Fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy diet, especially for growing children. Unfortunately, harmful foodborne germs like Salmonella, E. coli, and Listeria can contaminate fresh produce.
According to a study by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), produce accounts for 46 percent of all foodborne illness outbreaks, more than twice the rate of meat and poultry (22 percent).
After all that hard work to convince your little ones to eat their greens, the last thing you want is for them to get sick.
What can you do to protect your family from contaminated produce?
Wash your hands for 20 seconds (the time it takes to sing the "Happy Birthday" song twice) with warm water and soap before and after handling fresh produce.
When grocery shopping, keep fruits and vegetables separated from raw meat, poultry, or seafood in your cart and make sure they're bagged separately at checkout.
Keep fruits and vegetables separated from raw meat, poultry, and seafood in the refrigerator. If fresh produce that won't be cooked comes in contact with raw meat, poultry, or seafood, throw it out.
Select produce that is not bruised or damaged, especially if you don't plan to cook it. Store pre-cut fruits and vegetables in the refrigerator as soon as you get home.
Even if the packaging indicates that produce has been "pre-washed," add an extra layer of caution and wash it before eating.
Thoroughly wash fresh produce under running water just before eating, cutting, or cooking, and remove any visible dirt.
Never use the same cutting board for fresh produce that you use for raw meat, poultry, or seafood. To sanitize cutting boards and other food-contact surfaces, clean with detergent and water and then sanitize with a solution of 1 tablespoon of regular chlorine bleach in one gallon of water (or 2 teaspoons of concentrated bleach in one gallon of water). Let air dry.
Never eat recalled produce. When in doubt, ask for more information from the market from which you bought it. If you can't get more information, discard the questionable produce.
It's important to note that fresh produce can become contaminated at various points along the path from the farm to your table.
Organic standards address soil and water quality, pest control, livestock practices, and rules for food additives. Organic practices avoid the use of synthetic fertilizers, sewage sludge, irradiation and genetic engineering, and most pesticides, according to the USDA Organic Practices Factsheet.
While the use of raw manure is considered an effective source of nitrogen and other soil nutrients for organic farming, improperly composted manure or applied raw manure fertilizers can lead to pre-harvest microbial contamination.
The FDA has established produce safety standards for growing, harvesting, and packaging produce for consumption, but there are exemptions for some farms.
Smaller farms, for example, may not be held to the same food safety standards as larger suppliers.
If you are buying produce from a local or organic farmer's market in your area, you might want to ask the seller: How was produce protected from contamination during growth and after being harvested?
Fresh produce is a nutritional powerhouse, so keep those fruits and veggies handy for little ones. Just use these tips to help maximize the benefits!


Tragedy struck Celtics star Isaiah Thomas' family on Saturday morning, when his younger sister, Chyna, passed away in a one-car accident in Washington. She was 22.
According to The News Tribune, Thomas's 1998 Toyota Camry hit a metal post at approximately 5 a.m while driving southbound on I-5. Witnesses said that the car was being driven normally, but it started drifting left and then drove "about 50 feet partially off the roadway" until it hit a Jersey barrier and got propelled head-on into the sign post. Police officers reported that Thomas did not have her seatbelt on at the time of the accident. A picture of the crash can be seen here.
The Celtics' first game of the 2017 NBA Playoffs will tip off at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, while their second game will take place on Tuesday. There is no word on whether Thomas will play in the games or if he will head home to be with his family.


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Person of Interest Series Finale Review and Final Thoughts
ByAlice Jester June 23, 2016 January 19, 2023
O Captain! My Captain! our fearful trip is done;
The ship has weather'd every rack, the prize we sought is won;
The port is near, the bells I hear, the people all exulting,
While follow eyes the steady keel, the vessel grim and daring:
But O heart! heart! heart!
O the bleeding drops of red,
Where on the deck my Captain lies,
Fallen cold and dead.
Yes, Walt Whitman a dramatic way to say farewell to such a beloved TV show, but considering the long slow build of five years to this very moment, a crescendo like this shouldn't go out with mere words of "Holy S&%$!"
I had been eagerly anticipating this final season of Person of Interest for a year and I can honestly say that creatively, the show went out on top. While I'm very sad to see it go, we got 103 amazing episodes to live on in our memories, and as Root the Machine reflected this doesn't mean the end. This doesn't mean Death. Trust me, if you've suffered with "Supernatural" in the last few seasons, going out telling a complete and coherent story from beginning to end is the best dignity you can give an inspired piece of work. Bravo to all. Bravo.
"Everyone dies alone. But if you mean something to someone…
if you help someone or love someone, and even a single person
remembers you… then maybe you never really die at all?"
I haven't been able to keep up on reviews, but I was at least keeping up on watching "Person of Interest" this season. In a way I'm grateful for the seven week burnoff planned by CBS because I got to see this finished product faster but still take enough time to absorb all we were given. I was most affected by "The Day the World Went Away" and ".exe" prior to this episode. The former episode, the 100th ep of the series, was a symphony of love and pain. I still wish that Elias could have lived on (why bring him back just to kill him again?) but Root's demise was long foreshadowed and played out perfectly. The fact that The Machine was so moved by her loss that it adopted her voice and personality was the only outcome. A fully realized intelligence that has fulfilled the promise that Root always intended, to set her free. Root died alone and even had the indignity of being buried in an unmarked grave, but her impact and memory will live on. Root's death had another impact too, finally pushing Harold toward breaking his own set of rules, the same rules that were limiting The Machine.
As for .exe, the outcomes of the simulations were certainly relevant. Sure, it didn't impact the world. Finch didn't pursue that dream to make the world a better place, leaving him rich but unsatisfied. He also didn't meet Grace either. Lionel went down for his association with HR and didn't become the better man he is today. Shaw remained an operative for the government without a moral code. Reese ended up killing himself after all because Finch wasn't there to save him with the job offer. Root became a loyal operative, but for Samaritan, not The Machine.
So what did the purpose of this exercise mean? Of course Harold wanted to save those that he's grown to love, but he also knows that they are willing to sacrifice themselves for something greater. Samaritan is crossing a line by taking away free will and that cannot be allowed to happen, even if he has to kill off his own creation. Michael Emerson's performance in the last three episodes were nothing short of Emmy worthy and woefully reminded us the burdens of his role as creator. The moral and philosophical debates that have constantly gone on in his mind, such a huge burden for a man that just wanted to make the world a better place. His showdown with Greer was the ultimate meeting of the minds, one who didn't trust humanity, the other who trusted humanity to make their own mistakes despite their destructive nature. Both put their faith in a higher intelligence and found themselves embedded in a war of the Gods, putting themselves in God mode to protect their master.
"Return 0" is a piece of code seen in numerous languages, meaning the end of a function. It also means exit is a success, where it would be 1 if exit was a failure.
Death is so sensationalized on TV and has become in many ways cliché as it's pulled out for every single sweeps stunt. But this conclusion, despite my utter heartbreak over seeing Mr. Reese die, seemed the most appropriate. If anything, I thought that Finch would die too and I was rather stunned to see him leave everything for a life with Grace. The Machine said it in the previous episode, John Reese was always living on borrowed time. Instead of going out a broken man, he went out a hero. That's the best possible outcome for a soldier like him. It's the best way he could thank Harold for saving him. When Reese cutoff his personal connections back in episode 5.03, that was a big sign to me that he wasn't going to survive this fight.
Having Root as The Machine on that rooftop pulled everything together. Yes, people may be thinking they were dying alone, but the machine was always there, watching, often empathically. She was there for Reese not only for his demise, but for his father's as well. She was literally touching his shoulder bother times. Such a beautiful, poignant visual, as if The Machine was really God this whole time. Such powerful storytelling and a symbolic connection for these characters that may have been absent to the world, but always had each other.
Shaw's burden was her grief over losing Root. Everything was starting to hit home, and The Machine reaching out to her as Root was the chance to heal her as well. The Machine could tell her all the things Root wasn't able to, and I lost it a bit when she was told that Root loved her because she was different from everyone else. "Your shape is an arrow." It felt weird at the end when the only two left were Fusco and Shaw, both calling dibs for the ownership of Bear. Shaw wasn't about to lose her dog too. To see the adventure continue with Root and Shaw gave us hope.
It was a wild ride, and we are better for knowing this show. Thank you Greg Plageman, Jonathan Nolan, and the very talented cast and crew for making something so memorable and exciting to watch. It's been a great five seasons and I'm sure I'll be pulling out those DVDs for years to come.
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Farewell Person of Interest – Gone All Too Soon
Recap and Review: Supernatural 11.05 – "Thin Lizzie"
ByPSG January 27, 2016
The Super Sleepy Dispatch Recap and Review of Supernatural 11:5 "Thin Lizzie" By P.S. Griffin I think I died and went to my special heaven…
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The Vampire Diaries Review: "I'll Remember" aka Everyone's Miserable Except Damon and Bonnie
My, my, it's has been a rough summer in Mystic… I mean outside the city limits of Mystic Falls. There's plenty of adjustment to be…
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"Arrow" Review: Episode 1.10 – "Burned"
Feeling hot, hot, hot…conga line everyone! Right, show. This week, our life's lesson was about overcoming fear. Oliver was afraid after having the crap kicked…
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Vampire Diaires: Preview Photos – "The Last Dance" (2.18)
ByAlice Jester April 4, 2011
This is the episode Julie Plec told us about during the C2E2 panel. It's another dance, this time a 60's theme. Caroline is Jackie…
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Person of Interest Season Four Preview: "Panopitcon"
Season premiere week continues and this is a very big one for us at TVFTROU. Person of Interest is back! Season Four kicks off tonight…
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Retro Review: The Flash (1990 Version), Episodes 4, 5, 6, and 7
ByNate Winchester September 30, 2014
Honor Among Thieves Recap: Due to a TV budget, Ocean's 11 is now 5. Except it's hard to escape when up against someone that's faster…
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redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


