Now that would have been a discovery !

Oh no, I enjoy the obvious sexual tension.

That's right OT, better start packing now !

------Original Text--------

NASA’s New Horizons continues to amaze as it reveals more and more about Pluto and its family of moons. Recently, New Horizons dazzled us as it beamed back the first color images of Pluto, revealing a scaly, snakeskin-like surface. This week, we see Pluto’s hazy atmosphere in color for the first time, and surprise... it’s blue!

"Who would have expected a blue sky in the Kuiper Belt? It’s gorgeous," said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in Boulder, Colorado.

While the actual particles that make up the haze are most likely not blue, the color of the haze tells scientists a great deal. They think the particles within the haze are most likely red or gray; however, based on the blue tint, the science team can determine particle size and composition. "A blue sky often results from scattering of sunlight by very small particles," said science team researcher Carly Howett, also of SwRI. "On Earth, those particles are very tiny nitrogen molecules. On Pluto they appear to be larger – but still relatively small – soot-like particles we call tholins."

First detected in the upper atmosphere of Saturn’s moon Titan, tholin particles, like the ones on Pluto, are thought to form high in the atmosphere, and are produced by ultraviolet sunlight blasting atmospheric organic compounds. As essentially “complex organic gunk,” tholins can coat a planet or moon’s surface and come in a variety of colors depending on what molecules are present and how much radiation they receive. Lab experiments have shown that nitrogen and methane – both present in Pluto’s atmosphere – can yield red tholins. This can explain the red surface material on both Pluto and its largest moon Charon.

What makes this gunk so fascinating? Well, tholins could have implications for life on other worlds as scientists have produced the basic building blocks of life (amino acids) in tholin experiments. Tholins can also provide valuable insight into a planet's surface age and composition. This means if you have a world where tholins form regularly, any regions lacking the organic gunk would either be very young or could even be subjected to removal processes like rain.

As if blue haze wasn’t exciting enough, New Horizons had another surprise for us this week: water ice on Pluto’s surface. While there aren’t large areas of exposed ice, there are many small regions. The science team is currently investigating this discovery further, but thinks the regions of water ice might be more extensive than what we currently see, and it could be masked by other types of ices. Jason Cook, a Pluto science team member from SwRI, said in a statement: "Large expanses of Pluto don’t show exposed water ice, because it’s apparently masked by other, more volatile ices across most of the planet. Understanding why water appears exactly where it does, and not in other places, is a challenge that we are digging into."

Spectral analysis shows that the location of the water ice deposits seems to correlate with the bright red areas in the recently released color images. This is surprising and may indicate a relationship between the water ice and tholins that we don’t yet comprehend. "I’m surprised that this water ice is so red," says Silvia Protopapa, a science team member from the University of Maryland, College Park. "We don’t yet understand the relationship between water ice and the reddish tholin colorants on Pluto's surface."

New Horizons, currently 5 million kilometers (3.1 million miles) from Earth, is in the midst of a year-long process to beam back all the data collected during its flyby of the Pluto system.

-----------------

link to original article

@kitty: Shouldn't you be playing Disgaea 5? =P

Wow, this escalated pretty quickly.

Just thought this was too cool not to share.

--------Original Article---------

Three men currently incarcerated at the Eastern New York Correctional Facility in Ulster County beat Harvard University in a recent debate.

How they did it, though, is as inspiring as it is heartbreaking. Almost everywhere in the United States, time spent in prison is at best wasted, at worst spent in a swirl of violence and humiliation. But prisoners fortunate enough to be situated near Bard College have a chance to participate in a program founded on a radical insight: Prison need not be only about punishment, but can also be a place where people grow and blossom into the educated, responsible citizens they will need to be when they're released.

The men who stomped Harvard were part of the Bard Prison Initiative. "The most important thing that our students' success symbolizes is how much better we can do in education in the U.S. for all people," BPI founder Max Kenner told The Huffington Post. "Our program is successful because we operate on a genuinely human level."

Beating Harvard wasn't the first time the Bard team had tasted success. Their first debate victory came last year, when they defeated the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y.

The program aims to rehabilitate inmates and help them return to their communities productive members of society -- among the formerly incarcerated Bard students, less than 2percent have returned to prison.

Studies show that prisoners who enroll in educational programs behind bars are much less likely to return to prison than those who don't.

In 1999, when Kenner was a Bard College student he encouraged the small, liberal arts school to provide education for prisoners. In 2001, BPI graduated from being a student organization to become a legitimate extension of the college. Today, inmates who are part of the program have the opportunity to earn a Bard College degree.

The BPI is the largest prison education program in the U.S. Almost 300 incarcerated men and women are currently pursuing degrees in six prisons across New York State. Yet, gaining admission to the program is no small feat. Applicants are required to write an essay and go through a rigorous interview process.

"It's a very difficult, very grueling process," Kenner noted. "But it's one that rewards student initiative. And something that we take very, very seriously."

In July, BPI was awarded a $1 million grant from the Ford Foundation to help support its work for higher education in prisons and innovations in criminal justice reform.

The successes, however, don't end after inmates are released from prison. Graduates of the BPI program go on to work in various fields, ranging from human service organizations to private business, and many take up managerial positions.

Some graduates decided to further their education by working towards other academic and professional degrees, Kenner said. He pointed out that leaders in education need to be "more optimistic, more courageous and more curious."

"There is so much talent in the U.S. that has no access, no opportunity, that is completely unengaged by leaders in higher education. But we know extraordinary talent can be found in the most unconventional places."

original article can be found here.

@TehFuneral: Have you thought about a restraining order? If she really is harassing you and you've told her to knock it off, but she isn't taking the hint, then a restraining order is one option. Of course, part of you might enjoy the flirting and obvious sexual tension involved, which wouldn't be uncommon.

@TehFuneral: She sounds like trouble to me.

@TehFuneral: You're really making me want to go to med school now.

Trump's answer to everything is, "Everybody loves me, I'm Donald Trump!" If that isn't a golden road to the Oval Office, I don't know what is.