What?: March 2017

Friday, March 31, 2017

This Self-Care Twitter Bot Is Here to Try to Make Your Online Life Healthier [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

13 Shows and Movies to Stream Over Thanksgiving [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Below Pluto’s ‘Heart’ A Slushy Ocean May Churn | Video [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Pharrell’s New Feel-Good Song ‘Crave’ Is Here to Make Your Heart Swell [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Pluto’s Wandering Heart Hints at Subsurface Ocean [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Sputnik Planitia (the left lobe of Pluto’s “heart”) likely formed in the aftermath of a comet impact into Pluto. Sputnik Planitia formed northwest of its present location, and reoriented to its present location as the basin filled with volatile ices.  

Pluto’s famous heart-shaped feature caused the dwarf planet to roll over the eons, and this reorientation probably wouldn’t have been possible without a subsurface ocean, new research suggests.

The left lobe of Pluto’s “heart” is a 600-mile-wide (1,000 kilometers) plain called Sputnik Planitia (formerly known as Sputnik Planum), which astronomers think is an enormous impact crater. This basin has been filling with nitrogen ice over the years and now contains huge amounts of the stuff. Indeed, observations by NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft, which flew by Pluto last year, suggest that Sputnik Planitia’s ice may be up to 6 miles (10 km) thick.

Sputnik Planitia is aligned nicely with Pluto’s “tidal axis” — the line along which the gravitational pull from the dwarf planet’s largest moon, Charon, is the strongest. And that’s probably no coincidence, according to two new studies, both of which were published online today (Nov. 16) in the journal Nature. [Pluto Has Ocean Beneath Its Surface? Scientists Think So (Video)]

In the first study, James Keane, a doctoral student at the University of Arizona’s Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, and his colleagues modeled what happened as nitrogen ice accumulated in Sputnik Planitia. The results were dramatic.

“Once enough ice has piled up, maybe a hundred meters thick, it starts to overwhelm the planet’s shape, which dictates the planet’s orientation,” Keane said in a statement. “And if you have an excess of mass in one spot on the planet, it wants to go to the equator. Eventually, over millions of years, it will drag the whole planet over.”

This animation shows how Pluto reoriented in response to volatile ices filling Sputnik Planitia (the left lobe of Pluto’s heart). Sputnik Planitia started northwest of its present position, and as it filled with ices, the tides from Charon (Pluto’s largest moon) caused the entire dwarf planet to reorient. 

Credit: James Tuttle Keane. Maps of Pluto and Charon by NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute.

This tumble brought Sputnik Planitia to the southeast, until the plain faced directly away from Charon as it does today. The team’s models predicted this very orientation: In this spot, near the tidal axis, the additional mass causes the least wobble in Pluto’s spin, the researchers said. (Pluto and Charon are tidally locked, meaning the two bodies always show the same face to each other, just as Earth’s moon always shows just one side to Earth.)

Pluto’s reorientation would have stressed the dwarf planet’s crust, leading to a network of faults and fractures on the surface, Keane and his colleagues report. And New Horizons spotted just such a network, whose characteristics match those predicted by the team’s models, they said.

Those models assume that Pluto harbors a subsurface ocean of liquid water — a notion bolstered by the second study, which was led by Francis Nimmo, a professor of Earth and planetary sciences at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

Nimmo and his team determined that the odds of Sputnik Planitia occurring in its present location, so close to the tidal axis, purely by chance were just 5 percent. So they, too, believe that a substantial reorientation has taken place.

The researchers suggested that the impact that created the basin weakened the crust overlying a buried ocean, causing some of the water to rise close to the surface. This action, along with the deposition of nitrogen ice in Sputnik Planitia, would have created enough of a “positive mass anomaly” to roll the dwarf planet, Nimmo and his colleagues wrote.

It’s hard to imagine Pluto reorienting in this way if it didn’t have an ocean, Nimmo said. For example, the team’s calculations suggest that Sputnik Planitia’s ice layer would have to be 25 miles (40 km) thick if no ocean existed.

