“If we cool people down by a number of degrees Celsius … we slow down the rate by which cells — particularly brain cells — are undergoing their own process of death, because we have to remember that cell death takes place through chemical steps. So, from our high school chemistry days we all know that chemical reactions need heat, and if you take away the heat, that slows down the chemical reaction.”

– Dr. Sam Parnia, M.D.

“Parnia demonstrates that consciousness can persist after the disappearance of any outward sign of brain activity… His story gives hope for future improvements.”

—Graham Nichol, M.D., MPH, FRCP(C),director of the University of Washington–Harborview Center for Prehospital Emergency Care in Seattle, Washington

Contrary to popular belief, death is not a moment in time, such as when the heart stops beating, respiration ceases, or the brain stops functioning. Death, rather, is a process — a process that can be interrupted well after it has begun. Innovative techniques, such as drastically reducing the patient’s body temperature, have proven to be effective in revitalizing both the body and mind, but studies show they are only employed in approximately half of the hospitals throughout the United States and Europe.

In Erasing Death, Dr. Sam Parnia presents cutting-edge research from the front line of critical care and resuscitation medicine that has enabled modern doctors to routinely reverse death, while also shedding light on the ultimate mystery: what happens to human consciousness during and after death. Dr. Parnia reveals how medical discoveries focused on saving lives have also inadvertently raised the possibility that some form of “afterlife” maybe uniquely ours, as evidenced by the continuation of the human mind and psyche in the first few hours after death. Questions about the “self” and the “soul” that were once relegated to theology, philosophy, or evenscience fiction are now being examined afresh according to rigorous scientific research (Dr. Parnia describes patients resuscitated have been able to describe in detail what the doctor was wearing).

With physicians such as Parnia at the forefront, scientists and physicians are on the verge of discovering a new universal science of consciousness that reveals the nature of the mind and a future where death is not the final defeat, but is in fact reversible.

The New York Academy of Sciences – June 22, 2010. Shifting Realities: Myths, Models & Morality
Life, Death & the Pursuit of Morality presents an interesting discussion of Near Death Experience, resuscitation, consciousness, mind, soul, and psyche (41 minute video).

Dr. Sam Parnia, an intensive care doctor and director of resuscitation research at the Stony Brook University School of Medicine, studies what people experience in that period after their heart stops and before they’re resuscitated. The experiences include visions of bright lights and out-of-body experiences. Parnia prefers the term “after death” over “after life.”

Excerpt from “Erasing Death: The Science That Is Rewriting the Boundaries Between Life and Death” Chapter 1

Amazing Things Are Happening Here

Joe Tiralosi began to feel ill shortly after leaving a Manhattan car wash. He was a little nauseated, somehow off, and was glad his shift had ended. A chauffeur, Tiralosi spent his workdays driving legendary stock trader E. E. “Buzzy” Geduld around New York City. But on this August afternoon in 2009, a few minutes after he had begun his drive home to Brooklyn, he couldn’t stop perspiring. He cranked up the air conditioner in his car, but he continued to sweat profusely.

Tiralosi was a practical man, a married father of two, and not given to panic. So he planned to push through with the rest of his day, figuring his ill feelings would pass. But an hour later, it was unbearable. He called his wife.

Don’t take any chances, she told him. Go to the hospital.

But he couldn’t drive another block. His wife immediately called a coworker, who found Tiralosi pulled over at the corner of Eightieth Street and Second Avenue in Manhattan and rushed him to the emergency room at New York Presbyterian Hospital.

Tiralosi was helped into the ER by his coworker. The color had drained from his face. He began explaining to a nurse what was wrong, but before he could finish, he collapsed. A Code Blue, meaning cardiac arrest, was called. Tiralosi’s heart stopped. He was dead.

But fortunately for him, he had died in a hospital where a team of people specially trained in resuscitation was on duty. Doctors and nurses came racing over from every direction and immediately started CPR. They are accomplished professionals whom I have worked with many times, including Dr. Rahul Sharma and Dr. Flavio Gaudio, both very diligent emergency physicians. They were part of the team that lifted Tiralosi onto a gurney, tore open his shirt, and cut off his pants with scissors. They attached the circular electrodes of a defibrillator machine to the skin of his chest. They moved rolling carts lined with medicines into the cramped space around him.

Despite all the modern technology available to them, the medical team also scrambled over him with an everyday item—plastic bags, loaded with ice. They positioned the bags along his sides, under his armpits, and on either side of his neck. They injected his veins with chilled saline. The team did all this in about one minute. His body temperature quickly began to drop. Then they settled into a rhythm: CPR, accompanied by occasional injections of adrenaline and defibrillator shocks.

Joe Tiralosi was now surrounded by some of the best medical personnel, technology, and thinking that modern science has to offer. But he was, with no heartbeat and insufficient oxygen and nutrients feeding the cells of his brain and body, already dead.

Don’t take any chances, his wife said. Go to the hospital. Could these or any other words recur to Tiralosi as he lay flat on the table and slipped further into the process of death? Was he aware of anythingat all? The dominant, scientific view of the brain is that such a thing would be impossible. The gag reflex and other functions of his brain stem had ceased, meaning his brain had stopped functioning entirely. All the conversations he had with his wife were now seemingly lost to him, and the odds were against him ever seeing his family again.

