Michael
Jordan is a former American basketball player who led the Chicago Bulls
to six NBA championships and won the Most Valuable Player Award five
times.
Synopsis
American
basketball star Michael Jordan was born on February 17, 1963, in
Brooklyn, New York
. Jordan left college after his junior year to join
the NBA. Drafted by the Chicago Bulls, he helped the team make it to the
playoffs. For his efforts there, Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the
Year Award. With five regular-season MVPs and three All-Star MVPs,
Jordan became the most decorated player in the NBA.
Early Life
Professional
basketball player, Olympic athlete, businessperson, actor. Born on
February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, New York. Considered one of the best
basketball players ever, Michael Jordan dominated the sport from the
mid-1980s to the late 1990s. He led the Chicago Bulls to six National
Basketball Association championships, and earned the NBA's Most Valuable
Player Award five times.
Growing up in Wilmington, North
Carolina, Jordan developed a competitive edge at an early age. He
wanted to win every game he played. As his father James later noted,
"What he does have is a competition problem.
He was born with that ...
the person he tries to outdo most of the time is himself."
Jordan
enrolled at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1981
and soon became an important member of the school's basketball team.
His team won the NCAA Division I championships in 1982 with Jordan
scoring the final basket needed to defeat Georgetown University. He was
also singled out as the NCAA College Player of the Year in 1983 and in
1984.
During the summer of 1984, Jordan made his first
appearance at the Olympic Games as a member of the U.S. Olympic
basketball team.
The team won the gold at the games that year, which
were held in Los Angeles. Jordan later helped the American team bring
home the gold medal at the 1992 Olympic Games, held in Barcelona,
Spain.
Advertisement — Continue reading below
NBA Superstar
Jordan
left college after his junior year to join the NBA. Drafted by the
Chicago Bulls, he soon proved himself on the court. He helped the team
make it to the playoffs and scored an average of 28.2 points per game
that season. For his efforts, Jordan received the NBA Rookie of the
Year Award and was selected for the All-Star Game.
In 1985, he
finished his bachelor's degree in geography and continued to play
basketball professionally. While his second season was marred by injury,
Jordan was breaking new ground on the court during the 1986-1987
season. He became the first player since Wilt Chamberlin
to score more
than 3,000 points in a single season. The following season, Jordan
received his first Most Valuable Player Award from NBA—an honor he would
earn four more times in 1991, 1992, 1996, and 1998.
By the late
1980s, the Chicago Bulls was quickly becoming a force to be reckoned
with, and Jordan was an instrumental part of the team's success. The
Bulls made it to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1990 and won their
first NBA championship the following year by defeating the Los Angeles
Lakers
. A rising NBA superstar, Jordan became known for his power and
agility on the court as well as for his leadership abilities. He
eventually landed several endorsement deals with such companies as Nike,
which further pushed him into the spotlight.
In 1992, the
Chicago Bulls beat the Portland Trail Blazers to win their second NBA
championship. The team took their third championship the following
year, dominating in the basketball world. Jordan, however, had other
things on his mind. He lost his father, James, to an act of violence
after the end of the 1992-93 season. Two teenagers shot James Jordan
during an apparent robbery and were later convicted of the crime. In a
move that shocked many, Michael Jordan decided to retire from basketball
to pursue baseball. He played for a minor league team, the Birmingham
Barons, as an outfielder for a year.
Back on the Court
In
March 1995, however, Jordan returned to the basketball court. He
rejoined the Chicago Bulls and eventually helped them win the
championship against the Seattle Sonics in the 1995-96 season. That
same year, Jordan made a big splash in another arena—film—as the star
of Space Jam (1996). The film mixed live action and animation and paired Jordan with cartoon legends Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck on screen.
The
following season Jordan came back even stronger, averaging 30.4 points
per game. Starting all 82 games that season, he helped the team finish
the regular season with 72 wins and clinch a win in the NBA Finals
against the Utah Jazz. The two teams faced each other again for the
championships in 1998, and Jordan helped the Bulls beat them for the
second year in a row.
Retiring after the 1997-98 season, Jordan
did not stray from the sport for too long. He joined the Washington
Wizards as a part owner and as president of basketball operations
. In
the fall of 2001, Jordan relinquished these roles to return the court
once more. He played for the Wizards for two seasons before hanging up
his jersey for good in 2003.
Personal Life and Legacy
In
2006, Jordan bought a share of the Charlotte Bobcats
and joined the
team's executive ranks as its managing member of basketball operations.
He experienced some personal changes that same year, ending his
17-year marriage to wife Juanita Vanoy.
The couple divorced in December
2006. They had three children together during the course of their
marriage: Jeffrey, Marcus and Jasmine.
The following year,
Michael Jordan made news—this time as the father of an up-and-coming
college basketball player. His eldest son, Jeffrey Jordan, made the team
at the University of IllinoisToday show.
. Both Michael Jordan and his ex-wife
Juanita have supported their son and tried to help him deal with playing
in the shadow of a NBA legend. "He wants to be a basketball player,
but he wants to do it on his own terms ...The thing that we have tried
to tell Jeff is that you set your own expectations. By no means in this
world can you ever live up someone else's expectations of who you
are," Michael Jordan said during an appearance on the
In
April 2009, Jordan received one of basketball's greatest honors: He was
inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Attending
the induction ceremony was a bittersweet affair for Jordan because
being at the event meant "your basketball career is completely over,"
he explained.
While he may not be playing on the court, Jordan
remains active in his sport. He became the majority owner of the
Charlotte Bobcats in 2010 and serves as the team's chairman. And
improving the team's less-than-stellar record seems to be Jordan's
number one priority these days. He told ESPN in November 2012
that "I don't anticipate getting out of this business. My competitive
nature is I want to succeed. It's always been said that when I can't
find a way to do anything, I will find a way to do it."
Outside
of his work with the Charlotte Bobcats, Jordan is involved in a number
of business ventures, including several restaurants. He also does a lot
for charity, including hosting the annual golf event known as the
Michael Jordan Celebrity Invitational.