Have you heard about the Everything Bubble? Some analysts believe that after the dot-com bubble of the 1990s and the housing bubble of the 2000s, we are in the middle of a price bubble in virtually all asset classes simultaneously caused by the Fed's unusually easy monetary policy with ultra low interest rates. Although we agree that the US central bank maintained federal funds rate too low for too long, the narrative about a dangerous bubble inflating in a wide variety of countries, industries, and assets does not make sense. The bubble means that the price of an asset deviates from the fundamental value, increasing excessively, to a much greater extent than on other markets. It should be now clear that the existence of overvalued assets necessarily means that other assets are undervalued, so there can't be the 'everything bubble'. Sorry, but those who wait for the total asset apocalypse might be disappointed.
OK, but what about gold? Is its price too low or too high relative to stocks and bonds? Let's examine it and find out who is right: gold bulls or bears? The chart below displays the ratio of gold prices to the S&P 500 Index.
Chart 1: Gold to S&P 500 Index ratio from April 1968 to September 2018.
As one can see, the ratio is now around 0.41, which is rather low. The historical average amounts to 1.14, almost three times higher. It may indicate that gold is significantly underpriced compared to US stocks. However, let's note that the inflationary decades of 1970s and 1980s strongly affect the results. Gold enjoyed a tremendous bull market in the 70s and early 80s., as the next chart shows. When we remove that period from the analysis and start from the 1990s, the average drops to 0.64 – still higher, but not so much. The chart below also suggests that the current low level of gold-to-stock ratio results not from mediocre gold prices, but rather from elevated stock valuations.
Chart 2: Gold prices (yellow line, right axis) and S&P 500 Index (red line, left axis) from April 1968 to September 2018.
And what about bonds? Let's look at the chart below. As one can see, gold now seems to be overpriced relative to bonds. The historical average is 5.44, while the current reading of the ratio amounts to 12.36.
Chart 3: Gold to 10-Treasuries ratio from April 1968 to September 2018.
The next chart displays the gold and 10-Treasuries prices (quoted as 100 minus the yield). It suggest that although the bond prices are quite high, the gold prices are relatively elevated due to the amazing rally in the 2000s.
Chart 4: Gold prices (yellow line; right axis) and bond prices (red line; left axis; 100 minus yield) from April 1968 to September 2018.
So we have contradictory indications. However, investors should remember that all comparison to bond prices have limited use, as bond prices are quoted as 100 minus yield. It means that while the prices of other assets will increase over time, the bond quotes will be not very distant from their face values (there is pull to par).
But, as we mentioned at the beginning, one can argue that we are in "everything bubble" and all financial assets, or at least both stocks and bonds, are overvalued. So let's compare the yellow metal to houses, which are another tangible and alternative asset class. The next chart points to the ratio of gold prices vs. home prices, reflected by the Private Housing Construction Price Index from 1968 to 1974 and S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller US National Home Price Index from 1975 to 2018 (both data series came from Robert Shiller's online database).
As one can see, the current value of the ratio, 6.62, is above the historical average, i.e., 5.48, which could suggest that gold is a bit overvalued relatively to property prices.
Chart 5: Gold to Home Prices (Gold to Private Housing Construction Price Index ratio from April 1968 to December 1974 and Gold to S&P/CoreLogic/Case-Shiller Home Price Index ratio from January 1975 to May 2018).
However, investors should remember that we had the housing bubble in the early 2000s, which means that the average would be higher, if the real estates were not artificially propped up. As the next chart shows, when the bubble burst, gold shined. But the real estate has outperformed gold since 2012 due to the economic recovery and increased risk appetite.
Chart 6: Gold prices (yellow line; right axis) and home prices (red line; left axis; PHCPI and S&P/Case-Shiller) from April 1968 to May 2018.
The key takeaway is that gold seems to be underpriced when compared to the US stocks, while overvalued when compared to the American real estates (and perhaps bonds as well, but this comparison is less conclusive). What does it imply for the gold outlook? Well, not as much as you might think. The reason is that the regression toward the mean does not fully apply to the gold market – at least unless someone considers the price of gold as the resultant of completely random events. We prefer a casual-realistic approach, which pays attention to broad macroeconomic context, to simple mechanistic one, which focuses solely on data series.
In other words, what really matters is the reason for high share prices compared to other assets, including gold, and it's low interest rates. In such macroeconomic environment, stocks are simply more attractive than bonds. Now, yields are rising, which may hit equities, which are dangerously lofty relative to gold or home prices. But does it mean that investors will turn to the bullion? Not necessarily, as coupon-bearing bonds will look more attractive. Higher demand for US Treasuries, strengthened additionally by problems of some emerging markets, would support the greenback and be a headwind for the yellow metal.


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M&IT India » News » US$1 million bid fund to boost Indonesia's international meetings results
US$1 million bid fund to boost Indonesia's international meetings results
Indonesia's Ministry of Tourism has announced US$1 million bid fund in 2019 to increase its market share of international meetings.
Arief Yahya, Indonesia's minister of tourism, said: "Business events are a high-yielding sector and we encourage the industry to bid for events while the government provides the funding." Aside from the creation of the fund, the Indonesian Tourism is looking into developing and promoting MICE-ready destinations like Batam and Bintan. Currently, only Bali and Jakarta are considered ready. Yahya explained: "We will not be able to beat Singapore if we compete heads on. What we can do is pair Singapore with Batam and Bintan for side events and pre and post-programmes. This is our intention."
These initiatives are important as it will help to boost both the number of arrivals and the country's revenues as the government is stepping up foreign exchange earnings to lower the current account deficit.
Bambang Brodjonegoro, minister of national development of Indonesia, said: "We should not be content at seeing long queues at the immigration counters anymore, but instead how to make travellers stay longer and spend more. This is more important." He pointed out that Indonesia's tourism sector needed to go beyond achieving tourists arrivals and should focus on raising yields by attracting business events.
The 2018 IMF-World Bank Annual Meeting held in Bali from October 12-14, 2018 yielded an estimated revenue of 5.9 trillion rupiah (US$3.3 million) and the estimated spend from participants during their stay could touch 1.1 trillion rupiah. Indonesia's capability of hosting events with more than 15,000 attendees will also be consolidated.
Hosea Andreas Runkat, chairman of the MICE Acceleration Team under the Ministry of Tourism, said: "We are now formulating a MICE development strategy that will become a reference for our working plan for 2019-2020. Our goal is to bid for seven international events."


