12 Reasons People Who Eat Clean Enjoy Amazing Lives

 

Health Lifestyle by Roy Pumphrey

You are what you eat. It’s cliche, but true.

The food you put in your body is not only the fuel for activity but it’s ultimately the building blocks of your cells, so it’s literally true, you actually are what you eat. Unfortunately the typical American diet isn’t very nutritious. Most meals consist of overly refined, nutrient sparse, additive laden food.This is one of the primary reasons so many people are sick and tired all the time. Clean eating is the opposite. At it’s core it’s the concept of eating whole, unprocessed, “natural” food. The fewer steps food takes from its original form to your table the better. Once you’ve started to eat clean you’ll experience some amazing things.

 

1. They Have TONS of Energy

Once you start eating clean, and you’re actually fueling your body for the first time, you won’t believe how much energy you have. Clean eaters quickly realize how little energy they had before when their diet revolved around overly processed “junk” food.

 

2. They Almost Never Get Sick

Once you start eating a variety of fruits and vegetables you provide yourself with all the building blocks for a robust and responsive immune system. Clean eaters know that if they do get sick, it’s probably not going to last for long, be as severe and it’s not going to happen again for a while.

 

3. They are Killing it in the Gym

Lets face it, you’ve got to do something with all that extra energy. Hitting the gym, lifting weights, going for a run and being excited to do it, is a trademark of the clean eating lifestyle.

4. They Recover Faster From Workouts

When you workout you tear your body down, actually damaging muscles, ligaments, tendons and stressing bones. What you eat provides the materials used to repair, rebuild and grow those structures as well as build enzymes to help create energy during your next workout. Clean eaters, because of their nutrient dense diets, have the raw materials available for rebuilding and recovery all the time. They may get sore after a really hard workout, but because eating clean is about fueling your body, they’re recovered and ready to go sooner than most.

 

5. They Take Fewer Medications

Improving nutritional deficiencies, reducing inflammation, improving cholesterol, lowering blood pressure. All are some of the results that are common with the type of nutrient rich, high fiber, healthy fat laden diet that you follow.

 

6. They Have Clear Skin

You’re skin is the body’s largest organ. You’re providing your skin with all the nutrients (protein, Omega-3 fatty acids, and zinc among others) it needs for to repair, regrow and remain healthy.

 

7. They are Really Well Hydrated

Eating clean and drinking water go hand in hand. And we’re talking a lot of water all day. You, as a clean eater, might not remember the last time your urine wasn’t clear or nearly clear and that’s usually a good thing. Clear, or nearly clear urine is a good indication that you’re well hydrated.

 

8. They Do #2, Everyday, Maybe Twice

Lots of water and lots of fiber equals a super regular digestive tract, and that’s a very good thing. Besides that fact that being constipated feels awful, there are a LOT of negative health consequences that have been linked to constipation such as colonic conditions, hemorrhoids, anal fissures, fecal incontinence, and urologic disorders that you don’t have to worry about.

 

9. They Can Splurge on “Unclean” Foods Every Now and then and Without Feeling Guilty

Eventually you’re going to have a night out, be on vacation, at a birthday party or just plain really want some ice cream. But you if you’ve been eating clean you don’t need to worry or feel guilty about it because one nutritional “slip up” doesn’t make or break a lifestyle. You know you’re able to enjoy those things guilt free because you’ll be back to your normal “clean” diet ASAP.

 

10. They Lose Weight Without Even Trying

Ever eat a big salad and steak and not be able to resist polishing off that bag of Oreo’s? Probably not. Foods high in water content, fiber and protein fill you up quickly and digest slowly. This means you’ll feel full longer and it’s less likely you’ll crave junk food.

 

11. They Eat ALL the Time

They know that they’re not going to be hungry through the day because they’re eating whole, nutritious meals every 3-4 hours. This helps reduce cravings and keep them from ever getting to that ravenous stage where they’re overly hungry and will eat everything in sight.

 

12. They are Just All Around More Awesome, At Everything, All the Time

You’re constantly hitting on all cylinders. A recent study came to this finding:

“Young adults who ate more FV (fruits and vegetables) reported higher average eudaemonic well-being, more intense feelings of curiosity, and greater creativity compared with young adults who ate less FV. On carrots and curiosity: eating fruit and vegetables is associated with greater flourishing in daily life.” – Conner TS1, Brookie KL, Richardson AC, Polak MA.

Eating clean isn’t about being on a short term “diet” that is overly restrictive and leaves you hangry all the time. Eating clean is about eating whole, nutritious foods and the amazing things that happen to you once you do start eating clean.

