pA:10, v10.39 — The World Around Us

The World Around Us

Mountain Views News Saturday, September 24, 2016

MVNews this week: Page A:10

THE WORLD AROUND US

Mountain Views-News Saturday, September 24, 2016

INTRODUCING THE DAILY MINOR PLANET: DELIVERING THE LATEST ASTEROID NEWS

Have you ever wondered what piece of cosmic
debris is whizzing past the Earth right now? Do
you crave up-to-the-minute information about
asteroids large and small? Well you’re in luck
because today you can subscribe to a new service:
the Daily Minor Planet.

Developed through a partnership between
scientists at the Minor Planet Center and volunteers
from the Oracle Corporation, the Daily Minor
Planet will deliver reports on the latest asteroid
happenings straight to your inbox.

“Most people don’t realize how common
asteroid flybys are,” said Matt Holman, director
of the Minor Planet Center and astronomer at the
Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
(CfA). “We want the Daily Minor Planet to educate
readers in an entertaining way, so the next time
they see a doom-and-gloom asteroid headline,
they’ll know where to go to find the facts.”

The Daily Minor Planet’s name cleverly
combines the title of the fictional newspaper home
of Superman’s Clark Kent, the Daily Planet, with
the historical name of asteroids, or minor planets.
In a nod to the real-life newspaper world, it will
be available in two HTML formats: classic and
modern.

Almost every day, a known asteroid passes within
a few million miles of Earth. On those dates, the
Daily Minor Planet will list the flyby asteroid along
with the time and distance of its closest approach. On
days without a cosmic flyby, the report will feature a
newly discovered asteroid. It will also highlight an
article from the popular press.

The Daily Minor Planet continues a
collaboration that began with Asteroid Explorers,
a website designed to increase public awareness of
asteroids and their impact and risks to the world.
That website’s interactive tools allow visitors to
investigate questions like “Which asteroids have
the highest risk of impacting Earth?” and “Which
asteroids are easiest to travel to?”

“I want to thank the Oracle volunteer team
and the others for their excellent work on the
Daily Minor Planet and the Asteroid Explorer,”
said Victoria Friedensen, the Planetary Defense
Program Executive for the Asteroid Grand
Challenge at the NASA Planetary Defense
Coordination Office. “These are two excellent
examples of how government, academia, and the
private sector can work together to improve our
defense from an impact on Earth.”

Smithsonian astronomer J. L. Galache served as
project lead on both the Daily Minor Planet and
Asteroid Explorers. His colleague at the Minor
Planet Center, Michael Rudenko (CfA), played
a key role in designing and implementing both
websites.

For the Daily Minor Planet, the Oracle team
focused on taking the Minor Planet Center’s
complex data sets and creating intuitive
visualization tools.

“Humans are visual creatures. And although our
target audience is everyone, we found that even the
experts can understand the data better if it’s well
visualized,” said DJ Ursal, senior director for the
Oracle User Experience Organization.

“Our measure of success is community impact,”
Ursal added. “It’s all about community and
participation, cross-organizationally at Oracle and
out in the wider world.”

Jeremy Ashely, Oracle Group Vice President,
agreed and pointed out that the relationship
between Oracle and the Minor Planet Center has
been mutually beneficial.

“A project like this gets people to stretch their
minds,” Ashely said. “It’s easy to get into a rut,
but when you gather different people together and
they bring different perspectives, new ideas start to
emerge. That’s the definition of innovation.”

To subscribe to the Daily Minor Planet, go to
http://minorplanetcenter.net/daily-minor-planet

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

CHRISTOPHER Nyerges

OUT TO PASTOR

A Weekly Religion Column by Rev. James Snyder

PURSUING A COURSE IN
APPLE-FRITTEROLOGY

WHAT WE THINKOUR HEALTH

IS MORE THAN MERELY

OUR PHYSICAL BODY

Recently, and by that I mean within the last month,
my cell phone has been ringing out of my shirt
pocket. It is rather frustrating because I rarely give
my number to anybody. But there it goes, ringing
and ringing and ringing.

Usually the calls are for political polls of which I
am not the least bit interested. If they want to know
whom I am voting for they are going to have to come
up with a little bit of coin for me. Why should I give
them information they are going to sell to someone
else? We all know politics goes to the highest bidder.

