A new telescope built to study the Sun has released its first images. They show the surface of the Sun in the most exquisite detail we’ve ever seen – revealing convection granules the size of Texas, and tiny magnetic features – the roots of fields that extend far into space. via sciencealert.com
Toxic Chemicals Have Been Found in the Tap Water of Dozens of U.S. Cities
Miami is a top destination for tourists, but consuming their tap water could leave you with long-lasting effects well after your vacation is over.
The home of the Heat is just one of 43 U.S. cities—including Philadelphia and New Orleans—that has toxic “forever chemicals” in their drinking water, according to a new report.
The list of cities with water contaminated with “forever chemicals” pic.twitter.com/8hIO5h9DgQ
— Keek (@worldofkeek) January 26, 2020
Products such as firefighting foam and Teflon contain the PFOAs and PFOS chemicals that are contaminating water across the country. Polluted water has been linked in some cases to cancer and lower fertility and even served as inspiration for the 2019 movie Dark Waters, although much more research needs to be done into long-term harms.
Sydney Evans, Environmental Working Group study co-author, told BuzzFeed News that the research group was surprised to see chemical contamination in such a variety of cities. Out of the 44 cities tested for contaminants, only Meridian, Mississippi, passed. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the citizens of Meridian get their water from the deep depths of a 600-foot well.
U.S. drinking water is widely contaminated with toxic "forever chemicals" called PFAS, says a report from @EWG.
The chemicals were found in 43 samples of 44 sites across the U.S.
Some of the highest levels were found in areas like Miami, Philadelphia and New Orleans. pic.twitter.com/R1AeLsRjCV
— AJ+ (@ajplus) January 22, 2020
While earlier studies conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency and the EWG had not shown a serious water contamination issue, Evans and her team tested for 30 different PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) chemicals in order to discover more information about the breadth of the contamination.
The EPA sets a safety limit of 70 parts-per-trillion limit on the two main chemicals, though some individual states have implemented stricter standards. Unfortunately, many states were found to have water with high concentrations of chemicals, including North Carolina and Iowa.
The contamination of U.S. drinking water with man-made "forever chemicals" is far worse than previously estimated pic.twitter.com/lS35I3ihLR
— China Xinhua News (@XHNews) January 22, 2020
“To date, EPA has developed methods to reliably detect 29 PFAS chemicals in drinking water,” an agency spokesperson stated in an e-mail to Buzzfeed News. “Aggressively addressing PFAS will continue to be an EPA priority in 2020 and we will provide additional information on our upcoming actions as it becomes available.”
So while staying hydrated is critical, filtered water may be a better bet depending on where you live.
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Dogs Like to Poop in Alignment with Earth’s Magnetic Field
You know the drill if you have a dog – even if it’s so hot you’re dripping sweat and can literally feel your skin burning, and even if it’s so cold you can barely hold a leash with your frozen fingers, they’re absolutely not going to do their business until they find the perfect spot.
Then, they’re going to turn around several times, squat, perhaps adjust, and finally take that long-awaited dump.
Hallelujah!
What I have to tell you today isn’t going to make your dog-walking experience any more pleasant, but hey, it is going to teach you something about your best friend. Sometimes, that’s the best you can hope for when the situation contains poo, right?
It turns out your dog isn’t searching for an arbitrary “best” spot go do their business – they’re actually doing their best to line their behind up with Earth’s magnetic field.
Not only that, but a study, published in Frontiers in Zoology, also found that they prefer a north-south axis for their dumping grounds.
The researchers found that dogs are sensitive to small variations in the Earth’s magnetic field, and after studying 70 dogs (37 different breeds) over the course of 2 years, they learned that under “calm magnetic field conditions,” dogs preferred to “excrete with the body being aligned along the north-south axis.”
They avoided east-west altogether, actually. Also, the dogs in the study were entirely unconfined and unleashed, leaving them free to do their business exactly where they pleased.
What the study did not learn was why canines prefer to poop in a certain direction.
