Stay Calm, Dad
A 5-year-old talks on the phone with 911 while her dad is having difficultly breathing. Don’t leave too soon. This little girl is not only smart, but very funny.
Source….www.maniacworld.com
Natarajan
Author: Natarajan
This Day …May 6 1968…in Science…Neil Armstrong’s Close Call…
May 6, 1968. More than a year before he became the first human to set foot on the moon, Neil Armstrong had a narrow escape in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV) at Ellington Air Force Base near Houston. The LLRV had been designed to simulate a descent to the moon’s surface, and all the lunar astronauts trained in it. That day, while Armstrong was piloting, a leaking propellant caused a total failure of his flight controls and forced an ejection.
Armstrong was fine. He bit his tongue hard during his landing by parachute, but otherwise was uninjured. Airspacemag.com described this encounter between Armstrong and another astronaut later that day:
… astronaut Alan Bean saw Armstrong that afternoon at his desk in the astronaut office. Bean then heard colleagues in the hall talking about the accident, and asked them, ‘When did this happen?’ About an hour ago, they replied.
Bean returned to Armstrong and said, ‘I just heard the funniest story!’ Armstrong said, ‘What?’
‘I heard that you bailed out of the LLTV an hour ago.’
‘Yeah, I did,’ replied Armstrong. ‘I lost control and had to bail out of the darn thing.’
Bean later recalled: ‘I can’t think of another person, let alone another astronaut, who would have just gone back to his office after ejecting a fraction of a second before getting killed.’
No doubt … Armstrong had the right stuff!
Bottom line: On May 6, 1968 – more than a year before his famous first moonwalk – Neil Armstrong narrowly escaped disaster while training in the Lunar Landing Research Vehicle (LLRV).
source….www.earthsky.org
Natarajan
” Please Accept this Cake as a Delicious Notice of Resignation …” !!!
RESIGNING from a job is never easy, but there’s one thing that might help soften the blow — cake.
Mark Herman, a newscast director at a television station in Arizona, decided to leave on a (sugar) high note when he resigned from his position at KOLD-TV, last week.
“I handed in the most delicious letter of resignation ever,” he wrote in his Reddit post, which included a photo of his creative efforts. His resignation letter was literally the icing on the white, strawberry-filled cake.
The cake, which was made by a bakery in Tucson, was a sweet attempt to deliver the bad news to Mr Herman’s boss and fellow employees.
“I knew they’d be disappointed in my departure,” Mr Herman told blogger Jim Romenesko. “So I decided that I should resign via cake — not only because nobody can be mad or sad at a cake, but also because I’m a bit of a joker and a cake of resignation is pretty damn hilarious.”
Let them have cake … Mark Herman wrote his resignation letter on a cake. Picture: Imgur.com Source: Supplied
The letter read:
Dear Michelle,
Please accept this cake as formal (and delicious) notice of my resignation from the position of newscast director News 13. My last day of employment will be Friday, May 22.
I will miss KOLD and all the incredible people I’ve been fortunate enough to work with over the last 4 years. I cannot think you enough for all the opportunities and experiences you have given to me during my time here.
I appreciate your understanding and I wish you all the very best. If there’s anything I can do to help with the transition during my last few weeks here, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Sincerely,
Mark Herman
Mr Herman’s efforts did not go unappreciated. When his boss saw the cake she laughed and said “No way! You crack me up!”, before taking the cake to a meeting where the announcement was made to the rest of the staff.
“The cake definitely made the bad news a little bit more palatable,” said Mr Herman.
Source…….www.news.com.au
Natarajan
” MARS Matters….” !!!
On May 5 NASA Administrator and senior science advisor to President Obama, Charles Bolden asked those at The Humans to Mars Summit in Washington, D.C., to repeat after him:
“Mars matters.”
The summit, which is happening from May 5 through 7, features discussions about current and future NASA efforts on the journey to Mars.