Jordan married 35-year-old
Cuban-American model Yvette Prieto
on April 27, 2013, in Palm Beach,
Florida. Tiger Woods, Spike Lee and Patrick Ewing, among other
celebrities, reportedly attended the wedding ceremony. In November 2013,
Jordan's rep announced that the NBA star and Prieto were expecting
their first child together—and Jordan's fourth—in April 2014.
It
has been called the Holy Grail of Modern Times. It is a great
scientific discovery waiting to be revealed and also a practical
invention with momentous and far reaching consequences. It is the
emergence of a final understanding of the workings of the brain and the
nature of the human mind. This is in turn is the key to the creation of
true Artificial Intelligence(AI) and the instigation of the much talked
about Technological Singularity. It is the beginning of an era of
extremely rapid and unprecedented scientific advance and technological
progress, which will transform the world beyond recognition within the
lifetimes of most people alive today..
Humankind
has come a long way on its historic journey of understanding the world
and the Universe. But there is a huge, glaring and very significant gap
in our knowledge waiting to be filled. The people of this world are
still waiting to learn about how the brain and mind works. A final
theory of brain and mind will be one of the great, if not the greatest
scientific discovery of all time. And in early 2014, the scientist
Stephen Hawking together with some other top minds declared that, ‘Success in creating Artificial Intelligence would be the biggest event in human history’.
The
puzzle of how the brain works and the prize of creating AI, are perhaps
some of the hottest topics of contemporary times. Governments are
pouring billions of dollars, euros, renminbi and yen into brain research
and the development of artificial intelligence. And this is matched and
even surpassed by corporate spending in the same areas. Hardly a month
seems to go by without some announcement of another major acquisition of
some AI startup by a tech behemoth such as Google for hundreds of
millions of dollars, or the hiring of some big name AI researcher by a
big tech company. The goal of creating AI and figuring out how the brain
works is perhaps the most important and certainly one of the most
exciting ventures of the age. A lot of resources, talent and attention
is being directed towards this end.
The Coming Breakthrough
But there seems to be a conceptual
blockage. Everyone knows what the great goal is, but there is little
idea as to how to get there. The goal of creating true AI and working
out how the brain works has turned out to be a fiendishly difficult and
profoundly intractable problem. Many leading researchers asked when this
final understanding of brain and mind will come, will quite often give
an estimate of 50 to 100 years. And the same for the creation of true
AI. Noam Chomsky the world’s most cited academic and someone who made
some early important contributions to AI said in 2013 that a, ‘theory of what makes us smart is aeons away’. David Deutsch, a respected Oxford physicist and popular science writer wrote recently in 2012 that, ‘No brain on Earth is yet close to knowing what brains do’. And this is a sentiment which is shared by many experts. Yet Deutsch concedes that it is, ‘plausible just single idea stands between us and the breakthrough, but it will have to be one of the best ideas ever’.
A similar idea was expressed by Rodney Brooks, who was director of the
prestigious MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) AI lab, who said
towards the end of the 1990s that there may emerge some, ‘organizational principle, concept or language that could revitalize mind science in the next century’.
In the Fractal Brain Theory this breakthrough ‘single idea’ and
revitalizing ‘organizational principle, concept and language’ is about
to be revealed. And it will emerge from the most unusual of
circumstances.
But there seems to be a conceptual
blockage. Everyone knows what the great goal is, but there is little
idea as to how to get there. The goal of creating true AI and working
out how the brain works has turned out to be a fiendishly difficult and
profoundly intractable problem. Many leading researchers asked when this
final understanding of brain and mind will come, will quite often give
an estimate of 50 to 100 years. And the same for the creation of true
AI. Noam Chomsky the world’s most cited academic and someone who made
some early important contributions to AI said in 2013 that a, ‘theory of what makes us smart is aeons away’. David Deutsch, a respected Oxford physicist and popular science writer wrote recently in 2012 that, ‘No brain on Earth is yet close to knowing what brains do’. And this is a sentiment which is shared by many experts. Yet Deutsch concedes that it is, ‘plausible just single idea stands between us and the breakthrough, but it will have to be one of the best ideas ever’.
A similar idea was expressed by Rodney Brooks, who was director of the
prestigious MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) AI lab, who said
towards the end of the 1990s that there may emerge some, ‘organizational principle, concept or language that could revitalize mind science in the next century’.
In the Fractal Brain Theory this breakthrough ‘single idea’ and
revitalizing ‘organizational principle, concept and language’ is about
to be revealed. And it will emerge from the most unusual of
circumstances.
is credited with
first using the expression Artificial Intelligence and made many
pioneering contributions to the field. He said in an interview that
there was the intriguing possibility that someone has already figured
out how to create AI but ‘he just hasn’t told us yet’.
John Horgan
who is a popular science author and staff writer for
Scientific American magazine concluded from his numerous interviews with
specialists in the field that, ‘Some mind
scientists… prophesy the coming of a genius who will see patterns and
solutions that have eluded all his or her predecessors’. And he quotes Harvard Psychologist Howard Gardner as saying that, ‘We
can’t anticipate the extraordinary mind because it always comes from a
funny place that puts things together in a funny kind of way.’ The
current emergence of a complete theory of brain and mind and its
revealing will make these statements seem uncannily prescient. For the
Fractal Brain Theory, apart from being a series of scientific
breakthroughs and a technological wonder; is also a remarkable life
story and a fascinating journey of scientific inquiry & self
discovery. The circumstances from which this exciting theory emerges
will at first seem most strange, but after a while will make perfect
sense. Because this complete and perhaps even final understanding of the
human brain and mind has come into being from completely outside of any
academic, government or corporate research lab. The story of the
Fractal Brain Theory is the tale of a lone mind, working outside of any
formal context or traditional institution. It has been an endeavour self
directed, self instructed and self motivated. The brain theory has been
formulated in and will emerge from London, but it will appear as a bolt
out of the blue from nowhere, to revolutionize the worlds of
neuroscience and artificial intelligence.
