Look at the sky tonight g😍Go somewhere as dark as possible away from artificial lights.
- Allow at least 15 minutes for your eyes to adjust to the dark.
- Dress up warmly. Even on a mild night, sitting around can be cold after a while.
- There is no need for any optical aids. The naked eye is enough to see the meteor showers.
- Don’t expect miracles . “Expect to see a nice meteorite every couple of minutes. The Perseids are particularly known because they produce a lot of bright meteorites and fireballs. A lot of them are bright enough to cut through the light pollution. Give it a good hour and you have a good chance to see at least one good fireball.”
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Blue Moon friday 31!
On Friday night, July 31, look skyward to see the second full moon of this month—a “Blue Moon.”
From Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium:
“The average time between full moons is about 29.5 days. So any month but February can, in principle, harbor a Blue Moon. If you do the math, you will see that somebody gets a Blue Moon every 2.7 years, or so. Not particularly rare—no one thinks of Presidential elections as rare, yet they take place less often than Blue Moons. The Moon can actually look blue during rare (polluting) atmospheric conditions that involve volcanic eruptions and forest fires.”
Learn more about the summer sky from the Sky Reporter: bit.ly/1MWxCFX
From Neil deGrasse Tyson, Director of the Hayden Planetarium:
“The average time between full moons is about 29.5 days. So any month but February can, in principle, harbor a Blue Moon. If you do the math, you will see that somebody gets a Blue Moon every 2.7 years, or so. Not particularly rare—no one thinks of Presidential elections as rare, yet they take place less often than Blue Moons. The Moon can actually look blue during rare (polluting) atmospheric conditions that involve volcanic eruptions and forest fires.”
Learn more about the summer sky from the Sky Reporter: bit.ly/1MWxCFX
Friday, July 24, 2015
Saturday, June 20, 2015
Great summer reads: Review of “Creativity, Inc.”
Great summer reads: Review of “Creativity, Inc.”
By Jesica Levingston Macleod
One of the masterminds behind Pixar Studios, Edwin Catmull, also happens to be an amazing writer. Last year he, with the help of Amy Wallace, published a book about finding true inspiration and creativity in business called "Creativity Inc". If the Buzz Lightyear character directing an orchestra on the cover of the book doesn’t get your attention then I hope this review will do it. Edwin Catmull started his career working in Special FX for George Lucas (yes, as in Star Wars), followed by the creation of the Pixar Studios. After finding enormous success with the movie "Toy Story" the company faced troubled times and it was acquired by Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple Computers). This book is a guide for any entrepreneur, not only for the fantastical story and the outstanding characters, but also for all the knowledge and experiences that Ed wants to share with us. He goes from the starting points for managing a creative culture to great advice about how to manage a start-up. Here are two of my favorites:
1-Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. If you get the team right, chances are that they will get the ideas right.
2-Failure isn't a necessary evil. In fact, it isn't evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.
By Jesica Levingston Macleod
One of the masterminds behind Pixar Studios, Edwin Catmull, also happens to be an amazing writer. Last year he, with the help of Amy Wallace, published a book about finding true inspiration and creativity in business called "Creativity Inc". If the Buzz Lightyear character directing an orchestra on the cover of the book doesn’t get your attention then I hope this review will do it. Edwin Catmull started his career working in Special FX for George Lucas (yes, as in Star Wars), followed by the creation of the Pixar Studios. After finding enormous success with the movie "Toy Story" the company faced troubled times and it was acquired by Steve Jobs (co-founder of Apple Computers). This book is a guide for any entrepreneur, not only for the fantastical story and the outstanding characters, but also for all the knowledge and experiences that Ed wants to share with us. He goes from the starting points for managing a creative culture to great advice about how to manage a start-up. Here are two of my favorites:
1-Give a good idea to a mediocre team, and they will screw it up. Give a mediocre idea to a great team, and they will either fix it or come up with something better. If you get the team right, chances are that they will get the ideas right.
2-Failure isn't a necessary evil. In fact, it isn't evil at all. It is a necessary consequence of doing something new.
Tuesday, July 22, 2014
Requiem for the researchers.
Requiem for the researchers
More than 100 passengers aboard downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 were traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, according to reports.
On this behalf, the International AIDS Society confirmed in a statement that "a number of colleagues and friends" were aboard the plane, although it did not state an exact number. In addition, Barack Obama confirmed reports that nearly a third of the passengers were scientists, health workers, and activists headed for the AIDS conference. He said : "On board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 there were apparently nearly 100* researchers and advocates traveling to an international conference in Australia dedicated to combating AIDS/HIV."... "These were men and women who had dedicated their own lives to saving the lives of others and they were taken from us in a senseless act of violence."
