Giant Green Cosmic Blob Identified As Gaseous Star Nursery

HP - The Hubble Space Telescope got its first peek at a mysterious giant green blob in outer space and found that it's strangely alive. The bizarre glowing blob is giving birth to new stars, some only a couple million years old, in remote areas of the universe where stars don't normally form.

The blob of gas was first discovered by a Dutch school teacher in 2007 and is named Hanny's Voorwerp (HAN'-nee's-FOR'-vehrp). Voorwerp is Dutch for object.

NASA released the new Hubble photo Monday at the American Astronomical Society meeting in Seattle.

Parts of the green blob are collapsing and the resulting pressure from that is creating the stars. The stellar nurseries are outside of a normal galaxy, which is usually where stars live.

That makes these "very lonely newborn stars" that are "in the middle of nowhere," said Bill Keel, the University of Alabama astronomer who examined the blob.

The blob is the size of our own Milky Way galaxy and it is 650 million light years away. Each light year is about 6 trillion miles.

The blob is mostly hydrogen gas swirling from a close encounter of two galaxies and it glows because it is illuminated by a quasar in one of the galaxies. A quasar is a bright object full of energy powered by a black hole.

The blob was discovered by elementary school teacher Hanny van Arkel, who was 24 at the time, as part of a worldwide Galaxy Zoo project where everyday people can look at archived star photographs to catalog new objects.

Van Arkel said when she first saw the odd object in 2007 it appeared blue and smaller. The Hubble photo provides a clear picture and better explanation for what is happening around the blob.

"It actually looked like a blue smudge," van Arkel told The Associated Press. "Now it looks like dancing frog in the sky because it's green." She says she can even see what passes for arms and eyes.

Since van Arkel's discovery, astronomers have looked for similar gas blobs and found 18 of them. But all of them are about half the size of Hanny's Voorwerp, Keel said.

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Hubble Telescope Sheds Light On Mysterious, Green Space Blob

NPR - Back in 2007, as part of a crowd-sourced study program called Galaxy Zoo, a Dutch school teacher discovered a very odd celestial object: It looked like a great, green blob floating in space and at the time it was inexplicable.

Today, thanks to the Hubble telescope, we have an unbelievable picture of Hanny's Voorwerp, or Hanny's Object, as it is now known. And we also have a better idea of what it is: Researchers said the blob is not a galaxy but a "twisting rope of gas, or tidal tail, about 300,000 light-years long that wraps around the galaxy [IC 2497]."

In a press release from the University of Alabama, Dr. Bill Keel, professor of astronomy and leader of Hubble's Hanny's Voorep study, presented two surprising findings:

First, that very young stars are forming inside the tidal tail. "The region may have been churning out stars for several million years," said Keel. "They are so dim that they have previously been lost in the brilliant light of the surrounding gas."

Keel told us that this is remarkable because this is not the kind of environment in which you would usually find star formation.

Second, Hanny's Voorwerp was lit up by a powerful beacon of light called a quasar, which formed as a byproduct of the harsh conditions created by a supermassive black hole at the center of the galaxy. Keel said the tail likely formed as the result of energy from two merging galaxies. That green light we see is glowing oxygen.

"We just missed catching the quasar because it turned off no more than 200,000 years ago, so what we’re seeing is the afterglow from the quasar," said Keel. "This implies that it might flicker on and off, which is typical of quasars, but we’ve never seen such a dramatic change happen so rapidly."

Update at 2:56 p.m. ET: We just spoke to Dr. Keel. He notes that one of the things this study might prove is that these kinds of objects and this kind process may be "pretty common."

"We were working under the assumption that this would've have been the closest quasar to us," he said. "But it's weird that it would doing something so unusual."

Keel said beyond the science, this is also an illustration of how important a project like Galaxy Zoo is. Essentially, Galaxy Zoo allows hundreds or thousands of volunteers to sift through images after taking a quick tutorial of what to look for.

Keel is looking for more green blobs, and he's using volunteers to find them. Galaxy Zoo users looked through images of 15,000 galaxies. They narrowed that down to 100 galaxies of interest and then scientists further winnowed it down to 18, which they will look at using high-powered telescopes.

Fortean / Oddball News: Neil Armstrong Responds, Voyager I Continues and Happy Festivus!

Neil Armstrong Responds

NPR - In yesterday's post, I talked about Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin's walk across the lunar surface back in 1969 and wondered, how come they walked such a modest distance? Less than a hundred yards from their lander?

Today Neil Armstrong wrote in to say, here are the reasons:

* It was really, really hot on the moon, 200 degrees Fahrenheit. We needed protection.

* We were wearing new-fangled, water-cooled uniforms and didn't know how long the coolant would last.

* We didn't know how far we could go in our space suits.