Behind
the Fractal Brain Theory are three fundamental, very powerful and
interrelated ideas; that are systematically applied towards the
understanding of the brain and mind. This in turn leads to three major
critical breakthroughs which make up of the main body of the theory. The
three fundamental ideas behind the fractal brain theory are Symmetry,
Self Similarity and Recursivity. And the three major breakthroughs
comprise firstly a single unifying language for describing all the
myriad details and facets of the brain as well as the mind. Our second
breakthrough concept is a unifying structure deriving from our unifying
language, which allows us to see how everything related to brain and
mind comes together as a single integrated whole. Our third and most
surprisingly theoretical breakthrough is the idea that all the various
information processing of the brain and the many operations of the mind,
can be conceptualized as a single underlying unifying process and
captured in a single algorithm. Taken together these properties of the
fractal brain theory are set to revolutionize the worlds of theoretical
systems neuroscience and artificial intelligence. And so we’ll explain
these concepts and breakthroughs more clearly and in more detail ...will be continue...
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
Climate change :wat we can do?
The current warming trend is of particular significance because
most of it is very likely human-induced and proceeding at a rate that is
unprecedented in the past 1,300 years.
Earth-orbiting satellites and other technological advances have
enabled scientists to see the big picture, collecting many different
types of information about our planet and its climate on a global scale.
This body of data, collected over many years, reveals the signals of a
changing climate.
The heat-trapping nature of carbon dioxide and other gases was demonstrated in the mid-19th century.2
Their ability to affect the transfer of infrared energy through the
atmosphere is the scientific basis of many instruments flown by NASA.
There is no question that increased levels of greenhouse gases must
cause the Earth to warm in response.
Ice cores drawn from Greenland, Antarctica, and tropical
mountain glaciers show that the Earth’s climate responds to changes in
greenhouse gas levels. They also show that in the past, large changes in
climate have happened very quickly, geologically-speaking: in tens of
years, not in millions or even thousands.
Sea level rise
Their reassessment of tide gauge data from 1900-1990 found that the
world's seas went up more slowly than earlier estimates - by about 1.2mm
per year.
But this makes the 3mm per year tracked by satellites since 1990 a much bigger trend change as a consequence.
It could mean some projections for future rises having to be revisited.
"Our
estimates from 1993 to 2010 agree with [the prior] estimates from
modern tide gauges and satellite altimetry, within the bounds of
uncertainty. But that means that the acceleration into the last two
decades is far worse than previously thought," said Dr Carling Hay from
Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
"This new acceleration is about 25% higher than previous estimates," she told BBC News.
Dr Hay and colleagues report their re-analysis in this week's edition of the journal Nature.
Scientists have calculated the various contributions to sea-level rise, such as melting land ice
Tide gauges have been in
operation in some places for hundreds of years, but pulling their data
into a coherent narrative of worldwide sea-level change is fiendishly
difficult.Historically, their deployment has been sparse,
predominantly at mid-latitudes in the Northern Hemisphere, and only at
coastal sites. In other words, the instrument record is extremely
patchy.
What is more, the data needs careful handling because it hides all kinds of "contamination".
Scientists
must account for effects that mask the true signal - such as tectonic
movements that might force the local land upwards - and those that
exaggerate it - such as groundwater extraction, which will make the land
dip.
Attention needs to be paid also to natural oscillations in
ocean behaviour, which can make waters rise and fall on decadal
timescales.
Previous efforts to untangle the record concluded that
sea levels rose through much of the last century by around 1.6-1.9mm
per year.
These figures were included in the most recent
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on the state of
the planet.
But these numbers have been somewhat problematic
because they are at odds with the calculated contributions to global
ocean rise - namely, the volumes of water coming from melting land ice,
the expansion of the seas from global warming, and changes in the amount
of global water held on the continents. Simply put, the calculated
contributions were about 0.5mm per year short of what previous
tide-gauge assessments were suggesting they should be.
Dr Hay's
and colleagues' study makes another attempt to sort through the
instrument record, and they find the 1900-1990 rises to have been
overstated.
Their rate for this period is 1.2mm per year, which neatly closes the contributions "budget gap".
Dr
Hay said: "What we have done, which is a bit different from past
studies, is use physical models and statistical models to try to look
for underlying patterns in the messy tide gauge data observations.
"Each
of the different contributions actually produces a unique pattern, or
fingerprint, of sea-level change. And what we try to do is model these
underlying patterns and then use our statistical approach to look for
the patterns in the tide gauge observations. That allows us to infer
global information from the very limited records."
The modern tide gauge is now a highly
sophisticated tool. Coastal instruments have recorded sea level change
at some locations for more than 200 years
In the last IPCC report, global
mean sea-level rise for 2081−2100 was projected to be between 26cm (at
the low end) and 82cm (at the high end), depending on the greenhouse
emissions path this century. If the Hay analysis is reproduced by
peer groups, it may prompt the scientific community to revisit these
future sea-level projections and some of the other estimates that
envisage even larger changes in the decades ahead.
Commenting, Dr
Paolo Cipollini at the UK's National Oceanography Centre, said the
Nature study was an important new contribution to the field.
Having
a good view of historical change, he explained, would allow researchers
to test their models of the processes driving sea-level rise by
permitting them to do "hindcasts" - to check whether those models could
reproduce the past before making confident projections of the future.
"But
let's not lose sight of the central message that at the moment we have a
very strong consensus on the 3.2mm per year of sea-level rise coming
from satellites and modern tide gauges, and that any future projection
should be based mainly on our understanding of the processes of
sea-level rise, which really we need quantify better for later IPCC
reports."
The "gold standard" satellite record of sea-level rise
is maintained by the Jason series of spacecraft, which have an unbroken
record of measurements stretching back to 1992.
Jason-3, the latest incarnation, launches this year, along with the EU's Sentinel-3 spacecraft,
which has been tasked with starting another continuous - and independent - sequence of observations.