All 298 souls aboard were killed in the terrible crash.
One of the famous names that came out was the Dutch HIV researcher Dr Joep Lange. He was the president of the International AIDS Society and one of the precursors and advocate for the combination therapy using multiple antiretroviral drugs for management of HIV/AIDS. He was also an activist pro implementation of affordable HIV/AIDS medication for the poor, specially in the African continent. Dr. Lange was married and he was the father of 5 children. He was a professor of infectious diseases, at the Academic Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam since 1983.
His wikipedia profile is updated as a requiem for this great researcher:
In 2001, he founded the "PharmAccess Foundation", a non-profit organization based in Amsterdam which aims to improve access to HIV/AIDS therapy in developing countries, and he served as chairman until his death. Lange was a former president of the International AIDS Society (2002–04). Lange was also the Scientific Director of HIV[e]Ducation, an online learning system for medical doctors, nurses and counsellors working with HIV-positive people. He was also a founding editor of the medical journal, Antiviral Therapy.
In 2006 he became Professor of Medicine at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam and Senior Scientific Advisor to the International Antiviral Therapy Evaluation Centre, Amsterdam. He was also co-director of the HIV Netherlands Australia Research Collaboration, based in Thailand. Lange also served on Accordia Global Health Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board.[4]
He was a member of several societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Microbiology, and International AIDS Society.
He received the Eijkman Medal for tropical medicine and international health in 2007
More than 100 passengers aboard downed Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 were traveling to the 20th International AIDS Conference in Melbourne, Australia, according to reports.
On this behalf, the International AIDS Society confirmed in a statement that "a number of colleagues and friends" were aboard the plane, although it did not state an exact number. In addition, Barack Obama confirmed reports that nearly a third of the passengers were scientists, health workers, and activists headed for the AIDS conference. He said : "On board Malaysian Airlines flight MH17 there were apparently nearly 100* researchers and advocates traveling to an international conference in Australia dedicated to combating AIDS/HIV."... "These were men and women who had dedicated their own lives to saving the lives of others and they were taken from us in a senseless act of violence."
All 298 souls aboard were killed in the terrible crash.
One of the famous names that came out was the Dutch HIV researcher Dr Joep Lange. He was the president of the International AIDS Society and one of the precursors and advocate for the combination therapy using multiple antiretroviral drugs for management of HIV/AIDS. He was also an activist pro implementation of affordable HIV/AIDS medication for the poor, specially in the African continent. Dr. Lange was married and he was the father of 5 children. He was a professor of infectious diseases, at the Academic Medical Center (AMC) in Amsterdam since 1983.
His wikipedia profile is updated as a requiem for this great researcher:
In 2001, he founded the "PharmAccess Foundation", a non-profit organization based in Amsterdam which aims to improve access to HIV/AIDS therapy in developing countries, and he served as chairman until his death. Lange was a former president of the International AIDS Society (2002–04). Lange was also the Scientific Director of HIV[e]Ducation, an online learning system for medical doctors, nurses and counsellors working with HIV-positive people. He was also a founding editor of the medical journal, Antiviral Therapy.
In 2006 he became Professor of Medicine at the Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam and Senior Scientific Advisor to the International Antiviral Therapy Evaluation Centre, Amsterdam. He was also co-director of the HIV Netherlands Australia Research Collaboration, based in Thailand. Lange also served on Accordia Global Health Foundation’s Scientific Advisory Board.[4]
He was a member of several societies including the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Society for Microbiology, and International AIDS Society.
He received the Eijkman Medal for tropical medicine and international health in 2007
Friday, June 13, 2014
magical moon tonight!
Rare Friday the Thirteenth Full Moon
By Geoff Gaherty, Starry Night Education
June 13, 2014; 9:30 AM
Over the next few nights, the full moon will be riding low in our summer sky.
The summer solstice will occur Saturday (June 21), so the noontime sun is nearly at the highest it can get in our Northern Hemisphere skies. This puts the full moon, occurring just after midnight Eastern Daylight Time on Friday the 13th, at close to the lowest it can possibly get this week.
The full moon is an instantaneous event: the exact instant when sun, Earth and moon fall closest to a straight line. A moment before this, the moon is in waxing gibbous phase; a moment after, it is in waning gibbous phase. Only at exactly 12:11 a.m. EDT (0411 GMT) is it exactly "full." [The Moon: 10 Surprising Facts]
As far as the naked eye is concerned, the moon looks full for a day or two on either side of the exact "full" phase. Only with a telescope can you see that the moon is being lit from a slight angle, causing the line of sunrise or sunset on the moon, called the terminator, to be very close to one edge or the other.