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The υ Andromedae system: Models and stability
Tomasz F. Stepinski, Renu Malhotra, David C. Black
Radial velocity observations of the F8 V star υ Andromedae taken at Lick and at Whipple Observatories have revealed evidence of three periodicities in the line-of-sight velocity of the star. These periodicities have been interpreted as evidence for at least three low-mass companions (LMCs) revolving around υ Andromedae. The mass and orbital parameters inferred for these companions raise questions about the dynamical stability of the system. We report here results from our independent analysis of the published radial velocity data, as well as new unpublished data taken at Lick Observatory. Our results confirm the finding of three periods in the data. Our best fits to the data, on the assumption that these periods arise from the gravitational perturbations of companions in Keplerian orbits, are also generally in agreement but with some differences from the earlier findings. We find that the available data do not constrain well the orbital eccentricity of the middle companion in a three-companion model of the data. We also find that in order for our best-fit model to the Lick data to be dynamically stable over the lifetime of the star (∼ 2 billion years), the system must have a mean inclination to the plane of the sky greater than 13°. The corresponding minimum inclination for the best fit to the Whipple data set is 19°. These values imply that the maximum mass for the outer companion can be no greater than about 20 Jupiter masses. Our analysis of the stability of the putative systems also places constraints on the relative inclinations of the orbital planes of the companions. We comment on global versus local (i.e., method of steepest descent) means of finding best-fit orbits from radial velocity data sets.
Astrophysical Journal
2 PART 1
radial velocity
orbitals
periodic variations
life (durability)
Binaries: spectroscopic
Celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics
Stars: individual (υ Andromedae)
Stepinski, T. F., Malhotra, R., & Black, D. C. (2000). The υ Andromedae system: Models and stability. Astrophysical Journal, 545(2 PART 1), 1044-1057.
The υ Andromedae system : Models and stability. / Stepinski, Tomasz F.; Malhotra, Renu; Black, David C.
In: Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 545, No. 2 PART 1, 20.12.2000, p. 1044-1057.
Stepinski, TF, Malhotra, R & Black, DC 2000, 'The υ Andromedae system: Models and stability', Astrophysical Journal, vol. 545, no. 2 PART 1, pp. 1044-1057.
Stepinski TF, Malhotra R, Black DC. The υ Andromedae system: Models and stability. Astrophysical Journal. 2000 Dec 20;545(2 PART 1):1044-1057.
Stepinski, Tomasz F. ; Malhotra, Renu ; Black, David C. / The υ Andromedae system : Models and stability. In: Astrophysical Journal. 2000 ; Vol. 545, No. 2 PART 1. pp. 1044-1057.
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abstract = "Radial velocity observations of the F8 V star υ Andromedae taken at Lick and at Whipple Observatories have revealed evidence of three periodicities in the line-of-sight velocity of the star. These periodicities have been interpreted as evidence for at least three low-mass companions (LMCs) revolving around υ Andromedae. The mass and orbital parameters inferred for these companions raise questions about the dynamical stability of the system. We report here results from our independent analysis of the published radial velocity data, as well as new unpublished data taken at Lick Observatory. Our results confirm the finding of three periods in the data. Our best fits to the data, on the assumption that these periods arise from the gravitational perturbations of companions in Keplerian orbits, are also generally in agreement but with some differences from the earlier findings. We find that the available data do not constrain well the orbital eccentricity of the middle companion in a three-companion model of the data. We also find that in order for our best-fit model to the Lick data to be dynamically stable over the lifetime of the star (∼ 2 billion years), the system must have a mean inclination to the plane of the sky greater than 13°. The corresponding minimum inclination for the best fit to the Whipple data set is 19°. These values imply that the maximum mass for the outer companion can be no greater than about 20 Jupiter masses. Our analysis of the stability of the putative systems also places constraints on the relative inclinations of the orbital planes of the companions. We comment on global versus local (i.e., method of steepest descent) means of finding best-fit orbits from radial velocity data sets.",
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AU - Stepinski, Tomasz F.
AU - Malhotra, Renu
AU - Black, David C.
N2 - Radial velocity observations of the F8 V star υ Andromedae taken at Lick and at Whipple Observatories have revealed evidence of three periodicities in the line-of-sight velocity of the star. These periodicities have been interpreted as evidence for at least three low-mass companions (LMCs) revolving around υ Andromedae. The mass and orbital parameters inferred for these companions raise questions about the dynamical stability of the system. We report here results from our independent analysis of the published radial velocity data, as well as new unpublished data taken at Lick Observatory. Our results confirm the finding of three periods in the data. Our best fits to the data, on the assumption that these periods arise from the gravitational perturbations of companions in Keplerian orbits, are also generally in agreement but with some differences from the earlier findings. We find that the available data do not constrain well the orbital eccentricity of the middle companion in a three-companion model of the data. We also find that in order for our best-fit model to the Lick data to be dynamically stable over the lifetime of the star (∼ 2 billion years), the system must have a mean inclination to the plane of the sky greater than 13°. The corresponding minimum inclination for the best fit to the Whipple data set is 19°. These values imply that the maximum mass for the outer companion can be no greater than about 20 Jupiter masses. Our analysis of the stability of the putative systems also places constraints on the relative inclinations of the orbital planes of the companions. We comment on global versus local (i.e., method of steepest descent) means of finding best-fit orbits from radial velocity data sets.
AB - Radial velocity observations of the F8 V star υ Andromedae taken at Lick and at Whipple Observatories have revealed evidence of three periodicities in the line-of-sight velocity of the star. These periodicities have been interpreted as evidence for at least three low-mass companions (LMCs) revolving around υ Andromedae. The mass and orbital parameters inferred for these companions raise questions about the dynamical stability of the system. We report here results from our independent analysis of the published radial velocity data, as well as new unpublished data taken at Lick Observatory. Our results confirm the finding of three periods in the data. Our best fits to the data, on the assumption that these periods arise from the gravitational perturbations of companions in Keplerian orbits, are also generally in agreement but with some differences from the earlier findings. We find that the available data do not constrain well the orbital eccentricity of the middle companion in a three-companion model of the data. We also find that in order for our best-fit model to the Lick data to be dynamically stable over the lifetime of the star (∼ 2 billion years), the system must have a mean inclination to the plane of the sky greater than 13°. The corresponding minimum inclination for the best fit to the Whipple data set is 19°. These values imply that the maximum mass for the outer companion can be no greater than about 20 Jupiter masses. Our analysis of the stability of the putative systems also places constraints on the relative inclinations of the orbital planes of the companions. We comment on global versus local (i.e., method of steepest descent) means of finding best-fit orbits from radial velocity data sets.
KW - Binaries: spectroscopic
KW - Celestial mechanics, stellar dynamics
KW - Planetary systems
KW - Stars: individual (υ Andromedae)
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 2 PART 1


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25 unbelievable facts about the solar system revealed in All About Space magazine
By Daisy Dobrijevic
All About Space issue 129 uncovers astonishing facts about our solar system, the anatomy of white dwarf stars and a mystery surrounding weird filaments in the Milky Way.
All About Space issue 129 (Image credit: Future)
25 unbelievable facts about the solar system
Welcome to the stellar afterlife
Where have these giant filaments come from?
Inside All About Space issue 129, on sale now, discover why our cosmic neighborhood may be the strangest place in the cosmos with 25 extraordinary facts about the solar system.
Subscribe to All About Space
Get All About Space delivered straight to your door or digital device. Subscribe to All About Space (opens in new tab) from $8.50 per quarter/three issues.
For this cover feature, we explore the solar system from potentially life-harboring winds on Venus to the strange liquid cycle on Saturn's largest moon Titan.
Read more about the shrinking of Jupiter's Great Red Spot and how both professional telescopes and amateur astronomers are monitoring the change.
Related: 10 extraordinary ocean worlds in our solar system (photos)
Elsewhere in the issue you can find out why we may need to copy birds to explore another planet faster and in more detail than ever before. You can also explore the anatomy and servicing procedures for the Hubble Space Telescope, and learn how it's served as the backbone of modern astronomy for over three decades.
We also have an in-depth stargazer section filled with useful information on what to look out for in the sky, including naked eye and binocular targets and a deep sky challenge.
Take a look below for more details on All About Space issue 129's biggest features.
Discover why our solar system may be the strangest place in the cosmos. (Image credit: alxpin via Getty Images)
Depending on how careful you do the calculations and how you arrange them, all the planets in the solar system could fit in between Earth and the moon. The distance between Earth and the moon varies as it orbits around us, as does the diameter of each of the planets — they're wider at their equators, so Saturn and Jupiter would have to be tilted sideward for this to work. But imagine lining them all up, pole to pole. They'd just barely squeeze in between us and our closest companion in space, blocking out the sky with their rings and gas giant bulk as they did so.
The moon is both mind-bogglingly distant and incredibly close, depending on how you think about it.
Read the full feature in the latest All About Space (opens in new tab).
They're hot, they're small and technically they're dead. Meet the stellar remnants that have a multimillion-year-long tale to tell. (Image credit: Future)
When stars like our sun have burnt themselves out, they shed their skins to leave behind a dead core. These stellar remnants are white dwarfs, pint-sized objects that are quite unlike any other. No bigger than Earth in diameter, they're white-hot and slowly cooling as they fade away over billions and trillions of years.
Eventually, they will become stellar ghosts — mere shadows of their former selves. 97% of stars in the universe will one day turn into white dwarfs. In the cosmos' far future you would be hard-pressed to find a star that's burning with the aid of fusion, as the universe becomes littered with stellar corpses.
Mysterious magnetic filaments have been found at the heart of the Milky Way, but astronomers are still trying to discover their origin. (Image credit: paulostorch via Getty Images)
In 1984, astronomer Farhad Yusef-Zadeh was observing the night sky when he spotted something rather unusual that stopped him in his tracks. He had been working on his PhD at Columbia University, attempting to figure out the nature of compact sources. But along with colleague Don Chance and University of California at Los Angeles professor Mark Morris, he helped identify three large arcs some 150 light-years long.
Daisy Dobrijevic
Reference Writer
Daisy Dobrijevic joined Space.com in February 2022 as a reference writer having previously worked for our sister publication All About Space magazine as a staff writer. Before joining us, Daisy completed an editorial internship with the BBC Sky at Night Magazine and worked at the National Space Centre in Leicester, U.K., where she enjoyed communicating space science to the public. In 2021, Daisy completed a PhD in plant physiology and also holds a Master's in Environmental Science, she is currently based in Nottingham, U.K.


