Contact Victor Williamson with your questions about simulator based experiential education programs for your school.
SpaceCampUtah@gmail.com

Friday, August 30, 2013

Aleta's New Book. Amazing Facts About the Human Brain You Didn't Know. What is Reality? The Imaginarium




Farpoint Educator Prepares New Book for Publication

Troops,
Aleta Clegg (who writes under Jaleta Clegg) is getting ready to finalize the Kindle version of her newest book - Cold Revenge; the fifth book in the series. It should be live next week, print book will follow in about two weeks.
Aleta Clegg was the curriculum supervisor for the Christa McAuliffe Space Education Center.  She currently is working towards a masters degree at BYU and working with me to create Farpoint Station's educational division.

Mr. Williamson 





Human Brain: Amazing Facts

from Binscorner.com

Crystal brain cell

If you’re preparing for a quiz show and need to brush up on your knowledge of the human brain - or if you just have a love of learning - look no further, because we’ve gathered up a list of some of the best brain facts on the planet. Amongst other things, you’ll learn why babies’ heads are so darned big, why a healthy lunch is good for your body and your brain, why happy thoughts will keep the doctor away and why your lover’s cologne makes your heart skip a beat.
Check out our list, and if you’ve got more cool and interesting facts to add, please leave a comment!


Image: Gaetan Lee

Fast Brain Facts
  • 3 = the weight of your brain in pounds
  • 4 to 6 = the number of minutes your brain can survive without oxygen before it starts to die
  • 8 to 10 = the number of seconds you have before losing consciousness due to blood loss
  • 10 to 23 = the number of watts of power your grain generates when you’re awake (that’s enough to turn on a light bulb!)
  • 20 = the percentages of oxygen and blood flow going to the brain
  • 100,000 = the number of miles of blood vessels in your brain
  • 1,000 to 10,000 = the number of synapses for each neuron in your brain
  • 100 billion = the number of neurons in your brain


Image: Michael Heilemann

Baby Brains
  • Each person has about the same number of brain cells at birth as in adulthood, but those cells grow, reaching maximum size at about age six.
  • A newborn’s brain triples its size in the first year of life (no wonder babies have such big heads!).
  • The sense of touch is the first sense to develop in a fetus, with the lips and cheeks experiencing this sensation at eight weeks.
  • Keep exercising your brain, because mental activity stimulates the creation of new neurons throughout your whole life.


Image: Ctrldata

An Apple a Day
  • Think positive because when you do, you’ll keep the doctor away: Studies show that 50-70% of visits to the doctor for physical ailments can be traced to psychological reasons.
  • Eat well, and it’ll have positive effects on your brain, because a study of one million New York students showed that those who ate lunches
    without additives such as artificial flavours, preservatives and dyes performed 14% better in IQ tests.
  • That being said, your brain is the most fatty organ in your body!


Image: mbgrigby

The Memory Game
  • New connections are created each and every time you remember something or have a new thought.
  • Stronger, more intense emotional connections are linked to memories prompted by scent.
  • Memories triggered by scent (like cologne) have a stronger emotional connection, and therefore appear more intense than other memory triggers.
  • Cherish your sleep because that’s probably the best time for your brain to file away all the memories of the day.

I
mage: Erik Mallinson

Things That Make You Go “Hmmm…”
  • It’s not your brain that’s hurting when you get a headache – without pain receptors, your brain can’t feel any pain.
  • Your brain knows when you tickle yourself, which is why you don’t bend over laughing.
  • Supertasters have a super power that enables them to sometimes taste flavours that others can’t detect; they have more taste buds and a brain that’s more sensitive to tastes of foods and drinks.
  • When you sleep, you’re virtually paralyzed because your brain creates a hormone to prevent you from acting out your dreams.
  • About 12% of people dream in black and white.
  • It’s not true that humans only use 10% of their brains; each part of the brain has a purpose.

  Image: jj_judes



What is Reality?
There is a strange and mysterious world that surrounds us, a world largely hidden from our senses. The quest to explain the true nature of reality is one of the great scientific detective stories. Clues have been pieced together from deep within the atom, from the event horizon of black holes, and from the far reaches of the cosmos. It may be that that we are part of a cosmic hologram, projected from the edge of the universe. Or that we exist in an infinity of parallel worlds. Your reality may never look quite the same again. Read more 





The Imaginarium
Taking Ordinary                                                                                                          To Extraordinary


Something to do when you're bored in the office

They're getting older and older

An example of pure imagination. I think Nicholas will get the job.



An outdoor stage in Austria





All the pages are blank

Shocking!  We've been lied to all these years.

Watch ring.