By Geoff Gaherty, Starry Night Education
June 13, 2014; 9:30 AM
Over the next few nights, the full moon will be riding low in our summer sky.
The summer solstice will occur Saturday (June 21), so the noontime sun is nearly at the highest it can get in our Northern Hemisphere skies. This puts the full moon, occurring just after midnight Eastern Daylight Time on Friday the 13th, at close to the lowest it can possibly get this week.
The full moon is an instantaneous event: the exact instant when sun, Earth and moon fall closest to a straight line. A moment before this, the moon is in waxing gibbous phase; a moment after, it is in waning gibbous phase. Only at exactly 12:11 a.m. EDT (0411 GMT) is it exactly "full." [The Moon: 10 Surprising Facts]
As far as the naked eye is concerned, the moon looks full for a day or two on either side of the exact "full" phase. Only with a telescope can you see that the moon is being lit from a slight angle, causing the line of sunrise or sunset on the moon, called the terminator, to be very close to one edge or the other.
Friday, June 6, 2014
Would we be happy without a phone?
The cell alteration from the cellphones...
Dr. Nesrin Seyhan is the chair of the Gazi biophysics department in Ankara (beside being a member of the Advisory committee of the WHO, a Scientific member , İCEMS and a Panel member , NATO RTO HFM). She has been studying the effect of radiation on cells for the last 20 years, focusing lately in the kind of radiation that the cell phone emit.
Besides the fact that millions of people do not have a phone, we can asume that you can be happy without this addictive device. I made the experiment multiple times, mostly because I did not have any other option, and it was ok at the beginning but lately it was an awful experience. I had to change mobile plans and according with the Murphy's laws, if something can go wrong, it will... I was without a phone for a week.
A quick search in the pubmed, the scientific papers data base, with the word cell phone gives you 5424 articles. The best one was a Korean research back from 2014 by Kim and collaborators published in PLOS One (1). They studied Smartphone Addiction in 795 students in elementary, middle, and high schools across South Korea. They conclusion was that Smartphone addiction is gaining a greater spotlight as possibly a new form of addiction along with internet addiction.
Other interesting study done in El Cairo showed the effects of pulsed electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone in adult rats. The researchers exposed adult rats to a daily dose of Electromagnetic radiation (EMR, frequency 1800 MHz) and sacrificed after 1, 2 and 4 months. Then, monoamines were determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD) using their native properties. they reported that the exposure to EMR resulted in significant changes in dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT) in the hippocampus, hypothalamus, midbrain and medulla oblongata of adult rats.
Soooo, the exposure of adult rats to EMR may cause disturbances in monoamine neurotransmitters and this may underlie many of the adverse effects reported after EMR including memory, learning, and stress (2). This results, plus other research has showed that we might feel happy every time he heard our hone ringing... and also stressed.
The good news is that a study involving a nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, did not found increased risks of tumors of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association (3).
Obviously the mobile phone technology changed our life in a daily bases, and our social etiquete has been affected for the "staring at the phone" behavior and the "just to check updates" constant social interaction interruptions. But getting deeper in the biological effects of the phones, Dr. Nesrin Seyhan, registered a concerning alteration in the programmed cell death (aka apoptosis) in rabbits exposed to radiation. Furthermore, exposure to 1,800 MHz may induce some pathomorphological alterations in different tissues of non-pregnant and pregnant rabbits and their infants. In other research from her group they showed that apoptosis resulted from radio frequency radiation exposure of pregnant rabbits and their infants (3). They measured the oxidative DNA damage and lipid peroxidation levels in the brain tissue of pregnant and non-pregnant New Zealand White rabbits and their newborns exposed to RFR. They were exposed to RFR (1800 MHz GSM; 14 V/m as reference level) for 15 min/day during 7 days. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels were analyzed. MDA and 8-OHdG levels of non-pregnant and pregnant-RFR exposed animals significantly increased with respect to controls.
This results are alarming and a huge "danger" sign that we should not underestimate, in Dr. Seyhan words: "There exist very few experimental studies on the effects of RFR during pregnancy. It would be beneficial to increase the number of these studies in order to establish international standards for the protection of pregnant women from RFR."
Söderqvist F1, Carlberg M2, Hardell L2.
1-PLoS One. 2014 May 21;9(5):e97920. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097920. eCollection 2014.
Development of korean smartphone addiction proneness scale for youth.
Kim D1, Lee Y1, Lee J1, Nam JK1, Chung Y2.
2-Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. 2013 Jul;17(13):1782-8.
The effect of pulsed electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone on the levels of monoamine neurotransmitters in four different areas of rat brain.
