Camera round corners

Photography can perform many tricks.
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Until now, though, looking round corners has not been one of them.

Ramesh Raskar of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology plans to change that.

He and his students, Ahmed Kirmani and Andreas Velten, have developed a camera that can see what other cameras cannot 

In standard flash photography, a bulb on the camera releases a burst of light.

This light strikes objects.

Some of the light then bounces back to the camera, where it is used to generate an image.

Dr Raskar’s device is similar, but with one crucial difference.

Instead of recording light reflected directly from the object to be photographed, it records light that has been reflected several times on the journey.

As an example, a photographer taking a picture of someone standing out of sight in a room with a half-open door might aim the camera at the door.

Light from the flash would be reflected off the door and onto both the person and the walls behind that person.

Some of this light would then travel back to the door and be reflected into the camera.

Because the flash must survive multiple reflections without being absorbed or becoming too weak, not just any light can be used.

It must be a laser.

Dr Raskar and his students are working with one that fires its pulse in a quadrillionth of a second.

That means the pulse is powerful, because all its energy is concentrated into such a short time.

It can thus survive the absorption associated with multiple reflections.

It also means that reflections from different places are easier to tell apart, because they do not blur into one another.

That much is basic optics.

The trick is what the camera does with the multiply reflected light once it has arrived.

A computer inside the machine analyses the incoming rays and identifies which ones came back early because they bounced off the person

And which came back late because they took extra time to pass the person and be reflected from one of the walls instead.

This analysis allows a geometric reconstruction of where the various light rays have been, thus creating a picture of what could not ordinarily be seen.

There is a problem with such a powerful pulse, though.

Light reflected directly back at the camera, and thus not much absorbed, may overwhelm its sensitive detectors.

To deal with that, the camera is programmed to keep its shutter closed until the pulse has had time to go around a corner and return.

At the moment, the new camera can produce only low-quality images, and cannot cope with objects that have several sorts of surface material.

Dr Raskar reckons, though, that this is only a temporary problem.

Refinements of the technique, he believes, will make it a practical technology within two years, and will open a range of applications from studying inaccessible nooks and crannies of the human body to looking into rooms and hidden corridors in burning buildings.

Economist

Earth Magnetic Field Reversal

Is something that may well affect us in the not too distant future

Be informed

I show below an article to help understand what this might mean, also with the choice to get involved

The possible energy ramifications of diminishing magnetic field.

How long will it linger at zero before reversing?

Seeing the powerful earthquakes such as the December 26th, 2004 event that triggered the tsunami disaster, people are looking for possible causes for the apparent instability of earth's crust.

"End-times" alarmists and backyard researchers believe that the predicted imminent reversal of the earth's magnetic field may be a significant clue to these eschatological-scale events.

Scientists have been observing changes in the direction of earth's magnetic field which took place recently as well as in the distant past.

NASA’s website features a map showing the gradual northward migration of the north magnetic pole in the past century and a half.

Since more than double the time interval has elapsed since the last reversal, compared to the time lapse between the previous two pole reversals

Some believe we may be overdue for the next north-south flip.

However, though the interval between reversals of the Earth’s magnetic field can be as short as 5,000 years, it can also be as long as 50 million years.

There does not seem to be any logic or rule governing the planet’s behaviour.

Least ways with our present knowledge we do not know of any such logic or rule

It is not only the direction but also the strength of this magnetic field that is a concern.

In the time of dinosaurs, it was at an estimated 2.5 gauss

It was eighty percent stronger than it is now.

This may have been one of the reasons such gigantic life forms thrived.

It is now accepted that a catastrophic event ended the reign of giant reptiles.

However, they did not re-evolve to equivalent dimensions.

And the disappearance of mammalian “mega-fauna” in more recent times is still considered to be a mystery.

The mastodons and mammoths would have towered over modern elephants.

Why are there so few large terrestrial animals today?

The smaller average size of modern animals may be due to the gradual decline of Earth's "steady state" (as opposed to “pulsed”) magnetism.

