The 'hum' starts again...this time in Seattle
Julie Schickling stood out on her porch in West Seattle just after midnight because she couldn't explain what she was hearing. So she recorded the sound (listen here on West Seattle Blog).
"It gets high and lower, and goes away, then comes back," said Schickling.
Some of her neighbors report being shaken out of bed by the low rumble, also described as a growl. In fact, as many people you talk with is about how many different words you heard to describe it.
"It is kind of creepy," Kay Kirkpatrick, the West Seattle resident said of the sound. "It creeps you out a little bit."
The neighboring large industries say they aren't to blame.
Then what is? Something the City of Seattle is looking into.
Some long time residents say they've heard this sound before over the years. Others say it's the first encounter they've had with the eerie noise.
"We want to know," Kirkpatrick said. "Tell us what it is." - king5
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'My knee is hurting...probably going to rain'
The idea that certain aches and pains correspond with, and can even predict, the weather is widespread, and has been around since at least the days of ancient Greece.
The typical explanation for bad-weather-related aches is that the drop in barometric pressure that comes with a storm causes soft tissue and fluid around joints to expand, irritating nerves and causing pain, especially at the sensitized site of an arthritic joint or an old injury.
The scientific evidence for the phenomena, which has been studied since the early 20th century, is mixed. Some studies have found that changes in barometric pressure increased pain, others found that it decreased it, and still others found no correlation. The influence of temperature and relative humidity has also been studied, and is also unclear.
A big hurdle to studying the problem is that the swelling happens on such a small scale that it’s difficult to objectively detect and measure, so researchers have to rely on people’s subjective accounts of pain, which aren’t always reliable and are hard to compare from one person to another.
While one study suggests that the phenomena might be explained by psychological factors like people finding a pattern where there isn’t one, and the influence of the “general plausibility and traditional popularity” idea, most of the research on the subject points out that the frequency of reports makes it hard to ignore, and it deserves further attention and research to find a cohesive explanation. - mentalfloss
The Permanent Pain Cure: The Breakthrough Way to Heal Your Muscle and Joint Pain for Good (PB)
Harvard Medical School The Joint Pain Relief Workout: Healing exercises for your shoulders, hips, knees, and ankles
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Lost Time UFO Encounter
Sharon Springs, NY - 8/10/1980 - unedited: we were driving down a country road. i was the passenger. it was right above our car pacing us. if i did nt look up i would have never seen it for it was silent.my friend was driving and i told him to look and when he saw it he took off. it followed us easily. we saw a farmhouse and my friend skidded to a stop right in the road and ran up to the farm house and banged on the doors and windows, igot out of the car and started bouncing rocks off it.10 or 15 ft above the car.my friend scared the lady in the house so i told her to look out the window. she said o.m.g. and came out and joined us. spinning counter clockwise. a hatch opened up on the bottom half and it had that turquoise colored light inside. kept spinning slowly.started to eject a cloud as it rotated an it clung to the ship.wind didnt move it.when the cloud finally disapated the ship was gone.never saw it leave.seemed like about 20 minuets but we lost about 3 or 4 hours.lots of details. so close. i will never forget it. i wasnt afraid at all. it was amazeing.we all werent having the same halucination. you cant bounce rocks off something that wasnt there. that i know. it wasnt venus. - MUFON CMS
Extra-Planetary Experiences: Alien-Human Contact and the Expansion of Consciousness
High Strangeness - Hyperdimensions and the Process of Alien Abduction
How to Defend Yourself Against Alien Abduction
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New weapon fires waste at enemies
A patent has been granted for an invention by which soldiers sealed inside vehicles during combat can dispose of their biological waste by firing it at the enemy.
Aleksandr Georgievich Semenov patented an efficiently disgusting weapon system. Using his method, soldiers inside an armoured tank, under battle conditions, can dispose of their biological waste products in an unwasteful way: encasing those materials, together with explosives, in artillery shells that they then fire at the enemy.
Semenov, residing in St Petersburg, can and does brag of having Russian patent #2399858, granted in 2009, officially titled Method of Biowaste Removal From Isolated Dwelling Compartment of Military Facility And Device or Its Implementation.
As patents go, it's of modest length: 12 pages, with only two technical drawings. The original document is mostly in Russian. The prolific inventor (he has about 200 other patents), sent me a full translation into English.
