Posted by: Shaun Tanner, 7:04 AM GMT on December 01, 2012
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There has been a lot of talk and forecasting leading up to this parade of storms that were expected to hit California. And after all of the talk and prognosticating, the two storms that have already occurred have brought pretty much par-for-the-course Winter storm conditions.
Normally when a somewhat strong storm hits California during the Winter months, it brings copious amounts of rainfall to the coastal hills from the Oregon border through the hills north of San Francisco. Then, there is is a fairly tight rainfall gradient to the south, where south of the San Francisco Bay Area receives significantly less rainfall than the rest of the state. The one exception to this is in the Santa Cruz mountains. These mountains receive some of the heaviest annual rainfall in the entire state.
This is what has happened for the first two storms. A lot of rain fell north of San Francisco, with some of the higher elevations receiving upwards of 10 inches of rain on Thursday/Friday. There was so much rainfall that the typically flood-prone Russian and Navarro Rivers were threatening to burst their banks once again.
Above is the flood stage graph for the Navarro River at Navarro, CA. Note that the river went into a minor flood on Friday before quickly receding below flood stage. There is another people in that graph, and it is considerably higher. This is because another major storm is on its way and could produce some significant flooding.
Likewise, during major storms, the Russian River at Guerneville often floods. As you can see from the above graph, the river did not exceed flood stage Friday, but it is forecast to reach minor flood stage Sunday and into Monday.
Next storm set for Sunday
Saturday will be far from dry as showery weather is likely for many areas of Northern California. However, the main event will hit California Sunday with more heavy rain and possibly another 7+ inches in the higher elevations. This rain is what could put flood-prone rivers above flood stage.
You can see the HPC precipitation forecast for Sunday morning through Monday morning shows a bulls eye of rain along the western Slopes of the Sierra Nevadas. This brings up a very important story. In a normal Winter storm that hits California, rain turns to snow in the Sierra Nevadas. This snowfall represents a very important source of drinking and irrigation water for the Golden State. But, it is important that this precipitation falls as snow, staying in the mountains as a natural reservoir until the Spring, when it melts and flows into the various state’s manmade reservoirs. However, this storm will dump nearly all of this precipitation as rain. That liquid water immediately flows into the mountain rivers and down into the Central Valley. Thus, the biggest concern I personally have with this upcoming storm is the potential for flooding along the Truckee River at Truckee, CA. A Flood Warning has been issued in anticipation of flooding. The stage could reach 7.7 feet by late Sunday morning, with the potential to cause major flooding to bridges and homes along Highway 89 in Truckee.
Bela Lugosi’s portrayal of Dracula has influenced how many people picture vampires.
Depending on which version of “history” you subscribe to, vampires originated in Egypt, China or, most infamously, Romania, where the real Romanian prince Vlad Tepes (1431-1476) is thought to have been at least a partial model for the decidedly fictional Dracula of Bram Stoker’s imagination.
Or, if you’re to believe officials in the village of Zarozje, Dracula is alive and well in Serbia. Yes, fear is said to be spreading.
The fears revolve around Serbian vampire Sava Savanovic who is, it should be noted, acknowledged locally to be a fairy tale character. Still, villagers are packing around hawthorn stakes and garlic and putting holy crosses up over doorways.
Depending on which version of “history” you subscribe to, vampires originated in Egypt, China or, most infamously, Romania, where the real Romanian prince Vlad Tepes (1431-1476) is thought to have been at least a partial model for the decidedly fictional Dracula of Bram Stoker’s imagination.
Or, if you’re to believe officials in the village of Zarozje, Dracula is alive and well in Serbia. Yes, fear is said to be spreading.
The fears revolve around Serbian vampire Sava Savanovic who is, it should be noted, acknowledged locally to be a fairy tale character. Still, villagers are packing around hawthorn stakes and garlic and putting holy crosses up over doorways.
“People are very worried. Everybody knows the legend of this vampire and the thought that he is now homeless and looking for somewhere else and possibly other victims is terrifying people,” Miodrag Vujetic, local municipal assembly member, told ABC News. “We are all frightened.
Might it all be just a ploy to generate tourism? Maybe, or maybe not, ABC reports. Many people in the region “still believe in vampires and take them quite seriously,” said Balkan historian James Lyon.