* NASA wanted us to conduct our experiments in front of a fixed camera.

* We [meaning Neil] cheated just a little, and very briefly bounded off to take pictures of some interesting bedrock.

But basically, he says, we were part of a team and we were team players on a perilous, one-of-a-kind journey. Improvisation was not really an option.

But, reading between the lines, I kinda think he wanted to do more, go further. Anyway, read for yourself:

Dear Mr. Krulwich

I was delighted to read your December 7 column on the the Apollo 11 lunar surface traverses, The NASA maps do accurately portray the locations of the pathways used to complete the myriad of tasks we were assigned. And, although I have not checked, I believe the comparison with the size of athletic fields is reasonably accurate.

You asked: “Who knew?"

The answer to that question is: Just about anyone who had any interest in learning the answer. The plan for the lunar surface work was widely distributed and we even did a full dress rehearsal for the press at the NASA Johnson Space Center.

It is true that we were cautious in our planning. There were many uncertainties about how well our Lunar module systems and our Pressure suit and backpack would match the engineering predictions in the hostile lunar environment. We were operating in a near perfect vacuum with the temperature well above 200 degrees Fahrenheit with the local gravity only one sixth that of Earth. That combination cannot be duplicated here on Earth, but we tried as best we could to test our equipment for those conditions. For example, because normal air conditioning is inadequate for lunar conditions, we were required to use cold water to cool the interior of our suits. We did not have any data to tell us how long the small water tank in our backpacks would suffice. NASA officials limited our surface working time to 2 and 3/4 hours on that first surface exploration to assure that we would not expire of hyperthermia. After returning to and repressurizing the Lunar Module, we were able to drain and measure the remaining water in the backpacks to confirm the predicted.

There was great uncertainty about how well we would be able to walk in our cumbersome pressurized suit. My colleague demonstrated a variety of techniques in view of the television camera that I had installed in a position predetermined to be in the optimum spot for coverage of all of our activities. Preflight planners wanted us to stay in TV range so that they could learn from our results how they could best plan for future missions. I candidly admit that I knowingly and deliberately left the planned working area out of TV coverage to examine and photograph the interior crater walls for possible bedrock exposure or other useful information. I felt the potential gain was worth the risk.

It is true that we would have liked to stay on the surface longer and traveled further away from the Lunar Module and the television camera. But we had a number of experiments to install, samples to document and collect, and photographs to take. The time available was fully allocated and we were working diligently to complete our assigned tasks. The Lunar Laser Ranging Retroreflector we installed is still in use today in a variety of scientific experiments.

Later Apollo flights were able to do more and move further in order to cover larger areas, particularly when the Lunar Rover vehicle became available in 1971. But in KRULWICH WONDERS, you make an important point, which I emphasized to the House Science and Technology Committee. During my testimony in May I said, "Some question why Americans should return to the Moon. "After all," they say "we have already been there." I find that mystifying. It would be as if 16th century monarchs proclaimed that "we need not go to the New World, we have already been there." Or as if President Thomas Jefferson announced in 1803 that Americans "need not go west of the Mississippi, the Lewis and Clark Expedition has already been there." Americans have visited and examined 6 locations on Luna, varying in size from a suburban lot to a small township. That leaves more than 14 million square miles yet to explore.

I have tried to give a small insight into your question “Who knew?”

I hope it is helpful.

Sincerely,

Neil Armstrong

Commander

Apollo 11

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Voyager I Continues Journey to Interstellar Space

discovermagazine - Voyager 1 is one of the most successful space missions of all time. Launched in 1977, it visited Jupiter and then Saturn, providing better close-ups of the two planets than had ever been seen before.

But it sailed on, crossing the orbits of both Uranus and Neptune (a sister craft, Voyager 2, actually flew by the two planets). Over all those years, there has been one constant in the Voyager flight: the solar wind blowing past it. This stream of subatomic particles leaves the Sun at hundreds of kilometers per second, much faster than Voyager. But now, after 33 years, that has changed: at 17 billion kilometers (10.6 billion miles) from the Sun, the spacecraft has reached the point where the solar wind has slowed to a stop. Literally, the wind is no longer at Voyager’s back.

There is gas between the stars, which astronomers call the interstellar medium. The solar wind blows out into it, slowing. There is a region, over a billion kilometers thick, where the solar wind plows to a halt, creating a roughly spherical shell around the solar system. That’s called the heliosheath, and it looks like Voyager 1 is now solidly inside it. In fact, it’s been there for four months or so; the scientists measuring the solar wind speed noticed it dropped to 0 back in June, but it took a while to make sure this wasn’t just some local eddy in the flow. It’s not. Voyager 1 now has calm seas ahead.

