The European Space Agency's JUICE (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) mission has been given the green light to proceed to the next stage of development. This approval is a milestone for the mission, which aims to launch in 2022 to explore Jupiter and its potentially habitable icy moons. Artist's impression of the JUICE mission. Credit: ESA/AOES JUICE gained approval for its implementation phase from ESA’s Science Programme Committee during a meeting at the European Space Astronomy Centre near Madrid, Spain, on 19 and 20 November 2014. Chosen by ESA in May 2012 to be the first large mission within the Cosmic Vision Programme, JUICE is planned to be launched in 2022 and to reach Jupiter in 2030. The mission will tour the giant planet to explore its atmosphere, magnetosphere and tenuous set of rings and will characterise the icy moons Ganymede, Europa and Callisto. Detailed investigations of Ganymede will be performed when JUICE enters into orbit around it – the first time any ic...

A small business owner raised more than $158,000 to restore her bakery after it was damaged during the recent riots in Ferguson, Mo. Natalie Dubose, who opened Natalie's Cakes and More this summer, was horrified when it was targeted Monday night, after a grand jury decided not to indict officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown. “I’m beside myself, but with the holidays, can't stop working,” she wrote on her GoFundMe page. “I'm very busy cleaning and trying to repair my business. I'm also trying to catch up on baking cakes for Thanksgiving!” Dubose says she started baking and selling cakes at local flea markets and saved up until she had enough money to make her dream of starting her own business come true. A friend recommended that she start a fundraising page on Tuesday. “The outpouring of support on Twitter, Facebook, and in the media has been amazing. I was in tears,” she said. Her story caught the attention of “Everybody L...

On November 14th, a mysterious explosion rocked Russian skies leaving the world to wonder, "What the hell is going on over there?" While people were quick to think it was a meteor, video evidence reveals that the explosion likely started on the ground. Here are all the videos that have surfaced from the event so far.

Guns may not kill people, but when the mentally ill do, it can—and has—resulted in mass slaughter. As social service providers struggle to meet the demand for psychiatric rehabilitation programs, many police agencies are finding themselves reluctantly cast as community "caregivers of last resort." And when the next mental health-related mass shooting inevitably occurs, the public will again question whether law enforcement could have prevented the carnage. Two agencies in Southern Arizona, the Pima County Sheriff's Department and Tucson Police Department, are taking on that challenge. The joint Mental Health Support Team—part special investigations unit, part information clearinghouse, and full-on crime prevention task force—serves with a three-pronged approach: Identify individuals at high risk for violence. Connect (or reconnect) them with local behavioral health service providers. Then hold them accountable to court-ordered treatment plans. "It's lo...

One morning after her accident, a woman I’ll call Kate awoke in a daze. She looked at the man next to her in bed. He resembled her husband, with the same coppery beard and freckles dusted across his shoulders. But this man was definitely not her husband. Panicked, she packed a small bag and headed to her psychiatrist’s office. On the bus, there was a man she had been encountering with increasing frequency over the past several weeks. The man was clever, he was a spy. He always appeared in a different form: one day as a little girl in a sundress, another time as a bike courier who smirked at her knowingly. She explained these bizarre developments to her doctor, who was quickly becoming one of the last voices in this world she could trust. But as he spoke, her stomach sank with a dreaded realisation: this man, too, was an impostor. Kate has Capgras syndrome, the unshakeable belief that someone – often a loved one, sometimes oneself – has been replaced with an exact replica. She al...

Rosetta probe Philae (not pictured) reported discovered organic molecules on comet. The Philae space probe was powered down earlier than expected, but not before an instrument discovered an organic compound that was first detected in the comet’s atmosphere, the  Wall Street Journal  exclusively reported Monday. The find is extraordinary considering the organic compound contains the carbon atom, which is the basis of life on planet Earth. Further research is being conducted to see if there are complex compounds like amino acids or simple ones like methane and methanol, considered “building blocks” for proteins. The research “will help us to understand whether organic molecules were brought by comets to the early earth,” Stephan Ulamec, the Philae’s landing manager said, according to the Journal. A probe named Philae is seen after it landed safely on a comet, known as 67P/Churyumov-Gerasimenko, in this CIVA handout image released Nov. 13, 2014.  ...