Global temperature rise
Scientists have high confidence that global temperatures will
continue to rise for decades to come, largely due to greenhouse gasses
produced by human activities. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate
Change (IPCC), which includes more than 1,300 scientists from the United
States and other countries, forecasts a temperature rise of 2.5 to 10
degrees Fahrenheit over the next century.
According to the IPCC, the extent of climate change effects on
individual regions will vary over time and with the ability of different
societal and environmental systems to mitigate or adapt to change.
The IPCC predicts that increases in global mean temperature of less
than 1.8 to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit (1 to 3 degrees Celsius) above 1990
levels will produce beneficial impacts in some regions and harmful ones
in others. Net annual costs will increase over time as global
temperatures increase.
"Taken as a whole," the IPCC states, "the range of published evidence
indicates that the net damage costs of climate change are likely to be
significant and to increase over time." 1
Below are some of the impacts that are currently visible throughout the
U.S. and will continue to affect these regions, according to the Third
National Climate Assessment Report 2, released by the U.S. Global Change Research Program:
Northeast. Heat waves, heavy downpours, and sea level rise pose
growing challenges to many aspects of life in the Northeast.
Infrastructure, agriculture, fisheries, and ecosystems will be
increasingly compromised. Many states and cities are beginning to
incorporate climate change into their planning.
Northwest. Changes in the timing of streamflow reduce water
supplies for competing demands. Sea level rise, erosion, inundation,
risks to infrastructure, and increasing ocean acidity pose major
threats. Increasing wildfire, insect outbreaks, and tree diseases are
causing widespread tree die-off.
Southeast. Sea level rise poses widespread and continuing threats
to the region’s economy and environment. Extreme heat will affect
health, energy, agriculture, and more. Decreased water availability will
have economic and environmental impacts.
Midwest. Extreme heat, heavy downpours, and flooding will affect
infrastructure, health, agriculture, forestry, transportation, air and
water quality, and more. Climate change will also exacerbate a range of
risks to the Great Lakes.
Southwest. Increased heat, drought, and insect outbreaks, all
linked to climate change, have increased wildfires. Declining water
supplies, reduced agricultural yields, health impacts in cities due to
heat, and flooding and erosion in coastal areas are additional concerns.
Warming oceans
Ocean heat content data to a depth of 2,000 meters, from NOAA.
Wow,
was this a bad year for those who deny the reality and the
significance of human-induced climate change. Of course, there were the
recent flurry of reports that 2014 surface temperatures had hit their
hottest values ever recorded. The 2014 record was first called on this
blog in December and the final results were reported as well, here. All
of this happened in a year that the denialists told us would not be very
hot.
But those denialists are having a tough time now as they look around
the planet for ANY evidence that climate change is not happening. The
problem is, they’ve been striking out.
And just recently, perhaps the most important bit of information came
out about 2014 – how much the Earth actually warmed. What we find is
that the warming is so great, NOAA literally has to remake its graphs.
Let me explain this a bit.
We tend to focus on the global temperature average which is the
average of air temperatures near the ground (or at the sea surface).
This past year, global air temperatures were record-breaking. But that
isn’t the same as global warming. Global warming is properly viewed as
the amount of heat contained within the Earth’s energy system. So, air
temperatures may go up and down on any given year as energy moves to or
from the air (primarily from the ocean). What we really want to know is,
did the Earth’s energy go up or down?
So what do the new data show? Well, it turns out that the energy
stored within the ocean (which is 90% or more of the total “global
warming” heat), increased significantly. A plot from NOAA is shown
above. You can see that the last data point (the red curve), is,
literally off the chart.
Advertisement
The
folks at NOAA do a great job updating this graph every three months or
so. We can now say that the 2014 Earth had more heat (thermal energy)
than any year ever recorded by humans. We can also say that the folks at
NOAA will likely have to rescale their graph to capture the new
numbers. The NOAA site is updated by Dr. Tim Boyer and can be found here. Click on slide 2 to view the relevant image.
If people want to read a review of ocean heating that is written for a
general audience, I suggest our recent peer-reviewed paper which can be
found here.
So when we look back on 2014 and the records that fell, it gives us
some pause about the so-called pause (hat-tip to Dr. Greg Laden for that
phrase). Some people tried to tell us global warming had “paused”, that
it ended in 1998, or that the past 15 years or so had not seen a change
in the energy of the Earth. This ocean warming data is the clearest
nail in that coffin.
Flowing meltwater from the Greenland ice sheet
Shrinking ice sheets
This section is all about ice shelves. Ice shelves are floating ice,
connected to the mainland. They receive ice from glaciers flowing into
them from the mainland, from accumulation from snow directly onto the
ice shelf, and from sea water freezing onto the bottom of the ice shelf.
Most mass loss from the Antarctic continent is from ice shelves, and
most of this is from just a few small ice shelves around the Antarctic
Peninsula and West Antarctica.
Ice shelves can collapse dramatically. This can occur over just a few
weeks, following progressive thinning by warm ocean waters below, and
from excessive melting during a warm summer above. If an ice shelf
collapses, it changes the boundary conditions for the glaciers that flow
into the ice shelf. This means that ice-shelf tributary glaciers
accelerate, thin and recede following ice-shelf collapse. So, although
ice shelves are already floating and therefore do not contribute to sea
level rise when they collapse, ice-shelf removal has significant
consequences for the grounded glaciers on the mainland.
More information:
Ice shelves
Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) showing location of key ice shelves.
An ice shelf is a floating extension of land ice. The Antarctic
continent is surrounded by ice shelves. They cover >1.561 million km2
(an area the size of Greenland)[1], fringing 75% of Antarctica’s
coastline, covering 11% of its total area and receiving 20% of its snow.
The difference between sea ice and ice shelves is that
sea ice is free-floating; the sea freezes and unfreezes each year,
whereas ice shelves are firmly attached to the land. Sea ice contains
icebergs, thin sea ice and thicker multi-year sea ice (frozen sea water
that has survived several summer melt seasons, getting thicker as more
ice is added each winter).
In the photographs below, you can see the flat, floating ice shelf is
almost featureless. The ice flows from the mainland into the sea, and
when it becomes deep enough it floats.