Seconds passed to the steady rhythm of chest compressions. Minutes passed. They stopped compressions and hit Tiralosi’s body with an electric shock. Still, no heartbeat. After ten minutes of continuous chest compressions, the medical and nursing staff was starting to lose hope.

Ten minutes without a heartbeat has long been considered a kind of dividing line in resuscitation science. It has long been thought that after ten minutes without a heartbeat, damage to the brain from a lack of oxygen starts to become permanent. Of course, without a properly functioning brain, Joe Tiralosi would no longer be Joe Tiralosi at all. His memories, his personality, what we might call his “Joeisms” would be gone forever, and only his body would still be here. His wife could hold the hand of the man she had shared her life with, yet they would not really be together.

So ten minutes passed, fifteen minutes passed. Doctors worked well past the old markers; the ticktock rhythm of chest compressions was punctuated by an occasional defibrillator shock.

Twenty minutes.

The call to cease resuscitation attempts in this circumstance belongs to the doctor in charge. But he kept going.

Thirty minutes.

By now, Tiralosi had received thousands of chest compressions and had his heart shocked a half-dozen times. The room was looking more and more like a war zone. Traces of blood and medical debris lay around the gurney. Empty vials of adrenaline littered the floor, like spent gun cartridges on a battlefield. The nurses and doctors providing chest compressions were sweating, consuming their own stored-up energy.

Forty minutes.

Ten years ago, continuing to try and save him at this point would have been considered a tremendous risk — for both Tiralosi and his family. In the best-case scenario, even if Tiralosi’s heartbeat was restored, his mind would be a mess — a CT scan likely revealing multiple small and large plumes of damaged, black spaces where functioning neural cells once held his thoughts. But technology and medical understanding have advanced with the years, and so the doctors pressed on because they knew there was a possibility, however remote, that Tiralosi could be saved and returned to his normal life.

Finally, something incredible happened to break the exhausting monotony — someone screamed with excitement: “I feel a pulse, I think we’ve got him back.” Suddenly, in one moment, all those clouds of despair were replaced by a sense of elation in the room.

The exhausted staff had a new wind of energy and, more important, after having had more than forty-five hundred chest compressions and having his heart shocked with a defibrillator eight times, and being given countless vials of adrenaline, Joe Tiralosi’s heart had started to flicker again.

Ten years ago, a man saved after that length of time would most likely have been a kind of living husk—his body present, his mind gone. But today, Joe Tiralosi is a smiling, vibrant man. His face is long and lean with the shade of a well-groomed mustache and goatee covering his lips and chin. He is back at home with his children and the wife whose advice helped to save him, and back at work, continuing his life. The newspapers and television stations that reported on his resuscitation all called his recovery a miracle. If so, Tiralosi and his family were the beneficiaries of a medical miracle—delivered through medical science.

Deep questions …

Is death a fixed moment? Is reality fixed? Can you be alive and dead at the same time?

Do we have a psyche? Do we have a mind? Do we have a soul? Are the terms different?

Is cardiac arrest the same as a heart attack?

The concept of “Self”

How do you go from a brain cell that makes protein, to a mind that knows hunger, jealousy, behavior? Science doesn’t have a good answer yet. Dr. Sam Parnia is working on it.

Get updates from The Cardinal ALL NEWS FEEDS on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts and sub-category posts from The Cardinal — Arlingtoncardinal.com. You can also limit feeds to specific categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …

Recently Russian photographers landed in a helicopter on a dangerous trip to get images of volcanoes erupting simultaneously with beautiful lava flow. AirPano is a Moscow based group of photo enthusiasts, dedicated to creating hi-resolution aerial panoramas.

Enjoy this beautiful panoramic view of volcanos erupting in Panoramic View … Links to Apple iPhone and iPad resolutions are on this page …

Using your computer, iPhone or iPad; you can view the Volcano Plosky Tolbachik, Kamchatka, Russia, 2012. Just follow the onscreen instructions after clicking the link above.

Photographers Oleg Gaponyuk and Sergey Semenov were about to begin a photo shoot of hotels in Dubai when they learned about the eruption of their native Plosky (Flat) Tolbachik in Kamchatka. They “lost a fortune on last minute ticket cancellations” and looked up helicopter companies that might take them to the erupting volocano

Read their exciting story as they were accompanied by Stas Sedov, who explains their adventure in detail …

Narrative …

Tolbachik is a volcanic complex on the Kamchatka Peninsula in the far east of Russia, just west of Alaska. Tolbachik consists of two volcanoes, Plosky (flat) Tolbachik (3,085 m) and Ostry (sharp) Tolbachik (3,682 m). Ostry is the mountain’s highest point, the entire mountain is often referred to as “Ostry Tolbachik”, not to be confused with Ostry a separate volcano to the north also on the Kamchatka Peninsula.

On November 27, 2012 an eruption started from two fissures of a strombolian type. Basaltic lava flows moving relatively fast and had already flooded some buildings about two miles away. Eruption continued for more than a month, as lava continued to flow from the fissures. Lava flowed up to 12 miles from a line of fissures on the volcano’s southern flank. The eruption continued through January 2, 2013.

View Larger Map

View Larger Map

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Tolbachik is at the green arrow.

