With mindful eating, there’s no right or wrong way to eat. There are no good or bad foods, just increased awareness of the (preparation and eating) process.
The post How Yoga And Mindful Eating Can Be Beneficial For You appeared first on Mind Journal.
You never know of your secret admirer, they’re called that for a reason. Who’s in love with you based on your zodiac sign?
The post Zodiac Signs And Who’s In Love With Them appeared first on Mind Journal.
All I am waiting for is the dust to settle upon,
And bury my love in a secret place.
The post My Love appeared first on Mind Journal.
Scientists have been documenting rare phenomenon in recent years: streaks of red lightning that resemble the tentacles of a glowing crimson jellyfish hanging high from the sky.
These haunting spurts of lightning have been dubbed “sprites,” and are the product of super-fast electrical bursts that occur high up in the atmosphere some 37 to 50 miles in the sky, reaching toward space, according to the European Space Agency.
While sprites have been sighted over every continent besides Antarctica since their discovery in 1989, the phenomenon still isn’t very well known – they last mere tenths of a second, and generally are hidden from those of us on the ground by heavy storm clouds.
Stephen Hummel, an expert on dark skies at the Austin McDonald Observatory, managed to capture a perfect photo of these sprites on July 2 from his vantage point on a ridge on Mount Locke in the Davis Mountains of West Texas.
Sprite medusa. Foto Stephen Hummel pic.twitter.com/WDdDcKPzG4
— Gustavo Vela (@GustavoVela71) August 15, 2020
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Hummel snapped the photo while he was recording dozens of hours of footage throughout the year. On that July night, he had already recorded four and a half hours of footage before capturing the sprite – and he had also recorded some 70 hours of footage and stills including 70 sprites this year, he told Business Insider.
“Sprites usually appear to the eye as very brief, dim, grey structures. You need to be looking for them to spot them, and oftentimes I am not certain I actually saw one until I check the camera footage to confirm,” Hummel said.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4bNQBOlOhk?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
Sprites often resemble alienlike jellyfish-style creatures dangling from the ionosphere, or the layer that lies just above the dense lower atmosphere. In other cases, they look like vertical red pillars with thin, curling tendrils – and these are called carrot curls due to their resemblance to the root vegetable.
Sprites are difficult to see from the ground during massive thunderstorms because of the clouds, but also because they happen so far from the Earth’s surface – however, they are far easier to observe from the International Space Station.
Here's some sprite lightning as photographed from the International Space Station in August 2015. City lights in an orbital blur, a flash of red, stars everywhere. It is so unbelievably cool we get to live on this planet. (credit: NASA/Expedition 44) pic.twitter.com/G1Ie7Z4II7
— Adrienne LaFrance (@AdrienneLaF) August 15, 2020
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Sprites were given their magical name by late University of Alaska physics professor Davis Sentman, who devised the name for this weather phenomenon due to it being “well suited to describe their appearance” and fleeting, fairy-like nature.
In some cases, the jellyfish sprites can be absolutely massive, with Hummel’s recent photograph depicting ones that tower “probably around 30 miles long and 30 miles tall,” he said. In some cases, the massive glowing tentacles be seen upwards of 300 miles away.
However, no all thunderstorms produce sprites – instead, they occur when lightning strikes the ground, releasing positive electrical energy that requires balancing by an equal and oppositely charged electrical discharge into the sky. The sprites also occur much higher into the sky than regular lightning, which strikes in between electrically charged air, clouds, and our planet’s surface.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xp-8xp_3hqU?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
“The more powerful the storm and the more lightning it produces, the more likely it is to produce a sprite,” Hummel noted.
The red glow of the sprite is a result of nitrogen gas high in the atmosphere getting excited by the bursts of electricity resulting from lightning strikes.
As a sprite sparks, it turns red because of nitrogen floating high in Earth’s atmosphere. The gas gets excited by the burst of electricity and emits a red glow.
Multiple column sprites line up above an angel sprite in my last sprite lightning capture from the night of 4/17/2019 . An uncropped image on the 50mm about 20 minutes before being clouded over. Anadarko, Oklahoma. #okwx #APOD @JimCantore @emilyrsutton @MichaelSeger pic.twitter.com/gXNlPMKucZ
— Paul M Smith (@PaulMSmithPhoto) April 21, 2019
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It’s the night before my 28th birthday, and by some strange birthday coincidence, I happened to fill in the last blank page of my diary tonight. And as I wrote in the small book I would never write in again, I felt so blessed to end it on such a high note.
