Mountain Views News          Saturday, April 2, 2016

12

THE WORLD AROUND US


SOLAR STORMS IGNITE X-RAY “NORTHERN LIGHTS” ON JUPITER


Solar storms are triggering X-ray auroras on 
Jupiter that are about eight times brighter 
than normal over a large area of the planet 
and hundreds of times more energetic than 
Earth’s “northern lights,” according to a new 
study using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray 
Observatory. This result is the first time that 
Jupiter’s auroras have been studied in X-ray 
light when a giant solar storm arrived at the 
planet.

 The Sun constantly ejects streams of particles 
into space in the solar wind. Sometimes, giant 
storms, known as coronal mass ejections 
(CMEs), erupt and the solar winds become 
much stronger. These events compress 
Jupiter’s magnetosphere, the region of space 
controlled by Jupiter’s magnetic field, shifting 
its boundary with the solar wind inward by 
more than a million miles. This new study 
found that the interaction at the boundary 
triggers the X-rays in Jupiter’s auroras, which 
cover an area bigger than the surface of the 
Earth.

 A series of composite images show Jupiter 
and its aurora during and after a CME’s arrival 
at Jupiter in October 2011. In these images, 
X-ray data from Chandra (purple) have been 
overlaid on an optical image from the Hubble 
Space Telescope. The left-hand panel reveals 
the X-ray activity when the CME reached 
Jupiter, and the right-hand side is the view two 
days later after the CME subsided. 

 The impact of the CME on Jupiter’s aurora 
was tracked by monitoring the X-rays emitted 
during two 11-hour observations. The scientists 
used that data to pinpoint the source of the 
X-ray activity and identify areas to investigate 
further.

 The dramatic findings complement NASA’s 
Juno mission this summer which aims to 
understand the relationship between the two 
biggest structures in the solar system—the 
region of space controlled by Jupiter’s magnetic 
field (i.e., its magnetosphere) and the region 
controlled by the solar wind.

 “There’s a constant power struggle between 
the solar wind and Jupiter’s magnetosphere,” 
explained William Dunn, lead author and 
PhD student at University College London’s 
Mullard Space Science Laboratory “We want to 
understand this interaction and what effect it 
has on the planet. By studying how the aurora 
changes, we can discover more about the region 
of space controlled by Jupiter’s magnetic field, 
and if or how this is influenced by the Sun. 
Understanding this relationship is important 
for the countless magnetic objects across the 
galaxy, including exoplanets, brown dwarfs 
and neutron stars.”

 NASA’s Juno spacecraft, launched in 2011, 
will investigate Jupiter’s relationship with 
the Sun and the solar wind by studying its 
magnetic field, magnetosphere and aurora. 
The UCL team hopes to find out how the 
X-rays form by collecting complementary 
data using the European Space Agency’s X-ray 
space observatory, XMM-Newton, and NASA’s 
Chandra X-ray observatory.

 “Comparing new findings from Jupiter with 
what is already known for Earth will help 
explain how space weather is driven by the solar 
wind interacting with Earth’s magnetosphere,” 
said Professor Graziella Branduardi-Raymont, 
supervisor of the study at UCL. “New insights 
into how Jupiter’s atmosphere is influenced 
by the Sun will help us characterize the 
atmospheres of exoplanets, giving us clues 
about whether a planet is likely to support life 
as we know it.”

 

 You can contact Bob Eklund at: b.eklund@
MtnViewsNews.com.


OUT TO PASTOR 

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

THE PURSUIT OF WILD FOODS 

Serving wild foods to the Sierra Club

ACTING A FOOL IS A FULL-TIME 
OCCUPATION 


[Nyerges has been teaching 
wild foods since 1974, and 
has authored several books. 
He can be reached at Box 
41834, Eagle Rock, CA 
90041, or www.SchoolofSelf-Reliance.com] 

 Back in high school, I remember talking with my 
best friend Joe Sierra about what we thought we’d 
do with our lives. Joe commented that you can’t go 
wrong by dealing with the three basic needs: Food, 
shelter, clothing. Joe followed in his father’s footsteps, 
and built houses and had a successful career. I had a 
pessimistic view of the future, when the “end of the 
world” could happen at any time, and I pursued the 
path of studying and teaching ethno-botany -- how 
cultures used wild plants for food, medicine, etc. 