Featured photo credit: Bruce Tuten via flickr.com

Review: Parrot Bebop drone and Skycontroller

 

Gizmag flew the Parrot Bebop off into beautiful sunsets to test how it both handles and shoots (Credit: Heidi Hoopes/Gizmag) As the latest in Parrot's line of smartphone-operated drones, the Bebop boasts a number of improvements over the AR.Drone 2.0 including a better camera, longer range, and an optional joystick-based controller. We put the Bebop in the hands of several quadcopter neophytes, tested it indoors (which is supposedly one of its strengths), and enlisted its 14-megapixel/1080p camera to capture some aerial footage. We also powered on Parrot's new Skycontroller, which adds physical controls and a more powerful Wi-Fi antenna for extended big range and potential FPV fun. While either the Bebop or Skycontroller can be bought separately for US$499 a piece, we received the full combination package, which retails at US$899. At that price, you can expect everything you need to fly the drone. In addition to a sunshade, a protective hull for indoor flying, extra rotors and other peripherals and tools, the combination includes three batteries that are interchangeable between the Bebop or controller. Each battery is good for about 11 minutes of flight time (longer when used in the Skycontroller), a figure given by Parrot that held up in our test flights. 14-megapixel flying While the Bebop has a lot of new features, it sees Parrot continue with the use of Wi-Fi and digital controls. As with the AR Drone, the Bebop's camera – in this case a 14-megapixel/1080p unit – is situated in the nose rather than on a gimbal under the quad. The "ultimate" flying combination is first person view (FPV) glasses, a tablet, and the Skycontroller, which both holds the tablet and provides physical controls. Multiple users in this scenario can fly together, acting as a teacher and beginner, or a duo in which one person helps another who is immersed via the FPV goggles. Every new user, even kids, had no problem flying the Bebop successfully. The take off/land buttons let the dualcore ARM A9 chip, vertical camera and other sensors do the hard work of "aiming for the ground and missing," to quote Douglas Adams. The asymmetrical and high-contrast nose made it easier to keep tabs on which direction the Bebop was facing, since the Bebop does not have a "headless" mode which adjusts the controls relative to you. We had difficulty flying the Bebop indoors, even with the hull on and settings adjusted. Though it was stable enough, even a little deviation meant we were crashing into walls or people. If you have a more open floor plan, however, it could work for you. Outdoors the Bebop was amazing: stable, zippy, and predictable. Though we lost Wi-Fi connection a couple of times, the return-to-home feature kicked in after a minute of no connection and brought it safely back (one good reason to always make sure your GPS is calibrated before you fly). It has a top speed of 29 mph (47 km/h), something you can cap in the settings if you're worried about flying indoors or handing it off to a newbie. Performing tricks is child's play with the app, as it relies only on pushing buttons. We did discover, however, that the Bebop needs a second to recover between tricks, and a few of our midair stalls were due to forcing the quad from one flip into another. Despite a couple minor crashes over the course of a week, the biggest injury was only a bent rotor, and we were pleased with the durability of the ABS-reinforced body that still only weighs 400 g (14 oz). The onboard camera was enjoyable to play with, and resulted in some beautiful panoramas. While it's possible to pan that camera up to 180 degrees without moving the Bebop, we found ourselves still rotating the quad to pan around, because those controls were almost as smooth and avoided panning the quad's rotor into view. The camera settings also aid in nice stills shooting: saving in either DNG or JPG formats and burst mode, for starters.   Old-school controls with whopping Wi-Fi In theory, the Skycontroller is designed be used with or without a mobile device and has two Wi-Fi antennas: short-range for connecting to a phone or tablet, and long-range at two different frequencies to boost the range of the Bebop up to 1.4 miles (2.2 km). In practice, there is almost no reason not to use a tablet or phone with the Skycontroller, and it's made to easily slot in. It adds the first person view, and also provides a better interface for settings and tricks. You can interact with settings or push a firmware update by connecting the Android-based controller via its HDMI port to a TV. This port is also the only way to use FPV goggles with the Bebop. The only complaint we had about the physical controls was that the camera joystick tended to stick a little and made panning the camera trickier than just panning the quad. But the convenience of having all the photo and video controls on buttons and sticks beat using the app.   Parrot's FreeFlight3 app The FreeFlight3 app is full of features and generally user-friendly and responsive, though we sometimes had to rely on Google searches to find the answers we were looking for. Some comprehensive explanations are buried in Parrot blog posts rather than in the support system, but there is still a wealth of information if one can find it. A new user would be amiss in not drilling down into all the settings to fine-tune the quad. A "hull" setting compensates for the extra weight of using the hull indoors. Tricks are set up solely through the app since you cannot kill motors manually. You can also govern maximum speed and height. Interestingly the top height allowed in the app is 150 m (492 ft), which actually exceeds the United States FAA limit of 122 m (400 ft). That said, lowering the top speed and height made indoor flight easier.   Reviews of previous Parrot drones complained about "sticky" controls and latency while using the app, but we didn't notice any difference when controlling the Bebop with our phone in comparison to the Skycontroller. However, while functional, a phone is definitely too small to easily use all the controls available for the quad. Additionally, the combination of video processing and Wi-Fi connections sucked its battery, and in the midday sun tended to overheat the iPhone playing host to the Bebop. We ran into a few bugs using the app, presumably features that hadn't been implemented yet for Android. Occasionally we had to restart the app before all the devices would respond appropriately, once connected to Wi-Fi signals. We were unable to load the flight data connected with our account. That was unfortunate, as sharing flight data and photos and keeping stats on flights, including top speeds and altitudes, are interesting social features that would keep the Bebop fun. This segues into one problem Parrot seems to have had with the Bebop package: overselling features before they're ready. Some features in the app aren't yet functional. And two common complaints exist online: that the advertised Flight Plan feature to allow for creating predetermined routes is still in development, and that Parrot backtracked on the pre-release announcement that head tracking via the Oculus Rift would be possible.   We actually attempted to use a DK2 version of the Rift, which you'll see in a few pictures, not realizing video translation wouldn't be functional. Instead, the Bebop is listed as compatible with two other FPV glasses, and the company says that it was waiting until the Rift was out of development status, as compatibility is currently a moving target otherwise. Still, there are enough features to otherwise justify the cost of the Bebop package. It's clearly marketed towards drone enthusiasts who want it all to work nicely from the get-go, and the addition of Flight Plan would make it more competitive with DJI's autonomous flight system on its newer (and more expensive) Phantom models.   Product page: Parrot