“Our view is that 40 kilometers’ thickness of nitrogen ice is not that likely,” Nimmo told Space.com. “So if you want to have another source of dense material down there, then water seemed like a very natural explanation, because water is a lot denser than ice.” [‘Land’ on Pluto’s Icy Plains in This Amazing New NASA Video]

The team also considered the possibility that rock migrated in to make up the extra mass, but that explanation doesn’t seem likely, either, Nimmo said.

“The rock is so far down there, and it’s also pretty strong,” he said. “So it’s hard to figure out how that rock would get moved around in the way that you would need.”

Other research groups also have suggested that Pluto may harbor a subsurface ocean, using other lines of evidence. One such argument points to the dwarf planet’s surface fractures, which may be the result of this ocean gradually freezing over time — a prospect also raised by Keane and his colleagues in their paper. (Water expands as it freezes, which would lead to stresses in overlying rock or ice.) In addition, Nimmo said, Pluto doesn’t have an equatorial bulge — and bodies with oceans can’t maintain such a bulge.

“All these lines of argument are pointing in the same direction,” Nimmo said.

This cutaway image of Pluto shows a section through the area of Sputnik Planitia, with dark blue representing a subsurface ocean and light blue for the frozen crust.

Credit: Pam Engebretson

If Pluto does have an ocean, how has it managed to avoid freezing up entirely over the past 4.5 billion years? Pluto is big enough that it may have retained a substantial amount of internal heat, Nimmo said. And the dwarf planet’s water may contain significant amounts of ammonia or other substances that act as an antifreeze, he added.

Astronomers think subsurface oceans exist on the Saturn moons Enceladus and Titan; the Jovian satellites Europa, Ganymede and Callisto; and a number of other solar system bodies. Indeed, such buried water may be abundant in the Kuiper Belt, the ring of frigid objects beyond Neptune’s orbit, Nimmo said.

“My guess is that, on big Kuiper Belt objects, these kinds of oceans are pretty common,” Nimmo said. “One of the lessons of the last 20 years is that oceans pop up in all kinds of unexpected places.”

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

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http://www.space.com/34737-pluto-wandering-heart-subsurface-ocean.html Pluto's Wandering Heart Hints at Subsurface Ocean

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Tom Hanks, Ellen DeGeneres and Michael Jordan Just Won the Presidential Medal of Freedom [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Steve Aoki on How He Brings the Party to the Masses [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Rare Snapshots of Marilyn Monroe Reveal the Star’s Lighter Side [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Prince’s Estate Sues Jay Z’s Tidal in Streaming Fight [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Now There’s a Class on the Philosophy of The Simpsons [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Here’s Proof That the New Beauty and the Beast Trailer Is Pretty Much the Same as the Original [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Watch Adele’s Hilarious Freakout As a Rogue Bat Crashes Her Concert [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Frank Ocean Says Snubbing the Grammys Is His ‘Colin Kaepernick Moment’ [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Supermoon and the Soyuz – Awesome Time-Lapse From Baikonur Cosmodrome | Video [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Watch Eddie Redmayne Emotionally Defend Hufflepuff [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Anna Kendrick Sings ‘I’m Still Here’ on Stephen Colbert for Everyone Powering Through 2016 [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Bob Dylan Won’t Pick Up His Nobel Prize in Person [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Jimmy Fallon Has Much Deeper Feelings About Gilmore Girls Than You [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

This Golden Toilet Is the Ultimate Instagram Selfie Bait [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

See the Stars of Space Jam, Then and Now [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

NASA Awaits Trump Transition Team, Budget Details [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

NASA hopes a final 2017 appropriations bill will not include a prohibition on funding the Asteroid Redirect Mission featured in a House bill.

WASHINGTON — Nearly a week after Donald Trump was elected president, his campaign has yet to send a team to NASA to prepare for the upcoming transition in administrations, an agency official said Nov. 14.

Speaking at a meeting of a NASA advisory committee, Greg Williams, deputy associate administrator for policy and plans in the human exploration and operations mission directorate, said the agency had not yet been informed by the Trump campaign’s transition team who the individuals are that will deal with NASA.