Aboul Ezz HS1, Khadrawy YA, Ahmed NA, Radwan NM, El Bakry MM.
3-BMJ. 2011 Oct 19;343:d6387. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6387.
Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.
Frei P1, Poulsen AH, Johansen C, Olsen JH, Steding-Jessen M, Schüz J.
Dr. Nesrin Seyhan is the chair of the Gazi biophysics department in Ankara (beside being a member of the Advisory committee of the WHO, a Scientific member , İCEMS and a Panel member , NATO RTO HFM). She has been studying the effect of radiation on cells for the last 20 years, focusing lately in the kind of radiation that the cell phone emit.
Besides the fact that millions of people do not have a phone, we can asume that you can be happy without this addictive device. I made the experiment multiple times, mostly because I did not have any other option, and it was ok at the beginning but lately it was an awful experience. I had to change mobile plans and according with the Murphy's laws, if something can go wrong, it will... I was without a phone for a week.
A quick search in the pubmed, the scientific papers data base, with the word cell phone gives you 5424 articles. The best one was a Korean research back from 2014 by Kim and collaborators published in PLOS One (1). They studied Smartphone Addiction in 795 students in elementary, middle, and high schools across South Korea. They conclusion was that Smartphone addiction is gaining a greater spotlight as possibly a new form of addiction along with internet addiction.
Other interesting study done in El Cairo showed the effects of pulsed electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone in adult rats. The researchers exposed adult rats to a daily dose of Electromagnetic radiation (EMR, frequency 1800 MHz) and sacrificed after 1, 2 and 4 months. Then, monoamines were determined by high performance liquid chromatography coupled with fluorescence detection (HPLC-FD) using their native properties. they reported that the exposure to EMR resulted in significant changes in dopamine (DA), norepinephrine (NE) and serotonin (5-HT) in the hippocampus, hypothalamus, midbrain and medulla oblongata of adult rats.
Soooo, the exposure of adult rats to EMR may cause disturbances in monoamine neurotransmitters and this may underlie many of the adverse effects reported after EMR including memory, learning, and stress (2). This results, plus other research has showed that we might feel happy every time he heard our hone ringing... and also stressed.
The good news is that a study involving a nationwide cohort study of mobile phone use, did not found increased risks of tumors of the central nervous system, providing little evidence for a causal association (3).
Obviously the mobile phone technology changed our life in a daily bases, and our social etiquete has been affected for the "staring at the phone" behavior and the "just to check updates" constant social interaction interruptions. But getting deeper in the biological effects of the phones, Dr. Nesrin Seyhan, registered a concerning alteration in the programmed cell death (aka apoptosis) in rabbits exposed to radiation. Furthermore, exposure to 1,800 MHz may induce some pathomorphological alterations in different tissues of non-pregnant and pregnant rabbits and their infants. In other research from her group they showed that apoptosis resulted from radio frequency radiation exposure of pregnant rabbits and their infants (3). They measured the oxidative DNA damage and lipid peroxidation levels in the brain tissue of pregnant and non-pregnant New Zealand White rabbits and their newborns exposed to RFR. They were exposed to RFR (1800 MHz GSM; 14 V/m as reference level) for 15 min/day during 7 days. Malondialdehyde (MDA) and 8-hydroxy-2'-deoxyguanosine (8-OHdG) levels were analyzed. MDA and 8-OHdG levels of non-pregnant and pregnant-RFR exposed animals significantly increased with respect to controls.
This results are alarming and a huge "danger" sign that we should not underestimate, in Dr. Seyhan words: "There exist very few experimental studies on the effects of RFR during pregnancy. It would be beneficial to increase the number of these studies in order to establish international standards for the protection of pregnant women from RFR."
Söderqvist F1, Carlberg M2, Hardell L2.
1-PLoS One. 2014 May 21;9(5):e97920. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0097920. eCollection 2014.
Development of korean smartphone addiction proneness scale for youth.
Kim D1, Lee Y1, Lee J1, Nam JK1, Chung Y2.
2-Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci. 2013 Jul;17(13):1782-8.
The effect of pulsed electromagnetic radiation from mobile phone on the levels of monoamine neurotransmitters in four different areas of rat brain.
Aboul Ezz HS1, Khadrawy YA, Ahmed NA, Radwan NM, El Bakry MM.
3-BMJ. 2011 Oct 19;343:d6387. doi: 10.1136/bmj.d6387.
Use of mobile phones and risk of brain tumours: update of Danish cohort study.
Frei P1, Poulsen AH, Johansen C, Olsen JH, Steding-Jessen M, Schüz J.
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