‘Big Bird’ On Sun? NASA Spies Coronal Hole That Looks Like ‘Sesame Street’ Fave (PHOTOS)
Posted: 06/04/2012 8:48 am Updated: 06/04/2012 10:19 am
This photo from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory spacecraft, snapped on June 1, 2012, captures what looks like Big Bird on the surface of the sun. The feature is actually a coronal hole, a dark area of the sun’s upper atmosphere.
By: Mike Wall
Published: 06/01/2012 03:59 PM EDT on SPACE.com
A new photo from a NASA sun-watching spacecraft highlights a huge solar feature that looks a lot like the beloved Big Bird from the children’s television show “Sesame Street.”
The image, snapped today (June 1) by NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) probe, actually shows a so-called coronal hole — an area where the sun’s corona, or outer atmosphere, is dark. But the resemblance to Big Bird, or one of his feathered kin anyway, is uncanny.
“I can’t get over how much this looks like Big Bird — but it is a coronal hole on the sun,” reads a Twitter post today by Camilla Corona SDO, the spacecraft’s rubber chicken mascot.
The rubber chicken’s Twitter feed is part of NASA’s social media outreach efforts. Officials pasted a picture of the “Sesame Street” character next to the ‘Big Bird’ coronal hole for comparison.
The image of Big Bird on the sun is an example of pareidolia, which is the tendency of the human brain to recognize animals or other prominent shapes in vague or random images. This view of an elephant’s head on Mars is another example.
Coronal holes are associated with “open” magnetic field lines, which extend out into interplanetary space rather than arc back to the solar surface. Coronal holes are often found near the sun’s poles, Camilla added, and the high-speed solar wind — a stream of charged particles flowing from the sun’s upper atmosphere — is known to originate in them.
The super-speedy solar wind from the ‘Big Bird’ coronal hole will reach Earth between June 5 and June 7, Camilla said.
After remaining relatively quiet for several years, the sun has entered an active phase of its 11-year solar cycle, firing off a number of strong flares and coronal mass ejections (CMEs) — huge clouds of solar plasma — in the past several months.
CMEs that hit Earth inject large amounts of energy into the planet’s magnetic field, spawning potentially devastating geomagnetic storms that can disrupt GPS signals, radio communications and power grids for days, researchers say. These storms can also super-charge the northern and southern lights, generating brilliant shows for skywatchers at high latitudes.
Experts think the current cycle, known as Solar Cycle 24, will peak in 2013.
The $850 million SDO spacecraft launched in February 2010. The probe’s five-year mission is the cornerstone of a NASA science program called Living with a Star, which aims to help researchers better understand aspects of the sun-Earth system that affect our lives and society.
May 30, 2012, a wildfire burning in Gila National Forest in southwestern New Mexico had burned more of the landscape than any other fire in the state’s history.
A NASA Earth-observing satellite has snapped a photo of the huge wildfire chewing up vast swathes of southwestern New Mexico.
The Whitewater-Baldy fire, which was sparked by a lightning strike on May 16, has burned roughly 377 square miles (976 square kilometers) as of today (June 4), making it the largest wildfire in New Mexico history. NASA’s Aqua spacecraft captured a view of the conflagration from space, showing vast plumes of smoke billowing over the rugged Gila National Forest near the borders with Arizona and Mexico.
Aqua took the photo on May 29 with its Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument, NASA officials said.
More than 1,000 firefighters have been battling the blaze, which remains less than 20 percent contained. The area’s rugged terrain has hampered progress, as have strong winds.
Though Whitewater-Baldy is big, it currently pales in comparison to some other wildfires that have torched the continental United States. For example, last year’s Wallow Fire— which spread from an unattended campfire in eastern Arizona — burned 841 square miles (2,178 square km).
The great Yellowstone fire of 1988 burned nearly three times that much land, scorching roughly 2,340 square miles (6,060 square km) across Wyoming, Montana and Idaho, including much of Yellowstone National Park. And a 1910 blaze in Idaho and Montana covered about 4,700 square miles (12,173 square km), killing nearly 90 people in the process.
Before Whitewater-Baldy grew so large, New Mexico’s biggest wildfire had been the Las Conchas blaze, which burned 244 square miles (632 square km) in 2011 in the northern part of the state.
The “Minimum” Solar Box Cooker is a solar oven that you can built quickly from two cardboard boxes.
The “Minimum” Solar Box Cooker is a simple box cooker that can be built in a few hours for very little money. When this cooker was designed, it was named it the “Minimum Solar Box Cooker” because, at the time, it represented the simplest design we could devise. What we didn’t communicate with that name was that this is a full-power cooker that works very well, and is in no way minimum as far as its cooking power goes.
