Once again, Terra narrowly missed being hit by an asteroid. On March 2nd 2009, a large space rock sped past the earth traveling between 3,000 and 30,000 mph. Not a lot of people really knew much about it. In fact, it was only discovered 2 days before the flyby. I found out about it when my brother called to tell me that he had noticed a bright object in the sky and had called NASA about it. NASA told him that it was a space rock and that it would likely not collide with the planet. That's refreshing!
2009 DD45, the designation for the space rock in question was approximately 30m in diameter. JPL discovered this by taking the different size ranges from photos and taking an average. DD45 was likely spinning so fast that it was difficult to calculate. In any event, the 30m (that's 90 feet for those in Oak Cliff) space rock was about the same size as the surmised "meteor" that exploded over Podkamennaya Tunguska River in 1908. I put meteor in quotations because according to physicists the object exploded before impact rather than hitting the ground and then exploding. Kind of ironic that it almost happened again 100 years later.
By most estimates the Tunguska Event, as it is now known, leveled about 80 million trees in Siberia and exploded with the power of 1,000 Little Boy atomic bombs. For comparison it only takes 1 Little Boy to destroy an average-sized city (see Hiroshima blast for more information). With that much power it could easily have destroyed an entire metropolitan area.
Today, there is little forewarning once these objects are discovered. I realize that JPL thought it was highly unlikely that the DD45 asteroid would actually collide with the Earth but that gives me little comfort (see Mars Climate Orbiter mission for information on the accuracy of JPL's trajectory calculations).
References
NEO 2009 DD45
http://planetary.org/news/2009/0302_Space_Rock_Swoops_by_Earth.html
Mars Climate Orbiter
http://www.jamesoberg.com/mars/loss.html
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 14, 2009
Barefoot and Pregant (and more intelligent?)
Experiencing some stimuli can greatly improve brain performance. The brain updates itself each time a person learns a new ability such as a technique, language element, visual component as well as through external stimuli. It does this with the minimal number of operations necessary by establishing new connections and/or releasing old connections. These connections use the the medium of neural nodes. Because the positions of likely endpoints have already been established in the brain it is unlikely that daily "wear and tare" is going to make a significant change to function or performance.
Consider this. In statistics changes over time are plotted using data points and generally follow a trend which establishes a normal distribution shape when taken over time and when examined against functional processes. Bell curves are based on 100% with Mu established at 50%. If the brain's performance were plotted using this technique and under the right conditions the average brain would probably have a very poor amplitude (ie: pdf distribution). This is because, over time, the average brain would not experience enough extreme changes to allow for extreme outcomes in the plot. In order to change the data in the plot the brain must necessarily endure massive changes for good or for ill of the brain.
Here is a more specific analogy. The IQ scale system today uses this normal distribution model which is an integration of pdf distributions. The 25% below and above Mu (to the left and to the right) are the calibrated scores of 50% of the population. 50% of the population do not have the same intellectual capacity but rather 50% of the population (based on the British standard) fall within a range that are close enough to each other to give a "100 score". It follows then that these "50%" do not then experience enough functional changes in their daily lives to push them below or above this threshold. It could be further surmised that 50% of the population comparatively experiences fewer changes to their brain function because of some external or internal conditions.
Now enters stimuli. It has been garnered from 30 years of research that the brain can endure more connection changes than previously thought without seriously compromising health. The nature of brain connections and preexisting nodes causes most neural changes to occur within very finite areas. These changes are obviously mental and not likely to alter the brain's personality, capacity or cnr (coherent neural representation).
It has been discovered, however, that persistent low-dose stimuli can dramatically escalate rapid connection formation. It is theorized that this is accomplished by varying stimuli and sometimes interchanging external and internal stimuli.
For example, it was found that the nerve endings on the bottoms of the feet collect enormous amounts of response information. This is partly because of distance from the brain. The pedal nerves afford tremendous information when axon's are not dampened by the release of hormones. The feet nerves, when switched on, also allow the brain to function a little differently when it is also processing coherent, cognitive information.
If one were to walk on the beach barefoot while reading a book and persist this habit over consecutive occurrences it follows that brain performance could be improved dramatically.
Biblio
SETI (http://radio.seti.org/episodes/196 March 2009)
Newswise (http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/543111/)
Consider this. In statistics changes over time are plotted using data points and generally follow a trend which establishes a normal distribution shape when taken over time and when examined against functional processes. Bell curves are based on 100% with Mu established at 50%. If the brain's performance were plotted using this technique and under the right conditions the average brain would probably have a very poor amplitude (ie: pdf distribution). This is because, over time, the average brain would not experience enough extreme changes to allow for extreme outcomes in the plot. In order to change the data in the plot the brain must necessarily endure massive changes for good or for ill of the brain.
Here is a more specific analogy. The IQ scale system today uses this normal distribution model which is an integration of pdf distributions. The 25% below and above Mu (to the left and to the right) are the calibrated scores of 50% of the population. 50% of the population do not have the same intellectual capacity but rather 50% of the population (based on the British standard) fall within a range that are close enough to each other to give a "100 score". It follows then that these "50%" do not then experience enough functional changes in their daily lives to push them below or above this threshold. It could be further surmised that 50% of the population comparatively experiences fewer changes to their brain function because of some external or internal conditions.
Now enters stimuli. It has been garnered from 30 years of research that the brain can endure more connection changes than previously thought without seriously compromising health. The nature of brain connections and preexisting nodes causes most neural changes to occur within very finite areas. These changes are obviously mental and not likely to alter the brain's personality, capacity or cnr (coherent neural representation).
It has been discovered, however, that persistent low-dose stimuli can dramatically escalate rapid connection formation. It is theorized that this is accomplished by varying stimuli and sometimes interchanging external and internal stimuli.
For example, it was found that the nerve endings on the bottoms of the feet collect enormous amounts of response information. This is partly because of distance from the brain. The pedal nerves afford tremendous information when axon's are not dampened by the release of hormones. The feet nerves, when switched on, also allow the brain to function a little differently when it is also processing coherent, cognitive information.
If one were to walk on the beach barefoot while reading a book and persist this habit over consecutive occurrences it follows that brain performance could be improved dramatically.
Biblio
SETI (http://radio.seti.org/episodes/196 March 2009)
Newswise (http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/543111/)
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)