I had nothing but good news to share in this last diary entry for my future self to read, and that warmed my heart. Good news like… I’m taking my first trip to Europe soon! I was published twice in one week on BusinessInsider! I’m making serious progress on my YA novel with my younger sister/co-author!
If I sound happy, it’s because I truly am. The final pages of this diary were written by a beaming, self-confident, and fearless writer Jessica.
A year ago, I was ready to quit my job as a receptionist at an animal hospital, officially crossing off yet another position from my list of career ideas. I didn’t want to go back to the mental health field, no matter how ideal it was for me with two psychology degrees. I knew going back to counseling would only make me more miserable.
I was anxious and worried all the time. Depressed was more like it, considering I’d find myself sobbing before bed from time to time. I wrote on the third page of this diary, “I guess tonight is one of those nights where I go to sleep wishing I could wake up as someone else.”
I wasn’t on talking terms with my parents. When we did talk, I picked fights with them until we couldn’t take any more of each other. Pretty much the only happy thing in my life was my partner, and that’s a lot of pressure to place on someone. I really wasn’t in a good place.
And here we are almost one year later, and I can’t help but tell myself,
“I am so proud of you.”
I could’ve stayed at that job at the animal hospital. I could’ve been too scared to publish my first article on Medium, and never found a place in this amazing writing community. I could’ve continued being friends with the people who didn’t really care about me.
I could’ve been too afraid to pitch to my first freelance client and my first magazine. (Funny story, I had no idea what freelance writer rates looked like, and I pitched my very first, poorly written, unedited story to a magazine, giving them a rate of $1.00 per word for a story of 2500 words. But at least I tried! Insert crying laughing emoji here.)
I could’ve just accepted that things weren’t ever going to get better. I could’ve stayed right where I was, literally and figuratively. And if I did, I would’ve missed out on all of the happiness I’m feeling right now.
If you aren’t ending your latest chapter on a high note, I get it. I’ve had those nights where I wished things were different, where I wished I was different. I can’t say I know your pain, because no two wounds are the same, but I can tell you, you’re not alone. My messages are always open if you ever want to talk.
Tonight, I’m looking at this new chapter, knowing it’s going to start and end on a high note. I’m putting it out into the universe. I want to be hopeful and positive and confident about myself and my work.
So I will. I hope you will too.
Jessica Mendez is a full-time writer living in Las Vegas, NV. She received her bachelor’s degree in psychology from NAU and her master’s degree in family and human development from ASU. In 2018, she left her career in mental health to pursue a career in writing. She is currently working on her debut novel and a collection of bilingual poetry. Follow her on Twitter and Medium to read more of her work.
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Image courtesy of Marcos Paulo Prado.
The post Look Back at Where You Once Were appeared first on Positively Positive.
Passion over profession. What are you passionate about based on your zodiac sign?
The post Zodiac Signs And What They Are Passionate About appeared first on Mind Journal.
(TMU) — In addition to quarantines and lockdowns, some governments like those in China, Taiwan, and South Korea have been using a surveillance strategy called “contact tracing” to reduce the spread of the novel coronavirus.
While each country’s contract tracing program has slight variations, all of them are essentially cell phone apps that keep a running record of the user’s heath and the health records of all the people they come into contact with.
If a cell phone comes in close contact with someone who might have the virus, the user receives a text message informing them and then instructing them to self-quarantine for 14 days.
However, the quarantine is not necessarily voluntary, depending on where you live. In some countries, phones have been used as a sort of house arrest ankle-bracelet that will notify authorities if the person being monitored leave the house for any reason.
These apps are being touted as the way to end the shut down in both Italy and the UK and it appears that officials are going to be taking things in that direction.
At face value, it may appear that this could be a useful strategy in preventing the spread of disease, but privacy advocates and tech experts are concerned that this information could be misused and that the unprecedented surveillance capabilities could be kept and held by corrupt governments long after the pandemic is over.
In a recent interview with Vice, NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden expressed his concerns about the coming surveillance program, calling it the “architecture of oppression.”