“The new administration has not yet named its transition team members that interface with NASA, so we don’t yet know who we’ll be talking to,” Williams told the NASA Advisory Council’s human exploration and operations committee, meeting at the Johnson Space Center in Houston. “We are prepared to talk with them when they arrive.” [What a Trump Administration May Mean for NASA]

Sources said immediately after the Nov. 8 election that Mark Albrecht, the former executive secretary of the National Space Council during the administration of George H.W. Bush and, later, president of International Launch Services, would lead up the NASA transition efforts. However, there has been no formal announcement from the campaign about that selection, nor other names to work with him on NASA transition issues.

The Trump campaign has been slow to ramp up its transition efforts, in large part because of limited planning prior to the election. Much larger agencies have yet to meet transition teams that are typically in place within a few days after an election. At a Nov. 14 forum organized by The Atlantic magazine, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter said he had not yet heard from the Trump transition team for the Defense Department, but expected them to arrive at the Pentagon this week.

Despite the uncertainty about what a Trump administration will do in space, Williams said at the advisory committee meeting that he hoped the next administration and next Congress would maintain the agency’s current exploration plans, collectively known as Journey to Mars. “We hope to be building on the consensus we’ve achieved on the phases of exploration, the progression of human exploration from the ISS all the way to the surface of Mars,” he said.

He added that NASA expects to know more in the next week about its budget for fiscal year 2017. The agency, along with the rest of the federal government, is operating under a continuing resolution (CR) that funds programs at 2016 levels through Dec. 9. Congress reconvenes this week for a lame duck session whose top priority will be passing some kind of appropriations bill.

Williams said he did not know if Congress would be able to pass a full-fledged appropriations bill, perhaps in the form of an “omnibus” or “minibus” that combines several appropriations bills into a single package. If not, Congress could instead pass another short-term CR and allow the new Congress in January to take up appropriations bills. Another, but less likely, option is for Congress to pass a CR for all of fiscal year 2017. [The Biggest Space Issues Facing President-elect Donald Trump]

At a Nov. 14 webinar on science policy issues organized by the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Bart Gordon, a former chairman of the House Science Committee who is now a partner at Washington law firm K&L Gates, said he believed appropriators in the House and Senate will seek to get their bill passed this year, unless congressional leaders decide to defer that in order to strike a broader deal with the Trump administration early next year.

“The appropriators would like to finish their work. They’d like to get it done,” he said. “The question, I think, for the broader Republican caucus is, do they see some grand deal that could be done in the spring with infrastructure and tax reform.”

A final decision about 2017 appropriations could also remove the uncertainty surrounding the future of NASA’s Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). Language in the House version of an appropriations bill funding NASA prohibits the agency from spending any money on efforts associated with ARM. House appropriators said they believed that “neither a robotic nor a crewed mission to an asteroid appreciably contribute to the overarching mission to Mars.”

“What that was was a signal to us that we need to come talk to them and tell them why this fits, why it makes sense,” Williams said. That led to what he called “really good dialogue” with appropriators in the House and Senate about the importance of ARM to NASA’s exploration plans. “As they learn about that and they see what we’re doing, I think they’re seeing some of the value of this and we’re making some headway.”

This story was provided by SpaceNews, dedicated to covering all aspects of the space industry.

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http://www.space.com/34732-nasa-awaits-trump-transition-team-and-budget-details.html NASA Awaits Trump Transition Team, Budget Details

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Megyn Kelly Says Her 5-Year-Old Daughter Asked Her What a ‘Bimbo’ Was After Donald Trump Insult [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

How to Watch the 2016 Leonid Meteor Shower Live Online Tonight [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

A fireball spawned by the Leonid meteor shower takes center stage in this NASA handout.

You can watch the famous November Leonid meteor shower rain down live, regardless of your area’s viewing conditions, thanks to the Slooh Community Observatory’s online webcast tonight (Nov. 16), which will also feature a discussion of the shower’s history and mythology.

Slooh will start the show at 8 p.m. EST (1 a.m. GMT), and you can view the broadcast here on Space.com. The webcast will show live meteor feeds from Slooh’s observatory at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands. Live streams also will be available from the United Kingdom and Slooh’s headquarters in Connecticut.

“These views will be accompanied by fascinating facts about the annual shower, a look into what causes these regular events, and the harrowing tale of the Greek hero Hercules and his battle with the Nemean Lion (the beast’s constellation acts as the point of origin for these meteors),” Slooh representatives wrote in a statement. [Leonid Meteor Shower 2016: When, Where & How to See It]

While showing live views of the meteor shower, scientists at Slooh will discuss how the Leonids occasionally produce a huge outburst of meteors. The most famous such outburst took place in 1833, when viewers in eastern North America saw as many as 200,000 meteors per hour for 4 hours.