GravityLight: lighting for the developing countries from Therefore on Vimeo.

GravityLight is a revolutionary new approach to storing energy and creating illumination. It takes only 3 seconds to lift the weight which powers GravityLight, creating 30 minutes of light during the descent of the weights. For free — no energy cost. The light device is completely green and clean.

Following the initial inspiration of using gravity, and years of perspiration, engineers have refined the design and the light is now ready for production. Engineers are looking for help to fund the tooling, manufacture and distribution of at least 1000 gravity powered lights. The lights will be gifted to villagers in both Africa and India for regular use. The follow-up research will tell us how well the lights met their needs, and enable engineers to refine the design for a more efficient “MK2″ version.

A stranger twist in the national conversation of preventing gun violence. There is technology that is closer to reality that will bring the capability to print guns with 3D manufacturing printers. Even if the software for gun templates was illegal, how difficult would it be to detect or regulate the distribution of the software to make guns?

Does the future mean guns can be made with 3D material printers? Downloading a gun design to your computer, building it with a three-dimensional printer that uses plastics and other materials, and firing it minutes later is closer to reality. No background checks, no questions asked. Sound far-fetched? It’s not.

3D printing, also known as Additive Manufacturing, is a process of making three dimensional solid objects from a digital model. 3D printing is achieved using additive processes, where an object is created by laying down successive layers of material. 3D printing is considered distinct when it is compared to traditional machining techniques (subtractive processes) which mostly rely on the removal of material by methods such as lathing, cutting and drilling.

The next Kinko’s.

Forget your tool? Replicate a wrench.

Sixty-five years after becoming the first human to fly faster than the speed of sound in an aircraft, retired Air Force Brig. Gen. Chuck Yeager, 89, took off from Nellis Air Force Base in an F-15 near Las Vegas and broke the sound barrier at more than 30,000 feet above California’s Mojave Desert at 10:24 a.m. Sunday. He originally broke the record on October 14, 1947 at 10:24 a.m. at the same location. Yeager flew the F-15 as it took off and landed, but Capt. David Vincent of the 65th Aggressor Squadron at Nellis flew the aircraft while breaking the sound barrier.

Meanwhile, Felix Baumgartner is believed to have hit Mach 1.24, or 833.9 mph without flying in an aircraft. In other words, in just his underwear (we know what you’re thinking but we’re not going to write it) and a spacesuit.

Up 2.5 Hours; Down 13:30 (3:30 minutes freefall and 10:00 minutes controlled parachute descent). Excerpts of the mission Sunday when Fearless Felix Baumgartner jumped from the platform of a space capsule that had reached an altitude of 128,100 feet above the Earth. The entire mission was broadcast on LIVE STREAM with over 8 million people watching on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/redbull and http://www.redbullstratos.com

According to preliminary data, Felix Baumgartner became the first person to reach supersonic speed without traveling in a jet or a spacecraft after jumping off a step the size of a skateboard on the space capsule that carried him up to an altitude of 128,100 feet above the Earth’s surface.

Felix Baumgartner landed safely about 1:15 p.m. CDT (12:15 MDT) after breaking records for highest jump, highest manned balloon flight, and possibly the speed of sound (waiting for confirmation of MACH 1 or 768 mph in free fall). Preliminary data suggests that Baumgartner reached Mach 1.24, or 833.9 mph. The record is subject to analysis by The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), which is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records.

Over 8 million people watched the event live on YouTube — a record for most concurrent views on YouTube.

2.5 Hours Up; Excerpts of the mission Sunday when Fearless Felix Baumgartner jumped from the platform of a space capsule that had reached an altitude of 128,100 feet above the Earth. The entire mission was broadcast on LIVE STREAM with over 8 million people watching on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/redbull and http://www.redbullstratos.com

Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space that surpassed human records that have existed for more than 50 years. Supported by a team of experts, Felix Baumgartner undertook a stratospheric balloon flight to more than 120,000 feet / 36,576 meters and made a record-breaking freefall jump to become the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall (an estimated 690 miles / 1,110 kilometers per hour), while delivering valuable data for medical and scientific advancement.

CGI Graphic simulation of Supersonic Freefall. Red Bull mission control reports they’re on a weather hold due to winds at 700ft – the top of our giant balloon. Next update expected soon. Launch not possible before 1:30 EDT/12:30 CDT/11:30 MDT/17:30 GMT.

Felix Baumgartner, 43, took off at 9:30 a.m. MDT (11:30 a.m. EDT/1530 GMT). A giant 30 million-cubic-foot thin plastic helium balloon lifted a space capsule/jumping platform containing the skydiver. Ascent was expected to last about 2.5 to three hours, while the descent is expected to last about 15-20 minutes — with freefall lasting about 5 minutes.

Red Bull Stratos — First Attempt of Parachutist to Break the Sound Barrier
Felix Baumgartner was scheduled to attempt to go supersonic when he jumps from a record altitude of 23 miles (37 km or 120,000 feet) over New Mexico. Following a weather forecast for bad conditions on October 5, 2012 the jump attempt was rescheduled for October 9 2012. The jump finally occurred on Sunday, October 14, 2012. The drop zone or landing zone is in Roswell, New Mexico.