So, why does Mars matter to Bolden? Several reasons. Here are a few of the ones he mentioned on Tuesday:
- “Because its formulation and evolution are comparable to Earth’s”
- “Because we know that at one time it had conditions suitable for life”
- “Because what we learn about the Red Planet may tell us more about our own home planet’s history and future”
- “Because it might just help us unravel the age-old mystery about whether life exists beyond Earth”
Bolden isn’t the only one who thinks Mars matters.
Some of the most innovative, intelligent, outspoken minds of our age –Buzz Aldrin, Stephen Hawking, Elon Musk, Bill Nye, and Neil deGrasse Tyson – have similar ideas on why humans not only need to visit the Red Planet but to colonize it as well.
Here are five of the main reasons they cite:
1. Ensuring the survival of our species
The only home humans have ever known is Earth. But history shows that surviving as a species on this tiny blue dot in the vacuum of space is tough and by no means guaranteed.
The dinosaurs are a classic example: They roamed the planet for 165 million years, but the only trace of them today are their fossilized remains. A colossal asteroid wiped them out.
Putting humans on more than one planet would better ensure our existence thousands if not millions of years from now.
“Humans need to be a multiplanet species,” Musk recently toldastronomer and Slate science blogger Phil Plait. Musk founded the space transport company SpaceX to help make this happen.
Mars is an ideal target because it has a day about the same length as Earth’s and water ice on its surface. Moreover, it’s the best available option: Venus and Mercury are too hot, and the Moon has no atmosphere to protect residents from destructive meteor impacts.
2. Discovering life on Mars
Nye, the CEO of The Planetary Society, said during an episode of StarTalk Radio in March that humanity should focus on sending humans instead of robots to Mars because humans could make discoveries 10,000 times as fast as the best spacecraft explorers we have today. Though he was hesitant to say humans should live on Mars, he agreed there were many more discoveries to be made there.
One monumental discovery scientists could make is determining whether life currently exists on Mars. If we’re going to do that, we’ll most likely have to dig much deeper than NASA’s rovers can. The theory there is thatlife was spawned not from the swamps on adolescent Earth, but from watery chasms on Mars.
The Mars life theory suggests that rocks rich with microorganisms could have been ejected off the planet’s surface from a powerful impact, eventually making their way through space to Earth. It’s not a stretch to imagine, because Martian rocks can be found on Earth. None of those, however, have shown signs of life.
“You cannot rule out the fact that a Mars rock with life in it landing on the Earth kicked off terrestrial life, and you can only really test that by finding life on Mars,” Christopher Impey, a British astronomer and author of over a dozen books in astronomy and popular science, told Business Insider.
3. Improving the quality of life on Earth
“Only by pushing mankind to its limits, to the bottoms of the ocean and into space, will we make discoveries in science and technology that can be adapted to improve life on Earth.”
British doctor Alexander Kumar wrote that in a 2012 article for BBC News where he explored the pros and cons of sending humans to Mars.
At the time, Kumar was living in the most Mars-like place on Earth, Antarctica, to test how he adapted to the extreme conditions both physiologically and psychologically. To better understand his poignant remark, let’s look at an example:
During its first three years in space, NASA’s prized Hubble Space Telescope snapped blurry pictures because of a flaw in its engineering. The problem was fixed in 1993, but to try to make use of the blurry images during those initial years, astronomers developed a computer algorithm to better extract information from the images.
It turns out the algorithm was eventually shared with a medical doctor who applied it to the X-ray images he was taking to detect breast cancer.
The algorithm did a better job at detecting early stages of breast cancerthan the conventional method, which at the time was the naked eye.
“You can’t script that. That happens all the time – this cross pollination of fields, innovation in one, stimulating revolutionary changes in another,”Tyson, the StarTalk radio host, explained during an interview with Fareed Zakaria in 2012.