This NASA sky map shows the location of the Leonid meteor shower during its peak at 2 a.m. your local time on Nov. 17, 2016.

Credit: NASA/JPL

“The meteors came so quickly during this 1833 storm, it was clear the radiant, or apparent source, of the meteors lay towards the sickle of the constellation Leo,” Slooh representatives noted in a statement. “The radiant moved with the stars during the evening, which finally made it clear that meteors came from outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Until then, some believed meteors were an atmospheric phenomenon,” which is why the term “meteorology” refers to the study of weather, they added.

Viewers can send their Leonid meteor shower photos or ask questions on Twitter by tweeting at @Slooh, or participate in the live chats on Facebook and Slooh.com.

Editor’s note: If you snap an amazing Leonid meteor shower photo you’d like to share with Space.com and our news partners for a possible story or image gallery, please send your photos to our staff at spacephotos@space.com.

Follow Elizabeth Howell @howellspace, or Space.com @Spacedotcom. We’re also on Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

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http://www.space.com/34738-leonid-meteor-shower-2016-webcast.html How to Watch the 2016 Leonid Meteor Shower Live Online Tonight

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“Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets” – Graphic Novel Series Comes To Big Screen | Trailer [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Review: Fantastic Beasts Is Sometimes Charming But Hardly Fantastic [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Watch Jimmy Kimmel Convince People That Donald Trump’s Adding a White House Champagne Fountain [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Mariah Carey’s New MAC Holiday Collection Is Just As Glittery As You Think It Would Be [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Apollo 11 Astronauts Call on Lawmakers to Mint Coins for Moon Landing 50th [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

Astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins have penned letters to Congress calling for the passage of the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act.

Legislation calling for the U.S. Mint to issue coins commemorating the 50th anniversary of the first moon landing has gained the support of the surviving astronauts who flew on the historic mission.

Buzz Aldrin and Michael Collins, who lifted off to the moon in July 1969 with the late Neil Armstrong, have each sent letters to Congress urging for the passage of the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act. The bill, which was first introduced in 2015, needs to be approved by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate before Congress adjourns next month for the coins to be ready in time for the anniversary in 2019.

“I think the introduction of this bill, which honors the entire Apollo 11 team and pays tribute to the sacrifices of the astronauts is important, lest we lose sight of what the lunar landings meant to this country,” wrote Collins, who orbited the moon as Armstrong and Aldrin walked on its surface. [Lunar Legacy: 45 Apollo Moon Mission Photos]

“Our nation landed Neil Armstrong and me,” wrote Aldrin. “We remain the only country that has ever landed humans on the moon and returned them safely to Earth.”

“This [bill] highlights the significant impact of 300,000 men and women across the U.S. who directly contributed to the success of the Apollo mission and celebrates our nation’s enduring commitment to space discovery,” Collins added.

The bill, which has been cosponsored by 298 members of the House and 11 Senators, calls for the U.S. Mint to strike curved gold, silver, and clad coins bearing the now-iconic image reflected in Aldrin’s spacesuit helmet visor, as taken by Armstrong on July 20, 1969.

Proceeds from the Mint’s sale of the Apollo 11 coins would benefit the Astronaut Memorial Foundation and Astronaut Scholarship Foundation’s science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) programs, as well as the Smithsonian’s new moon landing-focused gallery, slated to open in 2020.

The coins’ sale would also offset the cost of their minting, such that they are produced at no cost to taxpayers.

The iconic image of Buzz Aldrin’s spacesuit helmet visor will serve as the design for the reverse of commemorative coins recognizing the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11, if Congress approves.

Credit: NASA

“The Apollo 11 50th anniversary coin celebrates American ingenuity and our spirit of space exploration,” wrote Aldrin. “Moreover, these coins will support college scholarships for future scientists, engineers and astronauts; benefit the National Air and Space Museum’s new ‘Destination Moon’ exhibit; and honor astronauts who have fallen in the line of duty.”

