Meet the new planet next door

The planet Proxima Centauri b is awash in pale light from a red dwarf star, as seen in an artist's illustration.
 

Meet the New Planet Next Door:

Since 1988, scientists have found more than 3,000 planets orbiting stars other than our sun. The newest addition is Proxima Centauri b, a small, rocky world just 4.24 light-years away, which may be in a habitable orbit.  The data suggest Proxima b is 1.3 times Earth's mass and takes 11.2 days to orbit its star, putting it in the region where the star’s feeble light is warm enough to keep any surface  water flowing. This is often called the Goldilocks region.                                                         

Small planets sometimes generate gargantuan buzz. For weeks, eager media outlets have been reporting rumors that a potentially habitable planet is circling the star closest to our sun, a red dwarf called Proxima Centauri.

Now, finally, astronomers are ready to unveil this alien world. Observations made with a telescope in Chile have indeed revealed a planet about as massive as Earth that orbits Proxima Centauri, which is a cosmic walk to the corner store at just 4.24 light-years away. And if conditions are right, the planet is in an orbit that’s warm enough for liquid water to survive on its surface.

Illuminated by a pale reddish light, the world orbits the smallest star in a triple system known as Alpha Centauri, which shines in the southern constellation Centaurus.

The Alpha Centauri system, long a wonderland for science fiction authors, is often considered a destination for humanity’s first leap into interstellar space—as well as a potential haven for future civilizations fleeing the inevitable destruction of Earth as we know it.

“A habitable, rocky planet around Proxima would be the most natural location to where our civilization could aspire to move after the sun will die, five billion years from now,” says Avi Loeb of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and an adviser to the Breakthrough Starshot project.

Even before today’s announcement, Breakthrough Starshot had announced its plan to send tiny spacecraft to the Alpha Centauri system later this century. But don’t expect any postcards from the new planet anytime soon: It will take more than 20 years for a spacecraft traveling at a monstrous 20 percent of the speed of light to reach Proxima Centauri, and another 4.24 years for any data to arrive back on Earth.

 

Based on data collected over 54 nights, the signature of the planet is strong, popping out even when the data are inspected by eye and not a computer algorithm.

“It’s pretty unambiguous,” says Yale University’s Greg Laughlin. “This isn’t a case where you kind of have to resort to black arts to pull the signal out.”

Finding Proxima

Known as Proxima b, the planet was discovered by a team of scientists working on the Pale Red Dot project—a twist on Carl Sagan’s description of Earth, which looks like a pale blue dot from afar.

Scientifically, the discovery is not exactly a surprise. The last decade of exoplanet discoveries has revealed that red dwarf stars like Proxima are very likely to host planets, and a large fraction of those worlds should be somewhat like this new one: small, rocky, and warm enough for water to flow on its surface.

While earlier searches for planets around Proxima had officially turned up empty, there were tantalizing signs that at least one planet could be there, waiting to be detected with a more comprehensive search.

As a planet goes about its orbital business, its gravity tugs ever so slightly on its star, causing the star to wobble. Larger planets naturally produce bigger wobbles. Smaller, Earth-mass planets tug almost imperceptibly on their stars, requiring long observing campaigns with extremely sensitive instruments to detect.

Observations taken sporadically between 2000 and 2014 had hinted at the presence of a planet in an 11-day orbit around Proxima, but its shaky signature wasn’t clear enough to be anything more than a tease. Determined to see if a planetary hand really was the source of Proxima’s wobbles, the Pale Red Dot team aimed Earth’s sharpest wobbly-star watcher, the High Accuracy Radial velocity Planet Searcher (HARPS), at the red
dwarf earlier this year.


There are even signs that Proxima b could have siblings: One additional signature in the data could be the work of a super-Earth on a 200-day orbit, Anglada-Escudé says, but the team will need to do more work to determine the signal’s origin.


When Worlds Align

In addition to ruling out false alarms, one of the most popular ways of validating a planet is to find it using a different detection method. Already, scientists are aiming Canada’s MOST space telescope at Proxima and looking to see if its planet transits, or crosses the face of its star as seen from Earth.

“If it does transit, that would be an extraordinary home run. I don’t think it gets any better than a transiting, Earth-size planet in the habitable zone orbiting the nearest star—unless there’s a radio broadcast emanating from it,” Laughlin says.



Ottawa teacher's aide admits sexually exploiting student for two years ... We've seen this before, Huh?