Ice shelf flow
Simplified
cartoon of a tributary glacier feeding into an ice shelf, showing the
grounding line (where the glacier begins to float).
Ice shelves receive ice in several ways: flow of ice from the
continent, surface accumulation (snow fall) and the freezing of marine
ice to their undersides. Ice shelves lose ice by melting from below
(from relatively warm ocean currents), melting above (from warm air
temperatures) and from calving icebergs. This is a normal part of their ablation.
Ice shelves can be up to 2000 m thick, with a cliff edge that’s up to
100 m high. They often show flow structures on their surface – a relic
of structures formed on land.
Sea ice
This
image of Antarctic sea ice is from the NASA Scientific Visualisation
Studio, showing the Earth on September 21st 2005. Source: Wikimedia Commons.
Sea ice surrounds the polar regions. On average, sea ice covers up to 25 million km2, an area 2.5 times the size of Canada. Sea ice is frozen ocean water. The sea freezes each winter around Antarctica.
Sea ice can modify climate change’s impact on terrestrial ice because
it is highly reflective and because it has a strongly insulating
nature. Each year, the extent of sea ice varies according to climate
variability and long-term climate change.
Breaking ice in Fridtjov Sound
The first year sea ice fractures under the ship
Red paint on the sea ice from ice breaking
Frozen first year sea ice around Rothera
In the Arctic,
sea ice extent is steadily decreasing, with a trend of -5.3±00.6% per
decade since 1985[10], as a result of long-term climate change.
Year-on-year variations reflect normal variability. Because removal of
sea ice changes the reflectivity of the Arctic, a diminishing sea-ice
extent amplifies warming.
Frozen winter sea ice trapping calved icebergs from the margin of a tidewater glacier
Sea ice in the Antarctic
is currently increasing. This is associated with cooling sea surface
temperatures in the Southern Ocean, in particular near the Ross Ice
Shelf. Causes of this increasing Antarctic sea ice, which are contrasted
with shrinking glaciers and ice shelves and warming deeper ocean
current temperatures and atmospheric air temperatures, include changes
to the Southern Annual Mode due to intensification and migration of the
predominant Southern Ocean Westerlies, and cooler sea surface
temperatures as a result of increased glacier and ice-shelf melting
Sunday, May 24, 2015
7 strange beautiful places in the world
Once in a while it is good to divert your mind from the daily
hassle and dissonance of daily working environment and find a cool place
where you can relax and enjoy with your family. There is one good place
that exceeds nature and its beauty. Spending some time visiting and
watching some of the most beautiful wonders of the world will make you
forget all your worries and realize how much is given to you by your
creator to enjoy. There are so many breathtaking places in the world
that you can visit but here we are going to concentrate on 10 most
beautiful places in the world. They are so beautiful that you might
think of changing your current career to travelling; after all
travelling not only helps you learn but can also decide to write guides
for others who might want to know more about their world.
1. Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe
This is an amazing site located in between the border of Zambia and
North of Zimbabwe along the Zambezi River. Although Victoria Falls is
neither the widest nor the highest waterfall on Earth, this breathtaking
waterfall occupies around 2 kilometer mile and is 354 feet high. It
emits mist that is spotted by somebody about 20 kilometers away and
hence it’s traditional “Mosi-oa Tunya” that simply means “thundering
smoke”. It was named Victoria Falls by a Scottish explorer David
Livingstone. He’s believed to have been the first person from Europe to
visit Victoria Falls on 16 November 1855. By the end of the 90s around
300,000 visitors were seeing Victoria Falls each year, and it was
expected to increase to a million or more in the next decade. However,
today Victoria Falls has more visitors from Zimbabwe and Zambia than
from other countries in the world. The waterfall is accessible by train
and bus, and it’s rather cheap to reach, so why not visit this
beautiful place this year?
2. Venice, Italy
Venice is a sanctuary on a lagoon, and it’s not only amazing, but
also preservative. In fact, Venice has maintained it’s beauty for more
than 600 years. The city has 118 islands and more tourists than
residents and this is a fact contributed by availability of many
beautiful sites and places to go while in the city. Among the places is
touring with the Grand Canal, which is a 230 passenger boat. The tallest
and the oldest building in the city is the Campanile, which was built
325ft tall. To reach the top, people take a lift, but in the old days
the Roman Emperor Fredrick III rode a horse to the top. St Mark’s
Basilica and the Piazza San Marco are another popular attractions in
Venice. The Lido di Venezia is a world-known luxury destination that
attracts thousands of celebrities, critics, and popular actors and
actresses. Venice also relies greatly on the cruise business.
Unfortunately, the city’s popularity has caused many problems. It’s
often overcrowded and the competition for tourists to purchase houses in
Venice has made prices increase so high that many locals have to move
to more affordable places in Italy.
Last year I visited Venice and I simply fell in love with its diverse
architectural style. I highly recommend you to see the Ca’ Rezzonico,
the Doge’s Palace, and the Ca’ Pesaro. While the Ca’ Pesaro and the Ca’
Rezzonico are Baroque and Renaissance buildings, the Doge’s Palace is a
fantastic example of Venetian Gothic architecture.
3. Fairy Pools, Isle of Skye, Scotland
Fairy Pools are located two miles from the Glen Brittle beach. They
are a part of a stream coming from the Glen Brittle forest which flows
in clear quiet streams and beautiful waterfalls. There’s not so much
public transport and you can take a walk through the pools enjoying the
serene beauty. The great news is that you can swim here, but the water
is rather cold even in summer. When visiting Fairy Pools, make sure you
don’t do anything to harm the environment here.
Fairy Pools might not be so popular and I know many people avoid
visiting this place when they backpack in Scotland. However, this place
is perfect for hikers, mountain bikers, wildlife lovers and those who
live a busy life. You will find many rare plants and animals here. I’ve
visited Fairy Pools a few times and I can’t understand why so many
people miss such a breathtaking place. On my last visit I was happily
taking photos of Fairy Pools and I consider it to be one of the most
beautiful places in the world. Though I think it’s better to visit Fairy
Pools on a sunny day since it could be very muddy on rainy day.