Figure 2 seems, at a glance, unremarkable: a cutaway side view of an artillery shell in its cartridge, tipped with a screw-in "nose cone". There's a large charge to (in Semenov's description) "burst" the shell, and a small charge to trigger that burst. The shell itself contains – indeed is mostly – a compartment for the payload.
Figure 1 is larger and more complex, showing the entire tank in cutaway side view. A single crewman perches inside. Beneath him, an empty shell collects the waste that emerges from his anus.
Here's how the patent describes the scene, with numbers referring to specific items in the drawing:
"A military man (3) puts the wastes (8) into the capacity (7) directly (fig.1) or in two steps. After it's complete or, if it is necessary, incomplete filling the capacity is tightly sealed by the cover."
The key action is in one sentence: "The gun charged with special projectile is targeted on a safety zone or on any enemy target which is worth for catching it."
As the projectile leaves the tank, it removes what would eventually have become a source of stinking misery for the poor soldiers who, in combat, could be forced to remain sealed inside their vehicle for several days.
That misery transfers directly, forcefully away through the air, smacking into and dabbing onto the enemy.
This method of warfare aims to kill the enemy's spirit and psyche. The patent conveys this fact in spirited, if not belletristic, language:
"Except damaging factors, significance of which is secondary in this case, the military psychological positive effect takes place: comprehension of the facts of 'delivering' and distribution on enemy territory (on equipment and uniform of an enemy) by the staff as well as the opportunity of informing other soldiers and the enemy about it. As a result, in addition to the basic purpose reaching (full wastes removal) additional military-psychological and military-political effects are achieved." - guardian
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Interstellar Travel Development
The light-years between the stars is vast -- a seemingly insurmountable quarantine that cuts our solar system off from the rest of the galaxy. But to a growing number of interstellar enthusiasts -- and a former U.S. president -- interstellar distances may not be as insurmountable as they seem.
On Sept. 13, an international group of big thinkers will descend on Houston, Texas, to discuss one very big idea: making interstellar travel possible within the next 100 years.
The 100 Year Starship Project (100YSS) was seeded by a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) initiative, and earlier this year it was announced that ex-NASA astronaut Mae Jemison and the Dorothy Jemison Foundation for Excellence would head the project. Icarus Interstellar Inc. (a non-profit organization co-founded by Richard Obousy in the aim of developing technologies for interstellar travel), SETI Institute and Foundation for Enterprise Development were also tapped to join the multi-partner project to develop the technical, cultural, legal and financial frameworks for a manned mission to another star.
During an interview with Discovery News in May, Jemison expressed her desire to make the 100YSS project a global, "inclusive" endeavor. "'Inclusive' brings that sociocultural perspective; it brings a trans-disciplinary perspective. It says it makes a difference who's on board, aspect-wise, gender-wise, geography-wise, national origin ... everyone needs to be involved and we need to pay attention to that," she said.
So, next week will see the 100YSS 2012 Public Symposium kick off in Houston, marking the beginning of a century of work striving to push mankind out of the solar system and on a journey to becoming an interstellar civilization.
Former President Bill Clinton has even stepped in to serve as the symposium's Honorary Chair. In a statement, Clinton said: "This important effort helps advance the knowledge and technologies required to explore space, all while generating the necessary tools that enhance our quality of life on earth."
In addition to Jemison, there will be several well known guest speakers including actress Nichelle Nichols (who notably played Star Trek's Lt. Uhura), actor LeVar Burton (Star Trek: TNG's Geordi La Forge), SETI Institute Co-Founder Jill Tarter, anthropologist Johnnetta B. Cole, space journalist Miles O'Brien and many, many more.
Discovery News will also play a key role in the 2012 symposium. I'll be chairing one of the track sessions called "Becoming An Interstellar Civilization." This track is rich with speakers who will discuss the cultural, legal, economic, religious, ethical, philosophical and social aspects of sending a community of people into deep space. Other tracks will look into the engineering, technological, practical and biological aspects of such an endeavor.
In short, the symposium will examine just about every conceivable facet of human life against a backdrop of the audacious plan to travel to, and potentially colonize, another star system. - discovery
Deep Space Propulsion: A Roadmap to Interstellar Flight (Astronomers Universe)
The Starflight Handbook: A Pioneer's Guide to Interstellar Travel (Wiley Science Editions)