In general, belief in vampires is rooted in the human propensity for superstition and false assumptions in olden times about what happens to buried bodies, writes LiveScience columnist Benjamin Radford, author of “Scientific Paranormal Investigation: How to Solve Unexplained Mysteries.” For example, if a grave were dug up, people might’ve mistaken ordinary decomposition processes — such as a body being surprisingly preserved for long periods if buried in winter — for supernatural phenomena.
The Santiaguito dome on Santa Maria in Guatemala, showing a diffuse ash plume and a possible pyroclastic flow in the foreground. Image: Webcam capture on November 29, 2012 / INSIVUMEH.
You can see some of this activity on the INSIVUMEH webcam for the Santiaguito dome complex — even in the image from today, an ash plume as possible small pyroclastic flows are visible (see above).
The long and highly destructive hurricane season of 2012 has finally drawn to a close. The hurricane season of 2012 will long be remembered for spawning Hurricane Sandy–a freakish storm that was the largest, most powerful, and second most destructive Atlantic hurricane on record. But this year’s hurricane season had a number of unique attributes, making it one of the most bizarre seasons I’ve witnessed. Despite featuring a remarkable nineteen named storms–tied for the third highest total since record keeping began in 1851–this year’s hurricane season had just one major hurricane. That storm was Hurricane Michael, which stayed at Category 3 strength for a scant six hours. This is the least number of major hurricanes in a season since the El Niño year of 1997, which had only Category 3 Hurricane Erika. There were no Category 4 or 5 hurricanes in 2012, for just the 3rd time since the active hurricane period we are in began in 1995. The only two other years since 1995 without a Category 4 or stronger hurricane were the El Niño years of 2006 and 1997. Both of those seasons had around half the number of named storms of 2012–nine in 2006, and eight in 1997. The relative lack of strong storms in 2012 helped keep the Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) down to 128, about 30% above average.
Figure 1. Hurricane Sandy at 10:10 am EDT October 28, 2012. Image credit: NASA/GSFC.
A near-average year for number of tropical cyclones hitting the U.S.
Since the active hurricane period we’ve been in began in 1995, the U.S. has averaged getting hit by 4 named storms per year, with an average of 1.7 of these being hurricanes, and 0.6 being major Category 3 and stronger hurricanes. This year, we were hit by 3 named storms (Beryl, Debby, and Isaac). One of these was a hurricane (Isaac). Sandy didn’t count as a hurricane strike on the U.S., since it transitioned to an extratropical cyclone a few hours before landfall. No major hurricanes hit the U.S., making 2012 the 7th consecutive year without a major hurricane strike. The only other time we’ve had a streak that long occurred between 1861 – 1868, during the decade of the Civil War.
Figure 2. Vertical instability over the tropical Atlantic in 2004 – 2012 (blue line) compared to average (black line.) The instability is plotted in °C, as a difference in temperature from near the surface to the upper atmosphere (note that the same scale is not used in all the plots, making the black climatological line appear different, when it is really the same for each plot.) Thunderstorms grow much more readily when vertical instability is high. Instability was near average during the August – October peak of hurricane season in 2004 – 2009, but was much lower than average during the hurricane seasons of 2010 – 2012. There was an unusual amount of dry, sinking air in the tropical Atlantic during 2010 – 2012, and the resulting low atmospheric instability reduced the proportion of tropical storms that have intensified into hurricanes. Vertical instability from 2004 – 2011 is taken from NOAA/RAMMB and for 2012 from NOAA/SSD.
Unusually stable air over the Tropical Atlantic in 2012
For the third consecutive hurricane season, 2012 featured an unusual amount of dry, sinking air over the tropical Atlantic and Caribbean Sea. Due to warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures and an active African Monsoon that generated plenty of African waves, a remarkably high number of tropical storms managed to form, but the unusually stable air in the hurricane genesis regions made it difficult for the storms to become strong. When we did see storms undergo significant intensification, it tended to occur outside of the tropics, north of 25°N, where there was not as much dry, sinking air (Sandy’s intensification as it approached landfall in Cuba was an exception to this rule.) If we look at the last nine hurricane seasons (Figure 2), we can see that the hurricane seasons of 2010, 2011, and 2012 all featured similar levels of highly stable air over the tropical Atlantic. This is in marked contrast to what occurred the previous six years. The past three seasons all featured a near-record number of named storms (nineteen each year), but an unusually low ratio of strong hurricanes. Steering patterns the past three years also acted to keep most of the storms out to sea. Is this strange pattern something we’ll see more of, due to climate change? Or is it mostly due to natural cycles in hurricane activity? I don’t have any answers at this point, but the past three hurricane seasons have definitely been highly unusual in a historical context. I expect the steering currents to shift and bring more landfalling hurricanes to the U.S. at some point this decade, though.