“Do you truly believe that when the first wave, this second wave, the 16th wave of the coronavirus is a long-forgotten memory, that these capabilities will not be kept? That these datasets will not be kept? No matter how it is being used, what’ is being built is the architecture of oppression,” Snowden said.
Snowden recognized that the virus was a serious threat and said that the intelligence community was well aware that it was only a matter of time before a massive pandemic crippled the country, even back when he was working in the NSA.
“There is nothing more foreseeable as a public health crisis in a world where we are just living on top of each other in crowded and polluted cities, than a pandemic. And every academic, every researcher who’s looked at this knew this was coming. And in fact, even intelligence agencies, I can tell you firsthand, because they used to read the reports had been planning for pandemics,” he said.
Snowden questioned the positive numbers that have come out of China in recent weeks and pointed out that the Chinese government has been credited with reducing the spread of the illness because they took such draconian measures during the lockdown.
Perhaps their extreme strategy is not working as well as they say it is, but since the government maintained tight control of any information coming out of the country, it is impossible to say for sure.
“If you’re looking at countries like China, where cases seem to have leveled off, how much can we trust that those numbers are actually true? I don’t think we can. Particularly, we see the Chinese government recently working to expel Western journalists at precisely this moment where we need credible independent warnings in this region,” Snowden said.
In a statement published on Friday, Apple and Google announced that they were teaming up in a rare partnership to develop compatible contact tracing apps, which they claim will work on an “opt-in” basis.
However, according to Bloomberg, the companies are planning to eventually build the contact tracing into the device’s updates.
Apple and Google insist that you will still be able to opt-out of the program if you don’t want to participate, but it is possible that rankings on these apps could be used to gain entry into grocery stores or larger businesses and events once the economy opens up again.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5OAjnveyJo?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
“As authoritarianism spreads, as emergency laws proliferate, as we sacrifice our rights, we also sacrifice our capability to arrest the slide into a less liberal and less free world,” Snowden warned.
By John Vibes | Creative Commons | TheMindUnleashed.com
(TMU) – In the strange “new normal” of the coronavirus era, protective face coverings have become a new staple of our daily wardrobe, as essential as underwear and crucial in helping to slow the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic – especially as economies increasingly reopen.
Because of the heightened demand for masks, online marketplaces and retailers are offering myriad options including cotton and neoprene masks, disposable or reusable options, and masks with valves and filters.
And while it has been months since public health bodies issued guidance urging U.S. residents to always wear a cloth face covering in public, it’s become clear that not all masks are created equal – in fact, some masks are useless or worse when it comes to preventing person-to-person transmission of COVID-19.
According to a new study from scientists at Duke University’s School of Medicine comparing 14 types of masks, facial coverings like gaiters, bandanas and knitted masks are among the worst face coverings for preventing the spread of the virus.
Meanwhile, the gold standard for preventing the transmission of respiratory droplets during normal speech remains fitted N95 respirator masks used by health care professionals.
Other good options to help reduce the risk of saliva-related transmission are three-layer surgical masks and cotton masks, either of the homemade sort or those sold by retailers, the Duke physics department found.
For the study, researchers used a simple setup utilizing a laser beam and a cell phone camera that gauged the efficiency of masks by analyzing the spread of respiratory droplets during regular speech. A computer algorithm then counts the droplets in the video recording.
“We use a black box, a laser, and a camera,” study co-author Martin Fischer told CNN. “The laser beam is expanded vertically to form a thin sheet of light, which we shine through slits on the left and right of the box.”
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeEBn4ttZZY?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
While bandanas might look neat and allow you to flex your gangsta cosplay skills, they are nearly useless in terms of offering protection – and the same goes for that nice knitted mask your grandma made for you.
In the case of neck fleeces or gaiter scarves, which are usually worn by runners and bikers – as well as your favorite Major League Baseball players – not only are these totally ineffective but they actually boost the spread of respiratory droplets, making gaiters worse than going without a mask entirely.
This was because the material in fleeces or gaiter masks break larger droplets down into smaller ones. Rather than the droplets falling to the ground, as they would without a mask, the smaller particles of spittle float through the air easier.
“We were extremely surprised to find that the number of particles measured with the fleece actually exceeded the number of particles measured without wearing any mask,” Fischer noted.