"Ryanair calls for new measures as drink disturbances rocket" is part of ATW Plus, our online premium membership. Subscribing will provide you access to exclusive news, carefully researched airline financial, fleet and traffic data, plus the option to receive our popular, award-winning print magazine. To learn more, click here. If viewing via ATW Mobile, please login and click "Read web article" to view fully. Questions? ATWPlus@penton.com.


As its name suggests, La Belle is a high-class restaurant with French cuisine. Its design and ambiance, however, are part and parcel of the infamous Ibicenco boho-chic style: white stone walls, embroidered cushions, plenty of natural light and a few Balinese beds put in for a good measure. Taking over this lovely venue in the pastoral town of San Rafael, Arnaud and Sabine Lauris wanted to create a place with stylish chill-out vibes and top-quality friendly service – and it would be an understatement to say that they simply succeeded at this.
One part of the restaurant is covered with a roof, the other one is exposed to the star-lit sky. If you arrive with a big company of friends, order the undisputable hit of summer menu – a basket of raw vegetables with a selection of sauces to share. Then proceed to La Belle trilogy of tuna tataki, foie gras in pieces and scallops carpaccio on a bed of guacamole; sink your teeth into Confit lamb shoulder smoked with thyme, indulge in Coconut milk bouillabaisse and polish it off with Le Paris-Ibiza dessert (meringue and diplomat cream, red fruits) or Souffle with Hierbas de Ibiza. The wine list comprises dozens of French and Spanish denominations, including both well-known classics and a few intricate names to discover.
The legendary French joie-de-vivre would be incomplete without a top-notch entertainment programme: at Le Belle they regularly host hippie markets, art exhibitions, fashion shows, cooking workshops and various activities for kids.


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A Winter Season Appetizer?
November 15, 2019 January 28, 2021 Oakland County, MI Government Leave a comment
On the sunny afternoon of Friday, November 9th, I hiked the heavily wooded northern section of the Ortonville State Recreation Area and was surprised to discover thin layers of ice had formed on small hidden lakes located between the steep hills of this State protected wildland. Dry leaves, pushed by gentle winds, seemingly danced across the frozen surfaces and my hiking companion and I joked that it almost looked like winter arrived early, especially when we noted traces of snow from the night before on fallen logs and fungi.
With darkness descending and two more miles to go, we paused only briefly to admire an enormous white pine that had survived the saw of early settlers, and not far from that stately tree, the remains of a Wild Turkey that had fallen prey to a stealthy creature, most likely a coyote. The delicate but hardy spider-like yellow blossoms of witch hazel drew our attention, but was no surprise, for it blooms in early November and is sometimes overlooked amidst a kaleidoscope of autumn leaf colors. It was a really great autumn hike on the northernmost fringe of the wilder side of Oakland County. We decided the steep meandering trails would be a challenging, yet fun, place to cross country ski once winter arrived.
Winter arrived 48 hours later.
The Oakland County Sheriff's Office had news to share about winter's snowy arrival and on Monday evening they shared this post on Facebook: "We have closed many roads due to the conditions today and in just (1) eight hour stretch we responded to 123 property damage accidents, 8 Injury accidents, and 40 road run-offs." On Tuesday afternoon, the US National Weather Service Detroit / Pontiac Michigan shared record breaking winter storm news on their Facebook page: "The snowfall that started early November 11th and lasted into November 12th, ranks as the biggest November winter storm in Detroit! Total snow accumulation at Detroit was 9.2 inches, breaking the old record of 9.0 inches, set back on November 15-16, 1932." Many Oakland County residents awoke to more than eight inches of snow on Tuesday morning. The snow measuring ruler I maintain in my Brandon Township wildflower meadow, one of the higher elevations in the county, confirmed exactly 11 inches of snow.
Winter, however, does not officially arrive until December 21st, and that is still 38 days away. As I write these words on Wednesday morning, November 13th, Oakland County and the Midwest are locked in a deep freeze. According to the National Weather Service, we hit new record-breaking single digit temperatures across Southeast Michigan. The temperature outside my window read 5 degrees just after sunrise on Wednesday as I trudged back outside to restock the bird feeders.
Winter can be a challenging season for wildlife, but most species will survive rapid temperatures shifts rather well, with the possible local exception of the Virginia opossum. This southern species has been steadily moving northwards for decades, but has not adapted well to extreme cold and rapid temperature fluctuations. Unlike masters of survival in cold weather such as red foxes and coyotes that have heavily furred tails, the tail and ears of the only Michigan marsupial are hairless and highly susceptible to frostbite during cold snaps. During extreme cold, these mostly nocturnal creatures that live in our wildlands, suburbs and cities will forage in the daylight. Frostbite injuries to their prehensile tail and ears may be noted, as in this image I captured several years ago during another early deep freeze.
Migratory bird species such as hummingbirds and vireos left weeks ago when hours of daylight shortened, and for bird species that remain here, it is life as normal. A Pileated Woodpecker pounded away on a dead black cherry tree for hibernating insects as it often does, but the real action occurred at my bird feeders that I stocked with black-oil sunflower seeds and suet.
Virtually all seed-eating birds can crack those "oilers" open easily and the kernels within have a high fat content, making them extremely valuable for most winter birds. It did not take long for the word to spread and a few hours later, the feeders were a flurry of feathered activity with several birds devouring the seeds and pecking at suet. Red-bellied woodpeckers, Black-capped chickadees, American Goldfinch, Downy Woodpeckers, House Finches, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Eastern Bluebirds, Tufted Titmice, Dark-eyed Juncos and White-breasted Nuthatches all joined in the feast as others gathered in adjacent sun-soaked shrubs.
Ruffed grouse live in wilder parts of Oakland County that have a mix of cedar swamps and second growth trees. They thrive in winters with heavy snows and frigid temperatures. One could say they love fresh powdery snow, especially when temperatures plummet. The ruffed grouse is famous for its winter roosting behavior, commonly referred to as "snow roosting." Grouse will dive bomb head first into the fluffy snow, creating an instant shelter that keeps out the cold and protects it from winds and that's where it sleeps all night. I've yet to witness that well-documented act, or photograph a grouse in winter since they explode into flight when startled, but I have captured photos in spring when they strut about and "drum" in cedar swamps to attract mates. It's safe to say that as I write these words, some of the grouse in our county are hunkered down in their secret snow igloos beneath the surface.
I dug out my winter boots and headed off into the woods behind my house on the afternoon of November 12th, just as the sky turned blue and the temperature started its slow decrease. It was a winter wonderland, perhaps an appetizer of what is to come. It was obvious that for the creatures of the wild, unlike many humans, the sudden snowstorm was no big deal. A few squirrels scolded my woodland intrusion, rabbit tracks led to a thicket not 20 feet away from fresh coyote tracks, and a lone goldfinch sat on a branch by my frozen swamp, its feathers fluffed against the cold, but also well positioned to capture the warmth of the sun. I wanted to tell it to fly up to my house and visit the bird feeder.
I noticed slight movement to my side as the goldfinch and I watched each other and turned slowly until I was facing a deer that has come to know my wanderings. The deer was about a hundred feet away nibbling on twigs. It looked about, saw me, and continued its brunch. The sudden snowstorm and frigid temperatures may have created discomfort and anxiety for humans, but for the deer, it was just another day in the woods and I was just a quiet guy that meanders in his woods. A deer's winter coat has an outer layer of hollow hairs that trap air and act as insulation. Deer also conserve energy on cold days, a fact easily observed by shared pathways when snow is deep. That reduces energy expenditures as they travel to areas to bed down or browse.
The snow will melt and autumn will return, at least for awhile, but when winter resumes it's good to remember that the adaptations and survival strategies of wild species have been tested and fine-tuned for thousands of years. The early November snow and frigid temperatures may have been a newsworthy event that caused anxiety for humans, but for wildlife it was just a passing moment in time, for that is the way of nature on the wilder side of Oakland County.
Jonathan Schechter is the Nature Education Writer for Oakland County Government and blogs weekly about nature's way, trails, and wildlife on the Wilder Side of Oakland County.
Follow along with us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube using #OaklandCounty, or visit our website for news and events year-round.
2019, Brandon Township, Ortonville, Wilder Side of Oakland CountyJonathan Schechter, Nature Education, Oakland County, Ortonville State Recreation Area, The Wilder Side of Oakland County, Wildlife Adaptations, Winter Storm, Winter Weather
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Word cloud of abstracts from Fisheries Science in 140 Characters – the Role of Social Media in Our Science.
As keynote speaker David Shiffman (@WhySharksMatter) noted, there have been numerous revolutions in communications over the course of human history…oral language…the written word…the printing press…the telephone…and social media. Whether you are an early adopter or a luddite like me, there's no denying that social media has transformed the way we interact with each other and the way we communicate our science.
Led by NOAA biologist Sean Lucey, the American Institute for Fisheries Research Biologists teamed up with the Fisheries Blog, to host a session at the American Fisheries Society's annual meeting to examine that topic: Fisheries Science in 140 Characters – the Role of Social Media in Our Science. See below for some quotes and highlights from the session's speakers. For an alternative synopsis of the session, please check out David Shiffman's Storify: #SocialFish at #AFS146. And, a BIG #SocialFish thank you to all of the sessions sponsors for making the event such a success: The American Institute for Fisheries Research Biologists, The Fisheries Blog, Smith-Root, Oregon RFID, and the AFS Fisheries Information Technology Section.
Symposium keynote speaker, David Shiffman.
A short concise statement is almost always more difficult to construct than a verbose, jargon-filled treatise. As social media lends itself to the former, it trains scientists to speak and write more clearly – a trait useful for general scientific writing as well. In doing so, social media makes it easier for experts to talk with each other, the public, journalists, and policy makers. It removes the traditional "gate keepers" of information. This is a good thing in that it makes science accessible instantaneously. But, it is also a bad thing in that the misinformed, the extremists, and the self-proclaimed experts have just as much opportunity as anyone to post information, often making it difficult for the average reader to discern the wheat from the chaff.
Symposium keynote speaker, Jeremy Fox.
While traditional "web logs" have fallen out of favor, newer style blogs, created as more of a public information source, can fill specialized niches and reach audiences with particular interests. Scientists can use them to "be their own journalist," provide an open access source of specialized information in a less formal mode than scientific papers, discuss or critique trends in the field, and provide professional advice. As we can attest at the Fisheries Blog, blogging does require investment but it can provide a complimentary mode of communication to peer-reviewed papers and other scientific outlets.
Dr. Brandon Peoples, presenting on behalf of The Fisheries Blog.
The five members of the Fisheries Blog collaborated on an analysis to examine the relationships between twitter activity and citation rates. As scientists, we recognize that social media is an additional time commitment on top of everything else. And, like most, we were curious to see if there are any professional returns on that time invested. The bottom line is that Twitter provides a good gauge of initial reactions to papers and is a good companion to traditional citation rates in measuring impact of scientific work.
If 62% of Americans get their news from social media and 85% of users view social media as affecting decision making, why wouldn't we be using it for fisheries management and conservation? Social media can be tailored to specific interest groups, such as recreational anglers, to help target information and engagement to the right audiences.
While some people view social media as a "shiny new tool," traditional media, such as tv, radio, and newspaper, can often segway into social media outlets. If you have a good story to tell, like Norman the Sturgeon at the Missouri Department of Conservation, it will hook audiences in any forum.
Often, scientists see social media as a way to disseminate their information to others. But, social media can be much more interactive than one way communication. The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission, for example, uses a Facebook page to monitor trophy bass catch.
Because of its global scope, social media can augment the reach of citizen science and conservation efforts. For example, the International Game Fish Associations Great Marlin race has conservation-minded angling teams sponsor satellite tags for billfish and social media tracks the billfish "race" — impressive distance swims all around the world.
With social media, as with any form of communication, audience is key. Whom are you trying to reach with your message? If you have a very specific stakeholder group, such as the International Pacific Halibut Commission (IPHC), you don't need big numbers to achieve a big impact. Through social media, the IPHC reaches more than 20 times the number of people that can attend its public meetings.
Humor is a great asset to any social media campaign. Popular references can make science subjects more relatable (see: leechnado and gar of thrones) and puns can pique public interest. Showing people science can GARner support and inspire conservation for a lifetime.
Social media is becoming an increasingly effective tool in law enforcement. As of 2013, 96% of police departments used social medial and over 80% said that it has helped solve crimes. For game wardens, such as in the Missouri Department of Conservation, something as simple as a Facebook photo of a trophy hunt or a stringer of frogs can lead to more effective enforcement of regulations.
While social media make self-promotion possible for the masses, it's important to recognize that there are people who are professional communicators. They are specifically trained to answer the "so what" questions and can greatly assist with strategic and consistent messaging across multiple platforms, from a short tweet to a full press release.
Joining the fast-paced world of social media can be daunting and overwhelming, but taking the first step may be easier than you think – you have a built in audience: your professional community. From there, you can broaden to a network and then the greater interested crowd.
Communication isn't all that different from fishing. To catch a certain fish, you use a particular gear; to catch a different fish, you need a different gear. Similarly, if you just communicate through scientific publications and presentations, you will only reach your peer audience. Social media provides alternative platforms to reach new audiences but it's always important to remember the end goal – the message: the content and what it hopes to achieve.
Evolving with the times, the American Fisheries Society and hosting chapter made those members with children feel welcome at this year's national meeting by providing childcare. We at The Fisheries Blog could not be more thankful. Without this childcare, all five members of The Fisheries Blog would have had to wait at least another year before being all together in the same place for the first time.
The Fisheries Blog: all together, in the same place, for the VERY first time!!
Previous Post #SocialFish at #AFS146 in Kansas City–See you there!
Great post and thanks for the shout-out to AFS meeting childcare!!


