ESA takes the reins of the Disasters Charter

ESA takes the reins of the Disasters Charter: When disaster strikes, a group of international space agencies pools its resources and expertise to support relief efforts on the ground. For the next six months, ESA will be leading the International Charter Space and Major Disasters as it brings information from satellites to the aid o…

aptn Investigates: Defiance - APTN National News

aptn Investigates: Defiance - APTN National News: Rob Smith has Defiance. The story of Freda Huson. She’s so determined to stop a pipeline from crossing her clan’s traditional territory, she’s built her …

Earth Scientists, Alert! EPA, NCATS, NIEHS/NTP Offer 1 Million in Awards, Re, Chemical Metabolism

8 JAN 2016 Washington, D.C. - EPA Announcement


Federal Agencies Partner to Launch the Transform Tox Testing Challenge to Improve Chemical Screening

Video Explanation of What's Up - Below

A New Way to Evaluate Chemical Safety - TOX21

Up to $1 million will be shared among winning submissions

• U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 
• National Institutes of Health’s (NIH)
• National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS)
• NIH’s National Toxicology Program (NTP) 
• National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) 

The above agencies have gotten together and formed a new challenge.

The total awards will be up to $1 million dollars.

The reason behind the contest is to seek input from Earth Scientists who have innovative ideas, and research to improve the relevance and predictability of data (results) generated from automated chemical screening technology used for toxicity testing.

There are tens of thousands of chemicals used in manufacture, drugs and the medical industry that have little or no testing.

Industries and chemical manufacturers have been shielded behind "proprietary" rules which kept their ingredients and process top secret. That is understandable when we consider how much money is spent to recruit top scientists, buy the most expensive equipment, and pay to maintain facilities to conduct testing and manufacture.

The consequences of secrecy on human health have been disastrous. Many communities; usually the poorest is where toxins are dumped or processed. This causes clusters of diseases and has created Superfund/National Priorities List properties that are lethal to human health, and must go through a lengthy and expensive process of rehabilitation, called Brownfield Properties.

"Scientists from EPA, NIEHS/NTP, and NCATS are using high-throughput screening (HTS) assays to evaluate the potential health effects of thousands of chemicals.

High-throughput screening uses automated methods that allow for a large number of chemicals to be rapidly evaluated for a specific type of biological activity.

Current HTS assays do not fully incorporate chemical metabolism, so they may miss chemicals that are metabolized to a more toxic form in the body.

The challenge: "Transform Tox Testing Challenge: Innovating for Metabolism", is calling on innovative thinkers to find new ways to incorporate physiological levels of chemical metabolism into HTS assays.

This will help researchers more accurately assess the effects of chemicals and better protect human health.

Teams will compete in three stages for a total award of $1 million.

• The first stage, opening today (01/08/2016) and closing 04/08/2016) seeks practical designs that may be fully implemented. 

Up to ten (10) submissions may receive a prize of $10,000 each, and an invitation to continue on to the next stage.

• The second stage requires a prototype that demonstrates the proposed idea in use. Up to five (5) participants may be awarded up to $100,000 each and will be invited to participate in the final stage. 

• The final stage requires a commercially viable method or technology for EPA and its partners to demonstrate and test. Based on this testing one participant may be awarded up to $400,000 for delivery of a method or device that will result in technologies that can provide metabolic competence to HTS assays. 

 All segments of the industry, government, academia, non-governmental organizations, and others are encouraged to enter."

For more information on the Tox Testing Challenge, visit: www.transformtoxtesting.com

EPA is a federal agency whose mission is to protect human health and the environment.

For more information about EPA, visit About The EPA - Our Mission & What We Do

"NTP is a federal, interagency (takes place between other agencies) program, headquartered at the NIEHS, whose goal is to safeguard the public by identifying substances in the environment that may affect human health.

The National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences (NCATS) is a distinctly different entity in the research ecosystem. Rather than targeting a particular disease or fundamental science, NCATS focuses on what is common across diseases and the translational process."

Information in quotes is taken directly from the EPA Headquarters News Release of January 8, 2016.

NASA Hosts ‘Quest for Quakes’ Data Contest

NASA Hosts ‘Quest for Quakes’ Data Challenge

With our ever-increasing presence of Earthquakes and other Disasters, there is an attempt on the part of scientists to grasp a better understanding of earthquakes, and finding a way to locate possible indicators before the quake strikes.