Figure 3. Sea water floods the Ground Zero construction site at the World Trade Center, Monday, Oct. 29, 2012, in New York City. Image credit: AP.
Most notable events of the Hurricane Season of 2012 Hurricane Sandy was truly astounding in its size and power. At its peak size, twenty hours before landfall, Sandy had tropical storm-force winds that covered an area nearly one-fifth the area of the contiguous United States. Since detailed records of hurricane size began in 1988, only one tropical storm (Olga of 2001) has had a larger area of tropical storm-force winds, and no hurricanes has. Sandy’s area of ocean with twelve-foot seas peaked at 1.4 million square miles–nearly one-half the area of the contiguous United States, or 1% of Earth’s total ocean area. Most incredibly, ten hours before landfall (9:30 am EDT October 30), the total energy of Sandy’s winds of tropical storm-force and higher peaked at 329 terajoules–the highest value for any Atlantic hurricane since at least 1969. This is 2.7 times higher than Katrina’s peak energy, and is equivalent to five Hiroshima-sized atomic bombs. At landfall, Sandy’s tropical storm-force winds spanned 943 miles of the the U.S. coast. No hurricane on record has been wider; the previous record holder was Hurricane Igor of 2010, which was 863 miles in diameter. Sandy’s huge size prompted high wind warnings to be posted from Chicago to Eastern Maine, and from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula to Florida’s Lake Okeechobee–an area home to 120 million people. Sandy’s winds simultaneously caused damage to buildings on the shores of Lake Michigan at Indiana Dunes National Lake Shore, and toppled power lines in Nova Scotia, Canada–locations 1200 miles apart!
Figure 4. Hurricane Isaac lit up by moonlight as it spins towards the city of New Orleans, LA, on August 26, 2012. The Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (NPP) satellite captured these images with its Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). The “day-night band” of VIIRS detects light in a range of wavelengths from green to near-infrared and uses light intensification to enable the detection of dim signals. Image Credit: NASA/NOAA, Earth Observatory.
Hurricane Isaac hit Louisiana as a Category 1 hurricane with 80 mph winds on August 28, but the storm’s massive wind field brought a storm surge characteristic of a Category 2 hurricane to the coast. A storm surge of 11.1 feet was measured at Shell Beach, LA and higher surges were reported in portions of Louisiana. Fortunately, the new $14.5 billion upgrade to the New Orleans levee system kept the city dry. Isaac killed 9 people in the U.S., and 29 in the Caribbean.
Hurricane Ernesto hit Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula as a Category 1 hurricane with 85 mph winds on August 7. The storm killed 12 and did at least $250 million in damage.
Tropical Storm Debby formed on June 23, the earliest formation date on record for the season’s 4th storm. The previous record was Dennis, on July 5, 2005. Debby killed seven and did over $300 million in damage, but helped relieve drought conditions over Northern Florida and Southern Georgia.
Tropical Storm Beryl, which made landfall on May 28 near Jacksonville Beach, FL with 70 mph winds, was the strongest tropical storm to make landfall in the U.S. prior to June 1. Beryl killed two but did minimal damage.
Nadine lasted for 21.75 days as a named storm, the 5th longest-lasting tropical storm in the Atlantic basin.
It was the 3rd year in a row with 19 named storms.
No named storms existed during the month of July and November, but we still managed big numbers.
Only 7 seasons have had more hurricanes than 2012.
The season had two named storm before the official June 1 start of hurricane season, only the 3rd time that has occurred.
Eight named storms formed in August, which tied 2004 for the most to form in that month.
