Month: December 2019

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Look at These Awe-Inspiring Photos of the Final Solar Eclipse of the Decade

On December 26, people from Saudi Arabia to Guam scrambled to take pictures of the final solar eclipse to grace the Earth this decade.

Unlike in some eclipses, you’ll notice that the moon didn’t totally black out the sun. Instead, it covered the majority of the sun, leaving a visible “ring.” This type of event is called a “ring of fire,” or annular, eclipse.

The NOAA provided more information about the moon’s path on the 26th.

Images of the eclipse are stunning, especially against the backdrop of beautiful landscapes such as these sand dunes.

A photographer in Guam was able to capture the moon’s movements against the ocean tide.

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Solar Eclipse 2019 in Guam. I still can’t believe I got to witness this eclipse. Before anything, I want to thank @natgeotraveler_korea for believing in my crazy idea. @Saerom.h will be writing a story about our experience for the magazine and can’t wait to share it with you all. It’s been a long 6 months to prep, but it was all worth it. Two years ago, I missed the solar eclipse that was passing by the US, but I finally got my opportunity, and the day couldn’t have gone any better… And a big thank you to Guam and it’s people for making my time here even more memorable. ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ ⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀ Eclipse Solar 2019 en Guam. Todavía no puedo creer que haya presenciado este eclipse. Antes que nada, quiero agradecer a @natgeotraveler_korea por creer en mi loca idea. @Saerom.h escribirá una historia sobre nuestra experiencia para la revista y no puedo esperar para compartirla con todos ustedes. Han sido largos 6 meses para preparar, pero valió la pena. Hace dos años, perdí la oportunidad de ver el eclipse solar que pasaba por los Estados Unidos, pero finalmente tuve mi oportunidad y el día no pudo haber sido mejor… Y también, muchas gracias a Guam y gente por haber hecho mi estadía mucho más memorable.

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This picture gives us a different point of view from India.

Some lucky travelers were able to fly right past the eclipse as well!

Residents of India, Pakistan, parts of Africa, and China will get to see the first solar eclipse of the new decade, which will pass by them in June 2020.

These images are out of this world!

Did you catch the eclipse? Share your thoughts with us below.

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Stars Are Disappearing and Scientists Aren’t Ruling out Aliens as a Cause

There have been a few stories lately when scientists and other suit-and-tie types have been unwilling to say aliens aren’t behind one thing or another – which I guess is the safest course, because no one likes to be proven wrong.

I mean, if a situation actually arose in which aliens were discovered, I doubt people would be running around pointing fingers at all of the folks who said aliens were a fantasy. But what do I know.

…But back to the story at hand, and the hundred-plus stars that have disappeared from the map.

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なんとか見れる形に現像できただろうか？ その2 . . .•*¨*•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ•*¨*•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ やっぱり星空撮っている時間好きだなぁと改めて思う. . . •*¨*•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ•*¨*•.¸¸☆*･ﾟ なんかとんでもなく忙しい… 明日無事に仕事が納められるるのか… とりあえず…あと10分寝よう🤣 . . . #岡山県 #井原市 #美星町 #美星天文台 #岡山へ行こう #星活 #星空撮影 #星景ら部 #天の川 #milkyway #nightphotography #nightsky #night_gram #night_shots #japan_night_view #best_moments_night #stars #setouchigram92 #colore_de_saison #瀬戸内カメラ部 #star_hunter_jp #team_jp_西 #Lovers_Nippon #photo_shorttrip #eosm3 #サムヤン12mmf2 #キリトリセカイ #その瞬間に物語を #ダレカニミセタイソラ

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Yes, it turns out that the night sky, which has remained static enough to guide seamen and pirates and explorers for eons, is changing.

The Vanishing and Appearing Sources during a Century of Observations Project (VASCO) compares 70-year-old surveys with recent images of the night sky to document what has changed, and after years of painstaking work (there are a lot of stars, after all), they’ve published their results in the Astronomical Journal.

The 100-odd stars that were documented to have disappeared could represent short-lived flashes in the night, or they could be actual stars that disappeared.

The researchers hope their results, and results to come, will be relevant to astronomy and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI).

“VASCO is a project that is both a SETI project and a conventional astrophysics project,” explained Beatriz Villarroel, a researcher at the Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics and one of the report’s coauthor. “Even if we do SETI and have SETI questions, we are also interested in publishing other results that we find along the way.”

The disappeared pinpricks of light are curious because when stars die, their last burst of glory is usually hard to miss – people saw and wrote about them long before there were telescopes – so if they can also just wink out without fanfare, well, we want to know why.

And to that end, some of the researchers don’t think we should rule out something like another advanced civilization blocking stars with their solar panels to gather energy.