But the probe is still moving outward at 60,000 kph (38,000 mph). In a few more years it’ll leave the heliosheath behind, and when that happens it will truly be in interstellar space, the vast and nearly empty region between the stars. At that moment it will be the first human device ever to truly leave the solar system and enter the great stretches of the galaxy beyond.

Imagine! It was launched before personal computers were everywhere, before cell phones, before the internet! But it was given a powerful boost by its rocket, and another by the two largest planets in the solar system as it swung by them. And now, in just a few more years, it will have left our nest forever.

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Happy Festivus!

abajournal - Locked up in a California jail, Malcolm Alarmo King wanted healthier meals. In an argument apparently made to a friendly court, he won a ruling from Superior Court Judge Derek Johnson that he should be fed double-portion kosher meals.

Battling to keep its food costs down, the sheriff's department argued that King himself admitted "healthism" was the so-called religion justifying this request. But Johnson wasn't daunted, calling a sidebar with King's lawyer, Fred Thiagarajah, and the county prosecutor and asking for suggestions about a religion he could cite in the kosher-meal order to nail the issue down once and for all, reports the Orange County Register.

“I said Festivus,” Thiagarajah tells the newspaper--and Festivus it was. The holiday (Festivus for the rest of us) was created by the writers of the popular Seinfeld television show, county counsel argued to no avail.

King, however, has now served out his sentence, so further argument over the issue may be mooted.

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Chinese 'Science Cop' Attacked For Skeptic Views of Traditional Beliefs

chinadaily - Fang Zhouzi, known as a "science cop" for his battles against pseudoscience and academic misconduct, pledged on Monday to continue exposing academic frauds after being attacked and slightly injured on Sunday afternoon.

"I will not be frightened and will stick to what I have been doing," Fang told reporters on Monday afternoon.

He said he had received threatening calls over the past 10 years.

"I will not stop battling pseudoscience," he said, while adding that he will be more careful about his personal safety in the future.

Fang said he was attacked by two men in the street after he finished a TV interview near his home at about 5 pm on Sunday afternoon.

One of the men sprayed a pungent liquid on his face and another man hit his waist with a hammer, Fang said.

When Fang ran into his residential area, the two men stopped chasing him and threw the hammer at him, causing minor injuries.

The plotted attack must have been organized by someone who wants revenge for his disclosure of some misconduct, Fang said.

"I've told everything to the police. I hope the police will investigate and discover the identity of the criminals soon," Fang said in his blog.

Calls to the Shijingshan police bureau of Beijing, which Fang said is in charge of his case, went unanswered Monday afternoon.

Fang said he believes that the attack against him is related to a recent one against his friend, Fang Xuanchang, a journalist from Caijing Magazine, who was also attacked last month in Beijing in a similar way.

"I was also attacked by two men who came out unexpectedly and started to beat me with sticks," Fang Xuanchang was quoted by ifeng.com as saying. "The police haven't found out who they are."

Fang Xuanchang, however, doubts that the two attacks were plotted by the same person, because he and Fang Zhouzi worked together to disclose the misconduct of more than 10 people.

The attacks could have come from any of those people, Fang Xuanchang said.

Fang Zhouzi, who was born in Southeast China's Fujian province in 1967, is well known for disclosing bogus research and academic frauds in China, including the latest case of Li Yi, a Taoist priest in Chongqing who has been accused of faking his credentials and promoting himself as a health guru.

Last month Fang Zhouzi also accused Tang Jun, former CEO of Microsoft Greater China Region, of fabricating his academic credentials in the United Sates.

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El Caganer - The Catalan Christmas Crapper

In Catalonia, as well as in the rest of Spain and in most of Italy and Southern France, the traditional Christmas decoration is a large model of the city of Bethlehem, similar to the Nativity scenes of the English-speaking world, but encompassing the entire city rather than just the typical manger scene. The Catalans have added an extra character that is not found in the manger scenes of any other culture. In addition to Mary, Joseph, Jesus, the Shepherds and company, Catalans have the character known as the Caganer. This extra little character is often tucked away in some corner of the model, typically nowhere near the manger scene, where he is not easily noticed. There is a good reason for his obscure position in the display, for "caganer" translates from Catalan to English as "pooper", and that is exactly what this little statue is doing — defecating.

Possible reasons for placing a man who is in the act of excreting waste in a scene which is widely considered holy include:

*Tradition.
*Perceived humor.
*Finding the Caganer is a fun game, especially for children.
*The Caganer, by creating feces, is fertilizing the Earth. However, this is probably an a posteriori explanation, and few cite this reason for including the Caganer in the Nativity scene.
*The Caganer represents the equality of all people: regardless of status, race, gender everyone defecates.
*Increased naturalism of an otherwise archetypal (thus idealised) story, so that it is more believable, taken literally and seriously.

