Dr. Kenneth P. Stoller, MD was trained as a pediatrician at UCLA and was a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for two decades. In 2008 he resigned from the AAP after realizing that the AAP has known that mercury in vaccines can lead to neurological damage and bring on various levels of the autism spectrum, from ADD to full blown helplessness, inflammatory pain, convulsions, and destructive behavior.
Of course,Dr. Stoller goes on to mention the other toxic heavy metals and ingredients that destroy immunity and health. But he knew they knew about mercury and lied about it. They may be ignorant of aluminum and other ingredients.
Dr. Stoller reveals that the AAP has been aware of vaccine damages for decades. Even worse, the AAP, the CDC, and pharmaceutical companies, have gone through extreme measures of covering up the dangers, hiding evidence, and attacking those who come close to disclosing the real science behind vaccine dangers with very little efficacy, if any.
California has set the precedence that’s spreading to other states: Religious, philosophical, and lifestyle exemptions have been removed to make it more difficult to opt out of vaccinations than ever.
The one exemption that remains even within this tyranny is the medical exemption. And in the shadow of extreme willful ignorance among pediatricians and family physicians, that’s difficult to provide without sufficient proof.
Dr. Stoller has created an online portal for concerned California parents who want to protect their children from vaccinations in states that have vaccination mandates enforced by denying school attendance.
However, non-Californians whose states are trashing vaccination opt-out exemptions can gain some insights from his site listed after his forthright informative presentation in the video below.
A major point that struck me is how autism is evaluated and diagnosed on a purely psychological level. Kids who are severely autistic from vaccine damages suffer from extreme gut inflammatory pain, joint pain, brain damage pain, and seizures.
This makes it difficult to develop from applied behavior analysis (ABA) and address learning and social developmental issues. Resorting to inflicting pain on themselves or steady screaming fits because of inflammatory agony doesn’t make for much ABA success.
You’ve probably seen comments on antivax or autism sites claiming they’re autistic and doing fine. Autism’s no big deal, they say. Some even claim they’ve gained unique mental or creative skills and they’re high functioning autistic. They have been solely psychologically diagnosed without medical workups. Their situations are misleading
Now there’s a new documentary available to rent or buy called “50 Cents a Dose”. “A father revisits the autism study in which his oldest daughter participated: the study on Thimerosal (a mercury based medical product). What begins as a lighthearted rumination on raising children – ends as a discovery of scandal, and perhaps, a nation in denial.” Here’s the link to the trailer.
Paul Fassais a contributing staff writer for REALfarmacy.com. His pet peeves are the Medical Mafia’s control over health and the food industry and government regulatory agencies’ corruption. Paul’s contributions to the health movement and global paradigm shift are well received by truth seekers. Visit his blog by following this link and follow him on Twitter here
Nov. 15, 2013: What are the odds? On Nov. 18th and 19th not one but two comets will fly by the planet Mercury.
“This is a unique coincidence,” says Ron Vervack an astronomer at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Lab and a member of the science team for NASA’s MESSENGER spacecraft, “and a golden opportunity to study two comets passing close to the sun.”
On Nov. 18th Comet Encke will pass within 0.025 AU of Mercury, followed a day later by Comet ISON at 0.24 AU (1 AU is the distance between the sun and Earth, 150 million km). The MESSENGER spacecraft, which is orbiting Mercury, will turn its sensors toward the passing comets for a point-blank investigation of both.
A new Sciencecast video previews a rare double encounter between Mercury and two comets. Play it
The double flyby is exciting, says Vervack, but “it makes things a little crazy. We have to rush to complete our observations of Comet Encke, then do it all over again for Comet ISON. Everything is happening at more or less the same time.”
MESSENGER was designed to study Mercury, not comets, “but it is a capable spacecraft with a versatile instrument package,” he adds. “We hope to get some great data.” Onboard spectrometers will analyze the chemical makeup of the two comets while MESSENGER’s cameras snap pictures of atmospheres, jets and tails.
Comet ISON is already a media favorite. Astronomers have been tracking it since Sept. 2012 when it was discovered on a trajectory that would take it perilously close to the sun. On Nov. 28th of 2013, Thanksgiving Day in the USA, Comet ISON will pass through the sun’s atmosphere little more than a million kilometers above the sun’s fiery surface. If the icy comet survives, it could emerge as a beautiful naked-eye object for observers in the northern hemisphere. MESSENGER’s glimpse of Comet ISON as it plunges inward could give astronomers the data they need to predict the comet’s fate.