What You Will Need
– Two cardboard boxes. We would suggest that you use an inner box that is at least 15 inch x 15 inch (38 cm x 38 cm), but bigger is better. The outer box should be larger than the small box all around, but it doesn’t matter how much bigger, as long as there is a half inch (1.5cm) or more of an airspace between the two boxes. The distance between the two boxes does not have to be equal all the way around. Also, keep in mind that it is very easy to adjust the size of a cardboard box by cutting and gluing it.
– One sheet of cardboard to make the lid. This piece must be approximately 2 to 3 inch (4 to 8 cm) larger all the way around than the top of the finished cooker (the outer box).
– One can of flat-black spray paint (look for the words “non-toxic when dry”) or one small jar of black tempera paint. Some people have reported making their own paint out of soot mixed with wheat paste.
– One Reynolds Oven Cooking Bag®. These are available in almost all supermarkets in the U.S. and they can be mail-ordered from Solar Cookers International. They are rated for 400 °F (204 °C) so they are perfect for solar cooking. They are not UV-resistant; thus they will become more brittle and opaque over time and may need to be replaced periodically. A sheet of glass can also be used, but this is more expensive and fragile, and doesn’t offer that much better cooking except on windy days.
Building the Base
Fold the top flaps closed on the outer box and set the inner box on top and trace a line around it onto the top of the outer box, Remove the inner box and cut along this line to form a hole in the top of the outer box (Figure 1).
Decide how deep you want your oven to be. It should be about 1 inch (2.5 cm) deeper than your largest pot and about 1″ shorter than the outer box so that there will be a space between the bottoms of the boxes once the cooker is assembled. Using a knife, slit the corners of the inner box down to that height. Fold each side down forming extended flaps (Figure 2). Folding is smoother if you first draw a firm line from the end of one cut to the other where the folds are to go.
Glue aluminum foil to the inside of both boxes and also to the inside of the remaining top flaps of the outer box. Don’t bother being neat on the outer box, since it will never be seen, nor will it experience any wear. The inner box will be visible even after assembly, so if it matters to you, you might want to take more time here. Glue the top flaps closed on the outer box.
Place some wads of crumpled newspaper into the outer box so that when you set the inner box down inside the hole in the outer box, the flaps on the inner box just touch the top of the outer box (Figure 3). Glue these flaps onto the top of the outer box. Trim the excess flap length to be even with the perimeter of the outer box.
Finally, to make the drip pan, cut a piece of cardboard, the same size as the bottom of the interior of the oven and apply foil to one side. Paint this foiled side black and allow it to dry. Put this in the oven so that it rests on the bottom of the inner box (black side up), and place your pots on it when cooking. The base is now finished.
Building the Removable Lid
Take the large sheet of cardboard and lay it on top of the base. Trace its outline and then cut and fold down the edges to form a lip of about 3″ (7.5cm). Fold the corner flaps around and glue to the side lid flaps. (Figure 4). Orient the corrugations so that they go from left to right as you face the oven so that later the prop may be inserted into the corrugations (Figure 6). One trick you can use to make the lid fit well is to lay the pencil or pen against the side of the box when marking (Figure 5). Don’t glue this lid to the box; you’ll need to remove it to move pots in and out of the oven.
To make the reflector flap, draw a line on the lid, forming a rectangle the same size as the oven opening. Cut around three sides and fold the resulting flap up forming the reflector (Figure 6). Foil this flap on the inside.
To make a prop bend a 12″ (30cm) piece of hanger wire as indicated in Figure 6. This can then be inserted into the corrugations as shown.
Next, turn the lid upside-down and glue the oven bag (or other glazing material) in place. We have had great success using the turkey size oven bag (19″ x 23 1/2″, 47.5cm x 58.5cm) applied as is, i.e., without opening it up. This makes a double layer of plastic. The two layers tend to separate from each other to form an airspace as the oven cooks. When using this method, it is important to also glue the bag closed on its open end. This stops water vapor from entering the bag and condensing. Alternately you can cut any size oven bag open to form a flat sheet large enough to cover the oven opening.
Improving Efficiency
The oven you have built should cook fine during most of the solar season. If you would like to improve the efficiency to be able to cook on more marginal days, you can modify your oven in any or all of the following ways:
Make pieces of foiled cardboard the same size as the oven sides and place these in the wall spaces.
Make a new reflector the size of the entire lid (see photo above).
Make the drip pan using sheet metal, such as aluminum flashing. Paint this black and elevate this off the bottom of the oven slightly with small cardboard strips.
