Goldilocks Exo Planet Habitable

The Gliese star hosts four confirmed planets and may host as many as six

A red dwarf star 20 light-years away is again providing hints that it hosts the first definitively habitable planet outside our Solar System. The planet Gliese 581d is at the colder outer edge of the "Goldilocks zone" in which liquid water can be sustained. Now a study in Astrophysical Journal Letters suggests its atmosphere may keep things warm enough for water.

The solar system also hosts another contender for habitability, unconfirmed planet Gliese 581g announced in 2010. However, the existence of that planet has since been called into question. Gliese 581d is less controversial; it was discovered along with the planet Gliese 581c in 2007, occupying the outer and inner edges of the Goldilocks zone, respectively. Gliese 581c was soon determined to be too close to its host star to sustain water, with a surface temperature exceeding 1,000C.

Conversely, the outlying planet 581d - with a mass about six times that of the Earth and twice its size - was initially taken to be too cold to have liquid water. Now, French researchers have run computer simulations of the planet's atmosphere, arguing that it is likely to contain high concentrations of carbon dioxide. They contend that conditions could be suitable for oceans of liquid water as well as clouds and rainfall.
However, Gliese 581d's denser air and dim red light from its host star would make for a murky environment that would be toxic to humans.

Robin Wordsworth, a member of the team from the Institut Pierre Simon Laplace in Paris, said that the findings were further evidence that the sheer variety of planets and environments far outpaced that which we see in our own Solar System. Dr Wordsworth said that the simulations are tantamount to a first definitive claim for a habitable exoplanet. "This discovery is important because it's the first time climate modellers have proved that the planet is potentially habitable, and all observers agree that the exoplanet exists," he told news agency PA.

"The Gliese system is particularly exciting to us as it's very close to Earth, relatively speaking. So with future generations of telescopes, we'll be able to search for life on Gliese 581d directly."

NASA Captures Stunning Video of Comet Hitting the Sun

May 16 2011

NASA has captured video of a comet hitting the Sun and the footage is getting plenty of buzz online. One viewing is all it takes to see why. The footage was captured by NASA’s Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) on May 10 and May 11 and posted to NASA Goddard’s Flickr page. It shows what is believed to be a comet from the Kreutz family hurtling into the Sun. The Kreutz family of objects is believed to have originated from a single large comet that came apart centuries ago. The Kreutz comets were discovered by amateur astronomer Sergey Shrupakov.

The Sun itself is obscured in the video and represented by a white circle. According to NASA, the sun is blocked by a red disc so that “faint structures in the Sun’s corona can be discerned.” Consequently, the actual impact of the comet can’t bee seen.

What appears to be an explosion caused by the impact is actually a coincidental coronal mass ejection which occured just as the comet was approaching the Sun. Scientists have not yet found a connection between these mass ejections and comet impacts.

Stephen Hawking : 'There Is No Heaven'..

London -- Famed theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking finds no room for heaven in his vision of the cosmos .

In an interview published Monday in the Guardian newspaper, the 69 year old says the human brain is like a computer that will stop working when it's components fail. He says : "There is no heaven or afterlife for broken down computers; that is a fairy story for people that are afraid of the dark."
In "Grand Design" a book published last year, Hawking had declared that it was "not necessary to invoke God to get the universe going." Hawking is nearly totally paralyzed by motor nevrone disease, diagnosed when he was 21 .
Hawking says he is not afraid of death , but adds : I'm in no hurry to die . I have so much I want to do first.

 Professor Hawking has also collaborated on a children's book with his daughter Lucy. It's an introduction to science to spark kids' interest and get them asking questions. The book is interesting and humorous and highly recommended for future young physicists.

The Mississippi Floods

                                Farm land s near the Yazoo River

People watch as water is diverted from the Mississippi River   spills through a bay in the Morganza   spillway in Morganza , Louisisna .                    

A message is posted to residents of Baton Rouge by homeowners in Butte  Larose , Louisiana , most residents of the small town are packing their possessions or moving their entire homes... the town is expected to be severelyflooded after the Army Corps Engineers opened the Morganza spillway to divert floodwater down the Atchaflaya River ... away from  the cities of New Orleans and Baton Rouge , Louisiana.

Jessice , left, and kristin make sand bags in prepartion for impending flood waters into the Atchafalaya Basin , in Stephenville , Louisiana .

A ship traveling up the river dwafts St. Louis Cathedral in the French  Quarter as the Mississippi River reaches flood stage height in New Orleans , Louisiana.