Comet Encke is less well known, but no less interesting. For one thing, it is the source of the Taurid meteor shower, a slow display of midnight fireballs that occurs every year in early- to mid-November. Comet Encke dips inside the orbit of Mercury every 3.3 years, so it is regularly exposed to solar activity. In 2007, NASA’s STEREO spacecraft watched as a solar storm ripped off Encke’s tail–which promptly grew back: movie.
“We’ll be catching Comet Encke just days before its closest approach to the sun (0.3 AU),” Vervack says, “so we get to see it at its most active.”
Ironically, the fact that MESSENGER is designed to study a rocky planet could prove advantageous for the icy comets. MESSENGER’s x-ray spectrometer, in particular, could detect signs of ‘comet dirt’.
“We hope to obtain the first definitive detections of x-ray emissions from silicon, magnesium and aluminum,” he explains. “If you think of a comet as a dirty snowball, these are elements that make up the dirt. Close to the sun is where we expect the dirt to be vaporized.”
In total, Vervack expects MESSENGER to gather 15 hours’ worth of data on Comet Encke and another 25 hours on Comet ISON. With that kind of observing time, discoveries are a distinct possibility.
Vervack says the first images will be beamed back and released to the public within days of the flybys. “There are no guarantees,” he cautions, “but I can’t wait to see the pictures.”
We are being poisoned. This mass public poisoning has been going on for over a century, and it has been gradually increasing. You and those you care about are being harmed almost continuously. We are being abused with multiple poisons in small doses on purpose.
The more of us that become aware of some of the most common ways this is happening, the better chance we have of reducing or ending exposure to at least some of the poisons.
Chlorine
This highly toxic chemical warfare agent has been added to public water supplies since about 1910 as a disinfectant. The now common health problems of circulatory disease and cancer became widespread only after the masses started being chlorinated regularly. Drinking it, bathing in it, breathing it and soaking it up in our showers, and consuming it in most food and beverage products made with city water, makes chlorine one of the most common public poisons.
Fluoride
The fluoride added to municipal water and dental care products is not really good for your teeth. It is a cancer causing, apathy inducing, intelligence reducing chemical, a waste product of aluminum and phosphate manufacturing. It was accumulating at production plants in the 1940s and ruining local ground water.
The industry first tried to get rid of excess stocks of fluoride by marketing it as rat poison, but not enough was sold. Then in the 1950s they concocted the scheme of convincing the American Dental Association to recommend it be added to public water supplies and oral care products to harden teeth. In the long run, it actually makes teeth brittle and mottled, while diminishing people’s IQ, minimizing active interests and shortening lives.
Aluminum
Aluminum has long been used in cookware and food service material. As people learned of its toxicity, they started abandoning aluminum pans and avoiding heating food wrapped in foil.
Extremely fine particles of it are the main component of the “chemtrail” sprays disseminated over virtually all areas in North America under the rationale of “geo-engineering” to counter “global warming”. Since the concern about global warming from carbon emissions due to human activity is fraudulently promoted to expand control of the population, this widespread chemical spraying is really being done for other reasons, from weather manipulation to public poisoning. The bizarre streaks often sprayed in the sky by aircraft are not normal jet contrails.
Aluminum is another neurotoxin that reduces intelligence and memory. It is considered a major contributor to early senility and dementia.
Mercury & Vaccinations
For the millions of us that received “silver” dental fillings, long term mercury contamination is likely. That highly toxic heavy metal was an ingredient in the amalgam. Mercury is also used in the thimerosal preservative in most vaccines, including those given to children, even infants.
Mercury is another neurotoxin and is blamed for the incredible rise in the numbers of autistic children, many of whom are radically changed within a few days of vaccination.
Vaccinations and flu shots do not really protect us from infections. Rather they are seriously harmful, especially to the infants that receive an overwhelming mixed vaccination cocktail. Further, vaccines are sometimes contaminated with rogue viruses, and are a debilitating stress to the human immune system.
Pharma Drugs
The approval of pharmaceutical medicines by a government agency does not mean that they are safe to take. Many of them have terrible side effects, often blocking biological systems and fostering long-term illness. Then additional drugs are prescribed. Many of the routine medications today are psychotropic, further reducing intelligence and enthusiasm.
Radioactive Fallout
Radioactivity emanating from the Fukushima nuclear plant disaster, as well as from leaks at other nuke facilities, the depleted uranium ammunition used by the military, the radioactive metals such as barium and thorium in the chemtrail sprays, and the lingering particles from the nuclear testing of the 1950s and 1960s, is another major contributor to the cancer epidemic.