It’s impossible to predict how cutting-edge technologies used to develop manned missions to Mars and habitats on Mars will benefit other fields like medicine or agriculture. But we’ll figure that out only by “pushing humankind to its limits” and boldy going where we’ve never been before.
4. Growing as a species
Another reason we should go to Mars, according to Tyson, is to inspire the next generation of space explorers. When asked in 2013 whether we should go to Mars, he answered:
“Yes, if it galvanizes an entire generation of students in the educational pipeline to want to become scientists, engineers, technologists, and mathematicians,” he said. “The next generation of astronauts to land on Mars are in middle school now.”
Humanity’s aspirations to explore space are what drive us toward more advanced technological innovations that will undoubtedly benefit mankind in one way or another.
“Space is like a proxy for a lot of what else goes on in society, including your urge to innovate,” Tyson said during his interview with Zakaria. He added: “There’s nothing that drives ambitions the way NASA does.”
5. Demonstrating political and economic leadership
At a February 24 hearing, Aldrin told the US Senate’s Subcommittee on Space, Science and Competitiveness that getting to Mars was a necessity not only for science, but also for policy.
“In my opinion, there is no more convincing way to demonstrate American leadership for the remainder of this century than to commit to a permanent presence on Mars,” he said.
If Americans do not go to Mars, someone else will. And that spells political and economic benefit for whoever succeeds.
“If you lose your space edge,” Tyson said during his interview with Zakaria, “my deep concern is that you lose everything else about society that enables you to compete economically.”
With NASA making significant efforts to send American astronauts to Mars by the 2030s – a goal that President Obama set five years ago – Bolden had encouraging words:
“It is my firm belief that we are closer to getting there today than we’ve ever been before in the history of human civilization.”
Source….www.businessinsider.in
Natarajan
” NASA Has no Idea of These Creepy Sounds….”
Scientists at NASA are baffled after a student recorded never-before-heard hissing noises 22 miles above earth.
The eerie noises were recorded using infrasound microphones aboard a NASA student balloon experiment in Arizona and New Mexico and are only audible to the human ear after speeding up the recordings.
It is important to note that infrasounds are capable of travelling extremely long distances, making it even more difficult to pinpoint where the sound originates from.
David Bowman, the student at North Carolina who captured the creepy noises told Live Science: “It sounds kind of like The X-Files.”
There haven’t been acoustic recordings in the stratosphere for 50 years,” he explained to Live Science. “Surely, if we place instruments up there, we will find things we haven’t seen before.”
The balloon, which has infrasound sensors attached to it, reached altitudes of over 123,000 feet (37,500 meters).
It’s the first time infrasound recordings have ever been captured at such a height.
Researchers, who say they’ve never heard many of the strange noises captured by Bowman, have been working to find out what could be creating the sounds. Live Science say their guesses so far include a wind-farm emitting signals below the balloon’s flight path, ocean waves, wind turbulence, and vibrations caused by the balloon’s cables.
Source….www.businessinsider.in
Natarajan
Guru Paduka Stotram Interwoven with Periva’s Rare Photos …On this Anusham Day…
Watch this beautiful compilation of Guru Paduka Stotram, interwoven with Periva’s rare photos – carefully chosen sets where you can get to have his Padam/Paduka darshan in almost every photo.
What else can you ask for on this Anusham day?
A beautiful compilation of Guru Paduka Stotram, interwoven with Periva’s rare photos – carefully chosen sets where you can get to have his Padam/Paduka darshan in almost every photo. For further details visit http://www.periva.proboards.com or http://www.periva.org
Source…..www.periva.proboards.com
Natarajan
Message For the Day…” Revere Your Mother as God …”
The Vedas say, “Mathru devo bhava: Revere your Mother as God.” You must revere your mother, who has brought you up with love, care and sacrifice. If one’s heart is so hard that it does not melt at the pleadings of their mother, it deserves nothing but ridicule. Always, always, love and respect your mother, your motherland, your mother-tongue and follow its culture. Never develop hatred against others, their languages or culture. Nourish and enrich your mother-tongue and motherland with all your energy and progress as much as you can, without any hesitation. Keep yourself fit for this by making the best use of all available opportunities. Develop your character as well as intelligence and health. The most reliable source of strength is within you, not in money, kinsmen, or physical acumen, but in yourself – the Soul (Atman). Know it, delve into it, draw sustenance from it, and then see it in all and serve it in all.