 Food, shelter, and clothing. These are the very 
basic needs of mankind which generally must be 
handled so you can go ahead and pursue those 
“higher” goals that make life worth living. Some of 
the classic books on how the Native Americans lived 
on the Plains and elsewhere often talk about nothing 
else but food, clothing, and shelter, even though there 
is much more to talk about. 

 For me, the idea that I could go in the local 
mountains, either by walking or bicycling, and 
gather foods that my geographical ancestors ate, 
was an experience that freed my mind to so many 
of the psychological restraints that bind and confine 
modern people. If I could collect a plant and create 
a meal, that meant there’d be more food in the 
supermarkets for those people who didn’t know 
about wild foods. When I collected wild foods for my 
meals, they were fresh, with no chemical fertilizers, 
and no pesticides. It’s remarkable, and it’s something 
you simply cannot buy, even at a farmers market. 

 Eventually, I wrote “Guide to Wild Foods” to 
share my research on wild foods with others. This 
was written with the assistance of Dr. Leonid Enari, 
who taught at the L.A. County Arboretum, and who 
is the best botanist that no one knows! I have also 
written other books, most of which have contained 
information about using wild foods on a daily basis. 

SIERRA CLUB TALK 

In March, I gave a Powerpoint presentation to the 
Sierra Club at one of their monthly meetings in 
Eaton Canyon. The presentation included lots of live 
plants, and pictures from my “Nuts and Berries of 
California” book, as well as pictures from my latest 
book, “Foraging Wild Edible Plants from North 
America.” This latest book is full of color photos, 
and only includes those plants that can be found 
anywhere in all of North America. It is full of recipes 
that I have used and collected over the past nearly 40 
years. 

 So, it was a lot of extra work, but for this Sierra 
Club program, I went out and collected enough wild 
foods to serve three different dishes to about 100 
people. 

 There was a big salad, consisting mostly of 
chickweed, which is common in everyone’s yard in 
the spring. We added some mustard flowers and 
lambs quarter to the salad, and served it with some 
Trader Joe’s salad dressing. 

 I also collected as many young nettle tops as I could 
find. Yes, these are stinging nettles, and yes, my hands 
stung after collecting them. I recommend that people 
wear gloves when collecting these, but they tend not 
to bother me too much anymore. I collected only the 
tender tops and washed them. Then I diced them 
up, cooked them in water and flavored it with miso 
powder. Everyone was surprised that a nettle soup 
could taste so good. In fact, it is not an uncommon 
reaction for people to assume that a wild food dish 
will taste terrible or just passable. First-time wild food 
tasters are surprised when the food tastes delicious, as 
did the nettle soup. And it’s also very nutritious. 

 We also set up a stove in the patio where people 
entered the Sierra Club talk, and I was cooking young 
lambs quarter greens with eggs in my big cast iron 
skillet. Everyone got a little taste. 

 These were the simplest of recipes which made an 
fully-satisfying meal. 

 It is clear to me that there is no shortage of food in 
the world. Food is everywhere. When our fellow man 
goes hungry, it is nearly always due to something 
other than shortages, such as our own unawareness 
of food, and maybe even man’s cruelty to other 
human beings.

My paternal grandfather’s favorite holiday 
was April 1. He would spend months putting 
together some trick to fool either a family 
member or a friend. Both were assessable to 
his “tricks.”

 He could read a person and within a few 
moments have an idea of what the best trick 
to play on that person. Nobody really saw it 
coming. They knew his reputation, of course, 
but he was so skillful in his acts of foolery that 
nobody ever guessed they were a target until 
was too late.