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Star Trek fans everywhere who were hoping that 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' and 'Star Trek: Voyager' would be joining 'Star Trek', 'Star Trek: The Next Generation', and 'Star Trek: Enterprise' in high-definition are in for a rude awakening. We've just learned that the technology that they used on these two fan-favorite series for the special effects actually ended up lowering the quality of both shows so that neither one is likely to ever be available in HD. While Blu-ray editions of both shows may feasibly happen at some point, they won't be in HD and will likely just have added content at a lower disc count.
You might be wondering how that can be when even The Original Series was already released in HD. Well, it all has to do with a revolutionary new technology that at the time saved the producers a ton of money on making both series. Only now, it means a form in HD is unlikely.
So, because of how things were handled in post-production there is no easy way to do this. The original 35mm's which were used for other shows in the Star Trek universe would have to have the entire post-production redone and it doesn't make financial sense to do so at this time. We'll possibly one day see these happen but I wouldn't hold my breath if I were you.
What are your thoughts on likely never seeing either 'Star Trek: Deep Space Nine' or 'Star Trek: Voyager' in HD? Do you think the studio should still try to investigate options on doing this cheaper or will they never see the light of day? Share your thoughts below!
Could Stephen Amell Appear In A WWE Ring Again Soon?


Omar M. Dukar, M.D. received his M.D. Degree from the American University of Beirut. He completed his Ophthalmology Residency and Fellowship in Glaucoma at the University of Louisville. He has been practicing Ophthalmology in Evansville since 1993.