4. Great Blue Hole
A big underwater sinkhole, the Great Blue Hole is located near the
center of Lighthouse Reef. This great diving destination is about 407 ft
deep and 984 ft wide, and is rich in clear water and beautiful marine
life. If you love diving, then the magnificent Great Blue Hole is just
for you. Just imagine diving in crystal-clear water and meeting unique
species of fish, such as Caribbean reef shark, Midnight Parrotfish, and
even bull shark. Moreover, you will have a great opportunity to see
fantastic coral formations. Take a day trip to the Great Blue Hole from
one of the coastal communities in Belize. Just be sure to get there as
earlier as possible.
In 2012, the Great Blue Hole topped the Discovery Channel’s list of
10 Most Amazing Places on Earth. Thanks to its beauty the Great Blue
Hole is now on the list of the most beautiful places in the world. So if
you’re planning your trip to Belize, be sure to go to the Great Blue
Hole. The boat ride is about two hours long, but the scenery is
captivating and you will certainly enjoy the ride. While it’s not a
cheap experience, it’s well worth the cost.
5. Inca City of Machu Picchu
It is also commonly known as the lost city of Incas that was
discovered in 1913 by Bingham. The ruins are made of white granite
blocks, which are beautifully and carefully fitted together. There are
temples, residences, parks and sanctuaries. This is an amazing place to
go, especially if you are a history lover. It’s believed that Machu
Picchu was built for Pachacuti, the emperor of the Incas. Since the
Incas had no written language, it’s hard to find out why they built and
how they used the site.
Traveling to Machu Picchu isn’t so easy, but it’s worth the time and
effort, as well as money. You can take the plane to Lima and then to
Cusco, and only from Cusco you can take the train to Machu Picchu.
However, many tourists choose to hike to the spectacular ruins on the
Inca Trail. But it may take about 3-4 days to get there.
Nowadays Machu Picchu is highly vulnerable to numerous threats. The
weather systems and earthquakes can play havoc with access. Moreover,
Machu Picchu is also overcrowded. Many archaeologists are afraid that a
great number of visitors can damage the ruins. So when visiting Machu
Picchu, try to be as careful as possible and don’t do anything that can
harm the ruins.
6. The Pyramids and the Sphinx
The Sphinx is the world’s largest monolith statue that stands 241 ft
long, 63 ft wide and over 66 ft high. It’s believed that the Sphinx was
built for the Pharaoh Khafre over 4,500 years ago. Though, the facts
about the exact date when it was built and by whom are still unknown.
But the only thing I can say is that it’s incredibly mysterious place
and you can spend hours here without even noticing it.
There are also 138 ancient pyramids that were built to hide the tombs
of the Pharaohs. The Pyramid of Khufu is the largest pyramid of Egypt
and is the only one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World that still
exists. Although the Sphinx is fascinating, the pyramids are even more
spectacular. They have always fascinated me. I’ve visited the pyramids
and the Sphinx a few times, but I always want to visit them once again.
The pyramids and the Sphinx are among the most amazing sites that you
can enjoy visiting through the Sahara desert. Apart from watching the
beautiful site of the pyramids, you can also enjoy a camel ride as you
visit the Egyptian pyramids.
7. The Great Barrier Reef, Australia
The world’s largest coral reef system occupies more than 900 islands.
It is made of around 2900 reefs and is located in the Coral Sea, in
Australia. The Great Barrier Reef stretches for over 2600 km and can be
viewed from the outer space.
One of the seven natural wonders of the world, the Great Barrier Reef
has a high marine life diversity, including many endangered species.
There are over 1,500 fish species, including the red bass, clownfish,
snapper and red-throat emperor, 30 species of dolphins, whales and
porpoises, including Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin, the dwarf minke
whale and the humpback whale, 125 species of shark and stingray, 17
species of sea snake, 49 species of mass spawn, 84 species of other
spawn, 6 species of sea turtles, and many more.
Due to its warm clear waters, vast marine life and majestic scenery,
the Great Barrier Reef is an incredibly popular place, especially for
scuba divers and nature lovers. However, it is not only perfect for
diving, but for snorkeling, fishing and sailing as well. About 2 million
people visit the reef every year. A great variety of cruises and boat
tours are offered, from amazingly long voyages to single day trips.
Friday, May 22, 2015
THE HISTORY OF COMEDY
“The First Stand-Up”
In order to understand what you do, you have to know the history of
the art form. Stand-up comedy has a particularly rich history,
especially considering how young an art form it is. How young? Both
the Oxford English Dictionary and Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary
started recognizing the term “Stand-up comic” in 1966. So as a
separate, recognized entity, we’re less than 40 years old.
Of course what we do has been around longer than that. That’s just
the first time we gave it a name. Up until then anybody who got a laugh
in any medium was called a comic. In 1966, the sub-species of stand-up
comic came into being.
Let’s jump back to the roots of stand-up. Stand-up is a decidedly
American invention, with its roots going back into the mid 1800s. Up
until that time comedy was the exclusive domain of theater. The
unintentional grand father of stand-up comedy was Thomas Dartmouth
"Daddy" Rice
, the man who is credited with inventing the minstrel shows.
The minstrel shows were probably one of the most grotesque forms of
entertainment in existence. It was built on negative racial
stereotypes, and the mockery of a race of people who were already
subjugated. It started well before the Civil War, and continued way too
far into the 20th century. Too many comics performed in blackface, and
the long-term effect of minstrel shows is still visible in today’s
market of “mainstream clubs,” and “black comedy clubs.”
Although a hateful part of the history of the American stage,
minstrel shows departed from rigid confines of normal theatrical
productions. No longer were performances tied to a plot, but rather a
theme, and a loose set of characters. Among them, “The Endmen” who
existed for pure comic folly, and while the majority of the minstrel
show revolved around musical comedy, during the second segment of most
minstrel shows – “the olio” – one or both of the endmen got to deliver a
“stump speech.” This was a satiric monologue that poked fun at
contemporary life and political figures. It is also the first time that
something akin to stand-up comedy was presented in front of a live
audience.