The Port of Shreveport - Bossier will have to rely more on it's rail lines now that the Red River's access to the Mississippi River has been cut off because of flooding.

The Mississippi River  flood waters surround the driveway of Fitzgearlds Tunica , a casino and hotel in Robinsonville , Mississippi.

Updates as they become available.

End of Suicide Tourism...Switzerland

Bringing up urns of human ashes from Lake Zurich

Switzerland has become the final destination of choice for citizens of nearby countries determined to end their own lives in peace. But a vote on Sunday could bring all of that to an end. Voters in Zurich will decide on two referendum proposals relating to assisted suicide: one to ban the practice altogether, and the other to limit it to residents of Zurich only.

Assisted suicide has been legal in Switzerland for decades, and recent opinion polls show it continues to enjoy wide support among the Swiss, many of whom believe an individual has the right to decide when and how to die.  So the proposal for a ban, put forward by the deeply religious Evangelical Democratic Union, stands little chance of being passed. "When we talk about human rights," says Zurich resident Christian Bretscher, "I think they include the right to decide about death as well."

Mr Bretscher is against both proposals, and brings his own personal experience of assisted suicide to the campaign.  Seven years ago, his mother chose assisted suicide rather than continuing with a life crippled by arthritis. She asked her son to support her. He did so, and does not regret it. "The moment when my mother realized that now it's really possible for her to go and realized, 'Yes, I can leave this world', there was such a happiness and gratefulness in the eyes of my mother, I won't ever forget this."

Mr Bretscher remains convinced that the way his mother died was the best solution, not only for her, but for those she left behind. "We had the chance to say goodbye to my mother in a closeness that's not usual anymore," he explained.  "Normally people die sometime somewhere in hospitals far away from their relatives; for us, it has been different. I'm very sure that for my mother it was a beautiful way to say goodbye to us, and for me it was a very beautiful way to say goodbye to my mother."

The discovery in Lake Zurich last year of urns thought to contain foreigners' ashes caused shock among residents. But while Zurich voters are likely to back the right of Swiss citizens like Mr Bretscher's mother to choose their deaths, they are much less sure about whether Switzerland should be offering that same right to citizens of other countries, where assisted suicide remains illegal.

In recent years, Zurich has been in the headlines for so-called "suicide tourism": desperately ill people from Britain and Germany have come to the city to die with the help of assisted suicide organization Dignitas.
So a ban here may mean Dignitas having to stop offering its services to overseas clients.

There is concern too at the speed with which foreign patients undergo an assisted suicide; many arrive in Zurich and die within just a day or two. Campaigners against assisted suicide like Hans Peter Haering of the Evangelical Union believe this is not the kind of image Zurich should have."In other countries, assisted suicide is regarded as wrong. It is illegal," he said.  "So I ask myself why in Switzerland we are doing things that are not allowed in other countries - I think it is unworthy of us. It's like our banking secrecy, you know, everyone is asking why we allow that."

The founder of Dignitas, Ludwig Minelli, has refused to comment ahead of Sunday's vote.  However, in an interview last June, he described the right to choose the time and manner of death as "the last human right" which he wanted to continue to help "implement".

But Zurich's biggest assisted suicide organization, Exit, already has a policy of treating only people who are permanently resident in Switzerland.  "If you help someone with an assisted suicide, it is a very big responsibility," explained Exit's Vice-President Bernhard Sutter. "Before we can help someone, we have to check every little thing. It is important that we see them several times, that we see the diagnosis and that we read the whole medical history. "But if someone comes from far away, maybe we don't know their language, and we don't have the means to travel abroad to visit them in hospital, so how can we do our job seriously?"
So although Mr Sutter continues to support the right to choose a time to die, he, and many Swiss like him, are beginning to grow impatient with suicide tourism. "We cannot solve the dying problems of the rest of Europe," he said. "And we think it is very sad that very ill people have to travel thousands of kilometres to go to a liberal country to die there. "These other countries should solve their own problems with dying people, so we would be happy if Germany, or Great Britain, would change their laws."

Latest opinion polls show Swiss voters still overwhelmingly support assisted suicide, but that 66% are against suicide tourism, reflecting a growing feeling that this is a moral and ethical question which Switzerland has addressed, and now it is time for the rest of Europe to address it too.
What about the moral and ehtical issues? I have long been in favor of assisted suicide but it is a very touchy issue with some people. And religion plays a large part in the objections. Do you feel you should have power over your own life and death? If you were dying a protracted and painful death and your family was suffering along with you, would you consider this option?