Two previous test jumps were conducted on March 15, 2012 (71,581 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:43 with maximum speed of 360 mph) and July 25, 2012 (96,640 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:48 with maximum speed of 536 mph).

Felix Baumgartner (born April 20, 1969) is an Austrian skydiver and a BASE jumper. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Most BASE jumps are made from less than 600m (2,000 feet).

Baumgartner is renowned for the particularly dangerous nature of the stunts he has performed during his career. In 1999 Baumgartner claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Baumgartner set the world record for the lowest BASE jump ever (95 feet), from a hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. The height to the head of the statue is 130 feet. The statue stands on top of the Corcovoado mountain at 2,300 feet.

The record to be beaten is a 102,800-foot jump that lasted 00:04:36 before opening his parachute.

Christ the Redeemer.

See also …
redbullstratos.com
Baumgartner served in the Austrian military where he practiced parachute jumping, including training missions landing on small target zones.

Red Bull Stratos is a mission to the edge of space that will try to surpass human limits that have existed for more than 50 years. Supported by a team of experts, Felix Baumgartner will undertake a stratospheric balloon flight to more than 120,000 feet / 36,576 meters and make a record-breaking freefall jump in the attempt to become the first man to break the speed of sound in freefall (an estimated 690 miles / 1,110 kilometers per hour), while delivering valuable data for medical and scientific advancement.

CGI Graphic simulation of Supersonic Freefall.

Felix Baumgartner, 43, took off at 9:30 a.m. MDT (11:30 a.m. EDT/1530 GMT). A giant 30 million-cubic-foot thin plastic helium balloon lifted a space capsule/jumping platform containing the skydiver. Ascent was expected to last about 2.5 to three hours, while the descent was expected to last about 15-20 minutes — with freefall lasting about 5 minutes.

Over 8 million people watched the event live on YouTube — a record for most concurrent views on YouTube.

Red Bull Stratos — First Attempt of Parachutist to Break the Sound Barrier
Felix Baumgartner is scheduled to attempt to go supersonic when he jumps from a record altitude of 23 miles (37 km or 120,000 feet) over New Mexico. Following a weather forecast for bad contitions on October 5, 2012 the jump attempt was rescheduled for October 9 2012. The drop zone or landing zone is in Roswell, New Mexico.

Two previous test jumps were conducted on March 15, 2012 (71,581 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:43 with maximum speed of 360 mph) and July 25, 2012 (96,640 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:48 with maximum speed of 536 mph).

Felix Baumgartner (born April 20, 1969) is an Austrian skydiver and a BASE jumper. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Most BASE jumps are made from less than 600m (2,000 feet).

Baumgartner is renowned for the particularly dangerous nature of the stunts he has performed during his career. In 1999 Baumgartner claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Baumgartner set the world record for the lowest BASE jump ever (95 feet), from a hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. The height to the head of the statue is 130 feet. The statue stands on top of the Corcovoado mountain at 2,300 feet.

The record to be beaten is a 102,800-foot jump that lasted 00:04:36 before opening his parachute.

See also …
redbullstratos.com
Baumgartner served in the Austrian military where he practiced parachute jumping, including training missions landing on small target zones.

CGI Graphic simulation of Supersonic Freefall. Red Bull mission control reports they’re on a weather hold due to winds at 700ft – the top of our giant balloon. Next update expected soon. Launch not possible before 1:30 EDT/12:30 CDT/11:30 MDT/17:30 GMT.

Felix Baumgartner, 43, took off at 9:30 a.m. MDT (11:30 a.m. EDT/1530 GMT). A giant 30 million-cubic-foot thin plastic helium balloon lifted a space capsule/jumping platform containing the skydiver. Ascent is expected to last about 2.5 to three hours, while the descent is expected to last about 15-20 minutes — with freefall lasting about 5 minutes.

Red Bull Stratos — First Attempt of Parachutist to Break the Sound Barrier
Felix Baumgartner is scheduled to attempt to go supersonic when he jumps from a record altitude of 23 miles (37 km or 120,000 feet) over New Mexico. Following a weather forecast for bad contitions on October 5, 2012 the jump attempt was rescheduled for October 9 2012. The drop zone or landing zone is in Roswell, New Mexico.

Two previous test jumps were conducted on March 15, 2012 (71,581 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:43 with maximum speed of 360 mph) and July 25, 2012 (96,640 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:48 with maximum speed of 536 mph).

Felix Baumgartner (born April 20, 1969) is an Austrian skydiver and a BASE jumper. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Most BASE jumps are made from less than 600m (2,000 feet).

Baumgartner is renowned for the particularly dangerous nature of the stunts he has performed during his career. In 1999 Baumgartner claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Baumgartner set the world record for the lowest BASE jump ever (95 feet), from a hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. The height to the head of the statue is 130 feet. The statue stands on top of the Corcovoado mountain at 2,300 feet.

The record to be beaten is a 102,800-foot jump that lasted 00:04:36 before opening his parachute.

See also …
redbullstratos.com
Baumgartner served in the Austrian military where he practiced parachute jumping, including training missions landing on small target zones.

5th Grade Rotoscope Animation on iPads from Tricia Fuglestad on Vimeo.

Award-Winning Animation: 5th Grade Rotoscope Animation on iPads that won the STEMIE award — Science, Technology, Engineering & Math Innovative Educator Award.