From here the path to stand up comedy is easy to trace. Minstrel
shows
showed that low maintenance variety shows could be accepted as
mainstream entertainment. This brought about vaudeville, and the
musical comedy theater craze of the early 20th century. Vaudeville
houses
also refined the style of comedy, with emcees speaking rather
than singing their comedy. Verbal comedy became so popular that at the
height of WWI, President Woodrow Wilson requested, and was given, a solo
comedy performance by comedienne May Irwin
so that he could have a
good laugh, and keep his mind off the war. Was she successful? She was
given the unofficial title of “Secretary of Laughter,” so I guess she
was.
Vaudeville showed that comedy could work on large stages, but
burlesque proved that it worked even better in an intimate setting.
While most people mistakenly think of burlesque as cheesy bands and
strippers, the truth is that burlesque was to the lower middle class
what vaudeville was to the upper middle class; entertainment of the
highest order. It was only in the waning days of burlesque that it
turned into a glorified strip show.
While vaudeville usually featured 9 variety acts centered on a
headliner, burlesque borrowed heavily from the structure of the minstrel
shows. In fact, both minstrel shows and burlesque used a three-act
structure, and the second and third acts were identical, the “olio,”
followed by a one-act parody (or “burlesque”) of a popular play. The
comics in burlesque did both sketch, and monologues, and with the
smaller sized houses, the intimate, interactive style that became
stand-up was born.
Radio, film, and especially television had an impact on comedy, and
the popularity of these mediums indirectly shaped our art form. As
these mass entertainment forms grew, demand for vaudeville and burlesque
style shows declined, and the larger houses closed. There was still a
thriving market for live music, and nightclubs popped up to fill this
void. Comics, still hungry for live audiences, were forced to perform
“between sets” at these clubs. This limited space, both in time and the
physical size of the stage, meant that the comic had to forgo the
vaudeville style of all around entertainer, and focus on what made him
special, the comedy.
By the late 50’s there was a generation of comedic performers who
“grew up” under these conditions. This first generation of “stand-ups”
included; Lenny Bruce, Lord Buckley, Dick Gregory, Bob Newhart, Bill
Cosby, and the first person to bring a new sensibility to the comedy
stage, Mort Sahl. These stand-ups, and others too numerous to mention,
took the lessons they learned from the class of Danny Thomas, Myron
Cohen, and Bob Hope, modernized the craft, and passed it down to Richard
Pryor, Freddie Prinze and Robert Klein.
They in turn passed it down to us.
Vaudeville and burlesque houses split into smaller venues that
featured specialized entertainment. They became music clubs, off-off
Broadway theaters, and even strip clubs. Comics used to be jugglers, or
singers, or dancers in addition to being funny. Now stand-up is a
specialty all its own. The market and art form has continued to shrink
in scope, but not in size. The comedy club is the most recent shrinking
of the entertainment focus.
All these elements came together at just the right time in history
to give birth to the art form called stand-up comedy. Had radio not
have become popular, or if TV didn’t dazzle the American audience,
perhaps live variety entertainment would have survived, and “stand-up”
would be a small piece of what became your act. Thankfully, things did
come together perfectly. Just in time too. I can honestly say that I’m
happy to have been spared the experience of seeing George Carlin
perform the old, soft shoe.
So who was the first stand-up? Another incredible artist whose name
has eluded history, just like the first painter, or the first poet;
however he is an artist whose legacy lives every time a stand-up steps
on stage.
Thursday, May 21, 2015
5 Unsolved Mysteries Of The Brain
Pyramidal neuron in medial prefrontal cortex of macaque.
Image courtesy of brainmaps.org
1. How is information coded in neural activity?
Neurons, the specialized cells of the brain, can produce brief
spikes of voltage in their outer membranes. These electrical pulses
travel along specialized extensions called axons to cause the release of
chemical signals elsewhere in the brain. The binary, all-or-nothing
spikes appear to carry information about the world: What do I see? Am I
hungry? Which way should I turn? But what is the code of these
millisecond bits of voltage? Spikes may mean different things at
different places and times in the brain. In parts of the central nervous
system (the brain and spinal cord), the rate of spiking often
correlates with clearly definable external features, like the presence
of a color or a face. In the peripheral nervous system, more spikes
indicates more heat, a louder sound, or a stronger muscle contraction.
As we delve deeper into the brain, however, we find populations of
neurons involved in more complex phenomena, like reminiscence, value
judgments, simulation of possible futures, the desire for a mate, and so
on—and here the signals become difficult to decrypt. The challenge is
something like popping the cover off a computer, measuring a few
transistors chattering between high and low voltage, and trying to guess
the content of the Web page being surfed.
It is likely that mental information is stored not in single cells
but in populations of cells and patterns of their activity. However, it
is currently not clear how to know which neurons belong to a particular
group; worse still, current technologies (like sticking fine electrodes
directly into the brain) are not well suited to measuring several
thousand neurons at once. Nor is it simple to monitor the connections of
even one neuron: A typical neuron in the cortex receives input from
some 10,000 other neurons.
Although traveling bursts of voltage can carry signals across the
brain quickly, those electrical spikes may not be the only—or even the
main—way that information is carried in nervous systems.
Forward-looking studies are examining other possible information
couriers: glial cells (poorly understood brain cells that are 10 times
as common as neurons), other kinds of signaling mechanisms between cells
(such as newly discovered gases and peptides), and the biochemical
cascades that take place inside cells.
2. How are memories stored and retrieved?
When you learn a new fact, like someone’s name, there are physical
changes in the structure of your brain. But we don’t yet comprehend
exactly what those changes are, how they are orchestrated across vast
seas of synapses and neurons, how they embody knowledge, or how they are
read out decades later for retrieval.