Trump Proves His Hair is Real

Business mogul Donald Trump joins Ryan Seacrest's radio show and finally puts to rest the question of if he wears a hairpiece or not.

Ivan The Terrible - Death Camp Guard Found Guilty

Trial in Israel

Prison in Israel

Sick old man

New Trial:  Demjanjuk was said to have shown no reaction as the verdict was read out

A German court has found John Demjanjuk guilty of helping to murder more than 28,000 Jews at a Nazi death camp in World War II. He was sentenced to five years in prison, one year less than prosecutors had asked for, but will be released pending a possible appeal.

Prosecutors said the Ukraine-born Demjanjuk, 91, was a guard at Sobibor camp in Nazi-occupied Poland in 1943. He denied serving as a guard, saying he was a prisoner of war and a victim too. Lawyers for Demjanjuk have said they will appeal against the conviction. "The court is convinced that the defendant... served as a guard at Sobibor from 27 March 1943 to mid-September 1943," presiding Judge Ralph Alt said. "As guard he took part in the murder of at least 28,000 people," he said.

An estimated 250,000 people died in the gas chambers at Sobibor. Demjanjuk was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of the 28,060 people who were killed there while he was a guard. Demjanjuk, whose family says he is very ill, has been in custody since being extradited from the US in 2009.

It was a very poignant end to a long legal process. John Demjanjuk was leaning back in his wheelchair wearing dark glasses in a corner of the courtroom - as he was for much of the trial - saying absolutely nothing, almost seeming like he was peripheral to it. The presiding judge stood up and leaned over him and said: "You have the last word." Demjanjuk simply shook his head no. He was wheeled forward and the judge delivered his guilty verdict to his face. Demanjuk did not react in any way.

The relatives of the dead were clearly satisfied with the verdict although for some of them it wasn't the main aim. They wanted a court in Germany to hear the details of the machinery of industrial killing and to hear that history related in the city where the Nazi party was founded.

Judge Alt said he had ordered Demjanjuk freed during his appeal as he did not pose a flight risk because of his advanced age, poor health and the fact that he was stateless following his expulsion from the US, where after the war he worked in an Ohio car factory and became an American citizen.

Judge Alt said there were "no grounds" to hold him, adding: "It's the law, and so it's justice. I say he's guilty but it's not a final verdict." World Jewish Congress spokesman Michael Thaidigsmann responded by saying: "For us the important thing is that he got convicted. It's not up to an organisation like us to say whether he should be in jail or not." But the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Efraim Zuroff, while describing the conviction as "a very important victory for justice", said he was "very surprised" by the decision to free Demjanjuk. "We don't think that that's appropriate given the heinous nature of his crimes," he said.

Born in Ukraine in 1920, Demjanjuk grew up under Soviet rule. He was a soldier in the Red Army in 1942 when he was captured by the Germans.  Prosecutors had argued he was recruited by the Germans to be an SS camp guard and that by working at a death camp he was a participant in the killings. No evidence was produced that he committed a specific crime. It was the first time such a legal argument was made in a German court.

Central to the prosecution's case was an SS identity card indicating Demjanjuk was posted to Sobibor. The defence cast doubts on the authenticity of the card but court experts said it appeared genuine.  Concerns over his health led to frequent delays in the 18-month trial. Relatives of some of the people killed at Sobibor said they were satisfied with the verdict. "It's very emotional - it doesn't happen every day," Rudolf Salomon Cortissos - whose mother was gassed at Sobibor - told Associated Press.

Demjanjuk's son said he was relieved at the decision to free his father "because he has never deserved to sit in prison for one minute", but added that "after everything that he's gone through, it is hard to use a word like happy in any context". Demjanjuk has already spent eight years in detention in Israel. In the 1980s, an Israeli court identified him as "Ivan the Terrible", a notoriously sadistic guard at the Treblinka death camp, and sentenced him to death.  His conviction was overturned after new evidence showed that another Ukrainian was probably responsible.

Not that I respect Nazi prison guards in any way, but what new evidence do they have? He can not be tied to any specific crime. The FBI also apparently questioned the authenticity of the identity card. The man has already served eight years, incarcerated in Israel; at the end of which, the Israeli court decided they had made a mistake. They claimed another Ukranian was actually "Ivan".  It sounds like a bit of a witch hunt, where we burn all the suspects in hopes of catching the real witch. If the man really is a monster, he should never go free...but is he? He's 91 years old and we could be robbing an innocent man of his last few years.