For her part, Villarroel is on board.

“If we should look for aliens, maybe we should actually look for something that would be truly absurd to find.”

The research is being conducted by a team of 20 astronomers and astrophysicists who have compared 70 years worth of sky images taken by the US Naval Observatory and the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System.

They used software to analyze 600 million light sources that should have appeared in the earliest and most recent sets of data. At first,  the number of potential missing stars numbered around 150,000, but was winnowed down to 24,000 after some additional cross-referencing.

In the end, Villarroel is confident the 100 stars they presented are, indeed, missing.

“We have done the best work to remove anything that resembles any artifacts.”

If they are – or were – brief flashes that just happened to show up on the old US Navy surveys, they were likely red dwarf flares, variable stars that dimmed, or the afterglow of a gamma ray burst.

If they really were enduring light sources that disappeared without fanfare, Villarroel – and others – would be much more excited. SETI enthusiasts have speculated about how alien civilizations with advanced engineering power could shield a star from view.”You would have to exclude all-natural things, and then there might also be new natural phenomena that we don’t know about can be more exciting.”

If this is totally blowing your skirt up, the scientists at VASCO plan to implement a citizen science project that lets civilians help search through the rest of the 150,000 candidates.

You know you want to be the one who discovers the spot where technologically advanced aliens are hiding….

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10 Interesting Sports Facts That Might Surprise You

What’s your favorite sport?

Football? Basketball? Baseball? I’m a hockey fan through-and-through and have been since I was a little kid.

Let’s take a look at some fun sports that you might not be familiar with.

1. That’s a lot of money.

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2. Let them play!

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3. The inventor of basketball.

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4. Oops.

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5. Did you know that?

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6. A disturbing dream.

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7. A lot of downtime.

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8. Sounds intense.

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9. I’m still holding out hope…

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10. Just like a knuckle ball.

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Let us know your favorite sports fact or piece of trivia in the comments.

Let’s see what ya got!

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You Might Need This ‘Nap Desk’ in Your Life If You Want to Be More Productive

George Constanza was right…about napping during working hours, that is.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to hit the wall in the middle of the workday. I have a TON of energy from about 8 A.M. to about 2 P.M. and then…uh oh…this guy gets a little sleepy, and it’s time for a 30-minute snoozer. Well, it turns out I’m not alone, and maybe I shouldn’t even feel guilty about that mid-day nap!

That’s why you might want to consider picking up this nap desk that allows you to slumber peacefully below your desk so you don’t have to go far to get those ZZZZZZZs in.

The desk comes to us from folks at the architecture and design firm Studio NL in Greece, and it is pretty impressive. The sleeping quarters are snuggled conveniently underneath the desk where a worker slaves away, so you’d be able to just kick off your shoes, put on your sleeping mask, and start counting sheep.

Although we have a hard-working attitude here in the U.S. for which downtime is frowned upon by many, relaxing and refueling are very important to well-being.

But if you’re one of the naysayers who think that napping is bad or counterproductive, many studies have shown that naps can actually make you more productive: they can “increase alertness in the period directly following the nap and may extend alertness a few hours later in the day.”

Sign me up! I’m ready for this! How about you?

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Twitter Thread Captures Just How Impossible It Is to Pay off Student Loans

If you’re one of the millions of Americans who has student loan debt, the mere mention of the phrase “student loans” is probably enough to send you into a panic. The loans, which can be the only way for some people to afford higher education, often wind up being incredibly difficult to get pay off – even if you make consistent payments on time for years.

Twitter used Lacy M. Johnson posted a tweet about her own student loan debt situation, and it’s all too relatable.

Other people responded to Lacy’s tweet with their own student loan stories, and let’s just say they’re…bleak.

“Started out owing $120k,” one person wrote. “7 years, never missed a payment. Got it all the way down to $137k!”

Another wrote: “Graduated grad school in 08 with nearly $100k in debt, have paid over $100k since then in interest, still owe $100k.”

“Borrowed $97k, been paying for 13 years. Checked yesterday. I still owe $146k,” yet another wrote.

These stories aren’t exactly surprising — student loan debt is the second-largest type of consumer debt in the country, and it has only continued to grow in recent years as colleges and universities raise tuition much faster than either inflation or wage growth.

Others chimed in to reply to Lacy’s tweet with their experiences of going to college BEFORE it was so expensive. “I cannot imagine doing it in today’s world,” one person wrote.

Student loans are a dark cloud over folks’ heads, and many people expect to die without ever paying off the debt — unless a miracle occurs, like winning the lottery or a new student loan forgiveness policy.