Via  http://recode.net/2014/11/17/the-worlds-most-powerful-computer-is-still-in-china/ The Tinahe-2 supercomputer, installed at China’s National University of Defense Technology, remained in the number one spot on the Top500 list of the world’s most powerful supercomputers, released this morning. Today marked the third consecutive six-month period that the machine has topped the list, and the fourth time overall since 2010 that a Chinese machine has dominated.The list is updated twice a year by researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee in Knoxville and Prometeus, a German company. This 21-year-old list has, in its history, charted the very leading edge of computing power. Supercomputers have been used over the years in nuclear weapons research, but more recently they’e expanded into advanced research into drugs and understanding the nature of disease as well as helping to scour the Earth for new sources of en...

Via The Guardian: Putin claims west is provoking Russia into new cold war as ‘spies’ deported Russian president denies fanning tensions and says Nato ‘expansion’ in Europe had been ‘geopolitical game changer’ Did you know Putin brought his dog to his first meeting with Merkel? Apparently Merkel had a fairly traumatic accident involving dogs in her childhood, and since then she's had a deep-seated fear of the animals. I'd be honestly surprised if Merkel likes the guy.

Afghanistan colors of their land and people

Lakechia Stanley , of St. Louis, was sentenced to 78 years in prison for abuse of her children. A St. Louis woman was sentenced Friday to 78 years in prison after admitting to beating, whipping and waterboarding her children in a prolonged pattern of abuse that prosecutors described as "systematic torture." Lakechia Schonta Stanley, 34, of St. Louis, faced 34 felonies, including multiple counts of assault and endangering the welfare of a child, for the abuse which was reported to a school librarian in October 2011. One of the children, then 10 years old, had gone to school complaining of severe pain in her arm. Prosecutors say the girl revealed Stanley had beaten her with a baseball bat because she had not cleaned the kitchen quickly enough. The girl told the librarian that her sister, then age 8, was also beaten with a bat because she had taken too long to shower. When the librarian examined the girl's arm she found it cold and hard to the touch, according to pr...

Obama tilted his cap to the side. Shit was about to get real. He paced back and forth, collecting his thoughts in the dimly lit ambassador's office. With a grin, he turned to face Kim Jung Un and commenced his attack. "Gimme a beat, Biden," The vice president proceeded to give it his all. "Now listen here, you little twit, you're working on bombs but we're DONE with it. I'm the king of all freedom, lemme fill my cup, I blew away Bin Ladin while you blew your school up" 'OOOOH's and gasps could be heard amongst the cabinet. Even McCain gave a nod of approval. Kim Jung Un simply turned and removed his sunglasses, before he began. "You think it's all that to interfere, you sittin' in your office with your people in fear. My people here love me, can't even disagree, I hit eleven holes in one with your WIFE last week!" Obama was feeling the burn. It was coming down to the wire. Sweating, he glanced at the judges- Sarah Pa...

A long time ago I posted the tutorial on scheduling your blog posts and here are some benefits of scheduling blog posts so you would know why it is important. Why is it necessary for every blogger in this blogosphere? Let's find out. Benefits of scheduling blog posts Benefits of Scheduling blog posts You can take a break whenever you want. This is what everyone needs from time to time, a break. But when you have a popular blog, your brain would not let you take a break. It would force you to work, more and more to earn more and more. It would force you to work more on blog posts i.e., produce more. When this time comes you can do three things, Do what your brain says and let your content and readership suffer. Take a break, do nothing and let your mind be tensed throughout the break. Schedule blog posts which you have written already and take a tension free break. It is clear that the third choice is the most appropriate. Schedule your posts and forget about yo...