“It is still enigmatic why the dogs do align at all, whether they do it “consciously” (i.e., whether the magnetic field is sensorial perceived (the dogs “see”, “hear” or “smell” the compass direction or perceive it as a haptic stimulus)) or whether its reception is controlled on the vegetative level (they “feel better/more comfortable or worse/less comfortable” in a certain direction).”
Either way, it’s certainly interesting and the scientists involved hope their findings will open “new horizons” for further research in organisms’ use of magnetic fields for direction.
So now you have something to share with your friend at the dog park the next time you’re both waiting around, freezing to death waiting for your pups to line up.
You’re welcome.
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Wow! Astronomers Watched a Star Skip the Supernova Stage and Go Straight to Black Hole.
When people say “go out with a bang”, they usually don’t mean literally. But when it comes to dying stars, typically astronomers expect them to go out with enormous bangs: supernovae. However, recently a group of Ohio University scientists observed a star that didn’t have quite the same life path in mind.
Instead of exploding and then collapsing in on itself, the star turned directly into a black hole. That shocked the group of scientists who had been studying the star, named N6946-BH1 to be exact, which was located in the Fireworks Galaxy, 22 million light-years away. At first they didn’t think it was possible, yet in 2015, after six years of watching the star weaken, scientists concluded that the star had bizarrely skipped the supernova stage.
They chalked it up as a “massive fail.” That’s a technical term, referring to the star’s mass.
“The typical view is that a star can form a black hole only after it goes supernova,” said Ohio State astronomy professor and study researcher Christopher Kochanek. “If a star can fall short of a supernova and still make a black hole, that would help explain why we don’t see supernovae from the most massive stars.”
Photo Credit: Pexels
This atypical event still requires more analysis, but scientist Scott Adams estimates that massive fails occur in about 10 to 30 percent of massive stars. Ultimately, this discovery could lead to more answers about how super-massive black holes come to exist, since supernovae tend to blow away a lot of a star’s mass.
Without a supernova, more of a star’s mass would stick around to collapse in on itself and become a vortex that bends time and space and eats light for supper.
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Learn About the Most (In)Famous Failed Scientific Experiment in History
Scientists usually assume that if they ever get famous it will be for doing something right – but in the case of the Michelson-Morley experiment, those involved are forever going to be remembered for conducting the worst (best?) failed experiment in history.
Then again, if you end up changing literally everything in your field, was your experiment really a failure at all?
Here’s what happened.
・・・ The #DoubleSlitExperiment is an experiment in #QuantumPhysics in which the effects were shown by #ThomasYoung way back in 1803, but since has been proven even more strange by many others. It's power truly reveals a mind-altering view of the world and how we affect it. To explain this experiment, we first must truly grasp the difference between a #particle and a #wave. A particle is what we perceive as #matter of some sort – something with mass. A wave is a disturbance in some type of substance – like ripples through water. Ok, that's easy enough. Now, what if I told you that a subatomic particle isn't a particle until a consciousness observes it. What is it then? Its a wave. Huh? For some unknown reason that haunts scientists, everything we perceive as having mass is just a wave of information (or possibilities) until we observe it in some way. I'm not talking in the philosophical way like if a tree falls in the woods and no one's there to hear it, does it make a sound. The Double Slit Experiment seems to answer that question as you'll see. Until we observe the soon to be particle, its a wave that's actually doing every possibility it could do at the same time. Huh?!?! It doesn't make any sense, yet this is one experiment that appears to somewhat prove this. The Double Slit Experiment shows us that we create reality just by observing it. WHOA, create reality?! Yes we do. Your consciousness collapses wave functions into digitized bits of matter that we then perceive as reality. You are not creating reality, but you are creating your own #RealityTunnel and most people aren't aware of it. #4biddenknowledge reporting live from #TheMatrix. Clip above of from the famous documentary named: #WhatTheBleepDoWeKnow #YouCreateYourOwnReality 
At the beginning of the 19th century, scientists weren’t sure whether light was a wave or a particle. In 1801, Thomas Young (thought he) settled the debate with his double-slit experiment, in which he shined a light through two slits cut into a notecard aimed at a wall. Since he produced a pattern of dark and light bars as opposed to just two slit-shaped patterns, he concluded that light could not be a simple particle.