Sigh. At least we’re all in it together…

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A Man Wrote a Stupid Tweet About a Hot Girl and Updated the World a Decade Later in a Very Cute Way

Ten years ago, far fewer people were on Twitter and you could pretty much tweet whatever nonsense popped into your head — like meeting a cute girl and calling her a “jalepeno.”

That’s what a young man tweeted in 2009, only to return 10 years later with an update: he married the cute girl.

Jared Matthews was a young single 20-something when he tweeted this classy joke:

“Met a really hot girl who was half japanese half philipino. Think i ruined it by constantly callin her a jalepeno.”

But he didn’t ruin it. The girl, Analyn, thought it was “hilarious,” Jared told BuzzFeed News. They exchanged numbers right there in the Las Vegas bar where they met, and about a month later, they became official. They went on to date for years.

Jared stopped using Twitter shortly after the jalapeno joke, as you can see here.

But in 2019 he returned to his account. His page only had a few tweets on it, so he immediately saw the 2009 joke about Analyn and decided to write an update: Jared had proposed after three years of dating, and the two were now married.

The update went viral, with over 700,000 likes. Twitter can be a dark, weird place – but this? This is as wholesome as it gets, and it’s exactly what people needed to see at the end of the decade.

Jared and Analyn now live together in Ft. Lauderdale. The two haven’t shared any photos of themselves, but Jared has been busy giving strangers relationship advice after his newfound viral fame.

He told BuzzFeed News: “I knew exchanging numbers that night had been the best decision of my life.”

He was clearly right.

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A Company Sued Disney for a Slogan Used in Frozen 2

There has been no shortage of successful Disney films this year. That success has translated to billions of dollars for the movie-making titan. In fact, seven of the ten top-grossing films of the year are Disney flicks, and Frozen 2 is well on its way to joining the mix…for now.

According to a TMZ report, Disney is facing fire for its use of the “Trust Your Journey” slogan made famous by its latest offering in the Frozen franchise. Apparently, a Nevada-based company “formed as a result of a personal fight and victory over breast cancer” is fighting for its share of the Frozen 2 profits.

The TMZ report states that the slogan has been in use for more than a decade, and the company has utilized it on a variety of clothing, jewelry, mugs and other merchandise. And that merchandise has been sold at Cracker Barrel and QVC. In fact, according to Trust Your Journey, it has sold nearly $4 million in merchandise over the years.

That sure is a staggering amount of money for a small company. Of course, it pales in comparison to the $924 million Frozen 2 earned in less than a month in theaters worldwide. The film has drawn excellent reviews, including a 92 percent audience score on the popular review website Rotten Tomatoes.

Disney did not respond to TMZ for a comment, so it remains to be seen if Trust Your Journey will be successful in its financial quest or if it’ll be frozen in its tracks.

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This Toilet Designed to Limit Worker Bathroom Breaks Might Be the Most Evil Office Invention of All Time

We all have those really long, seemingly endless days at work where we’ll do anything to get away for a few extra minutes. You know, the ones where you pray that the clock hits five as soon as possible. And sometimes that means spending a few extra minutes in the bathroom, contemplating life and checking all our social media.

Well, one company in the UK is looking to curb the breaks when you spend an extra few minutes (or 30) sitting on the john. To do so, they’ve invented the StandardToilet. It is a very real thing, and it is, in all honesty, evil.

Capitalism at its finest.

The toilet has a tilted design that is meant to make people very uncomfortable while sitting on it;  the hope is that workers will not spend as much time in the bathroom during business hours because of the toilet is a literal pain in the ass. Isn’t that nice?!?!

The StandardToilet has been approved by the British Toilet Association (sounds like a fun place to work), and it works by tilting downwards at a 13-degree angle. Apparently, that strains your legs and feels like an extended squat. The founder of StandardToilet, Mahabir Gill, said, “Anything higher than that would cause wider problems. Thirteen degrees is not too inconvenient, but you’d soon want to get off the seat quite quickly.” Thank you for that!

Gill worked as a consulting engineer for 40 years and became annoyed when he would discover workers asleep on toilets or encounter long lines for the bathroom while working. So the idea for the StandardToilet was born. Gill says, “Its main benefit is to the employers, not the employees. It saves the employer money.”

Again, THANK YOU SO MUCH.

Isn’t capitalism the best?!?! Let’s hope and pray that this invention doesn’t make it to this side of the pond anytime soon. I know you need to catch up on your Netflix shows during your work breaks…

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At first a soldier in the German…

At first a soldier in the German revolution of ’48, Carl Schurz busted out his friend from a prison in Berlin, fled on a boat to Edinburg, emigrated to the US, became a Union General in the Civil War, then US Senator, and later secretary of the interior. Mark Twain wrote his obituary.