Typhoon Bopha a threat to the Philippines
In the Western Pacific, where typhoon season commonly brings several storms in December, we have impressive Typhoon Bopha. Bopha is expected to head west-northwest and intensify over the weekend, potentially arriving in the Philippines on Tuesday as a powerful Category 3 typhoon. Bopha formed at an unusually low latitude for a tropical cyclone–near 4°N. Storms forming that close to the Equator don’t get much help from the Earth’s spin to get spinning, and it is rare to see a tropical cyclone forming southwards of 5°N.
Three Planets above Egyptians Pyramids on December 3, 2012?
Tonight for December 3, 2012
Here’s the exact configuration of the planets Mercury, Venus and Saturn on the morning of December 3, 2012, as seen from the site of the Giza pyramids in Egypt.
Venus, Saturn and Mercury are all in the predawn sky in early December 2012, but not exactly in the way that a widely circulated image on the Internet shows them. Instead, on December 3, 2012, they’ll look like the chart at right, as seen from the site of the three pyramids in the Giza Necropolis bordering what is now El Giza, Egypt. Will Mercury, Venus and Saturn be close together in the predawn sky in early December? Yes. Does this configuration happen only every 2,737 years? Well, we’re not sure what’s meant by that. The planets appear near each other all the time – constantly – as seen from Earth’s vantage point, as they and we orbit the sun. Mercury, Venus and Saturn were together in the sky last in 2005.
Will Mercury, Venus and Saturn appear as this photo shows, over the Egyptian pyramids? No. Not sure how this planet-pyramid story started circulating, but it’s possible someone noticed (or searched for) a true sky event in December 2012 (peak month of 2012 doomsday hype) and then manufactured the false images below. The images were made before the event happened, so we know the images below are photoshopped illustrations.
THIS WILL NOT HAPPEN ON DECEMBER 3, 2012. The image is an exaggeration of a true, and common, sky event.
Here’s another version of the photoshopped illustration, showing three planets above pyramids at Giza on December 3, 2012. This image, too, is an exaggeration of a common sky event.
What’s happening with the planets Venus, Mercury and Saturn in December 2012? Nothing unusual. Venus is shining before dawn. It has been shining before dawn since June 2012. Remember the cool Venus transit in early June 2012? That’s when Venus crossed from the evening to the morning sky. As the innermost planet, Mercury always appears either before dawn or after sunset. It shifts from place to place half a dozen times each earthly year. So if Venus is up before dawn, Mercury is bound to be near it at times. Saturn, too, returns to the predawn sky at least once every year. Why? Because Earth orbits the sun once a year. So our own motion in orbit places Saturn on a yearly cycle in our sky.
What’s cool about what’s happening on December 3, 2012 is that these three planets will be equidistant from each other. Will they be exactly above three Egyptian pyramids as shown in the illustrations above? No. But someone standing in just the right spot near these pyramids should be able to get the planets to appear above the pyramids in a picturesque way. For sure, if you stand in a particular spot near the pyramids – facing them, and facing the eastern sky before dawn – you should be able to see the planets and the pyramids together. That would be a nice thing to see! If anyone gets a photo of this, please drop us a note via the Contact button at the top of this page, or post it directly to EarthSky’s Facebook page.
Here’s the real thing. Mercury, Venus and Saturn as seen December 2, 2012 over Oslofjord, an inlet in southeast Norway, by EarthSky Facebook friend Jann Peter Normann. Thank you, Jann Peter! We know you can see Venus. Look closely for Mercury (lower left) and Saturn (upper right). View larger.
What’s puzzling about this Mercury-Venus-Saturn-pyramid story is that there was a much better display of two planets earlier this year. In March 2012, the two brightest planets – Venus and Jupiter – had a dazzling conjunction in the evening sky. Someone standing in just the right spot in March could have captured a great photo of Venus and Jupiter above the pyramids of Giza. So why did the perpetrators of the photoshopped images above choose Mercury-Venus-Saturn instead to portray, instead of Venus and Jupiter? Not sure. Venus and Jupiter were much more spectacular than Mercury-Venus-Saturn will be!
Why do these planets appear in a line in the predawn sky right now? The planets in our solar system all orbit the sun in a nearly flat plane. So – whenever we see planets near each other in our sky – they always appear in a graceful line across our sky. This line across our sky is the same one traveled by the sun in the course of a day. It’s the same path traveled by the moon. Why? Because most objects in our solar system orbit in this flat plane of the solar system. Of course, this pathway across our sky has a special name. It’s called the ecliptic. Read more about the ecliptic here.