The exact origin of the Caganer is lost, but the tradition has existed since the 17th century. An Iberian votive deposit was found nearby Tornabous in the Urgell depicting a holy Iberian warrior defecating on his falcata. This started a short lived series of polemics between the Institut d'Estudis Catalans and the Departament d'Arqueologia in the Conselleria de Cultura of the Generalitat de Catalunya as to whether that can be regarded as a proto-caganer (which would draw the origins of this tradition far before than it is thought) or just a pre-combat ritual.

Originally, the Caganer was portrayed as a Catalan peasant wearing a traditional hat called a barretina — a red stocking hat with a black band.

The practice is tolerated by the local Catholic church. Caganers are easiest to find before Christmas in holiday markets, like the one in front of the Cathedral of Santa Eulalia, which has tables and tables of caganers. Caganers have even been featured in art exhibits.

The caganer is not the only defecating character in the Catalan Christmas tradition—another is the Tió de Nadal, which also makes extensive use of the image of human waste production. Other mentions of feces and defecation are common in Catalan folklore, indeed, one popular Catalan phrase before eating says "menja bé, caga fort i no tinguis por a la mort!" (Eat well, poop strong and don't be afraid of death!).

Fortean / Oddball News: Massive Dark Object, Mysterious Withering Wheat and Faith Healing Trial

Massive Dark Object 'lurking on edge of solar system hurling comets at Earth'

dailymail - A massive dark object may be lurking on the edge of our solar system, according to scientists.

Most comets that fly into the inner solar system seem to come from the outer region of the Oort cloud - a region of icy dust and debris left over from the birth of the solar system.

The cloud starts from a point about 93 billion miles from the Sun and stretches for around three light years and contains billions of comets, most of them small and hidden.

Now new calculations suggest a large object that is up to four times as big as Jupiter could be responsible for sending them in our direction.

The scientists have analysed the comets in the Oort cloud and deduced that 25 per-cent of them would need a nudge by a body of at least Jupiter size before they changed orbit.

Astrophysicists John Matese and Daniel Whitmire at the University of Louisiana came up with theory said that 'something smaller than a Jovian mass would not be strong enough to perform the task'.

They believe that our solar system has a hidden 'companion' that has so far remained undetected.

The scientists have been studying the cloud using WISE, Nasa's infra-red space telescope that is capable of detecting dark objects.

Matese said: 'I think this whole issue will be resolved in the next five to 10 years, because there’s surveys coming on line that will dwarf the comet sample we have today.

'Whether these types of asymmetries in the directions that comets are coming from actually do exist or not will definitely be hammered out by those surveys,' Matese added. 'We anticipate that WISE is going to falsify or verify our conjecture.'

About 3,200 long-period comets are known, one of the most famous being Hale-Bopp which was visible to even the naked eye during 1996 and 1997.

Halley's Comet, which reappears about every 75 years, is a 'short-period' comet from a different part of the Solar System called the Kuiper Belt.

If it exists the new planet is so freezing cold it is difficult to spot, researchers said.

It could be found up to 30,000 astronomical units from the sun. One AU is the distance between the Earth and the sun, about 93 million miles.

Scientists have already proposed that a hidden star, which they call 'Nemesis,' might exist a light-year or so away from our sun.

They suggest that during its orbit it would regularly enter the Oort cloud, jostling the orbits of many comets there and causing some to fall toward Earth.

These occasional comet showers could be why the mass extinctions on Earth are so regular, some scientists believe.

The research appeared in the online edition of the journal Icarus.

'Most planetary scientists would not be surprised if the largest undiscovered companion was Neptune-sized or smaller, but a Jupiter-mass object would be a surprise,' Matese told SPACE.com

'If the conjecture is indeed true, the important implications would relate to how it got there — touching on the early solar environment — and how it might have affected the subsequent distributions of comets and, to a lesser extent, the known planets.'

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Mysterious Withering Wheat

capitalpress - The Oregon Department of Agriculture and Oregon State University are investigating the yellowing of upward of 40,000 acres of wheat in Umatilla and Morrow counties.

So far, the cause is a mystery, and researchers do not know if the problems in the two counties are related.

In early November, Umatilla County growers noticed wheat fields turning yellow and dying, OSU Extension soil scientist Don Wysocki said.

Sixteen fields from three to 10 miles northwest of Pendleton were affected, Wysocki said. They are "more or less but not completely contiguous," he said. Not every field in the area was affected.

The area was predominately planted to soft white Clearfield variety ORCF-102, but other varieties were also affected, Wysocki said.

"There's probably more than one thing going on in these particular fields, like in any field," he said.