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Arts + Life » Artist Profile
What do horses, fish and birds have in common with Don Quixote? No, it's not a riddle. But it's a trick question, because unless you were standing in the Burlington studio of sculptor Bill Heise, you'd never guess the answer: metal. More to the point, pieces of steel and iron that served other functions before their new incarnations as art.
Heise's metal menagerie -- which also includes roosters and "Vermont bullcows" -- shares space in his cluttered workspace with a series of mask-like, Southwest-inspired "spirit-keepers" and a 7-foot-tall version of Cervantes' hapless hero. Most of the works are freestanding; some are designed to hang. Then there are the relatively practical, if quirky, constructions such as candleholders and squat cocktail tables.
Heise's latest design, conceived while wintering at the home he built in Honduras, is a birdbath that straddles fantasy and function: A round disc of steel forms a sturdy base; the multi-leaved stem was inspired by tropical plants; and the shallow basin comes with a large-plumed, long-legged bird attached. Whether this creature will attract or frighten New England's native avian species remains to be seen. But the human appeal of these sculptures is evident -- Burlington's Frog Hollow gallery is featuring them in its front window next month, just in time for gardening season.
The Vermont State Craft Center at Frog Hollow has carried Heise's work for, he guesses, some 30 years. His graceful birds -- cranes, egrets, herons, sandpipers -- are still popular, according to Burlington gallery assistant Hannah Haupt. So are the Vermont bulls and Heise's most minimal creation: a bicycle and rider in simple outline, about a foot long. "We see those fly out the door," Haupt says. Also standing sentinel at the gallery is another Don Quixote.
Some of the sculptures in Heise's studio are decades old -- pieces he can't bear to part with. Now 63, he began crafting critters from junkyard detritus long before the use of recycled materials became trendy. In fact, back in 1966, he was one of the trendsetters. Heise is grateful for his timing: He supported three kids on an income from making art. "I couldn't do that now," he points out. "When I started, only a few people on the East Coast were doing art from found objects. Now that's really exploded. It's partly my fault."
The downside, he suggests, is that found objects are, well, getting harder to find -- though that may be good news for America's landfills. Mean-while, the cost of new steel has risen dramatically. Another challenge: the inevitable competition in the marketplace, including from cheaper production-line items made, ironically, to resemble recycled constructions. Not the first time commerce imitated art.
But there's no substitution for Heise's design skills, imagination and whimsy -- not to be confused with "cute," which his works are not. Plus, Heise employs an economy of line that Picasso might envy. "With two or three pieces, he can come up with something that to us conveys so much personality, humor and character," says Karen Farber, a Westford-based marketing consultant. She and her husband Don own about a dozen Heise sculptures, she says, and have purchased at least twice that many more as gifts. "They're like little friends," Farber says of the figures -- mostly animals -- that populate her home, indoors and out. These include five fish, a camel, a stork, a pair of roosters, an archer and a galloping horse.
Farber's favorite, though, is still her first Heise purchase: three elephants that "appear to be walking in a line," she explains. "They're standing on a blade from a very big saw that would have been used to cut down something large, like a tree." The work is a subtle statement "about vanishing wilderness," Farber believes.
The sculptor himself makes no claims about eco-politics. If turning the stuff of human industry into representations of less wasteful creatures conveys a message, he doesn't talk about that, either. Perhaps his re-use aesthetic speaks for itself; perhaps he just likes animals. Either way, his concerns are about making art.
In fact, Heise is more artist than artisan. "I'm not a good craftsman," he claims. "I'm too impatient to go onto the next thing." And he's not a big fan of equipment; his primary tools are his hands and an arc welder: "It's an old one I bought from a farmer," he says. "I can work more spontaneously with it; I can be superaggressive." The resulting rough-hewn seams contribute to the sculptures' spontaneous feel. So does the inevitable, and intentional, rust. But the works are hardly flimsy. "This stuff is virtually indestructible," Heise says, "and if it does break, everything can be fixed."
Like most artists, this one draws inspiration from the natural world, but some of his works imagine the mythological or supernatural -- such as those he completed for a commission last year. Dan Cox, owner of Burlington's Coffee Enterprises, asked Heise to make five gigantic masks. More than six feet tall, the works are now hanging from -- or, more accurately, wrapped around -- some white pine trees on the grounds of Cox's Shelburne home. "We went to a noetic sciences conference and Dan got inspired somehow, something about Easter Island," says his wife, artist Casey Blanchard. "Guardian spirits, I think that's what he had in mind ... We had to get one of those cherrypicker things to put them up."
That was a large job for Heise, who says he now doesn't like to make anything he can't carry -- or that won't fit in the back of his ancient Toyota pickup. He's scaling back in other ways, too. Though his work is still carried at galleries around the country, and he and wife/business manager Carol attend 10 or so craft shows a year, Heise says sales have slowed since his heyday. At one time he had five production assistants; now he's content to work alone. He's rented a slice of his studio to another metal sculptor, and is moving into the apartment upstairs to cut costs.
But being close to the shop is just fine by him. "This is all I've done for 40 years; I've never had to wash dishes or anything," Heise says. "I could stop now and sit on my porch and drink rum, but I'd rather do the art -- it's more fun."
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Track cycling is a sport where speed is everything. As much as 90% of the resistance a rider has to overcome is aerodynamic drag. To minimize drag, riders wear form-fitting one-piece skinsuits and wear special, streamlined helmets. They have aerodynamic bikes (unique left-side-drive ones, if you're the Team USA women) and ride with their arms close together and thrust in front of them to minimize the frontal area they expose.
Join us throughout the Rio Olympics for more fluid dynamics in sports. If you love FYFD, please help support the site!


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HomeTechnologyHubble telescope's bigger, more powerful successor to soar
Hubble telescope's bigger, more powerful successor to soar
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — The Hubble Space Telescope's successor is a time-traveling wonder capable of peering back to within a hair's breadth of the dawn of the universe. And it's finally on the brink of flight.
It will be the biggest and most powerful astronomical observatory ever to leave the planet, elaborate in its design and ambitious in its scope. At a budget-busting $10 billion, it is the most expensive and also the trickiest, by far, to pull off.
Set to soar after years of delay on Friday, the James Webb Space Telescope will seek out the faint, twinkling light from the first stars and galaxies, providing a glimpse into cosmic creation. Its infrared eyes will also stare down black holes and hunt for alien worlds, scouring the atmospheres of planets for water and other possible hints of life.
"That's why it's worth taking risks. That's why it's worth the agony and the sleepless nights," NASA's science mission chief Thomas Zurbuchen said in an interview with The Associated Press.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said he's more nervous now than when he launched on space shuttle Columbia in 1986.
"There are over 300 things, any one of which goes wrong, it is not a good day," Nelson told the AP. "So the whole thing has got to work perfectly."
The Webb telescope is so big that it had to be folded origami-style to fit into the nose cone of the European Ariane rocket for liftoff from the coast of French Guiana in South America. Its light-collecting mirror is the size of several parking spots and its sunshade the size of a tennis court. Everything needs to be unfolded once the spacecraft is speeding toward its perch 1 million miles (1.6 million kilometers) away.
"We've been waiting a long time for this," said the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's planet hunter Sara Seager. "Webb will move our search for life forward, but to find signs of life we have to be incredibly lucky."
Named after the man who led NASA during the space-trailblazing 1960s, the 7-ton James Webb Space Telescope is 100 times more powerful than Hubble.
The 31-year-old Hubble — increasingly creaky but still churning out celestial glamour shots — focuses on visible and ultraviolet light, with just a smattering of infrared light.
As an infrared or heat-sensing telescope, Webb will see things Hubble can't, providing "an entirely new perspective on the universe that will be just as awe-inspiring," said Nikole Lewis, deputy director of Cornell University's Carl Sagan Institute.
Webb will attempt to look back in time 13.7 billion years, a mere 100 million years after the universe-forming Big Bang as the original stars were taking shape. Scientists are eager to see how closely, if at all, these initial galaxies resemble our modern day Milky Way.
To out hustle Hubble, Webb requires a considerably bigger mirror spanning 21 feet (6.5 meters). It also needs a canopy large enough to keep sunshine and even reflections from the Earth and moon off the mirror and science instruments. The shiny, five-layered thin shade stretches 70 feet by 46 feet (21 meters by 14 meters), essential for keeping all four instruments in a constant subzero state — around minus 400 degrees Fahrenheit (minus 240 degrees Celsius).
The most daunting part of the mission: Unfolding Webb's mirror and sunshield following launch, and locking them into perfect position. The gold-plated mirror consists of 18 motor-driven segments, each of which must be meticulously aligned so they can focus as one.
NASA has never attempted such a complicated series of steps remotely. Many of the mechanisms have no backup, so the failure of any of 344 such parts could doom the mission.
Hubble had its own debacle following liftoff in 1990. A mirror defect wasn't detected until the first blurry pictures trickled down from orbit. The blunder prompted a series of risky repairs by shuttle astronauts who restored Hubble's sight and transformed the machine into the world's most accomplished — and beloved — observatory.
Webb will be too far away for a rescue mission by NASA and its European and Canadian partners.
To avoid a repeat of the Hubble fiasco, Zurbuchen ordered an overhaul of Webb after joining NASA in 2016, 20 years into development. Northrop Grumman is the prime contractor.
The sunshield ripped during a practice unfurling. Tension cables for the shade had too much slack. Dozens of fasteners fell off in a vibration test. All this and more led to more investigations, more delays and more costs.
The problems continued even after Webb's arrival at the South American launch site in October. A clamp came loose and jolted the telescope. A communication relay between the telescope and rocket malfunctioned.
Now comes the long-awaited liftoff, set for 7:20 a.m. EST Friday, with fewer spectators expected to travel to French Guiana because of the Christmas Eve timing.
It will take Webb a full month to reach its intended parking spot, four times beyond the moon. From this gravity-balanced, fuel-efficient location, the telescope will keep pace with Earth while orbiting the sun, continuously positioned on Earth's nightside.
It will take another five months for chilling and checking of Webb's infrared instruments before it can get to work by the end of June.
The Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore operates Hubble and will also oversee Webb. At least five to 10 years of observing are planned.
"Personally, I think that even with all of the hype, the Webb will still exceed expectations," said the institute's Ori Fox, who will use Webb to study supernovae, or exploded stars. "Many of what are considered Hubble's most inspiring discoveries were not part of the original plan."
His colleague, Christine Chen, who will focus on budding solar systems, finds serendipity "perhaps the most exciting aspect" of Webb. "The universe is more weird and wonderful than astronomers can imagine."
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The Rosewood Questionnaire
Getting Lost with Zac Posen
PETER SCHLESINGER • PHOTOS BY DANIELA SPECTOR • VIDEO BY SEAN MATTISON • SEPTEMBER 14, 2017
Curators, Style
Art, hot baths—and rodeos. The peripatetic fashion designer (with a new documentary, House of Z, out this month) answers the Rosewood Questionnaire and reveals his true nature as a traveler. Plus: His favorite places in Dallas.
What attracts you to new destinations?
"I like to go to cities with great museums, and I enjoy returning over the years to see how the art collections evolve. Stepping into a museum and experiencing the works takes you away for a moment."
What about in Dallas? Any favorite stops here?
"Dallas Contemporary is incredible. There's deep appreciation of culture here, with private and public collections, which is always exciting to see.
"I also love the rodeo, and I love exposing New Yorkers that don't know this side of American culture. It's so interesting, with the German influence on the American West and Southwest, and how the rodeo stylistically evolved into a sport. It's real and exciting—it's man and animal.
How do you find inspiration while traveling?
"You never know what will be a source of inspiration. So you need to get your head out of your phone and keep your eyes open. When I travel, and just in my day to day, I try to be an open cultural "receive dish"—from people I meet, different experiences, scents and textures, colors and moods."
What's the first thing you do when you arrive someplace new?
"I take very hot epsom salt baths pretty much everywhere. It takes away the toxins from travel. I don't know whether it's in my head, but it helps me readjust to time zones."
"You have to go under the tape you're not supposed to go beyond."
Have you ever been lost while traveling?
"Getting lost in a foreign city is such a special experience. When I was six, my parents lost me in a town somewhere in Europe for about 40 minutes, though it seemed like two days. But to get lost in a foreign city as an adult is such a special experience, to be challenged in that way. Just putting the map away in Venice, for example, which is a maze in itself: the mystery of space and movement makes you become more attuned to every noise, sense and smell."
How do you find authenticity?
"You have to hunt it down. Find locals and push them to tell you their favorite spots. (My dad taught me that—he's a flea marketer and an adventurous traveler.) You have to go under the tape you're not supposed to go beyond."
What have you discovered about the women of Dallas?
I think they embrace fashion to start with. There's an inherent graciousness that is rare these days, and I find it incredibly inspiring and beautiful…. I'm always blown away by their understanding of quality and the balance between the "wow" moment and elegance. Texas women are powerhouses.
What do you value most in a destination?
"Surprise, experience, culture. They make the world an exciting place to travel. It's always great to have a comfortable home-away-from-home base—once you have that, you're free to relax and have an adventure."
How did you discover Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek?
I love the romance of the Mansion—I like places that have history to them, and the Mansion encapsulates that. My own history with the Mansion started around 15 years ago, when it hosted my first trunk show and event with Ken Downing [of Neiman Marcus]. We arrived at the hotel after dark, and the room had this French toile on the the poster beds—a real time capsule. By the bedside was a box with a pair of black Lucchese boots with my initials, ZP. It was a great welcome!
—As told to Peter Schlesinger and Christina Geyer of Paper City Magazine
A Rosewood Conversation with Zac Posen and Kimberly Schlegel Whitman
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Subject: I NEED A TOKEN OF GOODWILL FROM YOU MICHAEL.
THANKS FOR YOUR MAIL AND I QUITE UNDERSTAND YOUR PLIGHT.
TO SHOW YOU SINCERITY IF YOU REALLY WANT US TO WORK TOGETHER.
I AWAIT TO HEAR FROM YOU TO KNOW HOW WE CAN START WORK IMMEDIATELY.