Aspartame
The artificial sweetener aspartame is promoted as an ingredient in diet products for weight loss and diabetes. In addition to worsening each of those conditions, it is a terrible neurotoxin. It turns to methanol (toxic wood alcohol) and formaldehyde in the body, impairing the brain, weakening eyesight, damaging the pancreas and liver, and making some people crazy. Why was this poison ever approved for consumption?
Aspartame is now added to even regular chewing gum, as well as to flavored water. Read labels for ingredients to avoid this poison.
MSG
Monosodium Glutamate is used as a flavor enhancer. It is both an “excitotoxin” that stresses cells, and a neurotoxin bothering the brain and nerves. It diminishes intelligence, can cause bloating and digestive distress, and may harm the heart as well.
BPA
Bisphenol Acetate is an estrogen mimicker that is permitted to be in food service and household plastics, including plastic water bottles. This and similar plasticizers such as Bisphenol Sulfone (BPS) are causing sexual imbalances and alterations and cancers of the breast and sex organs.
Glyphosate
This toxic herbicide and other harmful chemicals used in agriculture will not simply wash off of the produce.
Glyphosate is reported to be a factor in both infertility and cancer. Most other agri-chemicals are also debilitating. Glyphosate and other runoff chemicals are commonly found in drinking water as well.
GMOs
Genetically Modified Organisms, usually used in concert with agricultural chemicals, include the common food crops corn, soybeans, canola oil and sugar beets. In the United States, nearly all of each of these widely consumed foods are genetically modified, much of the milk and dairy items contain BgH growth hormone, and most meat animals’ feed contains GMOs, with no indication on labels.
Genetically altered foods are hard on the digestive system, and usually damaging to cells and organs.
EMFs
Electromagnetic fields from cell phones, computers, televisions, “smart meters”, transmission wires and towers, etc., are seriously weakening and impairing health in people, animals and plants. The more you have EMF frequencies in proximity, the greater the damage. Use a cell phone sparingly and switch ears often if holding it near the head.
Why Are We Being Poisoned?
We are being systematically POISONED ON PURPOSE, and need to raise awareness about it enough to get it STOPPED.
Why are we being massively exposed to a range of serious poisons while being falsely told that they are not harmful or even good for us? The elite power controllers do this:
* To foster apathy
* To weaken resistance
* To reduce intelligence
* To increase susceptibility to entrainment and hypnosis
* To experiment on an ignorant populace
* To test longevity methods for their benefit
* To develop distracting and incapacitating health problems
* To generate business for the medical industry
* To foster infertility and infanticide
* To cause people to die younger
* To reduce the population
* To eliminate independent small farmers and businesses
* To control food production, weather, land and resources
* To profitably (cheaply) dispose of industrial waste
* To make maximum profits
* To fully control this world
* To secure lasting tyranny
This has been done gradually, stealthily and incrementally.
The only safe vaccine is a vaccine that is never used. – Dr. James A. Shannon. National Institutes of Health
Are you scared when you’re told you have to vaccinate your child with 49 doses in 14 vaccines before age 6? Or are you scared at the idea of not vaccinating and so “exposing” your child to serious illnesses? Are you scared about the school threatening you that if you don’t vaccinate you can’t enroll your child?
FEAR. That’s what all these pro-vaccine campaigns are based on. As a parent, what’s the biggest scare of all? When your child gets sick with a serious disease and you feel responsible for that. As you see, vaccine supporters couldn’t go wrong with this and developed a dogma that’s been bought over and over again over the years by people. The magic insurance policy to solve it all.
So, even if your child gets sick, at least you know you did everything you could for his/her health and vaccinated, right? But what if the very vaccination is able to cause the illness in the first place??
Could The Vaccine Hoax Be Over?
An extraordinary paper published by a courageous doctor and investigative medical researcher has dug the dirt on 30 years of secret official transcripts of meetings of UK government vaccine committees and the supposedly independent medical “experts” sitting on them with their drug industry connections.
Here I present the documentation which appears to show that the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) made continuous efforts to withhold critical data on severe adverse reactions and contraindications to vaccinations to both parents and health practitioners in order to reach overall vaccination rates which they deemed were necessary for “herd immunity”, a concept which with regards to vaccination, and contrary to prevalent beliefs, does not rest on solid scientific evidence as will be explained. As a result of such vaccination policy promoted by the JCVI and the UK Department of Health (DH),many children have been vaccinated without their parents being disclosed the critical information about demonstrated risks of serious adverse reactions, one that the JCVI appeared to have been fully aware of. It would also appear that, by withholding this information, the JCVI/DH neglected the right of individuals to make an informed consent concerning vaccination. By doing so, the JCVI/DH may have violated not only International Guidelines for Medical Ethics (i.e., Helsinki Declaration and the International Code of Medical Ethics) [2] but also, their own Code of Practice.