OSU Morrow County Extension associate professor Larry Lutcher said 30,000 to 40,000 acres of wheat in his county have plants with yellow or purple tips. The discoloration spreads inward and downward on the leaf. In some cases, plants are completely desiccated and will not recover.

The symptoms have been observed in many fields in the county, Lutcher said, but do not appear tied to any particular location.

"Most of the symptoms in Morrow County are unlike anything I have ever seen," Lutcher said.

Lutcher said he doesn't believe the problem will spread to other fields, but he can't be certain.

"This does appear to be a new problem -- a problem that no one seems to have experience with," he said.

Neither Lutcher nor Wysocki were sure if the circumstances in the two counties were connected.

"The big question on everyone's mind right now is, how will the crop look this spring and will replanting be necessary?" Lutcher said.

Oregon Department of Agriculture Special Assistant to the Director Brent Searle said the department was contacted by farmers in early November.

The department sampled and tested the fields, but final results are not yet in.

Preliminary samples showed some root pathogen issues, but Searle said the investigation is still in the information-gathering stage.

The department and university sent surveys to growers asking about field history, planting dates, chemical use and where seed was purchased. OSU also examined nearby fallow land to see if it was similarly impacted.

The information may help identify common factors or patterns, Searle and Wysocki said.

In Umatilla County, the patterns are oriented across the fields, with "shadow effects" suggesting protection in areas behind slopes or fence rows, Wysocki said.

But the patterns of the die-off aren't typical of anything anyone has seen before, Searle said.

"The weather's been really weird this year and there was a tight planting window, and then temperature swings and rains and the grain jumped real fast in growth," he said. "It could be a whole combination, perfect storm kind of thing. We're just trying to sort it all out right now."

Most growers in Umatilla County were replanting their fields, Searle and Wysocki said.

Replanted acres aren't expected to have a problem, Wysocki said, "but we can't rule that out."

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Faith Healing on Trial in Philadelphia

philly - A Philadelphia forensic pathologist told a Common Pleas Court jury Tuesday that a 2-year-old Rhawnhurst boy would almost certainly be alive had he received routine medical care before he died last year of pneumonia.

"This type of pneumonia, this type of bacteria, is preventable through vaccination and treatable with antibiotics," testified Assistant Medical Examiner Edwin Lieberman, referring to the disease that killed Kent Schaible in January 2009.

Lieberman defended his decision to classify the death as a homicide as a prosecutor began her involuntary manslaughter case against the boy's parents, Herbert and Catherine Schaible.

There is no mandatory prison term for involuntary manslaughter, but the Schaibles each could face up to 24 years in prison if convicted.

The Schaibles are members of a church that preaches forgoing medical care in favor of prayer and faith healing. Authorities allege that when their son became ill with fever, cough, diarrhea, and loss of appetite, the Schaibles cared for him at home for almost two weeks, praying for him to get well as he died.

It's a case in which the jury must discern the boundaries of parental responsibility, religion, and the law.

"A 2-year-old doesn't have the wherewithal to say, 'Mommy, Daddy, I'm sick. I need to go to a doctor,' " Assistant District Attorney Joanne Pescatore said in her opening statement.

"A simple visit to the doctor, a prescription, and that little boy could have been with us today," Pescatore said.

The Schaibles' attorneys, however, argued that it took an autopsy to determine what killed young Kent and that the symptoms his parents saw were not different from those of cold or flu. The Schaibles, their lawyers told the jury, are on trial because of their beliefs.

"If we don't get through the emotion, we will never get to the reason that this child passed away," said Bobby Hoof, the attorney for Herbert Schaible, 42. "We are not here to discuss religion, we're here to discuss why this child passed away."

Hoof said he would bring in his own expert forensic pathologist, the celebrated Pittsburgh medical examiner Cyril Wecht, who will testify that the bacterium that killed Kent - Haemophilus influenzae Type B - is resistant to antibiotics.

"It would not have cured the child," Hoof added. "The child would have died."

Mythri Jaraman, the lawyer for Catherine Schaible, 41, argued in her opening statement that Schaible's religion is irrelevant because the prosecution cannot prove a key element of involuntary manslaughter: that she knew or should have known Kent "faced a substantial risk of death."

"Not this D.A., not Mr. Hoof, not the state and not any one of us loves Kent Schaible any more than his mother," Jaraman told the jury.

No one has alleged that the couple are anything but loving parents. Both defense lawyers said visits to the Schaible house after Kent's death by a nurse and social workers showed no signs of neglect or abuse among the couple's six other children.

Both Schaible lawyers argued that the couple - both quit school after ninth grade - cannot be expected to know when cold and flu symptoms are life-threatening pneumonia.

Catherine Schaible's mother, Mary Wakefield, testified that her daughter told her Kent was "coming along, doing good."