Ottawa teacher's aide Kathy Kitts leaves the courthouse in Ottawa in March. Kitts pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting a male student for two years

The high school student had always struggled in class so when he met teacher’s aide Kathy Kitts, he was grateful. She would, he felt, guide him through graduation day.
She helped him with his homework, and he trusted her. But a year later, when he turned 15, he said things started to change.
“She wanted to see me at lunch and on spares, see me alone and away from others. I was too young and too trusting to realize what was going to happen,” the student wrote in a victim-impact statement filed in Ottawa court on Thursday after Kitts, who turns 46 on Friday, pleaded guilty to sexually exploiting the boy for two years.
The teacher’s assistant sexually assaulted the boy daily in school or on lunch break, sometimes in the backseat of her van or at a nearby park, court heard.
“I had no choice but to agree. If I said no, she wouldn’t help me with homework and I would fail,” he wrote in his statement.

Scared and angry, he said in his statement that he slowly started to lose ‘all my feelings.’
“I sealed them deep inside my heart and brain and waited for high school to be over.”
And he said he had never felt so alone.
“I lost connections, lots of friends and my family because I never wanted to hangout or get too close because they might figure out my secret,” the now young man said.
Kitts had told the boy to keep the relationship secret and said if he told anyone her life would be ruined and she could go to jail, according to an agreed statement of facts.
By Grade 11, the boy said it was hard to keep “Mrs. Kitts” away. “She would stalk me all the time.”
He said the teacher’s aide destroyed his innocence. “All I am now is empty. I worry I won’t love someone.”
The sex crimes were exposed in 2014 when the boy’s mother read some sexually graphic texts on his phone. In all, there were some 15,000 texts between the teacher and student, who was sexually exploited for two years.
His mother confronted Kitts and later called the Ottawa police. Kitts was charged with a series of sex crimes in October 2014 and granted bail. The teacher’s aide pleaded guilty on Thursday to one count of sexual exploitation by someone in a position of trust and will be sentenced in August. She will undergo sexual-behaviour and psychiatric assessments before sentencing.
When Kitts was finally caught, the boy said he felt scared and happy.
“The little dark corner in my head where 15-year-old me was hiding was finally hit with light. The light was warm but my darkness inside was greater and so that’s where I am now. I’m scared to go into the light to be free.”
The boy has trouble talking about what happened, and writing about it in a victim-impact statement for all to hear, was like torture. He said every fibre in his body was screaming for him to just run.
“But I feel the need for someone to finally hear my story. I’m not running away any longer … I want this to be over someday. I hope I can crawl out of the darkness and not pretend like I’m having fun, but to really feel it. To laugh and love without pain stabbing me in my heart. I want everyone to know that this hurts boys just as much as girls.”
The boy’s mother sat at the back of Court Room No. 11 in tearful silence Monday as her son’s sex predator was portrayed as a compassionate, morally upright woman who should serve her jail sentence on weekends.
She kept listening as a defence lawyer presented Katherine (Kathy) Kitts, her son’s onetime teacher’s aide, as a devoted mother who had made a “very big mistake.”
Kitts’ lawyer, Susan Chapman, also told the sentencing hearing that the 46-year-old had suffered hardship in light of her criminal case, saying she’s on strict bail conditions, her teaching career is finished, she has been publicly shamed for her sex crime and will forever wear an online “scarlet letter.”
The Crown wasn’t buying that it was a one-off mistake, and noted that the sexual exploitation of the vulnerable boy lasted two years.
That’s when the boy’s mother stopped listening and stormed out of court, yelling that Kitts was a “full-on sex predator.”
Outside court, after regaining her composure, the boy’s mother told Postmedia:
“It has been traumatizing for my son and I, waiting for almost two years for her to be sentenced, but mostly from the duration and intensity of her sexual obsession with my son. We want to put this past us. What she did to us cannot be undone.”

Don't bring guns to Canada please

Guns seized from a single border crossing in Alberta Canada

Perhaps intended for sale to criminals

Dear Americans;

You're more than welcome to visit Canada, but for goodness sake, leave your guns at home.

That's the message from the Canada Border Services Agency on Monday as it launched a firearms awareness campaign, reminding U.S. travellers coming to Canada that their northern neighbour's firearms laws are strict.

Canadian laws are different than U.S. ones, the agency reiterated in a news release.

The CBSA says most firearms seized at land border crossings are from U.S. travellers seeking entry to Canada.

As such, the CBSA suggests Americans check the laws before arriving at a Canadian port of entry.