That said, no one could figure out what medium the wave was traveling through – the substance that made up the universe. Some physicists called it “ether” – matter that could be found everywhere but that wouldn’t interact with its physical counterpart at all.
In 1887, physicists Albert Michelson and Edward Morley set out to prove that “ether” only existed to carry light waves.
Let’s start here – with ether “wind.”
Just like when you’re driving a car and stick your hand out the window, the “ether” should be flowing over the planet’s surface at rate similar to the speed of Earth traveling through space.
Michelson and Morley built a device called an interferometer, which uses what amounts to a one-way mirror to split a beam of light, reflecting half of it at a 90-degree angle down one tunnel and allowing the other half to pass through down another tunnel.
Then, both light beams are reflected against mirrors again, placed at the end of each tunnel, and at the end, the beams are measured by a detector.
Fun fact: advanced versions of their devices were used to detect gravitational waves for the first time back in 2015.
If Michelson and Morley were correct about ether, then they would have traveled at slightly different rates, striking the detector at slightly different times. In reality, though, they arrived together.
With the benefit of hindsight, we know that the experiment failed because there is no ether – and that light is both a wave and a particle that always travels at the same speed no matter the direction.
In their failure, Michelson and Morley laid the groundwork for basically all of the 20th century’s most influential scientific thinkers. Their failure to detect ether presented a new and exciting problem for physicists and other scientists to tackle – and solve – in the years to come.
So the next time something doesn’t work out the way you thought, take heart – this is solid proof that we can always learn at least as much from our failures as our successes.
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Tardigrades Are the Most Resilient Animals on Earth, but Even They Will Struggle with Climate Change
Tardigrades are tough little sons of guns; they can survive freezing temperatures, being boiled, and even the vacuum of space. They don’t need to drink water or breathe air to stay alive. But scientists seem to have hit on one thing that might be a killer for them–global warming.
Photo Credit: Wikimedia
Ricardo Neves, from the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, led a team of researchers to study how well a species of tardigrade, Ramazzottius varieornatus, could handle different environments.
Neves told Newsweek,
One of the [things] that makes tardigrades so interesting is their extraordinary ability to survive in environments characterized by severe conditions, such as environments without oxygen or water and temperatures close to the absolute zero. Moreover, we were aware of previous studies reporting on their ability to endure high temperatures (up to 151 C) for short exposure times (up to one hour). However, it remained to be seen whether tardigrades could endure exposure to high temperatures for periods exceeding one hour, which we tested in our study.
This particular species of tardigrades can be found in roof gutters where they can easily reproduce and feed in freshwater. When there’s no water and conditions are dry, the R. varieornatus survive by entering a state of suspended animation called cryptobiosis.
When the team examined the creatures under different temperature ranges and time lengths, they discovered that, despite what pop-science websites have touted, tardigrades do have a weakness.
Fifty percent of the tardigrades in an active state died when the temperature was 37.1 C (98.78 F). Given a period to acclimatize, they could survive at 37.6 C (99.68 F). In a state of cryptobiosis, they survived temperatures up to 82.7 C (180.86 F) for one hour. When exposed for 24 hours, they could survive a maximum temperature of 63.1 C (145.58 F).
The record high in Denmark is 36.4 C (97.52 F), which is close to the maximum temperature half of the tardigrades in an active state could survive. This points to a potential struggle for survival as temperatures around the globe rise.
Photo Credit: Pixabay
What was once considered an animal that could literally survive anything is now showing its own vulnerability to climate change. Neves said tardigrades have shown they can acclimatize, but he also wonders how other living beings will cope.
He, and the rest of the world, are going to find out. Like it or not, the Earth is warming and humanity is not doing enough to stop it from happening.