Better DNA hair analysis for catching criminals

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 1:30pm University of Adelaide Source: University of Adelaide A simple, lower-cost new method for DNA profiling of human hairs developed by the University of Adelaide should improve opportunities to link criminals to serious crimes. The researchers have modified existing laboratory methods and been able to produce accurate DNA profiles from trace amounts at a much higher success rate. “Technological advancements over the last 10 years have allowed police and forensic scientists to profile crime-scene DNA from ever smaller and more challenging samples collected from fingerprints, skin cells, saliva and hairs,” says Associate Professor Jeremy Austin, Deputy Director with the University’s Australian Centre for Ancient DNA. “DNA profiling of human hairs is critical to solving many serious crimes but most hairs found at crime scenes contain very little DNA because it has been severely dehydrated as part of the hair growth process. This makes DNA testing of hairs a real challenge.” Through an Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Project , the researchers, in collaboration with colleagues at the University of Canberra, set out to develop a new method that could produce better results, published in the journal Forensic Science, Medicine and Pathology. University of Adelaide post-graduate student Janette Edson carried out the detailed genetic analysis of hundreds of shed human hairs collected from volunteer donors.  “Existing methods to obtain and interpret DNA profiles from shed human hairs are expensive and often unsuccessful,” says Associate Professor Austin, who leads the advanced human forensic identification program at the University of Adelaide. “Our research shows that we can retrieve DNA profiles from shed human hairs that contain trace amounts of DNA without compromising the accuracy of our results. Previous methods required specialist and expensive laboratories.” Lead-author Assistant Professor Dennis McNevin, from the University of Canberra, says: “Our simple modifications will allow this trace DNA to be analysed in a standard forensic laboratory with improved success rates of DNA profiling and without increased error rates. “This is very important in forensic science as false positive results can lead to incorrect identifications and poor outcomes in the judicial system." Source: University of Adelaide