"It is strongly recommended that you not carry your firearm when travelling to Canada and/or transiting through Canada to reach another U.S. destination," the news release reads. "However, should you choose to travel with your firearms, you must declare all firearms in your possession at the first Canadian designated port of entry.

"You must also have all the necessary permits and have your firearm appropriately stored."

Failure to declare any firearm may lead to the seizure of the weapon, a penalty or prosecution in a court of law and may make the person inadmissible to Canada.

A U.S. citizen's vehicle may also be seized and the owner will have to pay a penalty to get it back.

"We welcome our U.S. neighbours in Canada [and] to make your journey more pleasant, travel light and always remember to declare all goods with you," the news release says.

The CBSA says firearms are high-risk commodities and enforcement of firearms laws at the border "is an enforcement priority for Canada."

Earlier this year, the border service agency reported seizing 163 firearms during 115 incidents from travellers crossing the border into Canada through just Windsor, Sarnia, Niagara Falls and London, Ont,  in just a few months. The total stats from all the other dozens of crossings along the breadth of the Canada US border (appox. 6,000 miles )  must be pretty staggering.

You don't need to shoot us to enjoy your stay in Canada. We are very friendly and peaceful people. We have our share of nut bars and doorknobs, but they belong to a very small minority and we keep an eye on them. If you are accosted by a too friendly moose...just say 'SHOO'.

Poll taken to determine Trump's worst blunder

      

One has to wonder why Donald Trump has been cancelling rallies lately. He just cancelled a key rally where he was to address his policies on immigration. He may be avoiding that one because it is one of the bigger hot potato issues that have marred his campaign. He certainly has offended most every minority group in America by one offensive remark or another.
When asked in a recent Bloomberg poll what Trump gaffe, goof or bone-headed bungle bothered them most  — out of a slew of controversies — likely voters picked one offense above all others:
When the candidate mocked a reporter with a disability last November.
Democrats have made sure the public has seen and heard about Trump's intolerant blunder over and over again. It has been played in ads created by the Clinton campaign, including a highly-circulated one involving children silently watching.
Bill Clinton even said in his convention speech that his wife "never made fun of people with disabilities. She tried to empower them based on their ability." ( implied criticism)
And Clinton surrogate Tom Harkin, a prominent voice on disability policy, said recently, "Democrats believe in working together and bringing people with disabilities in to develop policy. Donald Trump? He makes fun of people with disabilities. That's a throwback to a half a century ago."                      

Trump has denied that he meant to mock the reporter, Serge Kovaleski, who has arthrogryposis, a congenital condition affecting the joints.  His initial offense, in Trump's eyes, was denying the candidate's description of Kovaleski's reporting on unsubstantiated allegations that Muslims in New Jersey celebrated on 9/11.
As recently as July 29, Trump insisted, "I didn't know what he looked like. I didn't know he was disabled."

 Kovaleski, who now works for the New York Times, has said, "Donald and I were on a first-name basis for years."                   

Trump has maintained that his physical  imitation of Kovaleski was because "He was groveling, grovel, grovel, grovel. That was the end of it. All of a sudden, I get reports that I was imitating a reporter who was handicapped. I would never do that."
The Washington Post responded, "Much of what Trump says is 'Four-Pinocchios false.'"
This poll was conducted before Trump sparked furor with a comment about "Second Amendment people" that was interpreted by many as a veiled suggestion of violence against Clinton. You would think a death threat might replace the slur on disabled people as the worst offence. But, no.  Given the lasting stigma upon people with disabilities and the easiness with which pop culture has mocked them over the years, the outraged reaction from the public is striking and encouraging.                      

"People are starting to see people with disabilities for their abilities," said Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, president of the advocacy group Respectability.
"But one thing they don't want to see is people with disabilities being bullied," she added.
"The reaction to it, that so many people say it's the worst thing he's done, is indicative that we've turned a corner, where it's just not socially acceptable the way it was," said writer and activist Andrew Pulrang.
Still, he said he found himself wondering, "Why is this thing worse than all the other groups than he's targeted and insulted?"
One possible answer: "We're easy to feel more protective towards by the population. Part of ableism is a heavy dose of paternalism."
Those who are not equipped to fight for themselves bring the compassion and protective instincts out in other people.                

Pulrang hopes the outrage translates into more interest in policies that affect people with disability. "There are other things more important than hurting our feelings," he said. "We have no idea if Trump has any ideas about disability policy."
Trump has never filled out a candidate's questionnaire.
"Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton filled it out in full, and spoke about disability issues at the Democratic convention, as did people with disabilities themselves," Mizrahi said.
For people who are used to condescension or outright erasure, Trump's behavior carries a certain irony.
"Inclusivity for people with disabilities is now a matter of presidential politics," wrote David Perry at the Atlantic. "That likely wasn't Trump's intention when he mocked that reporter months ago. But it's a satisfying result."
If people with disabilities become political pawns ... at least it is drawing public attention to the plight of disabled people. Any recognition is better than no recognition.