The transcripts of the JCVI meetings also show that some of the Committee members had extensive ties to pharmaceutical companies and that the JCVI frequently co-operated with vaccine manufacturers on strategies aimed at boosting vaccine uptake. Some of the meetings at which such controversial items were discussed were not intended to be publicly available, as the transcripts were only released later, through the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). These particular meetings are denoted in the transcripts as “commercial in confidence”, and reveal a clear and disturbing lack of transparency, as some of the information was removed from the text (i.e., the names of the participants) prior to transcript release under the FOI section at the JCVI website (for example, JCVI CSM/DH (Committee on the Safety of Medicines/Department of Health) Joint Committee on Adverse Reactions Minutes 1986-1992).
Information AGAINST vaccination is incredibly vast, believe it or not. Updated, most reliable sources and scientific data, as well as more and more medical doctors bring strong evidence about how harmful and unnecessary vaccination is.
A short summary of the most important arguments that support NON-VACCINATION:
Vaccines contain a combination of at least 39 different highly toxic metals,cancer causing substances, toxic chemicals, live and genetically modified viruses, bacteria, contaminated serum containing animal viruses and foreign genetic material, extremely toxic de-contaminants and adjuvants, untested antibiotics, none of which can be injected without causing any harm. Vaccine contaminants have included bovine (cow), avian (chicken) and monkey viruses and bacteria such as streptococcus in the DTP (diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis) vaccine [Pediatrics, Vol. 75, No. 2, Feb 1985] and Serratia marcesens in the influenza vaccines [2004 influenza season].
There is no scientific study to determine whether vaccines have really prevented diseases. Rather disease graphs show vaccines have been introduced at the end of epidemics when the disease was already in its last stages. In case of Small Pox the vaccine actually caused a great spurt in the incidence of disease before public outcry led to its withdrawal.
There are no long-term studies on vaccine safety. Very short-term tests are carried out where the vaccinated subjects are checked against another group who are given another vaccine. Technically the tests should be carried out against a non-vaccinated group. No one really knows what protocols are followed at such industry based or industry sponsored trials.
The mercury, aluminum and live viruses in vaccines may be behind the huge epidemic of autism (1 in 110 in the USA), a fact that has been admitted by the US Vaccine Court. About 83 suspected cases of vaccines causing autism have been awarded compensation.
Both the Small Pox and the Oral Polio Vaccine are made from monkey serum. This serum has helped many monkey viruses to enter the human blood stream. Out of these, the only researched virus, SV 40, has been found to be cancerous. These viruses continue to be in the vaccines. The presence of SV 40 in various human cancers has been demonstrated. Today it is known that the virus is being passed on to future generations as its presence in the mother’s milk and human sperms has been established.
The number of polio cases was declining before the widespread administration of the Salk vaccine. Cases which had previously been reported as polio are now reported as meningitis. The risk of contracting polio from the live virus vaccine is greater than the risk of acquiring the disease from naturally occurring viruses.
Many doctors argue that diseases during childhood are due to the body exercising its immune system. Suppressing these diseases causes the immune system to remain undeveloped causing the various autoimmune disorders in adults like diabetes and arthritis that have become epidemics today.
Vaccines suppress the natural immunity and the body does not have natural antibodies anymore. The mother’s milk therefore does not contain natural antibodies and can no longer protect the child against illnesses.
In the USA vaccine adverse effects are recorded and the Government offers compensation of millions of dollars to victims (the most recent case in its Vaccine Court may have received upto $200 million in damages). The courts in the USA have paid nearly $ 2 billion in damages so far.
Vaccines try to create humoral (blood related immunity) whereas it has been found that immunity is developed at various levels: humoral, cellular, and organ specific. We still do not know enough about the human immune system and therefore should not interfere with it.
In addition to childhood vaccination, new “hypes” like the Swine Flu, Bird Flu, Gardasil for HPV virus and the annual flu vaccine are continuing the to damage people’s health all throughout their life. Yves Thomas, the head of the National Influenza Centre in Geneva said that, “The debate and the arguments that surrounded the A(H1N1) influenza virus two years ago have sharpened public mistrust toward the seasonal flu vaccine.” In 2010, the World Health Organisation(WHO) was accused of dramatizing worldwide influenza cases in order to result in much higher vaccine sales since many countries had signed contracts with a stipulation to automatically buy vaccines when the WHO gave the highest alert level.