Uncovering the spread of bacteria in pneumonia

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 12:30pm Sarah Plumridge, Northwestern University This image shows a section of mouse lung following infection with a strain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (red). This bacterium infects cells by injecting them with a toxin called ExoS. Cells injected with ExoS are blue. Cells that have not been injected are green. Image: Northwestern UniversityNorthwestern Medicine scientists have discovered the role a toxin produced by a pneumonia-causing bacterium plays in the spread of infection from the lungs to the bloodstream in hospitalized patients. “Prior to this study, it was a mystery how the bacteria escaped from the lungs into the bloodstream,” said Alan Hauser, MD, PhD, professor in Microbiology-Immunology and Medicine-Infectious Disease. “These findings lay the foundation for future studies to further understand the mechanisms for how the escape to the bloodstream occurs.” In a paper published in PLOS Pathogens, Dr. Hauser and his team used a mouse model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa (PA) pneumonia to examine how the bacterium uses its secretion system to inject a toxin, called ExoS, into cells. ExoS has previously been linked to a higher incidence of infections spreading to the blood. “If we can understand this at a higher level of detail, perhaps we will be able to design inhibitors that can be flushed into the bloodstream or the lung of a person who has PA pneumonia and block this process. If we can block these processes, we may be able to prevent bacteria from disseminating to the bloodstream during pneumonia,” said Dr. Hauser, also a member of the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center of Northwestern University. They collaborated with the Center for Advanced Microscopy to use a novel imaging technique to identify cells injected with ExoS. This method allowed them to uncover that ExoS was not only injected into white blood cells, but also epithelial cells that form a barrier between the lung and the bloodstream. Dr. Hauser also found that injection of the toxin occurred in specific regions which they labeled “fields of cell injection” or FOCI. “We got a surprising result, that the epithelial cells weren’t randomly being injected, but they were being injected in FOCI within the lungs,” Dr. Hauser said. “Over time, we were able to show as these FOCI became larger and the cells within these injected FOCI began to die.” Furthermore, they determined that increased FOCI size was associated with enhanced disruption of the barrier between the lungs and bloodstream and ultimately the spreading of the bacteria in to the blood. “This injection of ExoS results in breakdown of a barrier between the pulmonary space and the vascular space, which allows bacteria to escape from the lungs and to gain access to the bloodstream,” Dr. Hauser said. Next, Dr. Hauser plans to continue studying the mechanism of how ExoS leads to the formation of FOCI. “This research might have implications for other bacteria that frequently cause pneumonia and can also escape from the lungs and get into the bloodstream,” he said. Source: Northwestern University

Families affected by early alzheimer's seek better treatment

 

Mon, 07/20/2015 - 11:30am Lauran Neergaard, AP Medical Writer Giedre Cohen, 37, of Calabasas, Calif., and Carrie Richardson, 34, of Montgomery, Ala., pose for a picture during a break at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference in Washington, Saturday, July 18, 2015. Saturday for the first time, researchers brought together dozens of these families with the very rarest form of Alzheimer's, young and inherited--patients, patients-to-be and their healthy loved ones _ from as far as Australia and Britain to meet face-to-face. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta)Alzheimer's has ravaged generations of Dean DeMoe's family - his grandmother, father, siblings - all in their 40s and 50s. DeMoe himself inherited the culprit gene mutation and at 53, the North Dakota man volunteers for a drug study he hopes one day will end the family's burden. International scientists gathering in Washington for a conference this week express cautious optimism that they may finally be on the right track to fight Alzheimer's. Families like DeMoe's with the very rarest form of Alzheimer's, young and inherited, hold crucial clues to fighting this brain-destroying disease in everyone. On Saturday, researchers for the first time brought together dozens of these families - patients, patients-to-be and their healthy loved ones - from as far as Australia and Britain to meet face to face. They shared advice about when their children should undergo gene testing to learn their own fate, and they got an unusual opportunity to grill government and drug company officials about why it's taking so long to find a good treatment. "Finally, I got to talk to other people who are going through the same thing," said DeMoe, of Thompson, North Dakota, who with four other siblings inherited the family's bad gene. One sister was spared. His wife, Deb, said he experiences early memory changes known as mild cognitive impairment, but DeMoe still holds a job with an oil company and said, "I don't dwell on it." Families' first question: Why not try to fix the gene defect that causes this form of Alzheimer's instead of targeting its downstream effects? Why, asked others, can't desperate families get faster access to experimental drugs, as AIDS patients once did? "It's time to ease our anguish," said Tal Cohen of Calabasas, California. At age 37, his wife, Giedre, already is in the mild-to-moderate stage of Alzheimer's. He emerged hopeful that researchers are considering creative ways to speed that access. "We don't have any more time to wait and see," he said. Alzheimer's usually strikes older adults, affecting about 1 in 9 people age 65 or over. Less than 1 percent of cases worldwide are the autosomal dominant form, caused by inheriting a gene with a particular mutation that triggers the disease well before the senior years. Children of an affected parent have a 50 percent chance of inheriting their family's bad gene. But if they do, they almost always get sick about the same time their parent did. Many of these families are part of the Dominantly Inherited Alzheimer Network (DIAN) study that monitors the health of family gene carriers and their healthy relatives in several countries. Recently, it showed that silent changes in the brain can precede the first memory problems by 20 years. Now scientists think the best hope against Alzheimer's is to treat high-risk people long before symptoms appear, aiming to at least stall the disease if not prevent it. On Sunday, researchers at the Alzheimer's Association International Conference reported possible new ways to predict who will get sick with the more common late-onset Alzheimer's - vital to testing such treatments - and a single test probably won't be enough, said Johns Hopkins University neuroscientist Marilyn Albert. Tracking about 350 people starting in middle age, Albert's team found a combination of tests predicted development of mild cognitive impairment within five years. They include a spinal tap to measure toxic levels of Alzheimer's hallmark amyloid and tau proteins; MRI scans to detect shrinking brain regions; and two standard memory assessments. The combination isn't ready for doctors' offices, but should help drug companies tell who to enroll in early-stage treatment studies, she said. Scientists at VU University Medical Center in Amsterdam found another protein, named neurogranin, in spinal fluid. It may signal that connections called synapses are dying, making it harder for brain cells to communicate. -Researchers at the University of Alberta, Canada, are beginning to hunt a saliva test for earlier markers of cognitive decline. But knowing who is destined for Alzheimer's and approximately when it will strike makes rare families such as DeMoe's especially critical for research. A second DIAN study now is testing whether either of two experimental drugs might give those gene carriers more symptom-free years by fighting buildup of sticky amyloid in the brain. That study soon will expand to test additional drugs. "The goal here really is to get drugs approved to help everyone," said Dr. Randall Bateman of Washington University in St. Louis, who oversees the DIAN drug study. Dean DeMoe came to the meeting with his wife, healthy sister and two of his three children. He wishes researchers could have revealed if those drugs are working, but they won't know for several years. Meanwhile, his two oldest children, in their 20s, had gene testing as part of health-tracking research but chose not to be told the results until they are older or protective drugs come along. His teenager thinks she will make the same choice. DeMoe pins his hopes on the drug study. "It might not do good for me," he said, "but it's important for my family and for everyone." Source: Associated Press