Dryden art teacher Tricia Fuglestad and her class from Arlington Heights Dryden Elementary School recently won a prestigious STEMIE award from McGraw-Hill Education for innovation in the area of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. The collaborative work by 100 fifth graders took second place and brings a grant award of $5,000 to Dryden Elementary School, 722 South Dryden Place in Arlington Heights. The combined technology and art project required 335 drawn images by 100 fifth graders on a class using Apple iPads with styluses and team work. The rotoscope animation collaboration was a unique experiment in creativity and cooperation, and learning to envision the big picture compared to the student’s individual piece of the puzzle.

The first place winners, awarded $15,000, involved eighth graders and teacher Lance Schwartz from a school in Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania. The students worked on a sort of “Pinewood Derby on steroids” project. Every student in the eighth-grade class designed a CO2 powered racecar in Solidworks — a 3D CAD design software. Throughout the design process, students continually made improvements to their design. By utilizing Flow Simulation software within CAD, students were able to calculate the lift, drag, density, and overall weight of their car. Based upon data from the analysis of the flow simulation, students then went back and made changes to the car design to improve its efficiency. When a suitable design was created after numerous revisions, scale templates were printed out and attached to a block of bass wood. The students then used a band saw, drill press, and belt sander to create a functional prototype. The cars were finish sanded, supplied with axles and wheels, and were then ready to race against their classmates on “Race Day.”

Videos were judged by teachers in two rounds and credited by the following …

Round 1
1. Creativity of teaching strategy or approach used in a science, technology, engineering or math lesson. (80%)
2. Clarity of message in video. (10%)
3. Creativity of video presentation. (10%)

Round 2 (Finalist Round)
1. Extent to which the teaching strategy or approach enhances the lesson plan. (80%)
2. Potential impact of $15,000 prize on the classroom. (10%)
3. Ease of Implementation in any other classroom. (10%)

The awards for STEMIE winners are received in early October.

Tricia Fuglestad is the K-5 art teacher at Dryden Elementary School. She is also honored with a Teacher of Distinction Title from the Golden Apple Foundation in 2012, named 2011 Illinois Art Teacher of the Year, and was one of 10 teachers nationwide to receive the 2010 PBS Teachers Innovation Awards. Tricia Fuglestad is well-known by parents as a fantastic art leader throughout the Arlington Heights community — a reputation known even among parents that have not had students attend Dryden School.

See also …
stemie.mcgraw-hill.com

Dryden Art Rotoscoping Video made on iPads

drydenart.weebly.com/fugleblog.html

fugleflicks.wikispaces.com/

UPDATE: Postponed again because of wind.

Red Bull Stratos — First Attempt of Parachutist to Break the Sound Barrier
Felix Baumgartner is scheduled to attempt to go supersonic when he jumps from a record altitude of 23 miles (37 km or 120,000 feet) over New Mexico. Following a weather forecast for bad contitions on October 5, 2012 the jump attempt was rescheduled for October 9 2012. The drop zone or landing zone is in Roswell, New Mexico.

Two previous test jumps were conducted on March 15, 2012 (71,581 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:43 with maximum speed of 360 mph) and July 25, 2012 (96,640 feet/Free Fall timed at 00:03:48 with maximum speed of 536 mph).

Felix Baumgartner (born April 20, 1969) is an Austrian skydiver and a BASE jumper. “BASE” is an acronym that stands for four categories of fixed objects from which one can jump: buildings, antennas, spans (bridges), and earth (cliffs). Most BASE jumps are made from less than 600m (2,000 feet).

Baumgartner is renowned for the particularly dangerous nature of the stunts he has performed during his career. In 1999 Baumgartner claimed the world record for the highest parachute jump from a building when he jumped from the Petronas Towers in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Baumgartner set the world record for the lowest BASE jump ever (95 feet), from a hand of the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio de Janeiro. The height to the head of the statue is 130 feet. The statue stands on top of the Corcovoado mountain at 2,300 feet.

See also …
redbullstratos.com
Baumgartner served in the Austrian military where he practiced parachute jumping, including training missions landing on small target zones.

The bank is looking for local residents who served in the military, government, or other capacity during the Vietnam War and who would be willing to share their knowledge with the student writers. Interviews will be scheduled over the next few weeks, at the convenience of the participant. The students will be spending time in the classroom learning about the war as part of their curriculum and will have been through training sessions on interviewing before meeting with the veterans.

Anyone interested in participating can contact Jim Mitchell at 847-749-1096 or jim.mitchell2@comcast.net for more information.

Get updates from The Cardinal ALL NEWS FEEDS on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts and sub-category posts from The Cardinal — Arlingtoncardinal.com. You can also limit feeds to specific categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …

Negotiations between Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and the Chicago Teachers Union are focused mainly on two factors: job security and teacher evaluations. Teachers are worried about several schools that might be closed during the next few years. The teachers’ union wants CPS to recall laid off teachers when jobs open up, but CPS wants to hire the best teachers that match qualifications for a particular school that is re-opening.

The union says CPS plans to evaluate teachers on standardized test scores unfairly rates teachers, who might be stuck with students with high factors that distract from education, such as homelessness, violence, and poverty.