Thousands of years ago the Chinese, with their astute discovery of bio-electrical energy flows known as “meridians”, learned that magnetism promotes vigor in biological life.

They used magnetic rocks in medical treatment.

In the past century there has been a further decline of earth's magnetic field by another five percent down to only 0.5 gauss.

This has led Dr. Dean Bonlie to identify a "magnetic deficiency syndrome" resulting from the biological stress caused by the weakening of this "energy base" for life.

The weakening of earth’s magnetism is one of the factors believed to be predictive of a pole reversal.

That magnetic field reversals have occurred in the past is confirmed in the geological record.

What is unclear is how precisely the transition occurs, and what happens to life forms extant at the time of this pole flip.

Does the magnetic field drop to zero gauss?

Dire predictions follow upon the heels of this theory.

Electronic devices would all be at risk: there may be damage to, or complete loss of, all near-earth-orbiting satellites and possibly the space station itself.

Effects on life forms could range from migrating birds losing their sense of direction to immune system decline and even widespread die-off from radiation-induced cancers.

Losing its protective magnetic envelope, the atmosphere would expand and become thinner, possibly leading to altitude sickness near sea level.

No longer filtered out, deadly cosmic rays would kill most if, not all, living creatures on the surface.

Only those living in deep caves would be safe.

This scenario has prompted some to build underground bunkers in hopes of surviving.

Countering this frightening vision, NASA predicts that, rather than declining to zero gauss, the magnetic field would become disordered.

Thus we might for short time have more than one north and south pole on the planet.

This official scientific stance says that the magnetosphere which shields us from cosmic radiation would not entirely disappear either.

Thus, while communications would be erratic and perhaps at times completely inactivated, humans would find ways to survive.

However, there are dissenters in the ranks, pointing to the vast South Atlantic magnetic anomaly and radiation damage to satellites over that region attributed to weakening of the protective magnetosphere.

The disorderly-flip theory is supported by evidence from geology that in past reversals the decline was not total.

Lava flows that solidified at Steen's Mountain during a lengthy reversal process show that the magnetic poles wandered across the equator three times.

Though strength of the field was reduced to about 20% of maximum, there is no record that it fell to zero gauss during that transitional period.

The theory that activity in the turbulent molten outer iron core of the planet generates its magnetic field currently dominates scientific thinking.

Stormy activity deep in the earth's outer core, believed to be filled with roiling convection flows of molten iron, is understood to generate the planet’s magnetic field.

Such violent seething could affect the mantle as well, possibly disturbing the earth's crust and causing the quakes.

However, there is an alternate theory of how the magnetic field is generated.

In his article, "Origin of the Earth's Magnetic Field", Ernest McFarlane outlines gaps in the molten-iron convection theory.

He proposes a system of electronic cells in a crystalline metal core with hot spots of heavy metals releasing alpha and beta particles.

Due to the high heat the alpha particles are unable to combine with the free electrons. "

Consequently an electron current flow is produced and conditions are set up for the generation of current loops throughout the inner and outer core. ... magnetic fields are produced as a consequence, in accordance with the right hand rule of electromagnetic theory."

Which theory is right?

We may find out from experience sooner than we can come to amicable agreement, given the conflicting theories and computer models.

The actual dynamics may include aspects of both, or new insights not yet fully developed.

The sun reverses its magnetic field like clockwork every eleven years at the peak of the sunspot cycle.

The next solar flip is due in 2012.

South-pointing magnetic flux moves from sunspots, which are intense magnetic loops near the equator of the sun, along “meridional flows” to the north magnetic pole, and vice versa.

As the oppositely-directed charge accumulates at the poles the field declines, until eventually the reverse charge predominates.

Scientists point out that the heliosphere does not wink out of existence during this reversal.

The sunspots are intense magnetic knots, much stronger than the star’s main field, which continue to spiral outward even when the main dipole field vanishes briefly.

Though the solar magnetic reversal is not completely understood, the Ulysses space probe has sent back detailed data which has supplied answers to many questions.