In this announcement from NASA, they are seeking evidence of electromagnetic signals which may warn humans of impending shakers.

The challenge opened for registration on Tuesday. Competitors will be able to submit entries from Monday, July 27 at 1 p.m. ET through Monday, Aug. 9 at 1 p.m. ET.

Contestants will be provided with electromagnetic signal data collected over three-month periods from multiple sensors in the proximity of past earthquakes. Control data with no earthquakes also will be included. Coders will have two weeks to develop a new approach to extract the signals and identify potential earthquake precursors. The individuals or teams developing winning approaches will share a $25,000 prize.

For some reason, this puts me in remembrance of an e-book I read recently: "TSUNAMI STORM," by David Capps. Not one to give spoilers in book reviews, let me just say that this "fictional" account addressed the issue of Governments being able to produce Natural Disasters. The opening of the book has a Chinese scientist located at an area where there are devices that give out an electronic signal before disaster strikes. Only because this young man happened to be on-site when the first hit came, was it learned that the evil-doers in the U.S. Government had caused the disaster with electromagnetic devices. Interesting
.

I am happy to know that NASA is involved in this program, and is promoting other scientists to help humans have a better warning or indication of what has caused an earthquake. (A large bulldozer who is doing a heavy activity can shake the ground; that is an earthquake).

Oklahoma - Lots of Fracking Going On.

Here is hoping that NASA and other Scientists can prove that Fracking or fracture extraction causes earthquakes and hold these companies responsible, and stop the senseless waste of water and destruction of our Earth's crust. 

Let us pray that the knowledge will not be used for evil and power.

Alaska - The Global Warming and Ice Melts are causing movement in the Plates under Alaska - Oh, and there are volcanoes too.

This World and all of the Natural Resources Do Belong To The Children Too

Do you consider yourself an environmentalist?

Posted by Gene Stone on Sunday, May 30, 2010

I am a life long environmentalist. In my last years, I have never heard such an impassioned plea regarding the need to take care of this planet. From her mouth and heart to the ears of Creator. "If you don't know how to fix it, please stop breaking it"

Impact Crater or Supervolcano Caldera? / Mars Express / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA

Impact crater or supervolcano caldera? / Mars Express / Space Science / Our Activities / ESA May 21, 2015

When I first began the adventure of being a Geology / Environmental Geology student at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock, Arkansas, even though I had always been a "rock hound," and dug for fossils, the enormity of the Earth, and our Biosphere was hard for me to grasp. 

Never before had my thinking been stretched to include the size of Tectonic Plates, or Geologic formations that are a history of what has gone on before. 

Just to give you an inkling of the size of the Siloe Patera crater at the Arabia Terra region of Mars; I will hopefully give you something that can be measured in your mind.

esa_multimedia/images/2015/05/siloe_patera/15398025-1-eng-GB/Siloe_Patera

The Siloe Patera is 40 x 30 kilometers wide [1200 km], and 1750 kilometers deep. For U.S. readers, that is about 746 miles wide, and 1087 miles D-E-E-P. 

In the U.S., if a person were to travel from Las Vegas, NV all the way to Tucumcari, NM, that is only 744 miles, or 1197 kilometers. 

In Canada, it is 970 km from Vancouver, BC, Canada, to Calgary, AB. (About 603 miles).

In order for scientists to know for sure if this is a Caldera or damage from an asteroid, they would need funding to gather soil samples, to find the chemical make-up of the area affected by either event.

Perhaps you have thought about what happens when Earth is done. We know that although it is considered the stuff of Conspiracy  Theories, that there are indeed underground bunkers on Earth for certain "Essential Personnel" like the President and / or their family. It has also been speculated that there are spaceships that are being prepared for massive evacuation of the privileged. I think that many Conspiracy Theories are true, while others have various elements of truth, scare and consequences. 

Even the original Moon Landing by the United States Apollo Mission has given me large question marks, but there is no doubt that astronauts come, go and live in space. We also know that certain Space Agencies around the world are gearing up for Commercial Flights. 

esa_multimedia/images/2015/05/siloe_patera_topography/15397989-1-eng-GB/Siloe_Patera_topography_node_

I am an avid follower of NASA and the European Space Agency, not because I have a desire to explore Space, but because I love science, and the Earth. 