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Koala Bears Aren’t Bears at All
We’ve been hearing a lot of sad news about koala bears lately because of the bushfires ripping through Australia. The flames and smoke have decimated a huge portion of the koalas’ natural habitat and killed enough individuals that experts estimate they may now be an endangered species.
But how much do we in the States know about this cute, furry little guys, really? I know that I learned a ton of new things when I visited a sanctuary outside of Brisbane, but I definitely don’t remember them telling us that the animal we know as a koala bear isn’t a bear at all.
Image Credit: Pixabay
In fact, they’re not even closely related to bears – they’re much more like another Australian animal, the kangaroo, which also raise their underdeveloped young in a pouch.
Both animals are mammals, like bears, but they re classified as Marsupialia, order Diprotodontia, family Phascolarctidae, genus Phascolarctos.
And that’s a very different branch of the tree of life from where you’d find a grizzly.
Image Credit: Pixabay
Koalas are known scientifically as Phascolarctos cinerus, and they are the only living species in the genus. Though there are three subspecies of koala, their differences are very minor.
Therefore, the koala is more closely related to the kangaroo and the wombat, both members of the order Diprotodontia, than to bears, which are in the order Carnivora.
You might be wondering, then, how they got so mis-named in the first place. Well, as with most things, we can blame English-speaking settlers.
In the 18th century, they spotted the animal for the first time, and, due to it’s bear-like appearance and behavior, they made an assumption.
Image Credit: Pixabay
You know, like how they met Natives all over the world and assumed they were “savages” based on strange (to them) appearances?
The koala’s scientific name comes from what Englishmen thought they observed – Phascolarctos is derived from the Greek phaskolos (pouch) and arktos (bear).
And now you know, though I doubt the sleepy little animals will much care what we call them as long as we save them from burning alive.
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A Billion Dollar Solar Power Plant Flamed out, Costing Taxpayers Millions of Dollars
This billion-dollar solar plant has flamed out worse than a Kardashian relationship.
According to a Bloomberg report, the Crescent Dunes plant located outside of Las Vegas has generated far more controversy than power since it opened in 2015. Built with technology that was outdated even during its construction, the solar power plant has become a giant sore spot in the solar power industry.
Flew over the Crescent Dunes solar thermal tower in Nevada. 110 megawatts of molten salt energy powered by the Sun's rays — even from far off this thing was hard to look at this thing without hurting my eyes. pic.twitter.com/cyO4e8A5cx
— Mike Senese (@msenese) September 25, 2018
Instead of providing a more efficient and environmentally safe fuel source, the plant has become a financial albatross. And SolarReserves Inc. and ACS Cobra, the two companies involved in the highly expensive Crescent Dunes project, received more than $700 million in government loan guarantees.
Unfortunately, the results simply didn’t measure up in comparison to modern solar power plants. The Bloomberg report pointed out that the plant cost about $135 per megawatt-hour compared to less than $30 per MWh at a new Nevada photovoltaic solar farm.
The $1 billion, 1,500-acre Crescent Dunes farm was supposed to provide 110 megawatts of power. However, that pales in comparison to other renewable power projects, including a plant recently approved by the Trump administration that will span 7,000 acres and provide 690 megawatts of solar energy.
Commercial ops began in 2015, but less than a year later the facility went offline because of a “massive leak in the hot salt tank." The plant was supposed to generate 482,000 megawatt hours a year– but in the first half of 2017 it generated nothing at all. *Zero electricity.*
— Jillian Kay Melchior (@JillianKayM) January 17, 2020
There is certainly no shortage of interest or funding involved in solar technology. The Department of Energy’s portfolio includes $38 billion in projects similar to the Crescent Dunes project. Other entities such as the Department of Defense, NASA and the U.S. Air Force continue to fund university research in similar areas.
