Hala from Hawaii

This is Hala fruit from Hawaii.

The fruit of the hala tree only grows on the female tree. It can be eaten when it turned brought yellow. It was used throughout Polynesia as a food during times of famine. The round fruit is a cluster of seed pods. As it ripens, the fruit breaks apart into single seeds called keys. A new hala tree will sprout from these seeds."

These are such fascinating trees. They are easy to spot in Hawaii, often growing along salty coastlines, and while there are several endemic species here, this is also one of the canoe plants that the Polynesians chose to bring with them to the islands. They are dioecious, meaning there are male trees and there are female trees. The male trees produce white clusters of flowers and the females have the large cones of seeds on them (sometimes confused as “pineapple trees”). Every part of this tree is useful. The leaves are used often in weaving. The male flowers are fragrant and the pollen is thought to be an aphrodesiac. The ariel roots are very phallic in appearance. They are an alterative, used as a blood cleanser. They are also diaphoretic and diuretic. The large female “cone” fruit are used to tonify chi. They are adaptogenic and can be used for low energy, sluggish digestion, hangovers, etc. The medicine of this tree is said to strengthen mind and spirit. Another strong mana plant, these trees have a solid place in Polynesian culture.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandanus_tectorius

http://www.instanthawaii.com/cgi-bin/hawaii?Plants.hala

http://www.flickr.com/photos/7957972@N06/1344746589/

Super Moon

Super Full Moon over Espejo.

The Super Perigee Moon rises over the horizon of Espejo, an small Village of Cordoba Countryside in Andalusia, Spain.

Copyright: Juan A. Bafalliu (Bonobo) 

http://www.flickr.com/photos/calle_l_8/9121407276/

Longest Day...

Today is the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere. 

The June solstice is here once again, marking the longest daylight period of the year and the start of astronomical summer in Earth’s northern hemisphere.

At 5:04 UTC (1:04 a.m. EDT) on June 21, the sun can be seen straight overhead along the Tropic of Cancer, while the North Pole reaches its maximum annual tilt toward the sun. As the planet rotates on its axis, areas within the Arctic Circle see the sun circle through the sky for 24 hours.

Of course, in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere we don’t see the sun up for 24 hours, but there’s still plenty of daylight to enjoy. Most places in the continental U.S. see the sun above the horizon for 14 to 16 hours on the summer solstice – the exact amount depends on your latitude.

On the summer solstice, areas of the Northern Hemisphere outside the tropics see the longest daylight period of the year and the midday sun is at its highest point in the sky.
In Washington, D.C., the sun is above the horizon for 14 hours and 54 minutes, climbing 74.5º above the horizon at solar noon (1:10 p.m.). The higher your latitude, the longer you’ll see the sun above the horizon – however, this also means the sun will appear lower in the sky.

In the table of world cities below, we see that in more northern locations, the sun is up longer on the summer solstice, but shines from a lower angle at midday. Compare Washington and London, for example: The sun in London (if not masked behind clouds), is up nearly two hours longer than in Washington. However, at midday it’s only as high in the sky as Washingtonians see it in mid-April.

Why can’t we say that the sun is at its highest point in the sky everywhere north of the equator? The reason is that in the tropics (locations within 23.5º latitude of the equator), the midday sun can appear toward either the northern or southern horizon depending on the time of year . Along the equator, the noontime sun is at its highest point – zenith – on the equinoxes, while on the solstices, the sun actually takes its lowest path in the sky.

Interestingly, the June solstice sun appears higher in the sky at solar noon in cities like Washington, New York, or Minneapolis than it does on the equator. As we see in the first table above, equatorial Singapore only sees the sun rise 67.9º above the horizon on the summer solstice, while the sun in Minneapolis appears at a slightly higher 68.5º above the horizon at midday


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That's some DVD!!

How to fit 1,000 terabytes on a DVD

A new technique has been developed that will allow a single DVD to store around 10.6 years of high definition video. Using nanotechnology, the breakthrough will increase the storage capacity of a DVD from a measly 4.7 gigabytes to 1,000 terabytes.