These widely circulating images of Mercury, Venus and Saturn above the Egyptian pyramids reminds us of the false image of India at the 2012 Diwali festival. People love to take real events or images and manufacture something exaggerated from them. Why? We don’t know.
The moon will sweep past the planets in the morning sky beginning around December 10, 2012. That will be cool to see!
By the morning of December 11, the moon will be closer to Venus. Catch the planets and moon on these mornings! They’ll be much more beautiful than any image of them can convey.
The good news for skywatchers is that Saturn and Venus are now making it easy for us to find Mercury, which, as the innermost planet of the solar system, moves from place to place in the sky so often that you might be likely to miss it. To see these planets, find an unobstructed eastern horizon and get up about 90 minutes before sunrise. Look low in the eastern sky for dazzling Venus, the brightest star-like light in the morning sky. Saturn shines a short hop above Venus and Mercury a short hop below. A line from Saturn through Venus points out Mercury’s place on or near the horizon. If you can’t see Mercury with the eye alone, try binoculars.
It rarely gets any easier than this for seeing Mercury in the Northern Hemisphere. Mercury reaches its greatest elongation west of the sun on Tuesday, December 4. That means this often hard-to-see world is climbing above the southeast horizon a maximum time before sunrise. Given a level and unobstructed horizon, Mercury rises about one and three-quarter hours before the sun at mid-northern latitudes, and about an hour before sunup at middle latitudes in the Southern Hemisphere.
Mercury shines as brilliantly as a first-magnitude star. The innermost planet isn’t hard to see because it’s dim. It’s because – as seen from Earth – this world stays perpetually close to the sun, so it’s often lost in the twilight glare. But with Mercury swinging to its farthest point west of the sun, before sunrise tomorrow is about as good as it gets for catching Mercury in the morning sky.
No, that’s not the moon! It’s Mercury, the innermost and smallest planet of the solar system. Image via Messenger
Our chart at top shows the sky scene for about one hour before sunrise at North American mid-northern latitudes. But it’d be better to get up sooner if you can, using Saturn and Venus to catch this elusive world just as darkness gives way to dawn. Look first for Venus and then Saturn up above. If you don’t see Mercury on line with Saturn and Venus, wait a little while as Mercury may still be below the horizon.
Don’t fret if you miss Mercury tomorrow. Keep using Saturn and Venus to locate Mercury near the horizon, for the innermost planet will reign as a morning “star” for another two to three weeks!
Bottom line: Will Venus, Saturn and Mercury appear above Egyptian pyramids in early December 2012, as a widely circulated image on the Internet suggests? Well, it’s true they’re all together in the eastern, predawn sky. That’s a fairly common event. But the images being circulated – showing them above the pyramids – are an exaggeration of a true sky event. The good news: these planets will be beautiful in early December! If you watch the night sky on a regular basis, you know it conveys a profound beauty and order every day of the year. And if you’re lucky enough to observe them from the Egyptian pyramids, hey, we envy you!
This animation shows Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars and Jupiter making one full revolution. Saturn and Uranus also appear in their own respective orbits around the sun. Earth orbits about 12 times for every single orbit of Jupiter. When Earth passes between the sun and Jupiter, we see Jupiter opposite the sun in our sky. We call that an opposition of Jupiter.
Today Earth passes between the sun and Jupiter, placing Jupiter opposite the sun in our sky. Astronomers call this event an opposition of Jupiter. The 2012 opposition is Jupiter’s closest until 2021. Jupiter shines more brightly than any star in the night sky. It is in a region of the sky filled with bright stars, near the bright star Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus.
The clocks in Austin, Texas, say the opposition is tonight at 8 p.m. on December 2. Yet, according to Universal Time – the standard clock time at the meridian of 0o longitude – the opposition of Jupiter happens at 2 a.m. on December 3. The opposition happens at the same instant worldwide but at different clock times.
For the fun of it, we also show the asteroid Vesta’s place in front of the constellation Taurus on the feature chart at top, because this world will be at opposition and closest to Earth on December 9, 2012. More than likely, you’ll need an optical aid, a dark sky and a good sky chart to see Vesta. The moonless nights accompanying the Geminid meteor shower on December 12, 13 and 14 should be great spotting the asteroid Vesta (possibly even with the unaided eye).