Image of the Day…!!!
What bird song looks like at dawn
A meadowlark sings as dawn breaks at the Ninepipes National Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Montana.
John Ashley took this photo of a song bird at dawn on April 28, 2015. He wrote:
This is what bird song looks like at dawn. A male Western meadowlark sings a steamy little number just after the sun rises over the Mission Mountains at the Ninepipes Natl. Wildlife Refuge in northwestern Montana. White lines are back-lit spider webs.
Source….www.earthsky.org
Natarajan
Message For the day…” Clearly Understand that You Originate from God…”
Everyone wants to be happy. Such a desire is natural and it springs from the fact that your true nature is bliss. Bliss is God but somehow people don’t get that! You are born of joy(ananda), the basis of your life is ananda, and your goal must also be ananda. Truly speaking, it is not difficult to know what the basis and goal of life should be. Prahlada got it! He realised that God is Omnipresent and saw unity in diversity. He clearly perceived Narayana to be the substratum of everything in creation and happily surrendered to Him. His father Hiranyakasipu was just the opposite. He saw diversity in unity and became deluded by the multiplicity of forms in Creation, each with its own name. Clearly understand that you originate from God, that your life’s undercurrent is God, and your final destination also is God. Bliss should be the goal in your life, and seek it in all earnestness.
Why the Planes and Ships in distress use the word ” May day” ….?
Today I found out why those aboard planes and ships use the word “Mayday” to indicate they are in extreme distress.
In 1923, a senior radio officer, Frederick Stanley Mockford, in Croydon Airport in London, England was asked to think of one word that would be easy to understand for all pilots and ground staff in the event of an emergency.
The problem had arisen as voice radio communication slowly became more common, so an equivalent to the Morse code SOS distress signal was needed. Obviously a word like “help” wasn’t a good choice for English speakers because it could be used in normal conversations where no one was in distress.
At the time Mockford was considering the request, much of the traffic he was dealing with was between Croydon and Le Bourget Airport in Paris, France. With both the French and English languages in mind, he came up with the somewhat unique word “Mayday”, the anglicized spelling of the French pronunciation of the word “m’aider” which means “help me”.
Four years later, in 1927, the International Radiotelegraph Convention of Washington made “Mayday” the official voice distress call used only to communicate the most serious level of distress, such as with life-threatening emergencies.
When using Mayday in a distress call, it is traditional to repeat it three times in a row, “Mayday, Mayday, Mayday”. This is to make sure it is easily distinguishable from a message about a Mayday call and from any similar sounding phrases in noisy conditions.
In situations where a vessel requires assistance, not from grave and imminent danger, a distress call of “pan-pan” can be used instead. Essentially, it means you need aid, but you don’t need support personnel to necessarily drop what they’re doing right that instant and come help you, as with a Mayday.
Like Mayday, pan-pan is the anglicized spelling of a French word, in this case “panne”, which means “broken/failure/breakdown”. Also, as with Mayday, one should state it three consecutive times: “pan-pan pan-pan pan-pan”, followed by which station(s) you are addressing and your last known location, nature of your emergency, etc.
If there is no reply to a Mayday or pan-pan call by the Coast Guard or other emergency agency, and a couple minutes have passed since the last one, some other radio source, such as another ship or plane that received the call, should transmit their own Mayday call, but on behalf of the ship or plane that first made the call, repeating the pertinent information they heard when they received the Mayday message.
Source……www.todayi foundout.com
Natarajan