Read more: http://bit.ly/13SOSXc

Quantum Computing

The massive amount of processing power generated by computer manufacturers has not yet been able to quench our thirst for speed and computing capacity. In 1947, American computer engineer Howard Aikensaid that just six electronic digital computers would satisfy the computing needs of the United States. Others have made similar errant predictions about the amount of computing power that would support our growing technological needs. Of course, Aiken didn't count on the large amounts of data generated by scientific research, the proliferation of personal computers or the emergence of the Internet, which have only fueled our need for more, more and more computing power.

Will we ever have the amount of computing power we need or want? If, asMoore's Law states, the number of transistors on a microprocessorcontinues to double every 18 months, the year 2020 or 2030 will find the circuits on a microprocessor measured on an atomic scale. And the logical next step will be to create quantum computers, which will harness the power of atoms and molecules to perform memory and processing tasks. Quantum computers have the potential to perform certain calculations significantly faster than any silicon-based computer.

Scientists have already built basic quantum computers that can perform certain calculations; but a practical quantum computer is still years away. In this article, you'll learn what a quantum computer is and just what it'll be used for in the next era of computing.

You don't have to go back too far to find the origins of quantum computing. While computers have been around for the majority of the 20th century, quantum computing was first theorized less than 30 years ago, by a physicist at the Argonne National Laboratory. Paul Benioff is credited with first applying quantum theory to computers in 1981. Benioff theorized about creating a quantum Turing machine. Most digital computers, like the one you are using to read this article, are based on the Turing Theory. 

Black Hole!!!

Study explains decades of black hole observations

A new study by astronomers at NASA, Johns Hopkins University and Rochester Institute of Technology confirms long-held suspicions about how stellar-mass black holes produce their highest-energy light.

"We're accurately representing the real object and calculating the light an astronomer would actually see," says Scott Noble, associate research scientist in RIT's Center for Computational Relativity and Gravitation. "This is a first-of-a-kind calculation where we actually carry out all the pieces together. We start with the equations we expect the system to follow, and we solve those full equations on a supercomputer. That gives us the data with which we can then make the predictions of the X-ray spectrum."

Lead researcher Jeremy Schnittman, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, says the study looks at one of the most extreme physical environments in the universe: "Our work traces the complex motions, particle interactions and turbulent magnetic fields in billion-degree gas on the threshold of a black hole."

By analyzing a supercomputer simulation of gas flowing into a black hole, the team finds they can reproduce a range of important X-ray features long observed in active black holes.
"We've predicted and come to the same evidence that the observers have," Noble says. "This is very encouraging because it says we actually understand what's going on. If we made all the correct steps and we saw a totally different answer, we'd have to rethink what our model is."
Gas falling toward a black hole initially orbits around it and then accumulates into a flattened disk. The gas stored in this disk gradually spirals inward and becomes compressed and heated as it nears the center. Ultimately reaching temperatures up to 20 million degrees Fahrenheit (12 million C)—some 2,000 times hotter than the sun's surface—the gas shines brightly in low-energy, or soft, X-rays.
For more than 40 years, however, observations show that black holes also produce considerable amounts of "hard" X-rays, light with energy 10 to hundreds of times greater than soft X-rays. This higher-energy light implies the presence of correspondingly hotter gas, with temperatures reaching billions of degrees.


Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2013-06-decades-black-hole.html

Infinity Pool!!!

Infinity pool in Marina Bay Sands Skypark, Singapore

Infinity pool in Marina Bay Sands Skypark was opened in 2010 in Singapore. The 1115 ft (340 m) long pool belongs to a 2,560 rooms hotel and is one of the biggest and most impressive in the world.

The Infinity pool’s construction is indeed amazing: it embraces three buildings. It looks like the water spills over the edge. However, it is being pumped back into this gorgeous pool, which is 55 storeys up.

Architect Moshe Safdiehas designed the Marina Sands resort. Legendary Diana Ross sang during the hotel’s opening night. The whole Skypark complex attracts thousands of visitors each day.

Credit : John Luo