The mechanism that controls earth's field reversals may not be based on similar principles.

For one thing, a planet does not seem to have any equivalent to the powerful sunspots.

McFarlane refers to there being more than one north-south pole system and about 10% of the total field being involved in smaller extra fields.

If these subordinate minor magnetic fields take up more of the magnetic activity during the main field’s decline, they might become active enough to sustain a minimal protective layer shielding the biosphere, even if the main dipole field declines to zero gauss.

This could be important for our survival, as the Steen’s mountain lava flows indicate that the reversal took 4,500 years to be completed!

Whether the magnetic field is primarily molten-metal flow dynamics or electron current loops, or a combination of those and other factors, a magnetic pole reversal may be of significance to the search for clean energy generation and transportation.

If earth magnetic anomalies become more frequent or are concentrated in certain areas, we could see disruption of existing electrical grids, even without the dramatic atmosphere expansion and radiation damaging to life and computers.

PES Network Inc. wants to encourage people in all geographical regions to participate in magnetic-pole data collection and reporting.

A community-editable directory page at PESWiki.com has been created for this purpose.

If you would like to participate then read on

It is recommended that you first establish a “base line” by determining the accurate magnetic north reading for your location, and report the number of degrees and direction of any deviation from this norm.

If you are able to access equipment to determine field strength as well, this additional data would be of interest too.

This data may be useful in helping inventors and researchers test the tolerance of Zero-point technologies, magnetic motors and other new generation systems in adverse situations.

As we may have to live through ongoing magnetic disturbance for a long time, we will need to know whether the new systems will be robust under conditions of planetary pole reversal.

Ordinary citizens do not usually have access to instrumentation that would allow them to examine the deeper layers of the planet, nor the high atmosphere, nor the magnetospheres in space.

However, if many people collect observations on magnetic field direction from different locations across the continent of North America, and indeed around the world, this data may become relevant in more ways than feeding "end-time" theorizing.

The subject is complex, and whichever scenario may be about to occur, some individuals have been taking note of unusually large fluctuations in the apparent position of the magnetic north pole.

Using a large, stationary, home-built compass, one individual in western Canada noticed a ten-degree variation within a few days.

This was so unusual that, concerned about a sudden pole shift, he described and published his observations, and asked for input.

No one else was seeing this rapid "pole shift".

On borrowing a very sensitive water-filled portable compass and quartering the area, he discovered that this was indeed a highly localized anomaly in which his domicile happened to be situated dead above

He is now theorizing that the phenomenon may be a vortex related to the nearby extinct volcano Mount Ida.

Vortices have been known to occur in volcanic mountain areas, and in the past some have become tourist attractions.

Individual observations are of value, but need to be balanced by additional data from a much wider geographical area.

Thus alarms about sudden general "pole shift" may be put to rest, and anomalies studied for what they are.

Ted Twietmeyer is one of those calling for volunteers to join in a non-profit effort to track the magnetic pole shift -- or apparent pole shift.

Summaries and links to this data would be appropriate for the above-mentioned PESWiki directory.

Mary-Sue Haliburton -

Pure Energy Systems News

Epigenetic anointment

Life in the bee hive is nasty, brutish and short—if you are a worker bee, that is.
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Workers spend the 20 days or so of their adulthoods constructing honeycomb, feeding larvae, foraging for nectar and pollen beyond the hive, and never producing offspring.

The queen, by contrast, lives on for years in languor, fed and preened by workers as she lays up to 2,000 eggs a day for honeybee posterity.

Yet these starkly different fates emerge from the same genome.

Who becomes royal and who a drudge depends on who gets fed with a fantabulous substance called royal jelly.

The jelly does this by modulating the expression of the insect’s genes, but the details have hitherto been obscure.

In a study published in PLoS Biology, Ryszard Maleszka of the Australian National University and his colleagues illuminate some of those details.

One of the ways that genes are regulated is by a process called methylation.

This adds chemicals called methyl groups to DNA.