Of course, there is always risk involved in backing any new technology or large-scale infrastructure projects. Though Solyndra got a lot of heat for crashing and burning, a number of other non-renewable energy plants have had similar stories, or worse, like a $9 billion failed nuclear power plant in South Carolina. Plus, the United States spends hundreds of billions of dollars of unrecoverable money on baked-in subsidies for oil and gas companies, so this question of where the public invests is really is a matter of social priority.
Yet, taxpayers do shoulder the burden when failed projects are partially backed by public funding. For example, Crescent Dunes relied on $737 million in taxpayer money – funds that will likely not be repaid.
The plant, which as we’ve mentioned was technologically out-of-date before it even opened, only ever operated at 20 percent efficiency – a far cry from its target of 50 percent. Moreover, the plant killed local wildlife due to its heat-focused mirrors before it was shut down in April 2019.
Ultimately, Crescent Dunes proved to be a billion-dollar mistake that, unfortunately, leaves a black cloud hanging over the solar power industry right at a critical time in the world’s fight against climate change.
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Frequent Napping Has Health Benefits, Including Reducing Stress
This is great news for me! As a self-described expert napper, I’m always looking for a good reason to take a quick snooze. And I can do it anywhere. Couch, chair, floor, under tables, in cars. Whatever you got, I can make it work.
And I know I’m not alone; there are tons of people out there who love the napping life just as much as I do. Well, research shows that not only are naps enjoyable, but they are good for you, too.
A napping habit can help you have sharper brain function and hone your problem-solving skills. A short slumber can also help you deal with stress better, regulate your blood pressure, and even assist you with maintaining a healthy weight.
According to the National Sleep Foundation, there are three types of naps that they suggest taking:
1. Naps that you plan before you get tired. These help out with tiredness and fatigue.
2. Emergency napping is when you are too wiped out to do your everyday work and activities. These are good for people who deal with fatigue and drowsiness.
3. Habitual naps describe ones that are taken at the same time, each and every day. A lot of babies and elderly people are on this schedule.
Napping is frowned upon in the United States because of our hectic work schedules, but in other countries, it’s very common to take a nap during the day. A study from Greece – where napping is culturally much more accepted – found that napping three times a week can lower your risk of developing a serious heart condition by up to 37%.
The amount of time you nap has benefits for different aspects of your health. If you nap for 20 minutes, you can look forward to enhanced memory and mental alertness. A 20-30-minute nap can help boost creativity and memory. Snoozing for 30-60 minutes helps you optimize memory and decision-making skills. And if you want to nap for 60-90 minutes, you’ll experience REM sleep, which will help you to reset your brain and can improve your problem-solving skills.
Take that, anti-nappers!
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Experts Weigh in on the Health Benefits of Kombucha
You’d pretty much have to have been living in the wilderness under a rock to not have at least heard of the health craze surrounding kombucha. Even if you don’t know exactly what it is, you probably know that people think it’s good for you, right?
Enthusiasts claim it aids digestion, boosts the immune system, improves hair and skin health, detoxifies the liver, and can even help treat serious diseases like AIDS, cancer, and diabetes.
But is it really that good for you? Or even healthful at all?
So we got some info from two registered dietitians who ready to explain what it really does.
But first…
What is Kombucha?
Kombucha starts with a gelatinous blob known as a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). It’s a collection of bacteria (often acetic acid bacteria) and yeast blobbing along together in harmony.
Then, the blob is placed into a jar of black or green tea and sugar, and given 7-14 days to ferment. During that time, the yeast and bacteria feed off the sugar, making the tea carbonated and slightly alcoholic (very slightly).
Fermentar kombucha é entender que tudo na vida é equilíbrio!
Nesta bebida viva composta por muitos microorganismos, cada um tem um papel e um momento para entrar em ação!
É tipo uma família, um precisa do outro e a mágica da transformação só acontece quando preservamos essa união!
Viva essa experiência!
@daynaturallab #kombucha #cursokombucha #daynaturallab #metododaDay #organico #fermentacaonatural #probioticos #kombuchakit #kombuchabrasilTo complete the process, a bottler removes the SCOBY, filters the tea, and stores the it in the fridge. Et voila!