Some teachers claim that salary and benefits are third in priority after job security and teacher evaluations. The school district has offered a 16 percent raise over four years, which is double the 8 percent offer made earlier. “Modified step increases” would reward experience and provide “better incentives for mid-career teachers” to keep them from leaving Chicago Public Schools. CPS wants to eliminate the banking of sick days, but is offering short-term disability. and paid maternity leave. CPS offered teachers a three-month severance or the reassignment to a teacher pool for five months.

Chicago Teachers Union President survived a controversy last November 2011 after she was caught on video at the Northwest Teaching for Social Justice Conference (Octovber 1, 2011) discussing and joking on stage that she had spent past years “smoking lots of weed — self-medicating.”

A lot of the teachers don’t feel that they should be evaluated too heavily on student scores because we can’t control what happens out of the classroom — which is a big deal.

– Jody Ebstein, Chicago School Teacher

Quick Facts
Average annual salary: $76,000 (among top paid in country)
25,000 teachers picketing and protesting
350,000 Chicago children out of school

One picket sign summed up a teacher’s opinion of a dire situation in Chicago:
Skyrocketing crime
Teachers on strike
Police without a contract
Firefighters insulted

See also …
ctunet.com

Get updates from The Cardinal ALL NEWS FEEDS on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts and sub-category posts from The Cardinal — Arlingtoncardinal.com. You can also limit feeds to specific categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …

DARPA’s Cheetah robot—already the fastest legged robot in history—just broke its own land speed record of 18 miles per hour (mph). In the process, Cheetah also surpassed another very fast mover: Usain Bolt. According to the International Association of Athletics Federations, Bolt set the world speed record for a human in 2009 when he reached a peak speed of 27.78 mph for a 20-meter split during the 100-meter sprint. Cheetah was recently clocked at 28.3 mph for a 20-meter split. The Cheetah had a slight advantage over Bolt as it ran on a treadmill, the equivalent of a 28.3 mph tail wind, but most of the power Cheetah used was to swing its legs fast enough, not to propel itself forward.

Cheetah is being developed and tested under DARPA’s Maximum Mobility and Manipulation (M3) program by Boston Dynamics. The increase in speed since results were last reported in March 2012 is due to improved control algorithms and a more powerful pump.

DARPA’s intent with the Cheetah bot and its other robotics programs is to attempt to understand and engineer into robots certain core capabilities that living organisms have refined over millennia of evolution: efficient locomotion, manipulation of objects and adaptability to environments. By drawing inspiration from nature, DARPA gains technological building blocks that create possibilities for a whole range of robots suited to future Department of Defense missions.

Look for a robot next year named ‘Wildcat’ that will be tested on outdoor terrain.

Animal speeds?
The real Cheetah of Africa and parts of the Middle East is known to be the fastest land animal at 68 to 74 mph with an acceleration of 0 to over 62 mph in three seconds.

Hares or jackrabbits are able to run up to 45 mph.

Greyhounds are known to reach a full speed of about 43 mph.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is an agency of the United States Department of Defense responsible for the development of new technologies used by the military. DARPA has been responsible for funding the development of many technologies which have had a major effect on the world, including computer networking hypertext link technology, which is an important precursor to the graphical user interface used on computers and Internet devices.

Boston Dynamics is also famous for their all-terrain four-legged robot mule or ‘BigDog’.

For more information on Cheetah and DARPA’s other robotics programs, visit: http://go.usa.gov/rVqk.

To get the latest DARPA news, photos and videos, follow us on Twitter at: http://www.twitter.com/darpa.

SOURCE: DARPAtv

Get updates from The Cardinal ALL NEWS FEEDS on Facebook. Just ‘LIKE’ the ‘Arlington Cardinal Page (become a fan of our page). The updates cover all posts and sub-category posts from The Cardinal — Arlingtoncardinal.com. You can also limit feeds to specific categories. See all of The Cardinal Facebook fan pages at Arlingtoncardinal.com/about/facebook …

Farming and raising horses isn’t something people often associate with Chicago. When two race horses named Vega and Calling Card took up residence at the Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences, students helped care for them.

The Chicago High School for Agricultural Sciences (“CHSAS”) is a public secondary magnet school opened in 1985 by the Chicago Public Schools as a unique, experimental high school devoted to teaching agricultural science to urban students. The school is located on a 72-acre campus with 40 acres
dedicated to a working farm. The school was built on the site of the last farm to survive within the Chicago city limits. Students commute from all across the city to CHSAS.

All students are members of the FFA (formerly Future Farmers of America).

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Discovery departed just after sunrise and arrived in the Washington, D.C. area around 10 a.m. Discovery was displayed with a 45-minute flyover in multiple circles around the Capitol, White House, the Mall and much of the Potomac River while in the piggyback configuration on a modified Boeing 747. A NASA T-38 chase plane was dwarfed by the Boeing 747.

After arriving at Dulles International Airport, the space shuttle Discovery will be moved on April 19 to the nearby Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s Udvar-Hazy Center for permanent public display.

NASA VIDEO: Space shuttle Discovery was lifted and placed atop the Shuttle Carrier Aircraft at NASA Kennedy Space Center’s Shuttle Landing Facility mate/demate device in the early morning hours of April 15 in preparation for its ride to Washington Dulles International Airport on April 17.