These then obstruct the machinery responsible for turning genetic instructions into working proteins—a phenomenon known as epigenesis.

Dr Maleszka has shown that royal jelly acts, at least in part, by changing the pattern of methylation.

He and his team have produced a methylation map (a “methylome”) of the DNA in honeybee brains.

They found 561 genes whose methylation patterns were different in queens and workers.

Most of these genes encode humdrum proteins that regulate a cell’s metabolism or transmit molecular signals that keep it ticking over.

Differences in these genes presumably explain the different body sizes and lifespans of queens and workers.

A few of the affected genes, though, are involved in brain development and signalling between nerve cells.

These would explain differences in behaviour.

A recurring theme was that the epigenetic marks found can pick and choose from alternative options offered by the genome.

Genes are divvied up into pieces that may be swapped in or out of the final instructions for making a protein, allowing a cell to fine-tune a protein to its needs.

Queens and workers differed in how methyl tags were clustered at the splicing sites between these pieces.

For example, the splicing sites of the gene needed to make the short version of a protein called GB18602 (of unknown function, although its counterpart in fruit flies is involved in fat and sugar metabolism) were tagged with methyl groups in workers but not in queens.

This strongly correlated with the meagre amounts of the short version of GB18602 found in workers and its abundance in queens.

How these precise patterns of methylation arise remains a mystery, which may involve some as yet unknown guidance molecules that instruct the methylating enzyme exactly where to tag the genome.

This is a crucial question for human health, too, because epigenetic marks on certain genes can spur disease (the runaway cell division that causes cancer being one important example).

With a genome a tenth the size of a human’s, and less crowded with methyl tags to boot, the honey bee may lead the way to the principles behind how these epigenetic patterns emerge—and ultimately determine fates beyond the hive.

Economist

The best and true attitude

The Past!

What is it?

Nothing.

Gone!

Dismiss it.

You are the past of yourself.

Therefore it concerns you not as such.

It only concerns you as you now are.

In you, as you now exist, lies all the past.

So follow the Hindu maxim:

"Regret nothing; never be sorry; and cut all doubts with the sword of spiritual knowledge."

Regret is productive only of error.

I care not what I was, or what anyone was.

I only look for what I am each moment.

For as each moment is and at once is not

It must follow that if we think of the past we forget the present

And while we forget, the moments fly by us, making more past.

Then regret nothing

Not even the greatest follies of your life, for they are gone

And you are to work in the present

Which is both past and future at once.

So then

With that absolute knowledge that all your limitations are due to Karma

Past or in this life

And with a firm reliance ever now upon Karma as the only judge

Which will be good or bad as you make it yourself

You can stand anything that may happen and feel serene despite the occasional despondencies which all feel

But which the light of Truth always dispels. --

W.Q.J.

Roman numerals

Are still with us today

Their origin is not known to most of us

Like many other things they arose because of a need

The Romans were active in trade and commerce

From the time of learning to write they needed a way to indicate numbers.

The system they developed has lasted for many centuries

And they still see some specialized use today.

Roman numerals traditionally indicate the order of rulers

Or ships who share the same name (i.e. Queen Elizabeth II).

They are also sometimes still used in the publishing industry for copyright dates

They are used on cornerstones and gravestones when the owner of a building or the family of the deceased wishes to create an impression of classical dignity.

The Roman numbering system also lives on in our languages

These often still use Latin word roots to express numerical ideas.

A few examples: unilateral, duo, quadricep, septuagenarian, decade, milliliter.

The big differences between Roman and Arabic numerals (the ones we use today) are that Romans didn't have a symbol for zero

And that numeral placement within a number can sometimes indicate subtraction rather than addition.

Of course there is much more that the Romans left us, and the above is just a reminder that we don't think about many things left to us

But I bet you think Roman whenever you see their numerals!

Our life is just

Life is just

Do you agree?

Probably not, many feel totally powerless to alter things around them

Never thinking that we ourselves have produced these situations

Each of us have created our own life and character

In what way?