Cooking Directions
Put food in dark pots. Use with dark, tight-fitting lids.
Choose a cooking location. Set the cooker on a dry, level surface in direct sunshine away from potential shadows. For best results, solar cooking requires continuous, direct sunshine throughout the cooking period.
Put the pots in the cooker and replace the lid. Put the pots in cooker. If you’re cooking multiple dishes, quicker-cooking items should be placed toward the front of the cooker (opposite the reflector) and slower-cooking items toward the back, where access to sunlight is best. Place the lid on cooker.
Orient the cooker. Orient the cooker according to the details below. Once oriented, the cooker doesn’t need to be moved again during three to four hours of cooking. For longer cooking, or for large quantities of food, reorienting the cooker every couple of hours speeds cooking a little. Food cooks fastest when the shadow created by the cooker is directly behind it.
To cook a noontime meal orient the cooker so that the front side (opposite the reflector) faces easterly, or approximately where the sun will be midmorning. In general, it is good to get the food in early and not worry about it until mealtime. For most dishes you should start cooking by 9 or 10 am.
To cook an evening meal orient the cooker so that the front side faces westerly, or approximately where the sun will be midafternoon. For most dishes, it’s best to start cooking by 1 or 2 pm.
For all-day cooking orient the cooker toward where sun will be at noon or early afternoon. The food will be ready and waiting for the evening meal.
Adjust the reflector. With the adjustable prop, angle the reflector so that maximum sunlight shines on the pots.
Leave the food to cook for several hours or until done. There is no need to stir the food while it is cooking.
Remove the pots. Using pot holders, remove the pots from the cooker. (CAUTION: Pots get very hot.) If you won’t be eating for a couple of hours, you may want to leave the pots in the cooker and close the lid. The insulative properties of the cooker will keep the food warm for a while.
This is a week for catching up on a lot of things. Once it becomes known on all levels, especially energetically, that you are doing this, many things can come to the fore. Take a look at them for what they are at this time, in the present moment and do not dwell on what they were then. The shifts and vagaries of the energies are such that nostalgia and attempts to reinvent the past will be met with frustration, even physical issues. What has passed was there for you to experience. The choices you made were right at the time. There was learning going on, perspective forming. Now it is time to put it all together. And there will be ample opportunity for that this week as all sorts of stuff just happens. You might feel as though someone had pushed the fast forward button. Do not try to hold onto what is going on, let it go. The important thing at this time is the overall pattern, the minutiae, well, it just does not mean that much right now. Continue reading →
CORONAL HOLE: Spewing solar wind, a yawning dark fissure in the sun’s atmosphere is turning toward Earth. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory photographed the “coronal hole” during the early hours of June 1st:
Coronal holes are places where the sun’s magnetic field opens up and allows the solar wind to escape. A stream of solar wind flowing from this coronal hole will reach Earth on June 5th – 7th, possibly stirring geomagnetic storms. High-latitude sky watchers should be alert for auroras
Disease Outbreaks Tied to Imported Foods Increasing according to the CDC
By Dr. Mercola
The more steps your food goes through before it reaches your plate, the greater your chances of contamination becomes.
If you are able to get your food locally, directly from the field or after harvest, such as directly from a farmer or farmer’s market, you knock out numerous routes that could expose your food to contamination.
So it is not surprising that new research released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows that foodborne disease outbreaks linked to imported foods are on the rise.
As Food Imports Rise, so do Foodborne Disease Outbreaks
Foodborne disease outbreaks linked to imported foods rose in both 2009 and 2010 (data for 2011 is still being analyzed).
In all, 39 outbreaks and 2,348 illnesses were linked to imported foods from 15 countries.
However, nearly half of the outbreaks occurred in 2009 and 2010 …
Most of the outbreaks were due to fish (17 outbreaks) and spices (particularly fresh or dried peppers), which are also among the most commonly imported foods.
For instance, data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA’s) Economic Research Service (ERS) reveals that 85 percent of seafood eaten by Americans is imported! As rates of food imports rise (ERS data shows that U.S. food import has nearly doubled from 1998 to 2007), it’s likely that disease outbreaks will become increasingly common. As it is, the numbers are thought to be a serious underestimate, as food-borne disease outbreaks are commonly under-reported.
Nearly Half of the Tainted Foods Came From This Region …
The data shows that more types of food, from more different countries, are being linked to disease outbreaks. However, one region still takes the “prize” for the most tainted food … Nearly 45 percent of the foods linked to outbreaks came from Asia.