Aside from the fact that I have been basically rooted to the same State for over thirty years, I have a nickname of Gypsy Lady. 

What I want, and would make me deliriously pleased, is a Gypsy Wagon. 

It has been on my list for my final journey for years. 

Will I ever come up with the six hundred dollars needed to attend the Port Townsend School of Woodworking, where I can learn build my forever home, or the seven thousand I will need in materials to do it, I don't know, and don't think it is too much to hope for. 

 I am open to the universe supplying these things for me. I want to visit all of the U.S. and Canada, Mexico and Cuba. 

If I were invited to a trip into space, I would take it, because I do love to travel. (Mostly feet attached to the Earth.)

esa.int/Our_Activities/Space_Science/Mars_Express

This is an enhanced video from the Europeans Space Agency that shows the terrain of Mars in 3-D. 

Can you imagine leaving a dying Earth behind, to relocate to a planet such as this? It is something to think about, and maybe those thinkers can make a rapid change for the way we treat this planet. 

Being able to sustain human life on other planets is all theory. Remember the Bio-Dome experiments? They did not end well, and it shows that humans do not thrive in cages, even if they are shaped like a giant circus tent. 

It is my hope that you have enjoyed this as a reader, and that it excites your curiosity, and brings more discussion about caring for the Planet we were given to care for. 

Thank you!

NASA Study Shows Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Nearing Its Final Act

NASA Study Shows Antarctica’s Larsen B Ice Shelf Nearing Its Final Act

Warning ** This blog post will be disturbing and alarming to some ** 

May 14, 2015, my 56th year on the planet this time around, and I am watching the final events that will change our world into a ball that is too hot to maintain life as we have known it. 

Several things I recall during early history classes was that when the Industrial Revolution hit the U.K. they didn't think twice about mowing down forests and using water as a dumpsite for chemicals and other nasties. 

I remember the sort of self-righteous attitude the U.S. exhibited over the fact that we honored our skies, mountains, and waters. That was before the advent of the Highway system, and the propulsion of billions of automobiles. 

In just under 300 years the United States has destroyed most ecosystems, on Earth, below the earth's crust, and high above in the atmosphere. 

I love that saying about people being doomed to repeat history if they do not learn it, and now I know that is a bunch of bull.

We learn the history that has been spoon-fed to us in books that were designed by those who are alleged educators, but really the textbooks have been used to form a way of thinking and to sugarcoat the true realization of what has occurred in this history. This Geologic Period of time.

Many people have been confused and lied to about the Antarctica Ice Shelf, saying that although the Arctic Pole was melting, that Antarctica was gaining Ice...Wrong oh liars. We are nearing the end of the Ice Sheet. Our whole planet has changed. 

Antarctica's Larsen B Ice Shelf is likely to shatter into hundreds of icebergs before the end of the decade, according to a new NASA study.

Credits: NSIDC/Ted Scambos

In 2009 we started to see the Pacific Walrus's scrambling for shores, due to Ice Loss. In 2011, over 38,000 Walrus clamored for space and place. There is no place for them to go. Their habitats are disappearing. This site needs to be shown to each person on our planet. Do you think things are going to keep on going like they always have? Do you think that the greedy industrial bullies that have taken every resource not nailed down, will care when it is you and your children piling up on city streets, with no place to go? Oh...that is happening, but humans are missing the big picture. If human beings got it, we would have our vehicles abandoned, and demand to do away with combustion. 

Pacific Walrus 

We have lost forests, species, tribes of Peoples, and freshwater - those things have been pilfered away by the greedy, bully, grabbers who feel they are entitled to resources which truly belong to no man or municipality. Earth was here before our stinking governing bodies.

Mass Acre at Murambi - YouTube by Media Matters

The desire to rule over land and people, and move humans at unnatural speeds by combustion, will be our undoing. Stop the Genocidal Protocol 

ALMA a film by Patrick Rouxel by green planet films

I have edited my first exit, as I was very depressed by the state of our Earth, and the atrocities that continue just so we may experience luxuries. When did we become so entitled? 

I will continue to be thankful for all of the blessings and wait for a miracle to turn this mess around. Burning Smudge. Bless the Bees.