Washington Times Video: The Space Shuttle Discovery Lands at Washington Dulles International Airport on Tuesday, April 17, 2012.

Washington Times Video: Touchdown at Dulles.

The anticipation and excitement of Space Shuttle Discovery’s final flight – a landing atop a 747 at Dulles International Airport in Washington, DC / Chantilly, VA near Sully.

NASA Video: The Shuttle Carrier Aircraft ferrying orbiter Discovery performs a flyby at Dulles International Airport on Apr. 17 following its journey from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center.

Want to be an astronaut? Follow the advice of Dr. Anna Fisher — the first mother to fly in space:

Dr. Anna Fisher pulled a boy named Ethan out of the crowd. He was dressed up as a NASA pilot. Fisher asked him if he wanted to be an astronaut when he grew up. Ethan answered, “Yes.” A reporter asked Fisher, “Any advice for Ethan, an aspiring astronaut?” Fisher replied, “Study Russian.”

AMAZING

“The word has been overused to describe things only slightly better than mundane. I blame Martha Stewart because to her, EVERYTHING is amazing! It has lost its ‘wow factor’ and has reached ‘epic’ proportions of use. It’s gone ‘viral,’ I say! ‘I’m just sayin’!’ Alyce-Mae Alexander, Maitland, Florida

BABY BUMP

SHARED SACRIFICE

OCCUPY

BLOWBACK

MAN CAVE

THE NEW NORMAL

PET PARENT

WIN THE FUTURE

TRICKERATION

GINORMOUS

THANK YOU IN ADVANCE

See the explanation on the Lake Superior State University website … current banished list …

Mythbuster host Jamie Hyneman: “There will be no cannons fired in this area — at least by us – again.”

Dublin, California (formerly, Amador and Dougherty’s Station) is a suburban city of the East San Francisco Bay region of Alameda County, California. The city is named after the city of Dublin, Ireland.

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Extraordinary Partnership with Space Adventures and World Renowned Space Agencies Ignites Students’ Passion for Science, Space, and Technology

YouTube and Lenovo, in cooperation with Space Adventures and space agencies including the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), today announced YouTube Space Lab, a worldwide initiative that challenges 14-18 year-old students to design a science experiment that can be performed in space. The two winning experiments will be conducted aboard the International Space Station (ISS) and live streamed on YouTube. Space Lab is part of YouTube’s larger commitment to highlighting and providing access to the wealth of educational content available on YouTube as well as Lenovo’s focus on equipping students with 21st century skills via information technology.

A prestigious panel of scientists, astronauts, and educators, including renowned professor Stephen Hawking, NASA’s Associate Administrator for Human Exploration and Operations William Gerstenmaier, NASA’s Associate Administrator of Education and former Astronaut Leland Melvin, ESA Astronaut Frank De Winne, JAXA Astronaut Akihiko Hoshide and Cirque du Soleil’s founder Guy Laliberté, will judge the entries with input from the YouTube community. Students in two age categories, 14-16 years old and 17-18 years old, either alone or in groups of up to three, may submit a YouTube video describing their experiment to YouTube.com/SpaceLab.

Six regional finalists will gather in Washington, D.C., in March 2012 to experience a ZERO-G flight and receive other prizes. From them, two global winners, one from each age group, will be announced and later have their experiments performed 250 miles above Earth and live streamed on YouTube. Additionally, the global winners will get to choose a unique space experience as a prize: either a trip to Tanegashima Island, Japan, to watch their experiment blast off in a rocket bound for the ISS, or once they are 18 years old, a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in Star City, Russia, the training center for Russian cosmonauts.

Space Lab is one component of YouTube’s broader educational offering, including YouTube.com/EDU, home to a wealth of high-quality educational videos from educators of all subjects and levels; YouTube.com/Teachers, a resource providing teachers with guidance on how to effectively incorporate video into their classrooms; and YouTube for Schools, a new pilot program aimed at making YouTube accessible in more schools.

“As a company committed to the next generation of scientists, YouTube launched Space Lab to allow ordinary students the extraordinary opportunity of having their experiment carried out in space,” said Zahaan Bharmal, Google’s Head of Marketing Operations, Europe, Middle East, and Africa and the man behind the idea for Space Lab. “The Space Lab channel will serve as a home base on YouTube for creating, sharing, and discovering the best space and science-related videos in the world. Our goal is to encourage students to explore the world of science, earthbound and beyond, by first accessing YouTube, and ultimately space.”

As the leading PC supplier to students of all ages,# Lenovo enhances learning inside and outside the classroom via PC and tablet technology solutions as well as by spearheading progressive education research led by Lenovo’s research arm, the Education Research Initiative (ERI). Current ERI projects include the Student Global Leadership Initiative, in which students from five countries collaborate virtually using Lenovo tablets to help solve the earth’s energy issues; equipping teachers with the skills to use technology innovatively at the Bastow Institute, the world’s premier training facility for primary and secondary school teachers; and collaboration with ETS, the world’s leading provider of educational testing, on combating students’ summertime “brain drain” by using ThinkPad laptops to measure whether frequent, low-stakes testing improves knowledge retention for students over their summer break.