A Few Questions To Ask Your Doctor
Don’t let yourself intimidated by medical doctors, they are NOT Gods and they surely are misinformed, many of them are corrupted or don’t want to acknowledge the dangers of vaccines. Most schools will offer you a waiver if you ask for one. There is NO law that can deny you that. Exemptions are typically for people who have compromised immune systems, allergies to the components used in vaccinations, or strongly held objections. All states but West Virginia and Mississippi allow religious exemptions, and twenty states allow parents to cite personal or philosophical objections. Get yourself educated on the matter, it’s about the life of your child!
ASK QUESTIONS like these:
1. What are the serious negative health effects that these vaccines can generate? Are the risks worth the benefits?
2. Dr. Michel Odent has linked asthma to the whooping cough vaccine. Have you read his research? What do you think?
3. Professor Wakefield (UK) has linked autism and Chrones disease to the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. What do you think? What evidence do you have to back up your opinions?
4. Why is the same dose of vaccines given to a two month old as for a 5 year old?
5. Are you aware that Japan changed the start time for vaccinating from 3 months to two years and straight away their SIDS rate plummeted?
6. Do you believe in herd immunity? If so, how is it that 98% of U.S.A. children are vaccinated yet they still have outbreaks of these diseases?
7. Most diseases were already 90% gone before any vaccines were introduced. If this is so, how can vaccines be applauded for diseases ceasing, especially when there were no vaccines for some diseases like bubonic plague and scarlet fever?
8. How can the Tetanus vaccine induce immunity, when contracting the disease naturally does not give immunity?
9. If the so-called diphtheria vaccine, which is in fact a toxoid, works against the toxin produced by the bacteria, and not against the bacteria itself, then how did this “vaccine” help in the decline in diphtheria?
HOT COMET: Periodic comet 96P/Maccholz is passing by the sun today deep inside the orbit of Mercury. At closest approach, the icy visitor from the outer solar system will be less than 12 million miles (0.13 AU) from the solar surface. Coronagraphs onboard the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory are monitoring the encounter:
“Discovered in 1986, Comet 96P/Machholz is a fascinating comet that has passed through SOHO coronagraph images four times now,” says Karl Battams of the Naval Research Lab. “It’s not a huge comet but it is very photogenic, and puts on quite a display with its beautiful dusty tail.”
In an essay posted on his web site, Battams explains why the comet is so fascinating. Many researchers suspect 96P/Machholz is not a native of our solar system; some chemical evidence suggests it came from another star. Also, 96P/Machholz appears to be dynamically related (that is, the comet’s orbit is related) to a diverse collection of other objects in the solar system including asteroid 2003 EH1 and the Quadrantid, Southern Delta Aquariid, and daytime Arietid meteoroid streams. All of these things–the asteroid, the comet, and the meteoroids–might be fragments of a single “foreign” body that broke apart thousands of years ago.
FARSIDE ACTIVITY: For more than a week, solar activity has been low. On April 26th around 0600 UT, an active region on the farside of the sun broke the calm with a powerful eruption. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory recorded a massive cloud of plasma flying over the sun’s southwestern limb:
The same active region has since hurled three CMEs into space. The clouds will certainly miss Earth, but they might hit Mercury, which appears to be in the line of fire.
As the year 2011 comes to a close, some might wonder what is looming sky-wise for 2012? What celestial events might we look forward to seeing?
I’ve selected what I consider to be the top 12 “skylights” for this coming year, and list them here in chronological order. Not all these events will be visible from any one locality … for the eclipses, for instance, you’ll probably have to do some traveling … but many can be observed from the comfort of your backyard.
Hopefully your local weather will cooperate on most, if not all, of these dates. Clear skies!
This meteor shower reaches its peak in the predawn hours of Jan. 4 for eastern North America. The Quadrantid meteor shower is a very short-lived meteor display, whose peak rates only last several hours. The phase of the moon is a bright waxing gibbous, normally prohibitive for viewing any meteor shower, but the moon will set by 3 a.m., leaving the sky dark for a few hours until the first light of dawn; that’s when you’ll have the best shot at seeing many of these bluish-hued meteors.