Photoshop Battles doesn't mean they Photoshop Battles (fight scenes, tanks, explosions) but that they battle each other with Photoshop. They take the OP image and edit it in the most creative way they can think of and we vote on the winner.

So, Philae bounced twice before coming to a halt. 'Bounce' does not quite describe it correctly. Philae did by far the biggest #jump ever. The f*cking tallest, longest, slowest JUMP ever done by a human made object (including humans). Without using thrusters, just by pushing off from a rock. That's something for the Guiness Book of Records. And Philae was lucky as hell. It jumped about 1 km high and 1 km wide on a rock barely 2 km large. Had it jumped only a little bit more, then it would have missed this side of the comet and probably crashed head first into some other part. Philae jumped off very slowly at about 1/5 walking speed. Had it been twice as fast, then it would have left the comet entirely and it would be lost in space by now. This record will stand for a very long time. Jumping so high is only possible in very low gravity. Only on a small object with small escape velocity. This makes a jump very risky. If you jump too far, then you drift away into the darkne...

Sources of renewable energy include hydroelectric (dams, waves and tides), wind, biomass, solar and geothermal. Hydroelectric dams, wind farms, biomass plants and solar parks have the potential to deliver much of the world's energy needs, depending on how much investment these renewable energy sources receive. The primary types of renewable energy are outlined here. Hydroelectric dams represent a significant portion of total overall world renewable energy production and can easily be installed in remote rural areas. Dams, both large and smaller scale, produce little direct waste, and require little maintenance. Ocean waves, currents and tides represent dynamic, abundant sources of renewable energy that remain completely environmentally friendly. However, these ocean sources remain geographically dependent, as the energy can only be developed along coastlines. Wind power is the conversion of energy by wind turbines into a useful form, i.e. mechanical energy, and electricity. ...

Sports minister is less than reassuring about how gay fans will be treated at the event. If you are a gay soccer fan and love the World Cup, watching at home on TV would be highly recommended over traveling to Qatar, where gay sex is illegal. Comments by the country's sports minister to the Associated Press did little to calm the sense that gays aren't welcome. Asked how gay people will be welcomed in 2022, Salah bin Ghanem bin Nasser al-Ali replied: "It's exactly like the alcohol question." He said Qatar doesn't want to create "this impression, illusion that we don't care about our tradition and our ethical values ... We are studying all these issues. We can adapt, we can be creative to have people coming and enjoying the games without losing the essence of our culture and respecting the preference of the people coming here. I think there is a lot we can do." The reference to the "alcohol question" was his reply on whether beer ...

Last week the  Los Angeles   Times  had an  interesting article  on new scientific research that claims to have demonstrated that climate changed caused the widespread collapse of Bronze Age civilizations in the eastern Mediterranean around 1200 BCE. According to research done by David Kaniewski et al. on pollen samples recovered from Cyprus, a massive drought hit at just the time when the Bronze Age cultures are known to have collapsed. Ancient writings have described crop failures, famines and invasions about the same time, suggesting that the drying trend triggered a chain of events that led to widespread societal collapse of these Late Bronze Age civilizations. This is particularly interesting to me since the late Bronze Age is one of my favorite periods, especially the survival of memories of it in later mythology. The  Times  was reporting on  an article  published in the Public Library of Science's  PLoS One j...

I assume you got this off of the gilded comment about Digg's downfall? What it means is that if a website is spending its time and resources to deliver content to you without asking for anything in return, then they are probably selling information about you to others to make money. Take Facebook, for example. The site is free to use and the company has poured millions of dollars into developing the site and keeping it running. However, they make money by selling your personal information to advertisers and by allowing advertisers to target specific users with ads. Therefore, you are Facebook's "product" because they sell you to advertisers although it would be more accurate to say that information about you is Facebook's product. This applies to most internet sites, but not all of them. Wikipedia, for example, is non-profit and relies on donations. Edit: Facebook does not sell your information to third parties. They work directly with advertisers and use you...