and Amanda Palmer and Neil Gaiman’s animated tribute to Leonard Cohen’s anthem to democracy, then revisit Whitman on the essence of happiness and his advice on the building blocks of character.

Mars discovery almost certainly proves life exists on other planets

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Natural News

by: JD Heyes

Monday, June 11, 2018

The age-old mystery, “Are we alone in the galaxy?” is now closer than ever before to being solved.

The answer is: Probably not.

In the last few days, Fox News reported a “massive” discovery regarding Mars: The Curiosity rover put there by NASA found organic molecules on the ‘red planet.’

“We found organic molecules in rocks from an ancient lake bed,” said Jen Eigenbrode, research scientist at Goddard Flight Center in Goddard, Md., at a press conference simultaneously held at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. A variety of molecules were identified, she noted further.

According to the space agency, the rocks are billions of years old. And, while scientists painstakingly attempted to explain that “life” had not been found on Mars, organic molecules could not have existed in a vacuum. Organic suggests ‘life form.’

What’s more, scientists explained that the molecules they discovered could provide additional clues as to what they belong to.

“Organic compounds are fundamental to our search for life,” said Paul Mahaffy, director of the Solar System Exploration Division at Goddard.

Fox News noted further:

Described as the most technologically advanced rover ever built, Curiosity launched on Nov. 26, 2011. The rover landed on Mars’ Gale Crate on Aug. 6, 2012, with the goal of determining whether Mars was ever able to support microbial life.

Eigenbrode told reporters that the organic molecules “could have come from things that are non-biological,” but that’s a technical explanation — something she has to say because NASA doesn’t have the body of something to show the world.

But a definition of “organic” notes that it is “of, relating to, or arising in a bodily organ … of, relating to, or derived from living organisms.”

And, other scientists noted, the molecules were discovered because researchers were specifically looking for signs of life on the planet. (Related: Multiple UFO sightings near the ISS lead some people to believe we’re being watched by aliens.)

“All life that we know of is based on organic molecules,” said Eigenbrode. “There’s a whole suite of chemical and physical things that we could measure to find signatures of life.”

Other signs of alien life

The Curiosity rover has already made interesting life-related discoveries on the red planet. For instance, in 2013 it found a rock sample showing that ancient Mars could have supported living microbes. And, in 2014, the rover measured a tenfold spike in methane, which is an organic byproduct, in the atmosphere surrounding it. And, at that time, the probe detected additional organic molecules in a sample of rock and power collected by its drill.

Scientists confirmed Thursday that the rover is providing them with additional details surrounding Mars’ methane-laced atmosphere. The machine has discovered “a repeatable, identifiable pattern in the methane measurement,” Chris Webster, a senior research fellow at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, told reporters. He added that this could be “key to unlocking the mysteries associated with Mars methane.”

Other indications that ‘we’re not alone’ have been revealed recently as well.

As The National Sentinel reports, a once-secret report written by the Pentagon in 2009 contained details of contact between carrier-based U.S. Navy F/A-18s and an unidentified flying object off the coast of California in 2004.

The planes, flying from the USS Nimitz, were in contact with the craft repeatedly over a two-week period in November of that year.

The report noted that pilots witnessed a “tic-tac” shaped object that could travel at “ballistic missile” speeds and then immediately stop to hover.

Radar operators aboard the Nimitz and one of its escort ships, the USS Princeton, were able to track the object, but they were never able to ‘lock on’ to it (meaning they could never have targeted the object).

It’s not “proof” of alien life but it’s the closest thing to it. Kind of like discovering “organic molecules” on a nearby planet.

Read more about space-related discoveries at Space.news.

J.D. Heyes is also editor-in-chief of The National Sentinel.

Sources include:

TheNationalSentinel.com

FoxNews.com

I give the fight up

“I give the fight up; let there be an end,

A privacy, an obscure nook for me.

I want to be forgotten even by God.”

Robert Browning, Paracelsus, 1835

(And Lou, 2018)

World Press Photo contest winners pack emotional punch

WARNING: This story contains graphic images

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CBC News

Apr 14, 2018

View the entire collection of winning images from the 60th World Press Photo Contest

The winning image in the World Press Photo of the Year 2018 contest and first prize for spot news singles, taken by Ronaldo Schemidt, shows Jose Victor Salazar Balza in flames during a violent protest against Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, in Caracas, on May 3, 2017.

 

(Ronaldo Schemidt/Agence France-Presse via Reuters)

Las Vegas massacre

In the spot news stories category, a winning image taken by David Becker shows police after a gunman opened fire on concertgoers at the Route 91 Harvest music festival, killing 58 people, in Las Vegas on Oct. 1, 2017.

 

(David Becker/Getty Images via Reuters)

Rohingya dead

The winning image for general news singles, taken by Patrick Brown, shows the bodies of drowned Rohingya refugees. Their boat capsized off Inani Beach, near Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, on Sept. 27, 2017.

 

(Patrick Brown/Panos Pictures for Unicef via Reuters)

London attack

Second-place winner in the spot news stories category, this image by Toby Melville shows a passerby comforting U.S. tourist Melissa Cochran, injured in an attack on pedestrians at Westminster Bridge in London on March 22, 2017. Cochran survived, but her husband, Kurt, was killed in the attack.

 

(Toby Melville/Reuters)

Explosive protest

Third place in the spot news stories category was this image taken by Juan Barreto showing a fiery explosion during a street protest in Caracas, Venezuela, on May 3, 2017.

 

(Juan Barreto/Agence France-Presse via Reuters)

Car-ramming attack

A second-place image for spot news singles, taken by Ryan M. Kelly, shows a car striking protesters who demonstrated in opposition to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Va., on Aug. 12, 2017.

 

(Ryan M. Kelly, The Daily Progress via Reuters)

Flight from Myanmar

Canadian photographer Kevin Frayer’s second-place image in the general news stories category shows Rohingya refugees carrying their belongings as they walk on the Bangladesh side of the Naf River, on  Oct. 2, 2017, after fleeing Myanmar.

 

(Kevin Frayer/Getty Images via Reuters)

Burning village

A group of Rohingya at the Leda makeshift settlement in Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh, watch as houses burn across the border in Myanmar, on Sept. 9, 2017. The image by Md Masfiqur Akhtar Sohan took third place in the general news singles category.

 

(Md Masfiqur Akhtar Sohan/NurPhoto Agency via Reuters)

Death in Mosul

Goran Tomasevic captured this image showing an Iraqi special forces soldier moments after he shot dead a suspected suicide bomber, during the offensive to retake Mosul, Iraq, on March 3, 2017. His photo earned third place in the spot news singles category.

 

(Goran Tomasevic/Reuters)

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SIT – Short Documentary Film about Purpose in Life (12 min)

A film about purpose in life, seen through the eyes of a Buddhist monk and his son.