We cried with Gord

Canadians cried with Gord Downie during that moment he fought tears onstage
and screamed his outrage

The terminally ill lead singer was diagnosed with brain cancer in December. Some proceeds from the band's climatic tour will be donated towards cancer research at the Sunnybrook Foundation.

You can find more about the Gord Downie Fund for Brain Cancer Research here.

The Tragically Hip has long been a fixture of the Canadian music scene, with 13 studio albums released since the band formed more than 30 years ago. Nine of those releases achieved #1 status in Canada.

An adoring nation showed its appreciation with heavily attended viewing parties for the final show. Those that couldn't attend the sell-out performance crowded into streets and theaters to watch the band say goodbye.

 Trudeau attended concert

A shared affection

And sad goodbye

Canadian prime minister and beloved hero of the internet Justin Trudeau, decked out in a denim jacket and Hip t-shirt, watched from a box at the K-Rock Centre. Downie seized the opportunity to call on his prime minister for greater action in addressing Canada's troubled relationship with its indigenous First Nations.

"He's going to take us where we need to go," Downie said of Trudeau "And we've got to figure out what the hell went wrong up there. It's not cool and everybody knows that. It's really, really bad. We're gonna figure it out."

As the band wound through three hours of music — a mix of classics and new cuts off the latest album, Man Machine Poem — Canada's warm reception echoed across social media.
 They performed for three hours with three encores until the, clearly exhausted Downie bid a sad goodbye, saying simply, "Thank you for that."
The saddest truth is that Gord Downie is 'Tragically Hip'.



Last concert of 'Tragically Hip' Gord Downie ... dying of cancer

 

Gord Downie, the lead singer and lyricist of the iconic Canadian rock band the Tragically Hip,  has terminal brain cancer, but  joined his bandmates of more than 30 years for a summer tour which wraps up for a big finale tonight, Saturday August 20th in their home town of Kingston Ontario.
This will be the last performance of Gord with the band, so all Hip fans who cannot attend are advised to record the concert, which will be  streamed live on CBC television and radio without commercials and will not be repeated. There are private and community Hip parties going on all over Canada as I write this. Downie was a much loved Canadian.
The band posted the news of Downie's illness on its website and the band managers released more details about it — an aggressive, incurable form of cancer called glioblastoma — at a news conference at Sunnybrook Hospital in May.


Downie was diagnosed with the disease in December and has since undergone surgery, chemotherapy and radiation.
"Since then, obviously, he's endured a lot of difficult times, and he has been fighting very hard," the band said in their letter to fans. "In private along with his family, and through all of this, we've been standing by him." Downie, 52, and Laura Leigh Usher have four children.


Despite the diagnosis, The Hip announced it would "dig deep" and hit the road together this summer.
"This feels like the right thing to do now, for Gord, and for all of us," group members said in their statement. "What we in The Hip receive, each time we play together, is a connection; with each other; with music and it's magic; and during the shows, a special connection with all of you, our incredible fans."


"I love this country!"
The Tragically Hip's frontman has long established himself as one of the country's greatest songwriters, his lyrics giving a voice to Canada's land and its history .
"You write about what you know," he told CBC's Wendy Mesley in 2012. "And I love this country. I love my idea of this country.
"Where I go and the people I've met, underlying everything is that commitment to finding the common good."

While the band has appealed to countless fans through their sound and the stories they've told through song, Downie's singular stage presence looms large. His performance has always been characterized by his energy and his dance moves. His music has given him a chance to bear witness to that, travelling from St. John's to Attawapiskat First Nation to Vancouver since the Tragically Hip began playing the Kingston, Ont., bar scene in 1983.

Man Machine Poem, the group's 13th studio album, was released in June. Performing for the band's legion of fans has always been one of Downie's great loves, he said.
" I Enjoy those one-night moments. We'll only be here tonight, this bunch of us in this place," he told The Hour in 2006.  "Let's try and find some point of transcendence and leap together."
 I hope he finds that moment of transcendence tonight during his last concert and public appearance. He is a poet, a composer, performer, satirist and scribe of the time we live in. He has affected the lives  and attitudes of two generations of Canadians.
Feel the love Gord.