NASA's Three-Billion-Mile Journey to Pluto Reaches Historic Encounter

 

 

Members of the New Horizons science team react to seeing the spacecraft's last and sharpest image of Pluto before closest approach later in the day, Tuesday, July 14, 2015 at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland.

Credits: NASA/Bill Ingalls

 

“The exploration of Pluto and its moons by New Horizons represents the capstone event to 50 years of planetary exploration by NASA and the United States," said NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. “Once again we have achieved a historic first. The United States is the first nation to reach Pluto, and with this mission has completed the initial survey of our solar system, a remarkable accomplishment that no other nation can match.”

Per the plan, the spacecraft currently is in data-gathering mode and not in contact with flight controllers at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Laurel, Maryland. Scientists are waiting to find out whether New Horizons “phones home,” transmitting to Earth a series of status updates that indicate the spacecraft survived the flyby and is in good health. The “call” is expected shortly after 9 p.m. EDT tonight.

The Pluto story began only a generation ago when young Clyde Tombaugh was tasked to look for Planet X, theorized to exist beyond the orbit of Neptune. He discovered a faint point of light that we now see as a complex and fascinating world.

"Pluto was discovered just 85 years ago by a farmer's son from Kansas, inspired by a visionary from Boston, using a telescope in Flagstaff, Arizona,” said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "Today, science takes a great leap observing the Pluto system up close and flying into a new frontier that will help us better understand the origins of the solar system.”

New Horizons’ flyby of the dwarf planet and its five known moons is providing an up-close introduction to the solar system's Kuiper Belt, an outer region populated by icy objects ranging in size from boulders to dwarf planets. Kuiper Belt objects, such as Pluto, preserve evidence about the early formation of the solar system.

New Horizons principal investigator Alan Stern of the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado, says the mission now is writing the textbook on Pluto.

"The New Horizons team is proud to have accomplished the first exploration of the Pluto system,” Stern said. “This mission has inspired people across the world with the excitement of exploration and what humankind can achieve.”

New Horizons’ almost 10-year, three-billion-mile journey to closest approach at Pluto took about one minute less than predicted when the craft was launched in January 2006. The spacecraft threaded the needle through a 36-by-57 mile (60 by 90 kilometers) window in space -- the equivalent of a commercial airliner arriving no more off target than the width of a tennis ball.

Because New Horizons is the fastest spacecraft ever launched – hurtling through the Pluto system at more than 30,000 mph, a collision with a particle as small as a grain of rice could incapacitate the spacecraft. Once it reestablishes contact Tuesday night, it will take 16 months for New Horizons to send its cache of data – 10 years’ worth -- back to Earth.

New Horizons is the latest in a long line of scientific accomplishments at NASA, including multiple rovers exploring the surface of Mars, the Cassini spacecraft that has revolutionized our understanding of Saturn and the Hubble Space Telescope, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary. All of this scientific research and discovery is helping to inform the agency’s plan to send American astronauts to Mars in the 2030’s.

“After nearly 15 years of planning, building, and flying the New Horizons spacecraft across the solar system, we’ve reached our goal,” said project manager Glen Fountain at APL. “The bounty of what we’ve collected is about to unfold.”