This may be because this region is also a major exporter to the United States, so the sheer numbers of imports would increase the chances. China is the largest exporter of seafood to the United States. (They’re also the largest U.S. supplier of canned vegetables, fruit juices, honey, and other processed foods.) Wal-Mart, in particular, is one of China’s largest trading partners. However, there are problems with food quality in the region as well.
According to a 2008 Congressional testimony by Don Kraemer, deputy director of the Office of Food Safety at the FDA:i
“In the past, [the] FDA has encountered compliance problems with several Chinese food exports, including lead and cadmium in ceramicware used to store and ship food, and staphylococcal contamination of canned mushrooms. While improvements have been made in these products, the safety of food and other products from China remains a concern for [the] FDA, Congress, and American consumers.”
Since that testimony, a variety of Chinese exports have come under fire for being dangerously contaminated with one poison or another, and in some cases with deadly consequences. This includes:
Pet food ingredients laced with toxic melamine
Imported livestock quarantined for disease and banned chemical contaminants
Catfish filets from Chinese aquatic farms tainted with bacteria and heavy metals
Dried apples preserved with a cancer-causing chemical
Mushrooms laced with illegal pesticides
Another Asian country, Taiwan, has also made headlines because of the contamination of numerous foods and beverages withplasticizer chemicals like DEHP. More than 1 million sports drinks, fruit jams, instant noodles containing sesame oil packets, cookies and other food products were taken off shelves due to the toxin. It appears that the chemical was added to foods as a substitute for more expensive ingredients like palm oil, and it’s unclear how long this had going on or whether most manufacturers were aware of the contamination.
Our global food system makes it so Asian foods (and those from many other regions) are easily obtainable at your local supermarket … but when food is produced and distributed on such a massive scale, contamination often occurs on a massive scale as well.
Food Infections Common from U.S. Foods Too
An estimated one in six Americans gets infected every year from consuming contaminated food. Sometimes this results in a 24-hour bout of diarrhea and vomiting that clears up on its own, but in other cases foodborne pathogens can lead to organ failure, paralysis, neurological impairment, blindness, stillbirths and even death.
Over 100,000 people are hospitalized from foodborne illnesses each year in the United States, and 3,000 die. This is not only from imported foods, but from those produced right here in the United States.
You see, just because a food is manufactured on U.S. soil does not guarantee its safety. Most of the meat sold in U.S. grocery stores and restaurants come from confined animal feeding operations (CAFOs), which can house tens of thousands of animals (and in the case of chickens, 100,000) under one roof, in nightmarish, unsanitary, disease-ridden conditions. It’s under these conditions that foodborne pathogens flourish, and indeed studies have shown that the larger the farm, the greater the chances of contamination.
In one study, more than 23 percent of CAFOs with caged hens tested positive for Salmonella, while just over 4 percent of organic flocks tested positive. The highest prevalence of Salmonella occurred in the largest flocks (30,000 birds or more), which contained over four times the average level of salmonella found in smaller flocks.Organic flocks are typically much smaller than the massive commercial flocks where bacteria flourish, which is part of the reason why eggs (and other products, like meat) from truly organic, free-range sources are FAR less likely to contain dangerous bacteria such as Salmonella.
If you still buy your meat at your supermarket, even if it’s U.S. raised, you should know that you are directly supporting a food system that typically promotes widespread contamination.
And you can bet that as long as there are people willing to buy cheap, contaminated meat, the industry will continue to produce it.Consumer Reports tests indicated that 83 percent of fresh, whole broiler chickens bought at supermarkets nationwide harbor Campylobacter or Salmonella.ii This is clearly unacceptable, and if you start to demand more — meat that is raised in a healthy, humane way, free from toxins and disease — producers will have no choice but to listen.
Buying Local is One of the Best Ways to Avoid Food Poisoning
I encourage you to support the small family farms in your area, particularly organic farms that respect the laws of nature and use the relationships between animals, plants, insects, soil, water and habitat to create synergistic, self-supporting, non-polluting, GMO-free ecosystems.
If you value food safety, you’ll want to get your meat, chickens and eggs from smaller community farms with free-ranging animals, organically fed and locally marketed. This is the way food has been raised and distributed for centuries …
If you opt for imported foods, or those from U.S. CAFOs, your food will go through upwards of 9 steps before it reaches your dinner plate. Public health agencies like the FDA use the term “field-to-fork continuum” to describe the path any given food takes on the way to your plate, and during any of the following steps, contamination is possible:
Open field production
Harvesting
Field packing
Greenhouse production
Packinghouse or field packing
Repacking and other distribution operations
Fresh-cut/value-added processing
Food service and retail
Consumer
I personally purchase my whole chickens from a health food store that gets them from a local farmer and they are grown organically and humanely. They cost a bit more but they are worth it — and when you consider that most of us only spend around 10% of our income on food, it is a bargain to get high-quality food. In most countries and in previous generations in the US, up to 25% of income was spent on food.