How could kombucha affect your health?
Registered dietitian Despina Gandhi told Buzzfeed Health that acetic acid bacteria do have probiotic qualities, so drinking kombucha could conceivably aid in your GI health.
“Since so much of our immune system is influenced by our GI tract, by honing in on it, we can technically boost immunity as well.”
But registered dietitian nutritionist Angie Murad says it’s not quite a panacea.
“It’s not to say, though, that if you drink kombucha every day you’re not going to get a cold. It can just help you – it’s not something that’s necessarily harmful to your intestines.”
This summer I visited Southern California and was swept away by their fabulous choice of healthy options: vegan, raw, fermented, grass-fed, organic, biodynamic – you name it, they have it. And! they have Kombucha on tap in every bar / cafe. So one morning I walk into a cute cafe, looking forward to enjoying a refreshing fizzy glass of probiotics and -horror- they were out of kombucha 
Customers were appalled. How could this ever happen? • Back in London I ended up spending so much money on Kombucha I eventually decided to brew my own. So I purchased a kit and welcomed home Scoby, my hungry friend who grew to KingKong proportions in the last few months. • Since I’m not a big fan of supplements (because the body has a limited capacity to absorb a nutrient without its carrier), I currently drink a glass day in day out to restore microbiome and support gut healing. • Are you a kombuchaddict too? • #dynamize #dynamizeco #health #happiness #holistichealth #holistichealing #holistichealer #holistictherapy #quantumhealth #quantumhealing #quantumhealer #quantumtherapy #homeopathy #homeopathyheals #homeopathyworks #yoga #nutrition #starttoday #london #kombucha #kombuchaddict #probiotics #guthealth #microbiome #healthygut #scobyAlso, she says to make sure you’re drinking non-pasteurized kombucha for health benefits because the pasteurization process would effectively kill the good bacteria in your drink.
Aside from potentially boosting your GI health and immune system, there are no proven benefits to drinking kombucha – though some of the claims seem medically and scientifically possible.
In a 2014 review, kombucha was shown to reduce the ability of certain cancer cells to spread. It also seems that the antioxidant properties of the tea could help detoxify the liver and boost immunity.
A different study noted a drop in the blood sugar levels of diabetic rats who lapped the drink (but results based on lab rats don’t always translate).
It’s also possible that those same antioxidants could reduce the damaging effects of UV rays on the skin, but there’s no scientific studies on the effects of kombucha on skin or hair, specifically.
⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ ⠀ #sugarawarenessweek #sugar #awareness #week #wellness #wednesday #wellnesswednesday #kombucha #kombuchalove #coworking #coworkingspace #areaworks #areaworkscolindale #areaworksfarringdon #coworkinglife #gutsycaptain #healthylifestyle #healthy #living #organic #lifestyle
The one article that notes effects on AIDS patients suggests that the bacteria in kombucha could overstimulate the immune systems of HIV-positive people, which could actually be detrimental to their health.
Gandhi warns against taking any unproven claims to heart.
“The important thing to remember is there are no clinical trials that prove kombucha can do these things, so they’re really just claims and anecdotal evidence.”
And you always, always want to make sure you’re drinking kombucha from a reliable source – it could be a health risk if you’re not. Murad stressed,
“If you’re doing it at home, you can introduce bad bacteria into the system, and people have become very ill. So you have to be careful to have clean food practices when you’re fermenting the kombucha.”
If you ferment it too long, it could also lead to metabolic acidosis, another medical complication.
Bottom line? Both experts agree that there’s no harm in drinking store-bought kombucha, but it’s best to keep an eye on the sugar content and serving sizes.
Gandhi says that for her, the bottom line is that “it’s not necessary to be part of a balanced diet. It doesn’t contain a lot of vitamins, minerals, or anything like that.”
So, if you like it and feel better when you drink some…go for it (responsibly)!
If not, have some probiotic yogurt and you’ll be fine.
And now you know.
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