APL designed, built and operates the New Horizons spacecraft and manages the mission for NASA’s Science Mission Directorate. SwRI leads the mission, science team, payload operations and encounter science planning. New Horizons is part of NASA’s New Frontiers Program, managed by the agency’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Follow the New Horizons mission on Twitter and use the hashtag #PlutoFlyby to join the conversation. Live updates also will be available on the mission Facebook page.

For more information on the New Horizons mission, including fact sheets, schedules, video and images, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/newhorizons

and

http://solarsystem.nasa.gov/planets/plutotoolkit.cfm

United Nations’ “The Millenium Development Goals” –2015–(excerpt)

 

NASA Satellite Camera Provides “EPIC” View of Earth

 

A NASA camera on the Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) satellite has returned its first view of the entire sunlit side of Earth from one million miles away.

The color images of Earth from NASA’s Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera (EPIC) are generated by combining three separate images to create a photographic-quality image. The camera takes a series of 10 images using different narrowband filters -- from ultraviolet to near infrared -- to produce a variety of science products. The red, green and blue channel images are used in these Earth images.

"This first DSCOVR image of our planet demonstrates the unique and important benefits of Earth observation from space,” said NASA Administrator Charlie Bolden. “As a former astronaut who’s been privileged to view the Earth from orbit, I want everyone to be able to see and appreciate our planet as an integrated, interacting system. DSCOVR’s observations of Earth, as well as its measurements and early warnings of space weather events caused by the sun, will help every person to monitor the ever-changing Earth, and to understand how our planet fits into its neighborhood in the solar system.”

These initial Earth images show the effects of sunlight scattered by air molecules, giving the images a characteristic bluish tint. The EPIC team now is working on a rendering of these images that emphasizes land features and removes this atmospheric effect. Once the instrument begins regular data acquisition, new images will be available every day, 12 to 36 hours after they are acquired by EPIC. These images will be posted to a dedicated web page by September.

"The high quality of the EPIC images exceeded all of our expectations in resolution," said Adam Szabo, DSCOVR project scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. "The images clearly show desert sand structures, river systems and complex cloud patterns. There will be a huge wealth of new data for scientists to explore."

The primary objective of DSCOVR, a partnership between NASA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the U.S. Air Force, is to maintain the nation’s real-time solar wind monitoring capabilities, which are critical to the accuracy and lead time of space weather alerts and forecasts from NOAA.

“These new views of the Earth, a result of the great partnership between NOAA, the U.S. Air Force, and NASA, give us an important perspective of the true global nature of our spaceship Earth," said John Grunsfeld, associate administrator of the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington.

The satellite was launched in February and recently reached its planned orbit at the first Lagrange point or L1, about one million miles from Earth toward the sun. It’s from that unique vantage point that the EPIC instrument is acquiring science quality images of the entire sunlit face of Earth.  Data from EPIC will be used to measure ozone and aerosol levels in Earth’s atmosphere, cloud height, vegetation properties and the ultraviolet reflectivity of Earth. NASA will use this data for a number of Earth science applications, including dust and volcanic ash maps of the entire planet.

In addition to space weather instruments, DSCOVR carries a second NASA sensor -- the National Institute of Science and Technology Advanced Radiometer (NISTAR). Data from the NASA science instruments will be processed at the agency’s DSCOVR Science Operations Center in Greenbelt, Maryland. This data will be archived and distributed by the Atmospheric Science Data Center at NASA’s Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia.

The Air Force provided the Space X Falcon 9 rocket for the mission. NOAA operates DSCOVR from its Satellite Operations Facility in Suitland, Maryland, and processes the space weather data at its Space Weather Prediction Center in Boulder, Colorado.

NASA uses the vantage point of space to increase our understanding of our home planet, improve lives, and safeguard our future. NASA develops new ways to observe and study Earth's interconnected natural systems with long-term data records. The agency freely shares this unique knowledge and works with institutions around the world to gain new insights into how our planet is changing.

For more information about NASA’s Earth science activities, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/earth

For more information about DSCOVR, visit:

http://www.nesdis.noaa.gov/DSCOVR/

James Cameron Designed a Solar Array That Looks Like a Sunflower

 

The director's Sun Flowers aim to make photovoltaics a little less ugly. Years after switching to solar to power the sets of his movies, James Cameron has taken the next step and re-designed the solar panel. His version looks like a giant photovoltaic sunflower, and the first units were installed on the Malibu campus of the MUSE school (started by Cameron's wife, Suzy Amis Cameron) last month. Each of Cameron's Sun Flowers is 28.5 feet wide and has 14 petals. Sonnen Systems provided tracking technology so that each panel would move throughout the day to follow the course of the sun, eliminating one of the problems with traditional, stationary panels. At MUSE, the current setup generates about 260 kWh per day, meeting 75 to 90 percent of the school's energy needs. Cameron hopes that people usually repelled by the ugliness of photovoltaic cells might give his new Sun Flowers a try. And the director/explorer plans to make the design open-source. As soon as he secures the patent, the design should be available for all those who have enough money to build a little piece of the future in their backyard. Source: Gizmodo

Will Tesla’s Gigafactory be the largest building on Earth?