When she saw Kent on Jan. 24, 2009, Wakefield testified, he seemed grumpy but otherwise healthy. She said she was shocked when Pastor Ralph Myers, assistant pastor of the First Century Gospel Church, came to the house to pray with the parents and she was told the child had died.

First Century Gospel Church, founded in 1925, is at 4557 G St. in Juniata Park.

This is not the first time the church and its members have run afoul of the law over its belief in faith healing.

In 1993, Philadelphia officials got a court order against another couple after they prayed over their 12-year-old son at home instead of taking him to an emergency room after he was hit by a car and seriously injured.

And in 1991, the church and another congregation, Faith Tabernacle of Nicetown, came under scrutiny after eight children died in a measles epidemic after members resisted vaccinating their children.

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Red Alert As Mystery Disease Hits Uganda

nation - Kenya is on high alert after a yet-to-be identified disease killed 35 people in Uganda.

Reports indicate that 86 people had contracted the disease.

The Director for Public Health and Sanitation, Dr Shahnaaz Sharif, on Wednesday said his office was in constant communication with Ugandan officials to monitor the outbreak.

The symptoms of the illness are headaches, fever and vomiting blood. However, Dr Sharif said that he had received word that the Ebola Haemorrhagic Fever, caused by the Ebola virus, had been ruled out.

Kitkum, which is situated about 400 kilometres north of Kampala, and three districts surrounding it, have so far been affected.

Dr Sharif was quick to add that Kenya is not at immediate risk as there are some districts between Kitkum and the Kenyan border acting as ‘buffers’.

Nonetheless, health officials are vigilant especially in Turkana District, which is at highest risk, given its proximity to the affected region.

The director issued this alert as he announced the second round of the polio emergency campaign that will run from December 11-15.

This comes after a confirmed polio case was reported in Bugiri District, Eastern Uganda, which borders the Ugandan Busia District that shares a border with Kenya’s Busia District.

The reports triggered the emergency vaccination programme, due to the high transmission rate of the virus.

The first round, which has been rated as successful as 982,881 children were vaccinated, was carried out on December 20-24, 2009 and the final leg will be from January 15-19 next year.

Its target is 1,001,785 children.

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Another Alabama UDCC Reader Has `Hanging Jet' To Report

UDCC - from Rick Phillips - As some of you are aware - I started this blog as an offshoot of my blog called The Heavy Stuff as at the time THS had become too UFO oriented for my tastes of what I wanted that blog to be. And, up until September of this year - I stayed within a 1-4 posts a month schedule pretty much. I found it quite easy to cover the issues of UFOs as I saw them with that posting frequency. And, really, once you say the same general opinion four times or more - it gets to be an effort to put the mind to the screen so to speak.

I say all that because up until now(ish) this blog has not been part of any `I'll share this with you' type of info. However, with the increase to frequent postings - `information' has filtered the way of UDCC -- most recently exemplified by the comment on a year plus old `high strangeness' UFO report about a Hanging Jetliner Picture/Story - that I covered.

And, I admit, it takes a bit of an open mind to even consider such reports as something beyond nonsense. And, no one of the observers of such phenomena - other than the writings of Colin Bennett - have put a face onto the phenomena. And, even with my last post I tried to put some semblance of `logic' to it - maintaining that it would certainly seem to be indicative of some kind of cloaking phenomena or mind projection phenomena.

I would still take that positioning.

However, on Monday Dec. 6th between Midnight and 1 AM I received an E-Mail concerning yet another `Hanging Jet' - here is the content of the contact:

"Sir,

Saw your blog post on the hanging jets in Huntsville, AL. Intrigues me, as I have seen one in Madison, AL. Madison is right next to H'ville. It would take a dive back through my journal, but I could give you the exact date and the approximate time of day.

However, I work in the aerospace field, and I CANNOT have my name associated. If it was discovered I had said anything about this, my career would be over. I've heard of other high strangeness in the area.

The jet in question was a large military jet, painted black.

As you can see - I have honored this contact as far as withholding the `non working gmail.net' address used to contact me. Now, here's the even stranger part - this person did it thru my Squidoo account (in which I don't believe you can even enter a fake email - which is what I see on my end). Also, while I will not say anything in particular about the identification on the name associated with the above mailing - when I sent the returned E-mail to a gmail.com account of the same name it did NOT return.

And, yes, I did look up the name via google and yes there is someone of the name that could very loosely be said to fit the self-description of the person above. So, as far as all that goes, I guess I am trustable now. LOL.

That said, I have NOT gotten an answer to my inquiry at all in any manner and I feel my leg has more than probably been pulled by a low level trickster of some sort (and no, at least as of now I am not saying the trickster of high strangeness fame).