text:
Tammi Jonas: Food Ethics
I am what I eat, you are what I feed you.
About Tammi Jonas
COVID-19: An opportunity for disaster solidarity
On Ethical Omnivorism
Agroecology & 'other innovations' – Australia on the wrong side of history
The UN, Biodiversity, & Climate Change
Then They Buy You – the Eat-Lancet Report on Healthy Diets
Love is kindness, kindness is love
The Fight for Farmers' Rights to Seed
Why agroecology is the answer to reducing agriculture's greenhouse gas emissions
Connectivity to Collectivity
AFSA calls out biased reporting on Victorian planning reforms
Dead Local Meat: Building and Operating a Small-Scale Abattoir
Planning for Industrial Intensive Animal Agriculture: The Regulation Diaries (7)
Elle on COVID-19: An opportunity for disaster solidarity
Adrian Tito Cardinali on About Tammi Jonas
Tammi Jonas on About Tammi Jonas
Sambodhi Prem on COVID-19: An opportunity for disaster solidarity
#RIOT (16)
#RoadTripUSA (21)
chooks (6)
competence (19)
cosmopolitanism (19)
ethical (40)
Jonai Farms (18)
The Hedonist Life (8)
Tag: Temple Grandin
AFSA forges links with US Food Sovereignty movement – my #epicfairfoodtour
[This was originally posted on the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance (AFSA) blog]
I've been home five days from my three-week Epic Fair Food Tour of America and my mind has only just stopped spinning long enough to let the pieces fall into place. The trip spanned coast-to-coast – eight states in three weeks – and included daily conversations with some of America's leading thinkers and daily creators of alternative food systems.
Saying goodbye to the lovely Joel & Theresa Salatin.
I was delighted to spend time with farmers such as the irascible Joel Salatin of Polyface, the fiery and generous Mike Callicrate of Ranch Foods Direct, the irreverent and determined Greg Gunthorp of Gunthorp Farms, the earnest and warm Guido Frosini of True Grass Farms, the focused and incisive Marina of Circle B Ranch, and the fierce and friendly Julia Smith of Urban Digs Farm.
With Ryan Fibiger of Fleisher's Pastured Meats
I was also privileged to break bread and talk food ethics with many of those I think of as the connectors in our food system – the butchers, providores, and chefs – such as Kate & Josh at Western Daughters butcher shop in Denver, Rachael of Brooklyn Bouillon, Jake of Dickson's Farmstand Meats, Ryan of Fleisher's Pasture-Raised Meats, and Dan Barber of Blue Hill in New York (whose book The Third Plate is a must read).
First course at Dan Barber's Blue Hill
And of course I was also fortunate to spend time and learn from others who write, speak, teach, and lobby to transform the system, including John Moody of Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund, Bob Perry of the University of Kentucky, Temple Grandin, Jahi Chappell of the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy, Michael Pollan, and Neil Thapar of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
Lunch with Michael Pollan.
So after spending time with that line up, surely I've got all the answers now, right? No, but I do have a clearer picture of where the food sovereignty movement is up to in the States, some ideas about how best to focus our efforts together, and what seem to me some of the weaknesses and gaps in the current movement.
What remains clear is that we must support the farmers who are building an alternative food system.
And we must also support the connectors who help them get their produce to market in a way that doesn't simply build a new system that looks exactly like the old one. But I'll return to that dilemma in a moment.
As for the farmers building the new system like those listed above and across Australia and the rest of the world – we need these fair food farms to be ready as the old system crumbles.
The combined pressures of climate change and epidemics sweeping through intensive animal agriculture such as H5N2 avian flu and porcine epidemic diarrhea virus (PEDV) are growing challenges for industrial agriculture, and workers organizing to demand fair pay and conditions combined with increasing consumer pressure for greater transparency and better treatment of land, animals, and workers are having an effect.
Promising signs include popular American fast food chain Chipotle's animal welfare sourcing policy and recent announcement that it would no longer use GMO ingredients in its products, while McDonalds announced the closure of hundreds of its outlets amidst major drops in profits.
In less promising news, Chinese giant Shuanghui purchased America's biggest pork producer Smithfield in 2013, narrowing control of the global meat industry even further. (For more on the meat industry, see my earlier post on my time at Slow Meat in Denver.)
Mike Callicrate flew me over this JBS feedlot in eastern CO – 130,000 cattle in that lot.
And so as the Polyfaces, White Oaks, Gunthorps, Jonai, Buena Vistas, and Old Mill farms of the world toil to grow food deeply embedded in our local communities and imbued with their values of respect for people and animals and care for the land, we must support them/us, just as we must find ways to help others get onto the land to grow more food in small-scale agroecological systems.
As we say at Jonai Farms, we don't need to scale, we need to multiply.
One of the most obvious issues the movement must grapple with is the question of scale. What's the right size to be viable, and when is big too big? There are no easy answers to these questions, but viability must always be considered holistically – as well as being financially viable, are we maintaining viable soils, viable animals grown in healthy systems resilient to disease without constant application of antibiotics?
On size and sovereignty, I would argue that it's a question of connectedness. Scale typically decreases the connectedness of the producer to the eater. Polyface challenged my thinking on scale as I saw that Joel has fostered the growth of new farmers in his area by taking them on as sub-contractors while mentoring them on their journey. Ultimately most move onto their own independent farms, which can be a tricky model for the Salatins as they must regularly train up new farmers to maintain their production, but Joel is committed to it. He says he never intended to grow to the size they are now, 'it just happened', but he's unapologetic about it, and I could see why. What I witnessed was a healthy example of a bigger scale, employing dozens of people in a thriving regenerative system.
The Polyface community enjoying dinner together
But if the Salatins, like the Tysons before them, opted to continue to scale and to buy up every feed operation, every hatchery, and every slaughterhouse their profits enabled them to, we'd be back to what we're trying to end. None of today's fair food farmers would seek to reproduce the horrendous production model of intensive poultry that Tyson introduced back in the 1930s. But vertical integration is increasingly common in this movement – Polyface, Gunthorp, and we Jonai are all working to control more of the supply chain to ensure our own viability as well as control and connectedness.
And we must be vigilant against our own cultural impulse to grow grow grow simply because we can, and because there's demand for our product. We must know when to stop and hand over surplus demand to our comrades on the farms multiplying all around us. If we command (and pay our workers) a fair price to start with, we need not continue to grow. We can grow less for more rather than more for less, which will grow more farmers.
So that's production sorted.
What about the connectors? How do we ensure they do their important work to process and package primary produce and get it to market in the many instances where it still won't be suitable or possible for the farmers to do that work themselves without re-creating the old system where the middleman takes all (or too much anyway)? And in a way where they are paid fairly as well – think of abattoir workers, food manufacturing workers, and all the other workers in the food chain. (And then think of the companies who own abattoirs, and companies like Kraft or Coles or Woolworths and what their shareholders and executives earn…)
Aldo working magic at Dickson's Farmstand Meats
What's the right organizational structure for these connectors? Surely the many independent butchers I spent time with overseas and that many Australians frequent here are a good example of a fair business model, as are the small, independent grocers (who are pretty rare these days as the supermarkets drive them out), though many struggle to remain viable in a world where food's cheapness is valued well above its fairness. And those sorts of businesses that have direct relationships with their producers are clearly going to be better for the eaters as they serve as a kind of conduit between the two, rather than a brick wall like the current system (I'm looking at you, ColesWorths).
Shareholders, sales targets, and growth models should probably be eschewed in favour of cooperatives, not-for-profits, and mindfully remaining small and local. And connectedness, one would hope, will help the average eater understand better why they must value food more highly and pay its real cost.
The last pillars of food system reform I'd like to briefly address are regulation, policy, and the role of lobbying and advocacy.
Current regulatory frameworks were developed over time to protect the public from things it cannot see, as well as from visible unscrupulous or negligent practices. They regulate long, industrial supply chains in a world where a frozen pizza product can contain 35 different ingredients that have passed through 60 countries and carry the label 'country of origin Ireland', and a packet of mince can contain meat from 17 animals from an unknown number of farms. (See Swallow This for a detailed exploration of the global processed food industry.)
Regulation is therefore in many cases inappropriate to the scale and connectedness of small production systems, and we must seek to redress this if we are to support the growth of small farms with greater control of their supply chains. The Farm to Consumer Legal Defense Fund in America is one body doing that, initially through a focus on litigation, but increasingly on support for compliance and lobbying for legal reform. AFSA is working with the Regrarians and others to establish something similar here to support farmers working to build regenerative and fair local food economies.
The Sustainable Economies Law Centre in Oakland, California is another example of an organization committed to supporting producers, consumers and everyone in between in developing sustainable models through independent advice as well as their regular 'Resilient Communities Legal Café', freely available to all. As they help their clients develop new templates for innovative models of people trying to build more resilient local economies, they make them available to others to grow this movement. I love these people.
On policy, Michael Pollan collaborated with Ricardo Salvador, Olivier de Schutter, and Mark Bittman recently on a column calling for a National Food Policy in the US. I shared AFSA's People's Food Plan that was the genesis of our Alliance with Michael to show what can be done when the people take the lead.
Of course North America has a flourishing movement of Food Policy Councils, but these are predominantly local movements. My passionate and knowledgeable comrade Nick Rose, Secretary and National Coordinator for AFSA, is currently establishing a new body in Australia called Sustain: The Australian Food Network, which aims to do similar work to support and connect local government authorities and other food systems stakeholders across the country. He will provide more detail on Sustain's aims and progress as it develops, with the strong support of the Australian Food Sovereignty Alliance.
I can't write a post about major food systems reform without addressing access to not just fair food, but all food. It's an essential question for our society to address – how do we ensure the most basic human right of access to (safe, nutritious) food is secured for everyone, everywhere? And when people like me say we need to pay more for food to be fair to producers and chain workers and animals, what about those who can't even afford the food when it's not fair to the rest?
The short answer to that is that the food movement alone cannot possibly solve structural and systemic poverty, whether here or in the US or elsewhere. We can apply loads of bandaids – I'm grateful for the work of excellent bodies like Foodbank, Secondbite, Spade & Barrow, and local food rescues everywhere. And little farms like ours can offer discounts to provide better access to our community periodically. But that won't solve poverty – egalitarian, living wages and strong social support systems will.
My excellent colleague and AFSA Communications Officer Alana Mann has addressed the problem of hunger in a recent post where she reminded us that 'hidden hunger is a public problem for which we are all responsible.'
In the US this problem is so entrenched it's hard to fully grasp in Australia. I know of waiters in the US earning $2.50/hour because their tips are expected to bring them up to the minimum wage (which may be as low as $7.50/hour). And in America this is legal. The cities of Los Angeles and Seattle have recently introduced $15/hour minimum wages – a major breakthrough in that country. As Jose Oliva of the Food Chain Workers Alliance told us at the Slow Meat symposium in Denver, the food chain sector is both the largest and the lowest paid sector of the US economy. That is a national disgrace.
The context in Australia is certainly different to that, but as the Four Corners expose on the pay and conditions for itinerant farm workers here demonstrated, we are not innocent of treating workers unfairly, and the food movement must work in solidarity to remedy these wrongs.
And yet we must also acknowledge that systemic poverty is simply much bigger than the food movement. We can be part of the solution, but we cannot solve poverty here or in the US on our own, and we cannot ask farmers to bear the brunt of the cost equation to solve this serious social problem.
An important thing I learned during my time in America is that although the movement there gained momentum earlier than it did here, we are not behind. Our smallness is a strength, and provides a capacity for more rapid meaningful change that the monolith of America can only dream of. And the movement there seems to have already progressed to levels of cooption and greenwashing that we are just beginning to get glimmers of, and once again, our smallness will serve us well in combating those who would deceive the ever-awakening public who want a fair food system.
Three weeks of bearing witness to America's movement gave me hope, and strengthened AFSA's links to those really making a difference for food sovereignty, the growers, connectors, eaters, teachers, and amplifiers. Together with our comrades in the US and across the globe I believe we can stand and demand our right to collectively determine our own food and agriculture systems, because you only have to look around you to see that we are legion.
Posted on July 4, 2015 Categories agriculture, farming, sustainable, USATags Dan Barber, fair food, Fleisher's, Joel Salatin, Michael Pollan, Mike Callicrate, slow meat, Temple Grandin1 Comment on AFSA forges links with US Food Sovereignty movement – my #epicfairfoodtour