 

by Michelle Kennedy Hogan, 07/15/15 Tesla is constructing a building completely powered by renewable energy that can hold enough battery power for 500,000 Tesla cars. And it’s going to be huge. It’s quite possible that calling it the Gigafactory is more literal than we initially thought. The original plans for the Gigafactory called for the building to be 10 million square feet. The building will be constructed in modules so the first completed part can be used as a pilot plant while the rest of the building is being completed. But it turns out that 10 million square feet just isn’t enough. And while Tesla has not yet confirmed their plans to go even bigger, Dean Haymore, a representative from the Story County Commission, said Tesla Motors has purchased another 1,200 acres next to the Gigafactory and is looking to purchase 350 more. Related: Take a first look at Tesla’s gigantic Gigafactory in Nevada Haymore said the factory was originally supposed to be just four modular blocks, but now it looks like seven blocks will be built — bringing the total to somewhere around 24 million square-feet of gigaawesomeness (yeah, I made that up). According to Wikipedia, that would make the Gigafactory the largest building in the world. The Tesla Factory in California is second on that list. Although the plans aren’t official, it isn’t shocking; Elon Musk, Tesla’s CEO, did mention the possibility of adding to the building last quarter. Via Treehugger Images via Steve Jurvetson and Tesla source : www.inhabitat.com

What scares you more? Climate change or ISIS?

 

by Tafline Laylin, 07/20/15 When you lie awake at night worrying about the world, what grips your intestines with fear? Lack of money? California’s drought and food shortages? Or do you have nightmares filled with orange suits and gory ISIS reports? Well, here’s something we found interesting: for a new survey, the Pew Research Center asked this very same thing of 45,435 people in 40 different countries between March 25 and May 27, 2015. And the results are fairly predictable. Americans, who are among the least threatened by ISIS, are more afraid of the group than any other critical global issue. By the end of October last year, ISIS killed an estimated 24,000, according to the UN. That number has to be significantly higher now, but to put it in perspective, consider that climate change is expected to kill up to 600,000 each year by 2030. According to the Pew survey, 68 percent of the US people consider ISIS to be the greatest threat to their safety, while 42 percent are afraid of the impact climate change will have on health, nutrition, rising seas and other ecological factors. Don’t get me wrong, ISIS is a disturbingly misguided group and poses grave danger to world peace, but its main threat is to Islam itself and people living in Iraq and Syria and other countries in close proximity. The Atlantic published an excellent analysis of what ISIS really wants, which should dispel overblown fears about their intentions in the United States. But as a recent VOX report notes, mainstream media has an enormous impact on what information people have about any given issue, which may contribute to the distorted perception of risk. Related: A new report warns global food shock is imminent “This moderate concern for global climate change in the United States is not surprising considering a recent Gallup poll found that about one-third of the US people believe the effects of global warming will either never happen or not happen in their lifetime,” writes Think Progress about the report. One immediate threat is the impact California’s drought will have on America’s food supply. “When you look at the California drought maps, it’s a scary thing,” Craig Chase, who leads the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture’s Marketing and Food Systems Initiative at Iowa State University, told ThinkProgress. “We’re all wondering where the food that we want to eat is going to come from. Is it going to come from another state inside the U.S.? Is it going to come from abroad? Or are we going to grow it ourselves? That’s the question that we need to start asking ourselves.”   source : www.inhabitat.com

Scientists Develop Wonder Nanomaterial that Can Produce Energy, Clean Water and Hydrogen

 

by Mark Boyer, 03/24/13 Researchers in Singapore have developed a new nanomaterial that functions like the best Swiss army knife in the world. The material, known as Multi-use Titanium Dioxide (TiO2), can produce energy, it can generate hydrogen, and it can even produce clean water. But that’s not all: The remarkable material can also be formed into flexible solar cells and it can double the lifespan of lithium-ion batteries. And with bacteria-killing properties, it can also be used in new antibacterial bandages. The new material, which is being developed by scientists at Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University, is made by turning titanium dioxide crystals into nanofibers, which can then be formed into flexible filter membranes. The special material at the center of it all is titanium dioxide, which is cheap and abundant and has the ability to accelerate chemical reactions and can bond easily with water. Because it can bond with water, the material can potentially serve as a high-flux forward osmosis membrane and desalinate water. But that’s just one of its many remarkable features. In addition to producing clean water, the material can also produce hydrogen when exposed to sunlight, according to the researchers. And it can also be formed into an inexpensive, flexible solar cell that can be used to generate electricity. “While there is no single silver bullet to solving two of the world’s biggest challenges: cheap renewable energy and an abundant supply of clean water; our single multi-use membrane comes close, with its titanium dioxide nanoparticles being a key catalyst in discovering such solutions,” said lead researcher Darren Sun. “With our unique nanomaterial, we hope to be able to help convert today’s waste into tomorrow’s resources, such as clean water and energy.” + Nanyang Technological University Via PhysOrg