But, a few more things - about THIS `Hanging Jet' Report - literally qualitative things I take away for the ENTIRE presentation of this information to me via a back channel of my contact on the internet (as simply leaving a comment works too as I approve each comment). Anyway, first thing, this person keeps a dated Journal and uses the term high strangeness and now brings yet ANOTHER DESCRIPTION - that does NOT match the prior ones about this Hanging JetLiner Phenomena.

Does that lend more credence to thinking mind control/mental projections is the more likely? Or, is it just as likely some inner working of a cloaking to use such data of the mind?

I certainly don't know, - but - what I do know is that this will probably be the last time a dead end contact will be the UDCC headline. That said, I will continue to prove `updates' simply within other posts should the contact seem sincere. However, this contact somehow gave a fake E - then didn't respond to what anyone would have done - change the .net to .com. I gave two days for a further contact - UDCC will keep you updated.

Finally, as a postscript, I can't help but think of Blossom Goodchild's prediction of `UFOs Hanging Over Alabama' - as the sign from above. As indeed, if multiple people or all people in Huntsville Alabama were able to film such an event - the high strangeness factor would BE EQUAL to an UFO event IMO. And, perhaps without all the fanfare associated with a full blown UFO event - while providing the fortean `impossibilities' of all and any type of occurrence.

MUFON CMS: UFOs Near Jupiter - 4 Reports Nationwide

The planet Jupiter seen from Earth: Above: NASA - Below: Vanessa Strickler

This morning, there were four separate reports on the MUFON CMS of UFO sightings near or below the planet Jupiter as seen from Earth. I also received two emails from Indiana that stated that a craft with 2 lights would vanish then reappear near Jupiter. Since so many people are looking to the heavens in search of the giant planet lately, is there a possibility that we are receiving some sort of communication from these craft?

Illinois - 10/17/2010: I was outside lowering a flag. I glanced at Jupiter off to my left. It was visible in the southeast sky at about 70 degrees. I immediately noticed two stationery star like objects in the sky visible near Jupiter. I knew these had not been visible in the sky previously because I work outside in the evenings and had been watching Jupiter all summer. I looked away, thinking I would get out my astronomy app later to identify them. When I looked up again, one had disappeared and the second was fading as I watched. I watched it until it was no longer visible. Both lights were bright white, star-like and not moving. They did not reappear. I started to post this after that time but did not. I'm posting now because of similar reports on 10/18/2010 in Nevada and Oregon. Seeing these marks my fourth UFO sighting in 10 years living in east central Illinois. I am always curious about these and I was curious about this as well.

Nevada - 10/18/2010: I was outside with my dogs. I looked up at the moon, which was very bright and saw Jupiter below and to the left of the moon. I looked down at my cell phone and looked back up. Two new objects, or lights, appeared. I thought they may have been stars at first. Then I noticed they were moving. Thought they might be planes. Then one of the lights faded and vanished. The second object faded a few seconds afterwards. It was to bright for the objects to be satellites. They weren't moving fast enough to be meteors. I'm not sure what exactly they were. It may have been the sun reflecting off something in space. But all I know is the objects were only visible for about a minute. I tried to take a picture but the camera on my phone was not good enough to capture these objects.

Michigan - 10/19/2010: I just dropped my dogs to run some coon and it was a clear night with a bright moon with Jupiter just below. I looked down to my GPS to see where my dogs were and than looked back up at the moon and noticed two bright objects appeared below Jupiter forming a triangle. I immediately knew this was strange as I have been watching the moon grow over the last week and have not seen these objects before. I stood there sorta puzzled and than the objects started moving down from Jupiter staying the same distance apart and fading away. I felt as though I was watching an X-files type show and as they dissapeared I got goosebumps. Very, very strange but its nice to know others saw this!

Washington - 10/19/2010: Last night at about 6:55 PM I was driving South up a hill in West Seattle to visit a friend. It was a beautiful, clear night with a bright moon. As I crested the hill I noticed, through my left (driver's window), just below the moon in the SE sky, three very bright stars - what looked like jupiter at the top and two equally bright stars just below and to the right and left of Jupiter, forming a triangle with Jupiter at the top. I was amazed, but had to glance away to the road ahead and a stop sign. As I turned left, I looked back up through my windshield at the moon, and in the few seconds that had transpired the two bright stars under Jupiter had dimmed to half of their brightness and then were gone. I tried to rationalize - could they have been reflections through the window? Airplanes flyng in my direction that turned away in unison? I have no idea what these two bright lights were, and how long they were there before I saw them, but I checked this morning and was excited that someone else reported seeing the same thing, albeit from another part of the country (MI). Although that gentleman reports that the lights "dropped away" from Jupiter before disappearing, I didn't notice them dropping, just fading, perhaps because I had turned away and was in a moving car. Anyone looking up at the sky around 6:55 PST would have seen this amazing sight, so I'm surprised that there aren't more reports.