One thousand Earths could fit inside Jupiter. Image credit: NASA
But for now, we return our focus on Jupiter, the largest world in our solar system. It shines well over four thousand times more brightly than the asteroid Vesta.
Jupiter comes to opposition every 13 months or so, as Earth takes this long to travel once around the sun relative to Jupiter. Jupiter’s closest approach to Earth for the year always falls on or near this planet’s opposition date. In 2012, Jupiter came nearest to Earth on December 1, at 15 hours Universal Time (9 a.m. Central Time). Then Jupiter was only 378 million miles (609 million kilometers) away. Because Jupiter passed its perihelion – or closest point to the sun – in March 2011, the giant planet is now getting farther from the sun. As a result, at this opposition, Jupiter is as close as it will be until the year 2021.
And, because it’s opposite the sun around now, you can see Jupiter at any time of night. For example – as today’s chart shows – you can see it in the south at midnight tonight, when the sun is below your feet. At dawn tomorrow, you’ll see Jupiter low in your western sky. At opposition, Jupiter shines at its brightest in our sky.
Jupiter is bright! It will be shining more brightly than any of the surrounding stars. This photo of Jupiter is from November 18, 2012. It’s from EarthSky Facebook friend Carlos Colon Sr.
You would need at least 80 Jupiters — rolled into a ball — to be hot enough inside for thermonuclear reactions to ignite. In other words, Jupiter is not massive enough to shine as stars do. But Jupiter is the largest planet in our solar system. So when the sun goes down on this early December night, you might — if you’re fanciful enough — imagine bright Jupiter as a tiny sun all night long.
Bottom line: Be sure to look for Jupiter on the night of December 2-3, 2012, the night of Jupiter’s opposition. The planet shines in front of the constellation Taurus, very near the brightest star in Taurus, Aldebaran. This opposition of Jupiter brings Earth’s closest encounter with Jupiter until the year 2021!
The breast cancer industry’s holy grail (that mammography is the primary weapon in the war against breast cancer) has been disproved. In fact, mammography appears to have CREATED 1.3 million cases of breast cancer in the U.S. population that were not there.
A disturbing new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine is bringing mainstream attention to the possibility that mammography has caused far more harm than good in the millions of women who have employed it over the past 30 years as their primary strategy in the fight against breast cancer.[i]
Titled “Effect of Three Decades of Screening Mammography on Breast-Cancer Incidence,” researchers estimated that among women younger than 40 years of age, breast cancer was overdiagnosed, i.e. “tumors were detected on screening that would never have led to clinical symptoms,” in 1.3 million U.S. women over the past 30 years. In 2008, alone, “breast cancer was overdiagnosed in more than 70,000 women; this accounted for 31% of all breast cancers diagnosed
As we revealed in a previous article,[ii] the primary form of mammography-detected breast cancer is ductal carcinoma in situ (DCIS), also known as ‘stage zero’ or ‘non-invasive breast cancer.’ Unlike truly invasive cancer, which expands outward like the crab after which it was named (Greek: Cancer = Crab), ductal carcinoma is in situ, i.e. situated, non-moving – an obvious contradiction in terms.
Also, DCIS presents without symptoms in the majority of women within which it is detected, and if left untreated will (usually) not progress to cause harm to women. Indeed, without x-ray diagnostic technologies, many if not most of the women diagnosed with it would never have known they had it in the first place. The journal Lancet Oncology, in fact, published a cohort study last year finding that even clinically verified “invasive” cancers appear to regress with time if left untreated:
[We] believe many invasive breast cancers detected by repeated mammography screening do not persist to be detected by screening at the end of 6 years, suggesting that the natural course of many of the screen-detected invasive breast cancers is to spontaneously regress.[iii]
The new study authors point out “The introduction of screening mammography in the United States has been associated with a doubling in the number of cases of early-stage breast cancer that are detected each year.” And yet, they noted, only 6.5% of these early-stage breast cancer cases were expected to progress to advanced disease. DCIS and related ‘abnormal breast findings,’ in other words, may represent natural, benign variations in breast morphology. Preemptive treatment strategies, however, are still employed today as the standard of care, with mastectomy rates actually increasing since 2004.[iv]
The adverse health effects associated with overdiagnosis and overtreatment with lumpectomy, radiation, chemotherapy and hormone-suppressive treatments cannot be underestimated, especially when one considers the profound psychological trauma that follows each stage of diagnosis and treatment, and the additional physiological burdens such psychic injuries lead to, including up-regulation of multidrug resistance genes within cancer as a result of the increased adrenaline associated with the ‘flight-or-fight’ stress response.[v]
Also, it is now coming to light that chemotherapy and radiation actually increase the proportion of the highly malignant cancer stem cells to the relatively non-malignant daughter cells within the tumor colony. Much in the same way that conventional antibiotic agents will drive multidrug resistance within the subpopulation of surviving post-antibiotic bacteria, ensuring recurrence, conventional treatments also drive the surviving stem-cell enriched tumor populations into greater resistance and metastatic potential when it does inevitably recur. Or worse, radiation therapy may actually increase the ‘stemness’ of breast cancer cells making them 30 times more malignant (capable of forming new tumors).