If you are able to get your food directly from the farmer, you knock out five potential operations that could expose your food to contamination. The closer you are to the source of your food, the fewer hands it has to pass through and the less time it will sit in storage — so the better, and likely safer, it will be for you and your family. Plus, when you know the person who grows your food, you can ask questions about its growing conditions — an impossibility when you buy food from CAFOs or other countries. If eating locally is new to you, rest assured that you can find a source near you, regardless of whether you’re in a remote or rural area or a big city.
Here’s a list of helpful resources:
For a listing of national farmer’s markets, see this link.
Another great web site is www.localharvest.org. There you can find farmers’ markets, family farms, and other sources of sustainably grown food in your area where you can buy produce, grass-fed meats, and many other goodies.
Subscribe to a community supported agriculture program (CSA). Some are seasonal while others are year round programs. Once you subscribe, many will drop affordable, high quality locally-grown produce right at your door step. To find a CSA near you, go to the USDA’s website where you can search by city, state, or zip code.
Eat Well Guide: Wholesome Food from Healthy Animals is a free online directory of sustainably raised meat, poultry, dairy, and eggs from farms, stores, restaurants, inns, and hotels, and online outlets in the United States and Canada.
FoodRoutes. Their “Find Good Food” map can help you connect with local farmers to find the freshest, tastiest food possible. On their interactive map, you can find a listing for local farmers, CSA’s, and markets near you.
For an even more comprehensive list of CSA’s and a host of other sustainable agriculture programs, check out this link to mySustainable Agriculture page.
Pneumonia Vaccine Shown to Actually Increase Bacterial Infections It Is Supposed to Prevent
By Dr. Mercola
It’s estimated that nearly one in 7 U.S. adults have been diagnosed with sinusitis in the past 12 months, which occurs when the mucous membranes in your nose and sinuses become irritated.i In most of these cases (90-98%) a virus is the cause, whereas in 2-10% of cases, a bacterial infection is also present.
These bacterial infections are becoming increasingly drug-resistant and therefore harder and harder to treat, which is why the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recently issued new treatment guidelines for sinusitis.
Alarmingly, however, buried on page 16 of their report is the acknowledgement that certain hard-to-treat bacterial infections in children are on the rise because of the widespread use of the conjugated pneumococcal vaccines!
Story at-a-glance
Certain hard-to-treat bacterial infections in children are on the rise because of the widespread use of antibiotics and the conjugated pneumococcal vaccines, including Prevnar
A report by the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) revealed that the presence of certain types of bacteria in cases of upper respiratory tract infections has “markedly increased” since the widespread use of pneumonia vaccines
Pneumonia bacterial strains may change one DNA letter about every 15 weeks, a rate of mutation similar to that of the common antibiotic-resistant superbug MRSA
The overuse of antibiotics for ear and sinus infections has also caused these pneumonia bacteria serotypes to become resistant to antibiotics
Overall, your best defense against any disease is having a robust healthy immune system
to read more, go to:
By Dr. Mercola
It’s estimated that nearly one in 7 U.S. adults have been diagnosed with sinusitis in the past 12 months, which occurs when the mucous membranes in your nose and sinuses become irritated.i In most of these cases (90-98%) a virus is the cause, whereas in 2-10% of cases, a bacterial infection is also present.
These bacterial infections are becoming increasingly drug-resistant and therefore harder and harder to treat, which is why the Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recently issued new treatment guidelines for sinusitis.
Alarmingly, however, buried on page 16 of their report is the acknowledgement that certain hard-to-treat bacterial infections in children are on the rise because of the widespread use of the conjugated pneumococcal vaccines!
Stunning Visualization of 56 Years of Tornadoes in the US
by NANCY ATKINSON on MAY 31, 2012
The tracks of tornadoes in the US during the past 56 years, categorized by F-Scale. Credit: John Nelson
It’s a wonder of nature, baby. Using information from data.gov, tech blogger John Nelson has created this spectacular image of tornado paths in the US over a 56 year period. The graphic categorizes the storms by F-scale with the brighter neon lines representing more violent storms.
Makes you want to hang on to something solid.
Nelson also provided some stats on all the storms in the different categories:
The numbers represent total deaths, total injuries, average miles the storms traveled
F0: 7, 267, 2
F1: 111, 3270, 6.58
F2: 363, 10373, 11.4
F3: 958, 18160, 17.80
F4: 1912, 28427, 28.62
F5: 1013, 11038, 38.87