“We’ve worked with educators around the world for more than 20 years to empower teaching and learning with innovative technology products that connect classrooms digitally with the global knowledge economy,” said Mike Schmedlen, Director of Worldwide Education at Lenovo. “Space Lab complements our commitment to education by giving teachers everywhere an unprecedented opportunity to spark students’ creativity and learning, and together help unlock some of the mysteries of the universe.”

Details and timeline:
Students may submit a two-minute video now through Dec. 7, 2011. The video can be as simple as an explanation on a blackboard or the demonstration of a mock-up in the classroom. Every video must, however, explain the following:
Experiment Question: The scientific question the entrant wants to test.
Hypothesis: An educated guess at answering the experiment question.
Method: A simple explanation of the methods used to conduct the experiment testing the hypothesis in microgravity.
Results: The expected results of the experiment.
Entrants may submit up to three experiments in one of two scientific disciplines — either biological or physical sciences. Submissions will be grouped by region (the Americas; Europe, Middle East and Africa; and Asia Pacific).The top 60 finalists (10 from each of the two age groups, 20 total per each of the three regions) will be announced on Jan. 3, 2011, at which time judging and public voting will begin on YouTube. Six regional winners (one from each age group, from each of the three regions) will then be selected to fly to the U.S. where the global winners (two individuals/teams chosen from the regional winners, one in each age category) will be announced in March 2012.

In addition to the trip to the U.S., the two global winners/teams will have their experiment live streamed from space, take a ZERO-G flight, receive a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop and have the choice of one of two trips: a trip to Tokyo, Japan, to tour the JAXA facilities and watch the rocket containing their experiment take off in 2012, or, once they are 18 years old, they can choose to embark on a one-of-a-kind astronaut training experience in Star City, Russia, the training facility for Russian cosmonauts. The training will include many of the same training classes and simulations that turn regular people into real astronauts as well as a VIP tour of Moscow, and personalized souvenirs including a spaceflight suit, and more.

The remaining four regional winners will also receive a trip to the U.S., a ZERO-G flight, and a Lenovo IdeaPad laptop.

Space-Inspired Tablet
Lenovo ThinkPad laptops have played a critical role aboard dozens of NASA space shuttle missions since 1995 and are currently used by astronauts in critical operations onboard the International Space Station. To commemorate Lenovo technology’s role in space exploration and Space Lab, Lenovo today is introducing a Space Lab Special Edition ThinkPad Tablet for space enthusiasts. The astronaut-inspired package includes a 32 GB ThinkPad Tablet pre-loaded with space and education-related apps, an International Space Station mission badge, Space Lab sticker, sling bag and noise-canceling headphones sold via www.lenovo.com/spacelab.

“Humanity’s future relies on moving beyond Earth. As long as we are confined to one planet, the existence of our species will always be in question.

Realizing this goal will require an entrepreneurial spirit and a new generation of scientists and astronauts. YouTube Space Lab is a wonderful initiative that will help inspire young minds around the world to take a greater interest in science and the future of space exploration.”
- Professor Stephen Hawking, YouTube Space Lab judge.

The Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) Curiosity was launched November 26, 2011 at 10:02 EST. The MSL is scheduled to land on Mars at Gale Crater between August 6 and August 20, 2012. The super-size rover Curiosity will help assess Mars’ habitability. Curiosity’s primary mission objective is to determine whether Mars is or was an environment able to support life. The mission is not searching for life forms. It will also analyze samples scooped up from the soil and drilled from rocks.

Curiosity is five times as large, and carries more than ten times the mass of scientific instruments as the Mars Exploration Rovers Spirit or Opportunity. The MSL rover Curiosity was launched by an Atlas V 541 rocket and is expected to operate for at least one Martian year (668 Martian sols/686 Earth days) as it explores with greater range than any previous Mars rover. A sol is the term used by planetary astronomers to define the duration of a solar day on Mars. A mean Martian solar day, or “sol”, is 24 hours, 39 minutes, and 35.244 seconds on earth.

Mars Science Laboratory mission cost is about US$2.5 billion and is part of NASA’s Mars Exploration Program. Mars exploration is a long-term effort that includes robotic exploration of Mars. The MSL project is managed by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory of California Institute of Technology for NASA.

November 11 is the 315th day of the year (316th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. There are 50 days remaining until the end of the year. On November 11, 1675 Gottfried Leibniz demonstrated integral calculus for the first time to find the area under the graph of y = ƒ(x).

Eleven is the first number which cannot be counted with a human’s eight fingers and two thumbs additively.

Eleven is the smallest positive integer requiring three syllables (in English).

Eleven is the largest prime number that is one word (in English).

Eleven is the atomic number of sodium (Na).

After Judas Iscariot was disgraced, the remaining apostles of Jesus Christ were described as “the Eleven”

Apollo 11 was the Apollo mission which brought the first humans to walk the surface of the moon on July 21, 1969.

There are eleven football players allowed on the playing field during official plays.

There are eleven players in a field hockey team.

Baseball players with retired number 11: Luis Aparicio (Chicago White Sox), Paul Waner (Pittsburgh Pirates), and Sparky Anderson (Detroit Tigers). Omar Vizquel, like Aparicio a Venezuelan, wears the number with Aparicio’s blessing.

The eleventh hour is a colloquial expression meaning “a time which is nearly too late”.