From the eastern half of North America, a single observer might count on seeing as many as 50-to-100 “Quads” in a single hour. From the western half of the continent the display will be on the wane by the time the moon sets, with hourly rates probably diminishing to around 25 to 50 meteors.
The first major meteor shower of 2012 takes place on the night of Tuesday, Jan. 3 and the morning of Wednesday, Jan. 4. It peaks at 2 a.m. EST (0700 GMT) on Jan. 4.
CREDIT: Starry Night Software
Feb. 20 to March 12: Best evening apparition of Mercury
In February and March, the “elusive” innermost planet Mercury moves far enough from the glare of the sun to be readily visible soon after sunset. Its appearance will be augmented by two other bright planets (Venus and Jupiter), which also will be visible in the western sky during this same time frame.
Mercury will arrive at its greatest elongation from the sun March 5. It will be quite bright (-1.3-to-0 magnitude) before this date and will fade rapidly to +1.6 magnitude thereafter. Astronomers measure the brightness of objects in terms of magnitude, with lower numbers corresponding to brighter objects.
March 3: Mars arrives at opposition
On March 3, the Earth will be passing Mars as the two planets wheel around the sun in their respective orbits. Because Mars reaches aphelion — its farthest point from the sun — on Feb. 15, this particular opposition will be an unfavorable one. In fact, two days after opposition, Mars will be closest to Earth at a distance of 62.6 million miles.
Compare this with the August 2003 opposition when Mars was only 34.6 million miles away. Nonetheless, even at this unfavorable opposition the fiery-hued Mars will be an imposing naked-eye sight, shining at magnitude -1.2, just a bit dimmer than Sirius, the brightest star, and will be visible in the sky all night long.
Astrophotographer Jeffrey Berkes of West Chester, Pa., snapped this stunning view of planet Venus and the crescent moon during a bright conjunction on Dec. 26, 2011.
CREDIT: Jeffrey Berkes
March 13: Brilliant “double planet”
The two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, team up to make for an eye-catching sight in the western sky soon after sunset. They will be separated by 3 degrees on this evening, Venus passing to the northwest (upper right) of Jupiter and shining nearly eight times brighter than “Big Jupe.” Although they will gradually go their separate ways after this date, on March 25 and 26, a crescent moon will pass by, adding additional beauty to this celestial scene.
May 5: Biggest full moon of 2012
The moon turns full at 11:35 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time and just 25 minutes later it will arrive at its closest point to the Earth in 2012, at a distance of 221,801 miles. Expect a large range in ocean tides (exceptionally low to exceptionally high) for the next few days.
May 20: Annular eclipse of the sun
The path of annularity for this eclipse starts over eastern China and sweeps northeast across southern and central Japan. The path continues northeast then east, passing just south of Alaska’s Aleutian Island chain. The path then turns to the southeast, making landfall in the western United States along the California-Oregon coast. It will pass over central Nevada, southern Utah, northern Arizona, the extreme southwest corner of Colorado and most of New Mexico before coming to an end over northern Texas.
Since the disk of the moon will appear smaller than the disk of the sun, it will create a “penny on nickel” effect, with a fiery ring of sunlight shining around the moon’s dark silhouette. Locations that will witness this eerie sight include Eureka and Reading, Calif.; Carson City, Reno and Ely, Nev.; Bryce Canyon in Utah; Arizona’s Grand Canyon; Albuquerque and Santa Fe in New Mexico and just prior to sunset for Lubbock, Tex.
A partial eclipse of the sun will be visible over a large swath of the United States and Canada, including Alaska and Hawaii, but no eclipse will be visible near and along the Atlantic Seaboard.
June 4: Partial eclipse of the moon
This partial lunar eclipse favors the Pacific Ocean; Hawaii sees it high in the sky during the middle of its night. Across North America the eclipse takes place between midnight and dawn. The farther east one goes, the closer the time of moonset coincides with the moment that the moon enters the Earth’s dark umbral shadow.
In fact, over the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada, the only evidence of this eclipse will be a slight shading on the moon’s left edge (the faint penumbral shadow) before moonset. Over the Canadian Maritimes, the moon will set before the eclipse begins. At maximum, more than one-third of the moon’s lower portion (37.6-percent) will be immersed in the umbra.
June 5: Rare transit of Venus across the sun
The passage of Venus in front of the sun is among the rarest of astronomical events, rarer even than the return of Halley’s Comet every 76 years. Only six transits of Venus are known to have been observed by humans before: in 1639, 1761, 1769, 1874, 1882 and, most recently, in 2004.
