divineirony:

WANTED: Mars Colonists

If you think you have the right stuff to help colonize Mars, you’ll soon get your chance to prove it.

The Netherlands-based nonprofit Mars One, which hopes to put the first boots on the Red Planet in 2023, released its basic astronaut requirements today (Jan. 8), setting the stage for a televised global selection process that will begin later this year.

Mars One isn’t zeroing in on scientists or former fighter pilots; anyone who is at least 18 years old can apply to become a Mars colony pioneer. The most important criteria, officials say, are intelligence, good mental and physical health and dedication to the project, as astronauts will undergo eight years of training before launch.

“Gone are the days when bravery and the number of hours flying a supersonic jet were the top criteria,” Norbert Kraft, Mars One’s chief medical director and a former NASA researcher, said in a statement. “Now, we are more concerned with how well each astronaut works and lives with the others, in the long journey from Earth to Mars and for a lifetime of challenges ahead.”

Mars One plans to launch a series of robotic cargo missions between 2016 and 2021, which will build a habitable Red Planet outpost ahead of the arrival of the first four colonists in 2023. More settlers will arrive every two years after that. There are no plans to return the pioneers to Earth.

The organization will fund most of its ambitious activities by staging a global reality-TV event that follows the colonization effort from astronaut selection through the settlers’ first years on Mars.

Mars One, which transitioned from a private company to a nonprofit late last year, has already received a number of inquiries from prospective colonists, officials said.

“Well before the official Astronaut Selection Program, we received more than 1,000 emails from individuals who desire to go to Mars,” Suzanne Flinkenflögel, Mars One’s communications director, said in a statement. “We are working hard to launch our selection campaign as soon as possible, to open the doors to everyone who aspires to do something tremendous in their lifetime.”

Final astronaut candidates will be selected after review by Mars One experts and a global TV event. Those chosen will be employed by Mars One during their Earth-based training and for the length of their time on the Red Planet, officials said.

To learn more about the selection process, go to www.thenextgiantleap.com.

(via seriouslyamerica)

malishous:

Making sure my kids are like this

(Source: cute-overload, via khalrhaego)

nybg:

Wood Gives Life to Deep Sea

So the floor of the deep ocean isn’t the best place to find forests of woody conifers. That’s de rigueur for most folks. Still, the remains of trees have a major say in the bustling lives of the strange creatures that do call the abyss home. That’s the word from the scientists of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology, where a study in leaving logs on the barren sea floor is drumming up surprising results.

Far from the submerged desert that many believe it to be, the deep ocean offers a menagerie of oddball worms, crustaceans, fish and microorganisms—just as soon as  the proper oasis pops up to provide nutrients. Geothermal vents are the most well-known example of undersea oases; sunken whale corpses, slightly lesser-known.

Now, enter the humble log.

Just as a tree is home to birds, insects, and fungus on land, the wood provides the perfect support for all manner of marine life. Despite having placed logs on the floor of the eastern Mediterranean, one of the most food-deprived areas known, the scientists found that “a variety of organisms managed to localize, settle, grow and reproduce” on their forestal deployments. The team even discovered some new species in the course of their efforts.

While fascinating on its own, especially in light of the driftwood creature communities washing ashore after Japan’s 2011 earthquake, the study may provide insight into the evolution and distribution of deep sea species otherwise deprived of regular sustenance. Click through for more. —MN

(via jolly-dolly)

spaceplasma:

Secret Life of Michio Kaku

Every childhood is made up of roadblocks and opportunities. And interviewing our “Secret Life” subjects, we hear a lot about both. But we’d never heard a story quite like the one Michio Kaku told us:

“My parents were born in California. However, during World War II 100,000 Japanese-Americans were incarcerated in large relocation camps. So my parents never had a chance. Their property was confiscated. They lived behind barbed wires and machine guns from 1942 to 1946. And I was born afterwards, when my parents were dirt poor.”

Somehow, after the war, and after their release from the internment camps, Michio’s parents worked to rebuild their lives. They started out with nothing, but put everything they did have into creating a better life for their children. And when Michio began to show that he was more than a little prodigious as a teen scientist, they went along. They went along, even with limited resources and with virtually no idea of what was behind (or could be the consequences) of Michio’s sometimes more-than-a-little-risky boyhood experiments:

“So one day I went up to my mom and I said, ‘Mom, can I have permission to build a 2.3-million electron-volt atom smasher—a betatron—in the garage?’ And my mom stared at me, and she said, ‘Sure. Why not? And don’t forget to take out the garbage.’ So, I went out and took out the garbage. And then I went to Westinghouse. I got 400 pounds of transformer steel, 22 miles of copper wire, and built a 2.3-million electron-volt betatron in the garage. The wire was so heavy, I put the wire on the goal post [of the nearby high school football field] and I gave it to my mother. She ran with this strand of wire to the 50-yard line. My father grabbed it, ran to the goalpost and we wound 22 miles of copper wire on the football field. Well, the magnetic field was so powerful—about 20,000 times the Earth’s magnetic field. If you were to walk by my atom smasher, it would pull the fillings out of your teeth—that’s how powerful the magnet was going to be.”

When Michio actually plugged in his atom smasher, it did, of course, blow out every fuse in his house and likely every fuse for miles around—yet another kid scientist who made the lights go out and the authorities shake their fists (while grudgingly admitting that the kid was pretty smart).

But that wasn’t my big takeaway from Michio’s story.

What grabbed me was that his parents—uneducated about science, returning to the world after years of imprisonment “behind barbed wire and machine guns”—were more than willing to wrap 22 miles of a different kind of wire around the goalposts of a football field… all because they loved their son, had faith in him and his ideas, and wanted him to become the person he was clearly meant to be.

Seems like it all paid off.

Source: PBS.org

Credit: Tom Miller

(via jolly-dolly)

theatlantic:

How Coffee Drank Soda’s Milkshake

Ten years ago, Americans drank enough soda every year to fill a small aquarium. Fifty-three gallons of the stuff per person. That’s half a liter of Diet Coke on an average day. Compare that to our other favorite liquid-caffeine companion. For every cup of coffee we consumed in 2003, we drank two cups of soft drink. For $1 we spent on joe, we spent $4 on soda.

Now look where we are: Soda is in a free fall, with domestic revenue down 40%. Coffee culture is ascendant, up 50% in ten years. In another decade, the United States could easily spend more on coffee than soda — something utterly unthinkable at the turn of the century.

Read more. [Image: IBISWorld] 

(via tinasinatra)

(via divascreech)

amandaonwriting:

Feelings Extrapolated - The roots of your characters’ emotions.

(via khalrhaego)

thatsjustelegant:

13/365 films: The Big Heat (1953) - 6.5/10

“The main thing is to have the money. I’ve been rich and I’ve been poor. Believe me, rich is better.”

(Source: meganmonroes)