Astronomer Claims Strange Signal Emanates From Newly Discovered Planet Gliese 581g

foxnews - The recent discovery of Gliese 581g, an alien planet in the habitable zone of another star, has been an exciting development for scientists probing the galaxy for signs of extraterrestrial life. At least one claim of a possible signal from the planet has already surfaced – and been met with harsh skepticism among the science community.

Following the Sept. 29 announcement of the discovery of Gliese 581g, astronomer Ragbir Bhathal, a scientist at the University of Western Sydney, claimed to have detected a suspicious pulse of light nearly two years ago, that came from the same area of the galaxy as the location of Gliese 581g, according to the U.K.'s Daily Mail online.

Bhathal is a member of the Australian chapter of SETI, a non-profit scientific organization that is dedicated to research, exploration and education in the field of astrobiology.

"Whenever there's a clear night, I go up to the observatory and do a run on some of the celestial objects," Bhathal told the Daily Mail. "Looking at one of these objects, we found this signal. We found this very sharp signal, sort of a laser lookalike thing which is the sort of thing we're looking for – a very sharp spike. And that is what we found."

Still, there are some scientists who are skeptical of Bhathal's assertion.

"I know the scientist, and when he first announced it, I asked him for the details, and he wouldn't send them to me," astronomer and SETI pioneer Frank Drake told SPACE.com. "I'm very suspicious."

Drake is credited with conducting the first search for signals from extraterrestrial intelligences 50 years ago as part of what was then called Project Ozma. He coined the famed Drake Equation to calculate the number (N) of alien civilizations with whom we might be able to communicate.

Further study would perhaps confirm or deny the supposed observation, but Drake thinks that the claim is likely a dubious one.

Strange signal, or phantom?

Bhathal claimed to have detected the puzzling signal in Dec. 2008, almost two years before researchers announced the Gliese 581g finding, and long before it was announced that habitable planets were found orbiting the star Gliese 581 itself.

"I'm not aware of the location that was claimed for the source of that light, and [Bhathal] refused to tell me where it came from," Drake said. "I think it's very unlikely that it came from the direction of Gliese 581."

Gliese 581g is one of two new worlds that was discovered orbiting the red dwarf star Gliese 581, which is located about 20.5 light-years from Earth. In total, there is a family of six planets that has been found around Gliese 581. [Tour the six Gliese 581 planets.]

Steven Vogt, a professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the University of California, and his colleague Paul Butler of the Carnegie Institution of Washington announced the Gliese 581g finding in a press conference held by the National Science Foundation on Sept. 29.

About Gliese 581g

While there are six planets known to orbit around the parent star, Gliese 581g is the only one in the so-called habitable zone – a region where liquid water can exist. Astronomers have long-thought that the presence of liquid water, which accompanies life on Earth, could be a major ingredient for life on other worlds.

Observations have shown that Gliese 581g is between three and four times the mass of Earth. While it is larger than our planet, it is still classified as a nearly Earth-sized world. Its radius is between 1.3 and two times the size of Earth, scientists have said.

The planet has not been officially named yet (nor have any other worlds in the Gliese 581 system). But Vogt has given it the nickname "Zarmina's World," in honor of his wife.

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Gliese 581g: The New Earth?

dotsperiod – Earth’s population is growing exponentially each year. Time will come that our resources will become scarce for everyone. Earth is so far the only planet in the universe which can support life.

For the longest time, scientists have been exploring the universe to discover a new planet which can support life. NASA sent several satellites in order to capture images of nearby planets for their research. One of the most studied planet is the red planet known as Mars because of the possible presence of water. However, based on studies, the discovery of lack of a magnetosphere and its extremely thin atmosphere pose great challenge to life’s sustainability in Mars.

A recent study conducted by a team of planet hunters from the University of California (UC) Santa Cruz, and the Carnegie Institution of Washington led to the discovery of a new planet using the W. M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii. Accordingly, the new findings are based on 11 years of observations of the nearby red dwarf star Gliese 581. Gliese 581 is located 20 light years away from Earth in the constellation Libra.

The new planet discovered is located in the Gliese 581 star system, in the so-called “Goldilocks zone” or an area where planets can can support liquid water on their surface. Hence the new planet discovered this year 2010 was named “Gliese 581g” or the “Goldilocks Planet”. Reportedly, this new planet discovered has a mass of three to four times that of Earth and orbits its star in just under 37 days.

There’s one more interesting fact about this newly discovered planet called Gliese 581g. Since it is tidally locked to the Gliese 581 dwarf star, one side of the planet is always facing the star and is in perpetual daylight, while the side facing away from the star is in perpetual darkness.