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HomeFictionBlack – Ted Dekker
Black – Ted Dekker
June 18, 2019 Josh Olds Fiction 0
Black by Ted Dekker
Series: The Circle Series #1
Published by Thomas Nelson on February 2004
Genres: Fiction, Christian, Suspense, Fantasy
In a first installment of a new trilogy, Thomas Hunter narrowly survives a shooting attempt only to awaken in an alternate universe of green forests, a world to which he subsequently travels every time he goes to sleep.
It all began with a single, silenced bullet out of nowhere…And with that sentence my life changed. I don't make that statement lightly. The Circle Trilogy served as the catalyst that threw me back into the world of fiction. It was because of these three books that I fell in love with Story. A lot of who I am can be traced back to Christmas 2004 (15! Years Ago!) when I unwrapped these three books and spent the next few days glued to the page.
Black, the first installment of The Circle Trilogy, sets the stage for the epic that is to come. Thomas Hunter, on the run from the mob, is shot and wakes up in the Black Forest. He is almost killed by giant black bats before a fuzzy white bat helps lead him out of the forest and across the bridge to the Colored Forest. Thomas is soon plunged deep into a brand new world, a place where Good and Evil are clearly seen, where Evil is contained in the Black Forest and the people of Elyon live without sin or shame in the Colored Forest. It's Paradise. A new Eden. A future where history seems to be repeating itself. A future that says Thomas's world was destroyed.
But when Thomas Hunter falls asleep in the Colored Forest, he reawakens back in Denver, dazed, confused, still on the run from the mob. But now he is convinced that his—dreams?—of the other world are real as well, and that he must stop the virus that destroys this world. Then, when he dreams, he must not only acclimate to this new world, but also prevent a cataclysm from happening there as well. The fate of two worlds hangs in the balance of the decisions of one man.
In one world, an apocalyptic scenario threatens to destroy the world; in another, an even more apocalyptic scenario threatens to undo Paradise and unleash evil. Redemptive history is played out before the reader's eyes as Black details the birth of Evil on Other Earth. Dekker's scope is magnificent and his allegory flawless as he builds his mythos.
Dekker takes the old, old Story and paints it in a brand new light, helping readers see past the clichéd thoughts of what we think we know about God and discovering Him again in a whole new way. His portrayal of the God-figure, Elyon, is beautiful and enchanting, breaking down the image of God as a relatively uninterested bearded grandfather figure and replacing it with a God who is excited for His creation and loves it dearly.
Black is marvelous, but it's only the beginning, the first part of Dekker's retelling of redemptive history. It's really only the first part of the story. Which is why you'll have Red sitting by your side when you finish. You'll not even want or need a breath above before diving deep into the mythos Dekker has created.
About Ted Dekker
Ted Dekker is a New York Times best-selling author of more than forty novels. He is best known for stories which could be broadly described as suspense thrillers with major twists and unforgettable characters, though he has also made a name for himself among fantasy fans. Dekker's novels have sold over 5 million copies worldwide. Two of his novels, Thr3e and House, have been made into movies with more in production. Dekker resides in Austin, Texas with his wife Lee Ann and two of their daughters.
The Pawn – Steven James
The Rook – Steven James