The next one will occur in the year 2117. When Venus is in transit across the solar disk, the planet appears as a distinct, albeit tiny, round black spot with a diameter just 1/32nd of the sun. This size is large enough to readily perceive with the naked eye. HOWEVER … prospective observers are warned to take special precautions (as with a solar eclipse) when attempting to view the silhouette of Venus against the blindingly brilliant solar disc.
The beginning of the transit will be visible from all of North America, Greenland, extreme northern and western portions of South America, Hawaii, northern and eastern portions of Asia including Japan, New Guinea, northern and eastern portions of Australia, and New Zealand. The end will be visible over Alaska, all of Asia and Indonesia, Australia, Eastern Europe, the eastern third of Africa, and the island nation of Madagascar.
Perseids composite, seen Aug. 12-13. Concentric circles are star trails.
Aug. 12: Perseid meteor shower
Considered to be among the best of the annual displays thanks to its high rates of up to 90 per hour for a single observer, as well as its reliability. Beloved by summer campers and often discovered by city dwellers who might be spending time in the country under dark starry skies. [10 Perseid Meteor Shower Facts]
Last summer a bright moon wrecked the shower by blotting out many of the fainter streaks, but in 2012 the moon will be three days past last quarter phase on this peak morning – a fat waning crescent presenting only a minor nuisance for prospective observers.
Nov. 13: Total eclipse of the sun
The first total solar eclipse since July 2010. Virtually the entire path of totality falls over water. At the very beginning, the track cuts through Australia’s Northern Territory just to the east of Darwin, then across the Gulf of Carpentaria, then through northern Queensland, passing over Cairns and Port Douglas before heading out to sea.
The rest of the eclipse path, including the point of the maximum duration of totality (4 minutes, 2 seconds) is, unfortunately, pretty much wasted by falling over the open waters of the Pacific Ocean.
Dec. 13-14: Geminid meteor shower
If there is one meteor display guaranteed to put on a very entertaining show it is the Geminid meteor shower. Now considered by most meteor experts to be at the top of the list, surpassing in brilliance and reliability even the August Perseids.
Bundle warmly against the winter chill; you can start observing as soon as darkness falls on the evening of Dec. 13 as Gemini starts coming up above the eastern horizon and continue through the rest of the night. Around 2 a.m. when Gemini is almost directly overhead, you might see as many as two meteor sightings per minute … 120 per hour! And the moon is new, meaning that it will not be a factor at all.
Cree LR6 LED downlights illuminate the dining room of a Denny’s restaurant in Colorado Springs, Co. More than 400 LR6 downlights were installed in the dining rooms five area restaurants, cutting approximately $15,500 per year in energy costs
CREDIT: Cree, Inc.
This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.
Alternative lighting is emerging as a potent method to combat the energy crisis. Light-emitting diode lighting technologies could provide an innovative way to save energy and make wasteful lighting obsolete.
Cree LED Lighting is manufacturing such a technology in Durham, North Carolina. Cree focuses on the production of light-emitting diode (or LED) lighting, powerand communications devices, all of which are supported by advancements in silicon carbide semiconductor technology.
Silicon carbide chips are more durable and perform better than traditional silicon semiconductors. Cree discovered these properties of carbide chips while working with the University of Arkansas in 2001 on a grant from the National Science Foundation. They designed computer modeling methods to simulate silicon carbide semiconductors under extreme conditions. Cree then worked on a 2007 National Science Foundation grant to develop microwave technology to rapidly process silicon carbide semiconductors.
LEDing the way
Although Cree’s work led to semiconductor applications for power and radio technology, Cree’s most successful products to date are LED lights using their silicon carbide semiconductors.
If widely adopted, the potential impact of LED lights on national energy consumption could be enormous. “On average, LED lighting can save up to 85 percent of the electricity used by incandescent bulbs, since most of the energy emitted from those lights is converted to heat instead of light,” said Michelle Murray, Director of Communications at Cree. “For fluorescents, depending on whether you compare LED lighting to compact fluorescents or fluorescent tube lighting, LEDs can save between 20 and 50 percent of the energy used by those lighting sources.”
In addition to LED lighting’s energy benefits, it holds mechanical advantages over standard fluorescent and incandescent lights.
“LEDs do not have fragile filaments like incandescent bulbs, or special gases inside, like fluorescents,” said Murray.
The best choice
The filaments in most incandescent bulbs not only limit each bulb’s life, they can generate large amounts of waste heat. Fluorescent bulbs are more efficient than incandescent bulbs, but contain potentially harmful mercury. When fluorescent bulbs expire, the toxic mercury has to be properly managed in order to protect both human health and the environment.