If it is indeed true that DCIS, other abnormal breast findings, as well as clinically confirmed invasive breast cancer, either remain benign or regress when left untreated, the entire breast cancer industry, which is already deeply mired in cause-marketing conflicts of interest, must radically reform itself, or face massive financial and ethical liabilities vis-à-vis outdated and no longer “evidence-based” practices.
Another serious problem with mammography (and there are dozens of them) not addressed in this latest research finding concerns the unique carcinogenicity of the x-rays the technology employs. We now know that the 30 kVp radiation, colloquially known as “low energy” x-rays, are between 300-400% more carcinogenic than the “higher energy” radiation given off by atomic bomb blasts (200 kVp or higher).[vi] Present day radiation risk models used to assess the known breast cancer risk associated with mammography against the purported benefits do not take into this profound discrepancy. In fact, these models were developed before DNA was even discovered.
Also, considering that breast cancer susceptibility genes, BRCA1/BRCA2, interfere with the DNA self-repair mechanisms needed to reduce the carcinogenicity associated with radiation exposure within those who carry these genetic variations, the harms associated with mammography may be exponentially higher than the conventional medical community presently understands and communicates to their patients. Indeed, it is likely that x-ray based mammography screenings have been planting the seeds of future radiation-induced breast cancer within exposed populations.
With top-tier biomedical journals now publishing research diametrically opposed to the policies and recommendations of both governmental, non-governmental and industry-sponsored health organizations, the time is ripe for us to critically evaluate conventional medicine’s conventional standard of care and to educate ourselves further to the true causes of cancer, and how to go about preventing and/or removing them.
Most people, especially in America, are consuming a diet that is detrimental to our spiritual growth. With the influx of low vibratory foods (ie. fast food, sodas, microwave dinners, sugars etc.), we are contracting more diseases and evolving slower spiritually than we have to.
There are two types of foods: acid-forming or alkaline-forming. The differences between the two are like night and day. Or, diseased and not diseased. Or, a healthy pineal gland versus a overly calcified pineal gland.
Your body is designed for your blood pH balance to be between 7.35-7.45. Too much acid in the blood causes imbalance and eventually, diseases and further calcification of the pineal gland. Whenever you eat something that is incomplete (not wholesome) and acidic, your body has to pull the nutrients out of your body’s minerals to try to neutralize the acidity.
A high level of spiritual growth through pineal gland decalcification can be gained by eating more alkaline foods. Look at it as alkaline charges you up while acid drains your power. The following list will provide you with a number of food options that will help you charge up your third eye and re-gain your innate spiritual power!
Once you begin to consume more alkaline foods you will start to increase your intuition, ‘psychic’ powers, dreams, calmness, peace of mind, happiness, creativity, and overall energy!
Note: Green supplements are a wonderful addition to any diet to get more chlorophyll and alkalinity.
The foods listed below are all alkaline-forming. There is a difference between acid-forming and alkaline-forming. A citrus fruit like an orange is acidic but when your body assimilates it, it leaves an alkaline ash. Therefore, the orange is an alkaline-forming fruit.
This list is a combination of all the research and experiences I’ve had. There may be other foods that are not listed but that just means it slipped my eye. The important thing is that we make a conscious effort to consume as much alkaline-forming foods as possible.
Courtesy U.S. Naval Observatory