All Legos


Thursday, August 29, 2013

New Ender's Game Trailer. A New Type of Human. How Many Black Holes? The Imaginarium

New Trailer for Ender's Game



Human Version 2.0
Meet the scientific prophets who claim we are on the verge of creating a new type of human – a human v.2.0. It’s predicted that by 2029 computer intelligence will equal the power of the human brain, a point of convergence referred to as the Singularity. Some believe this will revolutionize humanity – we will be able to download our minds to computers extending our lives indefinitely. Others fear this will lead to oblivion by giving rise to destructive ultra intelligent machines.
From www.Sciencegymnasium.com





There are so many black holes in the Universe that it is impossible to count them. It's like asking how many grains of sand are on the beach. Fortunately, the Universe is enormous and none of its known black holes are close enough to pose any danger to Earth.

Stellar-mass black holes form from the most massive stars when their lives end in supernova explosions. The Milky Way galaxy contains some
100 billion stars. Roughly one out of every thousand stars that form is massive enough to become a black hole. Therefore, our galaxy must harbor some 100 million stellar-mass black holes. Most of these are invisible to us, and only about a dozen have been identified. The nearest one is some 1,600 lightyears from Earth. In the region of the Universe visible from Earth, there are perhaps 100 billion galaxies. Each one has about 100 million stellar-mass black holes. And somewhere out there, a new stellar-mass black hole is born in a supernova every second.

Supermassive black holes are a million to a billion times more massive than our Sun and are found in the centers of galaxies. Most galaxies, and maybe all of them, harbor such a black hole. So in our region of the Universe, there are some 100 billion supermassive black holes. The nearest one resides in the center of our Milky Way galaxy, 28 thousand lightyears away. The most distant we know of lives in a quasar galaxy billions of lightyears away.


From All Science, All the Time



Professor Steven Benner will tell geochemists gathering today (Thursday 29 Aug) at the annual Goldschmidt conference that an oxidized mineral form of the element molybdenum, which may have been crucial to the origin of life, could only have been available on the surface of Mars and not on Earth. "In addition", said Professor Benner "recent studies show that these conditions, suitable for the origin of life, may still exist on Mars. Read More


Where does Consciousness Exist?

Where sits the Consciousness? What is Consciousness? Recently it was found out that both hemispheres can be missing yet the children (though severely impaired) are still Conscious! Laughing without a Brain: "Got a Towel?" Case studies suggest that some forms of consciousness may not require an intact cerebrum.  This video may answer that question.


 - See 

Saturn Moon Titan Sports Thick Icy Shell & Bizarre Interior




The tough icy shell of Saturn's largest moon Titan is apparently far stronger than previously thought, researchers say. These surprising new findings add to hints Titan possesses an extraordinarily bizarre interior, scientists added.  Read More


"Everyone Says It So It Must Be True": The Pseudoscience Quiz

We have an astonishing capacity to accept scientific-sounding concepts that aren't actually true, whether we pick them up from TV shows or dubious websites, or simply get facts from our high-school physics or biology twisted up. Test your ability to differentiate between real science and bad science with this quiz.  Take the Quiz

The Imaginarium
Please to present you with the ordinary, transformed into the extraordinary












The cycle of life

Turns waste paper into pencils







Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Astronaut Recounts Near Drowning. The Sun's Fate. Eleven Year Old Genius. Brain to Brain Interface. Buildings of the Future. The Imaginarium.



Italian Astronaut Recounts Near-Drowning in Spacesuit (Video)




Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Oldest Sun Like Star Previews Sun's Fate

Astronomers have found a twin star to Earth's own sun, only much older. The rare star is the oldest known "solar twin," and offers a peek at what Earth's star will look like in 4 billion years.
The star, called HIP 102152, appears to be as similar to the sun in its basic characteristics as any other known star. However, whereas the sun is only 4.6 billion years old, HIP 102152 is 8.2 billion years old, and so represents asun-like star at a very different stage of life. In fact, it's the oldest solar twin ever seen. Read More




11 Year Old Boy Begins Freshman Year At TCU College, Majoring In Quantum Physics - Carson Huey-You

He doesn't live on campus. He can't even drive there. But an 11-year-old is among the new class of undergrads at Texas Christian University -- adjusting to college life, finding the right buildings, settling in for those easy core classes. "I'm taking calculus, physics, history and religion. Those are my four classes," Carson Huey-You told CBS 11 News. Carson is taking a full load of college courses this semester — and studying to become a quantum physicist. He is the youngest student the university has ever had.  Read More



Researcher Controls Colleague’s Motions in 1st Human Brain-to-Brain Interface
University of Washington researchers have performed what they believe is the first noninvasive human-to-human brain interface, with one researcher able to send a brain signal via the Internet to control the hand motions of a fellow researcher.
Using electrical brain recordings and a form of magnetic stimulation, Rajesh Rao sent a brain signal to Andrea Stocco on the other side of the UW campus, causing Stocco’s finger to move on a keyboard.


Smart Buildings, the Future of Building Technology




The Imaginarium
Always making the ordinary, extraordinary

Portal 3 has been located






Look at the speed settings.  Awesome.


An imaginative "Do Not Disturb Sign"

Keeps things from getting soggy

Trick or Treating as a smoke detector






Awe.... he's grown up