Because these situations are the outcome of previous lives and thoughts

In a very true sense each of us is his own judge and creator

His own executioner if you will

For it is our own hands that forge the weapons which work for our punishment

And each of us by our own lives reach reward or reckoning

Nothing is left to chance favour or partiality

All is under the governance of law

We are thinkers and by our thoughts we make the cause for woe or bliss

For it is our thoughts that produce our acts

We are the centre for any disturbance of the universal harmony and to us as the center must return so as to bring about equilibrium for nature always works towards harmony

Man is always carrying on a series of thoughts which extend back to the remote past continually making action and reaction

He is thus responsible for all his thoughts and acts and in that his complete responsibility is established

So yes this life and all the others are just

We literally make our own present

And our future life
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Be clear it is you who create what you are experiencing now

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And what you will in the future

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So laugh at yourself for you created what you now are

Having a heart attack alone

Let's say it's after hours. and you're going home (alone of course), after an unusually hard day on the job.

You're really tired, upset and frustrated.

Suddenly you start experiencing severe pain in your chest that starts to drag out into your arm and up into your jaw.

You are only about five miles from the hospital nearest your home.

Unfortunately you don't know if you'll be able to make it that far.

You have been trained in CPR (Cardiopulmonary resuscitation), but the guy that taught the course did not tell you how to perform it on yourself.

So here is how to survive a heart attack when alone

Since many people are alone when they suffer a heart attack

Without help, the person whose heart is beating improperly and who begins to feel faint

Has only about 10 seconds left before losing consciousness.

However, these victims can help themselves by coughing repeatedly and very vigorously.

A deep breath should be taken before each cough

And the cough must be deep and prolonged, as when producing sputum from deep inside the chest.

A breath and a cough must be repeated about every two seconds

Without let-up until help arrives

Or until the heart is felt to be beating normally again.

Deep breaths get oxygen into the lungs and coughing movements squeeze the heart and keep the blood circulating.

The squeezing pressure on the heart also helps it regain normal rhythm.

In this way, heart attack victims can get to a hospital.

Tell as many other people as possible about this.

It could save their lives!!

A cardiologist friend says If everyone who gets this mail sends it to 10 people

You can bet that we'll save at least one life.

Rather than just sending jokes please contribute by forwarding this

If this message comes around ......more than once.....

Please don't get irritated.....

We all need to be happy that we are being reminded how to tackle Heart attacks....again

Simply put it is too late if ever you have the misfortune to experience one and have no idea what to do...

Tougher than steel

Scientists in the U.S. have created glass that's tougher to break than steel.

The damage-tolerant metallic glass was fabricated by combining up to five elements, including the rare metal palladium.

Whereas the other metals add strength, palladium increases the plasticity of the glass and prevents cracks from spreading.

Dr Robert Ritchie, a material scientist at the U.S. Department of Energy, said:

The result is that glass undergoes extensive plasticity in response to stress, allowing it to bend rather than crack.

The rare combination of toughness and strength, or damage tolerance, extends beyond the benchmark ranges established by the toughest and strongest materials known.

There is one significant drawback - palladium is extremely expensive.

It currently trades at just over £500 an ounce; gold, by comparison, trades at £830.

However, Dr Ritchie believes the unique selling point of 'unbreakable' glass will overcome this hurdle.

Traditionally strength and toughness have been mutually exclusive properties in materials

We’re bucking the trend here and pushing the envelope of the damage tolerance that’s accessible to a structural metal.

Initial samples of the metallic glass were micro-alloys of palladium with phosphorous, silicon and germanium that yielded glass rods approximately 1mm in diameter.

By adding silver the researchers expanded the thickness of the glass rods to 6mm.

Adding silver to the mix enabled the University of California researchers, who also worked on the project, to expand the thickness of the glass rods to six mm.

Dr Ritchie said: 'Our game now is to try and extend this approach of inducing extensive plasticity prior to fracture to other metallic glasses through changes in composition.'

The glass was created by scientists at the U.S. Department of Energy and the California Institute of Technology.

Graham Smith