“[These coins are] an excellent opportunity to inspire future generations to take the next giant leaps,” wrote Collins.

Aldrin’s and Collins’ letters join others sent by members of the space exploration community who have reached out to their elected officials to co-sponsor the legislation. The bill is facing competition from similar proposals for the Mint to issue commemorative coins for the football and basketball halls of fame. Congress is only able to authorize two coin programs per year.

After a month-long break for the Nov. 8 election, Congress resumed session on Monday (Nov. 14) for one week, prior to taking another break for the Thanksgiving holiday. After the House and Senate return on Nov. 28, there will be just three weeks for the Apollo 11 Commemorative Coin Act to be approved and signed into law.

“As I reflect on this unprecedented historical achievement, I continue to appreciate our national resolve to accomplish that which was once thought impossible,” wrote Collins, in concluding his letter. “Certainly, one of the greatest feats of humankind is worthy of commemoration by Congress and worthy of your support.”

“I encourage you,” wrote Aldrin, “to support this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to commemorate 50 years since Eagle landed, an event that defined the United States of America as the greatest spacefaring nation on Earth.”

See if your state’s senators are cosponsors and if not how to contact them in support of the Apollo 11 50th Anniversary Commemorative Coin Act at collectSPACE.

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http://www.space.com/34726-astronauts-call-for-moon-landing-coins.html Apollo 11 Astronauts Call on Lawmakers to Mint Coins for Moon Landing 50th

[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Apollo 11 Astronauts Call on Lawmakers to Mint Coins for Moon Landing 50th

Yo-yo dieting can be DANGEROUS even if you are not overweight, study finds [bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]

The new findings, presented at the American Heart Association conference in New Orleans, has concluded yo-yo dieting more than trebles the risk of sudden death, and slim people whose size goes up and down are in the most danger.

The scientists who carried out the research say gaining and losing weight could be even more risky than staying fat.

It sharply increases the chances of a cardiac arrest caused by abnormal electrical activity in the heart.

And it raises the risk of heart disease, where arteries get clogged with fatty deposits.

Specifically, the study found that post-menopausal women who yo-yo diet over a prolonged period of time are at an increased risk of sudden death caused by heart disease.

The study, led by researchers at Alpert Medical School, Brown University, observed 158,063 post-menopausal women for more than 11 years. The association appeared strongest in women with a normal BMI at the start of the study.

Dr Mike Knapton, Associate Medical Director at the British Heart Foundation, said: “Coronary heart disease remains the UK’s single biggest killer.

“We need to do more to ensure women – including those who have a normal BMI – are aware that adopting a healthy lifestyle, and maintaining it, over a long period of time is the best way to reduce their risk of a sudden, devastating heart attack.

“There’s no way to reverse the damage caused by heart disease so it’s vital we all take steps to reduce our risk as early as possible – a lifelong balanced diet, that is rich in fruit and vegetables, is an important way to look after our heart health.”

To sign up to the BHF’s Heart Matters programme and discover hundreds of heart-healthy recipes, visit BHF website.

According to weight loss expert Sandra Roycroft-Davis, you can escape the yo-yo diet trap.

Sandra said: “The natural behaviour when we want to lose weight is to say, ‘right – I won’t eat chocolate and I won’t eat cake, biscuits or drink alcohol or fizzy drinks because i Know they’re bad. I’ll count calories and do some exercise’.

“The problem is deprivation doesn’t work. When you make a conscious effort not to eat your mind anybody conspire together to make the opposite happen. It dates back millions of years to the survival instinct which cavemen relied on.

“When you cut back on food, your mind decides you’re in a famine situation so it sends signals to the parts of your body that produce and sore fat, telling them to produce more.

“People needs a good relationship with food if they’re going to achieve sustainable weight loss. They need to lose any mental hang-ups and develop good eating habits before they can begin to achieve their goals.

Giving up dieting is like giving up an addiction.”

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http://www.express.co.uk/life-style/diets/732743/yo-yo-dieting-overweight-post-menopausal-women-british-heart-foundation Yo-yo dieting can be DANGEROUS even if you are not overweight, study finds

[bestandroiddoubledinheadunit950.blogspot.com]Yo-yo dieting can be DANGEROUS even if you are not overweight, study finds