“We want to emphasize that we really encourage people to wear masks, but we want them to wear masks that actually work.”
While some have recommended gauging the efficacy of masks through methods such as the “candle test” or the “lighter test,” the simple setup used by Duke is a low-cost, effective testing method.
However, the researchers are not recommending that people unfamiliar with lasers set these tests up at home due to the danger of permanent eye damage. Instead, they hope that companies, museums, and community centers can use the test to show people which masks work best.
“This is a very powerful visual tool to raise awareness that very simple masks, like these homemade cotton masks, do really well to stop the majority of these respiratory droplets,” Fischer said.
(TMU) – For people who reside in the West, few countries are as fascinating as Japan. With its unique and striking blend of modernity and ancient culture, natural beauty and urbanism, the country has long beguiled foreigners.
From its storied feudal traditions to its contemporary quirks, Japan is a nation that has been thoroughly romanticized and idealized in the Western imagination.
However, beyond the superficial and orientalist mythology about the so-called “Land of the Rising Sun,” Japan is a captivating and multifaceted culture quite unlike others.
It’s a diverse country where traditions dating back millennia stand strong while fads and trends come and go, and its cutting-edge technological development hasn’t stamped out the time-honored customs of the East Asian nation.
One well-known Japanese art form that has fascinated the West is bonsai, which is the technique of producing tiny trees that mimic the attributes of fully-grown trees. Yet bonsai trees are only the tip of the iceberg of Japanese horticultural and arbor mastery.
Another striking example is daisugi, a technique that shares certain features of the art of bonsai but yields vastly different results.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YDXR_qU2UmM?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]
The forestry technique dates back to the 14th century and focuses on the Kitayama cedar tree or kitayama sugi, which densely populate the verdant and picturesque mountains of Northern Kyoto.
The wood from these immaculate cedars has long been a staple of Japanese architecture, from traditional wood roofs and beams to the famous tea rooms of Kyoto.
What makes the daisugi technique so compelling, however, is the fact that Kitayama cedars stand completely straight and don’t have the knots of your typical wild trees.
This is because the daisugi technique, like bonsai, involves the forester heavily pruning the mother tree which allows narrow saplings to shoot upwards.
What results from these striking and ancient trees is a distinct Japanese cedar that is squat and knotted up like a candelabra and is teeming with smaller trees – almost like a forest on top of a large cedar tree.
The daisugi looks very peculiar, so even when demand for the lumber dropped off in the 16th century demand for them in ornamental gardens kept the forest wardens busy. pic.twitter.com/YxDreHP0mc
— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) April 15, 2020
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The method makes exceptional sense due to the absence of flat land in the Kitayama region, which allowed arborists to use this method to grow and harvest a large amount of wood in an area where suitable land is extremely scarce.
This also lets local masters of arboriculture harvest the cherished daisugi cedar every twenty years while the base tree lasts centuries.
Sustainable forestry: lumber without cutting down trees. Daisugi is a Japanese forestry technique where specially planted cedar trees are pruned heavily (think of it as giant bonsai) to produce "shoots" that become perfectly uniform, straight and completely knot free lumber. pic.twitter.com/5ULYOmCkLp
— Wrath Of Gnon (@wrathofgnon) April 15, 2020
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Over the generations, woodcutters harvested mature lumber from these trees while promoting newer shoots, resulting in gorgeous and strange cedars that look wholly unique.
However, in recent centuries the demand for daisugi cedar has waned as new architectural and building techniques became less reliant on lumber.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDYe_I1GoLc?feature=oembed&w=500&h=375]
Since then, the cedars have grown on their own, creating an amazing display of enormous trunks and gnarled limbs that cover Kyoto’s northern hillscape.
The result is an almost otherworldly forest shaped by the economic needs of imperial Japan’s thriving ancient capital, which mastered nature in a sustainable manner that was also consistent with the aesthetic brilliance of Japanese culture.
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The month of August brings The Hanged Man card to the front, announcing changes and shifting of perspective, transformations, and re-creation. The Hanged Man: Arcanum August 2020 “The important thing is this: to be able, at any moment, to sacrifice what we are for what we could become.” ~Maharishi Mahesh Yogi The Hanged…