One complication is that there are many kinds of memories. The brain
seems to distinguish short-term memory (remembering a phone number just
long enough to dial it) from long-term memory (what you did on your last
birthday). Within long-term memory, declarative memories (like names
and facts) are distinct from nondeclarative memories (riding a bicycle,
being affected by a subliminal message), and within these general
categories are numerous subtypes. Different brain structures seem to
support different kinds of learning and memory; brain damage can lead to
the loss of one type without disturbing the others.
Nonetheless, similar molecular mechanisms may be at work in these
memory types. Almost all theories of memory propose that memory storage
depends on synapses, the tiny connections between brain cells. When two
cells are active at the same time, the connection between them
strengthens; when they are not active at the same time, the connection
weakens. Out of such synaptic changes emerges an association. Experience
can, for example, fortify the connections between the smell of coffee,
its taste, its color, and the feel of its warmth. Since the populations
of neurons connected with each of these sensations are typically
activated at the same time, the connections between them can cause all
the sensory associations of coffee to be triggered by the smell alone.
But looking only at associations—and strengthened connections between
neurons—may not be enough to explain memory. The great secret of memory
is that it mostly encodes the relationships between things more than
the details of the things themselves. When you memorize a melody, you
encode the relationships between the notes, not the notes per se, which
is why you can easily sing the song in a different key.
Memory retrieval is even more mysterious than storage. When I ask if
you know Alex Ritchie, the answer is immediately obvious to you, and
there is no good theory to explain how memory retrieval can happen so
quickly. Moreover, the act of retrieval can destabilize the memory. When
you recall a past event, the memory becomes temporarily susceptible to
erasure. Some intriguing recent experiments show it is possible to
chemically block memories from reforming during that window, suggesting
new ethical questions that require careful consideration. 3. What does the baseline activity in the brain represent?
Neuroscientists have mostly studied changes in brain activity that
correlate with stimuli we can present in the laboratory, such as a
picture, a touch, or a sound. But the activity of the brain at rest—its
“baseline” activity—may prove to be the most important aspect of our
mental lives. The awake, resting brain uses 20 percent of the body’s
total oxygen, even though it makes up only 2 percent of the body’s mass.
Some of the baseline activity
may represent the brain restructuring knowledge in the background,
simulating future states and events, or manipulating memories. Most
things we care about—reminiscences, emotions, drives, plans, and so
on—can occur with no external stimulus and no overt output that can be
measured.
One clue about baseline activity comes from neuroimaging experiments,
which show that activity decreases in some brain areas just before a
person performs a goal-directed task. The areas that decrease are the
same regardless of the details of the task, hinting that these areas may
run baseline programs during downtime, much as your computer might run a
disk-defragmenting program only while the resources are not needed
elsewhere.
In the traditional view of perception, information from the outside
world pours into the senses, works its way through the brain, and makes
itself consciously seen, heard, and felt. But many scientists are coming
to think that sensory input may merely revise ongoing internal activity
in the brain. Note, for example, that sensory input is superfluous for
perception: When your eyes are closed during dreaming, you still enjoy
rich visual experience. The awake state may be essentially the same as
the dreaming state, only partially anchored by external stimuli. In this
view, your conscious life is an awake dream. 4. How do brains simulate the future?
When a fire chief encounters a new blaze, he quickly makes
predictions about how to best position his men. Running such simulations
of the future—without the risk and expense of actually attempting
them—allows “our hypotheses to die in our stead,” as philosopher Karl
Popper put it. For this reason, the emulation of possible futures is one
of the key businesses that intelligent brains invest in.
Yet we know little about how the brain’s future simulator works
because traditional neuroscience technologies are best suited for
correlating brain activity with explicit behaviors, not mental
emulations. One idea suggests that the brain’s resources are devoted not
only to processing stimuli and reacting to them (watching a ball come
at you) but also to constructing an internal model of that outside world
and extracting rules for how things tend to behave (knowing how balls
move through the air). Internal models may play a role not only in motor
acts, like catching, but also in perception. For example, vision draws
on significant amounts of information in the brain, not just on input
from the retina. Many neuroscientists have suggested over the past few
decades that perception arises not simply by building up bits of data
through a hierarchy but rather by matching incoming sensory data against
internally generated expectations.
But how does a system learn to make good predictions about the world?
It may be that memory exists only for this purpose. This is not a new
idea: Two millennia ago, Aristotle and Galen emphasized memory as a tool
in making successful predictions for the future. Even your memories
about your life may come to be understood as a special subtype of
emulation, one that is pinned down and thus likely to flow in a certain
direction. 5. What are emotions?
We often talk about brains as information-processing systems, but
any account of the brain that lacks an account of emotions, motivations,
fears, and hopes is incomplete. Emotions are measurable physical
responses to salient stimuli: the increased heartbeat and perspiration
that accompany fear, the freezing response of a rat in the presence of a
cat, or the extra muscle tension that accompanies anger. Feelings, on
the other hand, are the subjective experiences that sometimes accompany
these processes: the sensations of happiness, envy, sadness, and so on.
Emotions seem to employ largely unconscious machinery—for example, brain
areas involved in emotion will respond to angry faces that are briefly
presented and then rapidly masked, even when subjects are unaware of
having seen the face. Across cultures the expression of basic emotions
is remarkably similar, and as Darwin observed, it is also similar across
all mammals. There are even strong similarities in physiological
responses among humans, reptiles, and birds when showing fear, anger, or
parental love.
Modern views propose that emotions are brain states that quickly
assign value to outcomes and provide a simple plan of action. Thus,
emotion can be viewed as a type of computation, a rapid, automatic
summary that initiates appropriate actions. When a bear is galloping
toward you, the rising fear directs your brain to do the right things
(determining an escape route) instead of all the other things it could
be doing (rounding out your grocery list). When it comes to perception,
you can spot an object more quickly if it is, say, a spider rather than a
roll of tape. In the realm of memory, emotional events are laid down
differently by a parallel memory system involving a brain area called
the amygdala.
One goal of emotional neuroscience is to understand the nature of the
many disorders of emotion, depression being the most common and costly.
Impulsive aggression and violence are also thought to be consequences
of faulty emotion regulation.