Weyl point, first predicted in 1929, observed for the first time

 

The gyroid surface with a dime on top. Credit: Ling Lu and Qinghui Yan Part of a 1929 prediction by physicist Hermann Weyl -- of a kind of massless particle that features a singular point in its energy spectrum called the "Weyl point" -- has finally been confirmed by direct observation for the first time, says an international team of physicists led by researchers at MIT. The finding could lead to new kinds of high-power single-mode lasers and other optical devices, the team says. For decades, physicists thought that the subatomic particles called neutrinos were, in fact, the massless particles that Weyl had predicted -- a possibility that was ultimately eliminated by the 1998 discovery that neutrinos do have a small mass. While thousands of scientific papers have been written about the theoretical particles, until this year there had seemed little hope of actually confirming their existence. "Every single paper written about Weyl points was theoretical, until now," says Marin Soljačić, a professor of physics at MIT and the senior author of a paper published this week in the journal Science confirming the detection. (Another team of researchers at Princeton University and elsewhere independently made a different detection of Weyl particles; their paper appears in the same issue of Science). Ling Lu, a research scientist at MIT and lead author of that team's paper, says the elusive points can be thought of as equivalent to theoretical entities known as magnetic monopoles. These do not exist in the real world: They would be the equivalent of cutting a bar magnet in half and ending up with separate north and south magnets, whereas what really happens is you end up with two shorter magnets, each with two poles. But physicists often carry out their calculations in terms of momentum space (also called reciprocal space) rather than ordinary three-dimensional space, Lu explains, and in that framework magnetic monopoles can exist -- and their properties match those of Weyl points. The achievement was made possible by a novel use of a material called a photonic crystal. In this case, Lu was able to calculate precise measurements for the construction of a photonic crystal predicted to produce the manifestation of Weyl points -- with dimensions and precise angles between arrays of holes drilled through the material, a configuration known as a gyroid structure. This prediction was then proved correct by a variety of sophisticated measurements that exactly matched the characteristics expected for such points. Some kinds of gyroid structures exist in nature, Lu points out, such as in certain butterfly wings. In such natural occurrences, gyroids are self-assembled, and their structure was already known and understood. Two years ago, researchers had predicted that by breaking the symmetries in a kind of mathematical surfaces called "gyroids" in a certain way, it might be possible to generate Weyl points -- but realizing that prediction required the team to calculate and build their own materials. In order to make these easier to work with, the crystal was designed to operate at microwave frequencies, but the same principles could be used to make a device that would work with visible light, Lu says. "We know a few groups that are trying to do that," he says. A number of applications could take advantage of these new findings, Soljačić says. For example, photonic crystals based on this design could be used to make large-volume single-mode laser devices. Usually, Soljačić says, when you scale up a laser, there are many more modes for the light to follow, making it increasingly difficult to isolate the single desired mode for the laser beam, and drastically limiting the quality of the laser beam that can be delivered. But with the new system, "No matter how much you scale it up, there are very few possible modes," he says. "You can scale it up as large as you want, in three dimensions, unlike other optical systems." That issue of scalability in optical systems is "quite fundamental," Lu says; this new approach offers a way to circumvent it. "We have other applications in mind," he says, to take advantage of the device's "optical selectivity in a 3-D bulk object." For example, a block of material could allow only one precise angle and color of light to pass through, while all others would be blocked. "This is an interesting development, not just because Weyl points have been experimentally observed, but also because they endow the photonics crystals which realize them with unique optical properties," says Ashvin Vishwanath, a professor of physics at the University of California at Berkeley who was not involved in this research. "Professor Soljačić's group has a track record of rapidly converting new science into creative devices with industry applications, and I am looking forward to seeing how Weyl photonics crystals evolve." Besides Lu and Soljačić, the team included Zhiyu Wang, Dexin Ye, and Lixin Ran of Zhejiang University in China and, at MIT, assistant professor of physics Liang Fu and John Joannopoulos, the Francis Wright Davis Professor of Physics and director of the Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies (ISN). The work was supported by the U.S. Army through the ISN, the Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation, and the Chinese National Science Foundation.