Cree’s CR6 LED Energy Star certified downlight powered by Cree TrueWhite technology.
CREDIT: Cree, Inc.
“Any lighting system is only as good as its weakest part,” said Murray. “So good quality solid-state lighting [like LED based bulbs] has a system-level design approach — the LEDs, the optics, the driver and the thermals are all optimized for their specific application. This allows LED lighting to last for years — even decades.”
LED lights are not given a lifetime based on failure, like incandescent or fluorescent bulbs. Instead, LED lights are considered in need of replacement when they only provide 70 percent of their original efficacy. The LED technology developed by Cree is engineered to last a minimum of 50,000 hours before requiring replacement, which is greater than the 40,000-hour lifetime of many fluorescent bulbs.
Failing fluorescents
Fluorescent bulbs are given an estimated lifetime based upon the failure rate of the bulb: After 40,000 hours of use, 50 percent of fluorescent lights will have broken and will require replacement. According to the DOE Caliper 9 Summary Report, because of that high failure rate, some fluorescent bulbs are advertised at a more practical lifetime of 24,000 hours — less than half the lifetime of a silicon carbide semiconductor-based LED.
In June 2011, President Barack Obama visited Cree to tour the company’s Durham, N.C. manufacturing facilities as well as meet with the Jobs and Competitiveness Council to discuss the direction of American business. The President highlighted Cree technology as a driving force in leading a clean energy revolution and aiding American manufacturing, but LED lighting is still not yet a familiar technology to the public.
“Awareness is the biggest challenge,” Murray said. “Awareness about how to buy good quality LED lighting products, and awareness that they already are on the market.”
Murray also highlights challenges in educating the public to understand the up-front cost of LED lighting versus the potential payback over the life of a fixture. Initially LED lights cost more than fluorescent and incandescent bulbs, but the savings in energy and bulb replacement typically pay for the LED’s higher cost over time.
CHANCE OF FLARES: NOAA forecasters have upgraded the chance of X-class solar flares today to 20%. The source would be AR1339, one of the biggest sunspots in many years. The active region rotated over the sun’s eastern limb two days ago and now it is turning toward Earth.
The sunspot has already unleashed one X-flare on Nov. 3rd around 2027 UT. A movie from NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory shows the extreme ultraviolet flash:
The flare created waves of ionization in Earth’s upper atmosphere, altering the normal propagation of radio waves over Europe and the Americas. In Ireland, the flare’s effect was felt even after dark.
A cloud of plasma or “CME” raced away from the blast site at 1100 km/s. The CME is not heading for Earth. It is, however, heading for Mercury and Venus. Click on the arrow to view a movie of the CME’s forecast track:
Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab say the CME will hit Mercury on Nov. 4th around 16:14 UT. NASA’s MESSENGER probe in orbit around Mercury will be monitoring the effects of the impact. If the CME overwhelms Mercury’s relatively weak magnetic field, it could scour material off the planet’s surface creating a temporary atmosphere and adding material to Mercury’s comet-like tail. The CME should hit Venus on Nov. 5th; the gossamer cloud will probably break harmlessly against the top of planet’s ultra-dense atmosphere.
FARSIDE CME: Yesterday, October 4th, something exploded on the far side of the sun and propelled a spectacular CME into space. The Solar and Heliospheric Observatory recorded the cloud as it emerged from behind the sun’s limb:
Analysts at the Goddard Space Weather Lab have combined observations from SOHO and the twin STEREO spacecraft to calculate the CME’s trajectory: It is heading for Mercury. The CME will hit the innermost planet on Oct. 5th around 04:30 UT plus minus 7 hours. Energetic particles accelerated by shock waves at the leading edge of the cloud could also have minor effects on the MESSENGER probe in orbit around Mercury. The CME’s forecast track shows that Venus might also receive a blow on Oct. 6th.
Dr. Kenneth P. Stoller, MD was trained as a pediatrician at UCLA and was a fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) for two decades. In 2008 he resigned from the AAP after realizing that the AAP has known that mercury in vaccines can lead to neurological damage and bring on various levels of the autism spectrum, from ADD to full blown helplessness, inflammatory pain, convulsions, and destructive behavior.
Many of them have terrible side effects, often blocking biological systems and fostering long-term illness. Then additional drugs are prescribed. Many of the routine medications today are psychotropic, further reducing intelligence and enthusiasm.