 One thing I learned from my grandfather is 
that it is almost impossible to fool the Fool-
Master. If he had spent as much time being a 
grandfather as being a reputable Fool-Master, 
he would have been the greatest grandfather in 
the world. His priorities, however, were not in 
that direction.

 One thing my grandfather never did was 
reveal how he could pull off these tricks on 
people. At times he came close but that was his 
secret he took to his grave.

 Those who tried to pull a trick on him usually 
have it backfire and turned out to be a Major-
Fool. I know my cousins and I spent hours 
trying to figure out a foolproof plan to pull 
on our grandfather. The problem was, he died 
before we could finally put together anything 
that would come close.

 Thinking about that recently, I was pondering 
the idea that it really takes a lot of time to be 
a fool. In fact, some people make it a full-time 
job.

 With my grandfather, acting a fool was just 
a hobby. He could turn it on and he could 
turn it off and got a lot of fun out of pulling 
tricks on people who were not expecting such a 
trick from such a man. Other people carry this 
kind of foolery into every aspect of their life 
without even trying. They just simply are fools 
in everything they do. Now, I am not sure, does 
this comes naturally or do they have to work at 
it.

 There are times when a person needs to be 
serious and then there are times when a little 
dab of foolery will do you. To be serious all the 
time can lead, according to my grandfather, 
to a serious nervous breakdown. Who in the 
world wants that!

 I must confess I am not my grandfather, 
although there have been times in which I 
yearn to be. His great accomplishment in life 
was to make fools out of people who thought 
they were smart and uppity.

 I wish I knew how to do that!

I, on the other hand, need to work very hard 
at not being a fool. Believe me, it is a full-time 
job. It is so easy to be a fool. At least from my 
perspective.

I cannot tell you how many times the Gracious 
Mistress of the Parsonage has looked at me and 
said rather sternly, “Are you acting like a fool?”

Although we have been married for years, she 
has not really concluded that I cannot act. I 
am what I am, I am what you see, no thespian 
arts about it. I wish I was acting a fool, because 
then I could stop acting and become a normal 
person, whatever that is.

 When I feel down on myself in this area, I 
think of many of the fools in the world around 
us. And we all know who we are.

 I think the biggest fools in my book are those 
who are afraid of words. Words seem to upset 
and unnerve causing them to go into some kind 
of psychotic spin. I do not understand because 
a word is simply a word.

 There are three letters in the English alphabet 
that brings more agitation and hatred than any 
other letters. Just three words.

 The three letters are D O G. Of course, when 
you see those letters you immediately think 
of one of your favorite little animals. A dog 
is a friendly kind of a thing. When somebody 
sees these three letters, they usually smile. 
However, they are just three letters in the 
English alphabet. Nothing more than that.

 Organize these letters and many people will 
go bizarre. For example, if we arrange the 
letters G O D, people will go crazy. They are 
afraid of these three letters so arranged.

 These same letters make up the word dog. 
Yet if you reverse those letters and make it spell 
God, people get all agitated and upset and want 
to put a band on those letters.

 Usually, the ones who are the most upset 
about these three letters so arranged are some 
of the highly educated people in our country. 
I simply do not get it. If they are so educated 
and sophisticated, why do three letters in the 
English alphabet frighten them?

 I find it a little strange that the people who 
do not believe in God, are the ones most 
agitated by the letters G O D. If they do not 
believe in God, what are they afraid of? If, in 
their sophisticated opinion, God does not 
exist, then why are they afraid of three letters 
in the English alphabet?

David put this in the proper perspective. “The 
fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. 
They are corrupt, they have done abominable 
works, there is none that doeth good” (Psalms 
14:1).

 Happy holiday to those who qualify.

 The Rev. James L. Snyder is pastor of the 
Family of God Fellowship in Silver Springs 
Shores. Call him at 352-687-4240 or e-mail 
jamessnyder2@att.net. The church web site is 
www.whatafellowship.com.


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