The only difference between a pollster and a
polecat is… I’m not sure there is any.

Then, there are those called Robo calls. I still do
not understand what in the world they are. The
phone rings and there is nobody on the other end. I
can say “Hello” 100 times and still nobody answers.
If I ever find out who this Robo is, I will be tempted
to give them a piece of my mind.

Does everybody have my cell phone
number? Most of the time I cannot
remember what my number is and I have to look at
my phone.

Then I started getting phone calls the other week
concerning furthering my education.

“I understand,” they always begin which makes
me a little suspicious, “that you are interested in
furthering your education.”

Well, I try to learn something every day if that is
what they mean. But it’s not what they mean.

“From your recent application on the website,” they
say is if they know exactly what they are talking
about, “you have indicated that you are interested in
our university.” Then they pause to catch their breath
I guess, “What are you interested in pursuing?”

The first dozen calls I explained to them that
there must be a mistake, I was not on their website
and I am not interested in anything that they are
providing.

From a practical standpoint, you would think that
would settle it. But oh no. These people have a script
and they stick to their script.

“So what is the interest of your further education?”

It must be the Pennsylvania Dutch in me or
something because I can only take this kind of thing
for so long. Then, the real me oozes out of my system.
Suddenly I had an idea.

It takes a lot for me to get an idea and these calls
were pushing me to my limit. And so I came up with
a brilliant idea. At least I thought it was brilliant.

The next one that called I said, “Yes, I am interested
in furthering my education.”

“Wonderful,” they said reading from their script,
“what area of study are you interested in?”

Now I had them eating out of my hand, and I have
not washed my hands all day.

“I would like to pursue a course,” I said as seriously
as I possibly could manage, “in Apple-fritterology.”
Of course, I had never heard of such a thing, but who
knows what’s out there?

There was a slight pause on the other end of the
phone and finally the person said, “What did you
say?”

“I would like to pursue a course in
Apple-fritterology.”

“Would you mind,” the other end of the phone
muttered, “spelling that for me?”

“A-p-p-l-e-f-r-i-t-t-e-r-o-l-o-g-y.”

“I’m not sure we have a class for that. I’ve never
heard of that before.”

At that point, I knew I have them. “That is what I
am interested in and that is what I want to sign up
for how can I go about that?”

“Sir,” and I could tell this point they were off
script, “would you explain to me what that is? I’ve
never heard that before.”

“It is the study of Apple fritters and their impact in
modern-day psychosomatic society.”

Following that, there was a distinctive “click” as
the other end of the phone hung up abruptly.

After that telephone conversation, I got to thinking
about it. That would be a wonderful course of study.
I plan to do some adequate research on the subject of
which will consist of eating Apple fritters. I plan to
be an Apple-fritterologist.

I am sure I will be the first of its kind and I should
be planning and preparing a course of study on
this tremendous subject. After all, who wouldn’t be
interested in such a study?

Since then I have received several other calls
asking about my interest in furthering my education.
Now, I am reading from my script and confusing the
person on the other end of the phone. I cannot wait
for the next phone call to come in. I am having a
wonderful time. For every phone call that comes in,
I eat two Apple fritters.

If I never had received any of these phone calls, I
never would have come up with such a wonderful
plan. So why should I complain about my cell phone
ringing out of my shirt pocket? For every frustrating
experience in life, there is a shiny rainbow littered
with Apple fritters.

I was reminded what the old preacher said,
“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with
thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor
knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave, whither thou
goest” (Ecclesiastes 9:10).

One of the joys of life when somebody is
frustrating you is to return the favor.

Dr. James L. Snyder is pastor of the Family
of God Fellowship, Ocala, FL 34483, where he
lives with his wife. Call him at 1-866-552-2543 or
e-mail jamessnyder2@att.net. His web site is www.
jamessnyderministries.com.

[Nyerges is the author of “Extreme Simplicity,”
“How to Survive Anywhere,” and other books.
He can be reached at www.SchoolofSelf-
Reliance.com.]

The following is a section of a book-in-
progress entitled “Integral Health.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF ATTITUDE

Joseph Nemeth of Fort Collins, Colorado,
made some noteworthy observations in the
September 1989 Mensa Bulletin (Mensa is
the international high IQ society). He writes,
“Occasionally, we need to be reminded how
very peculiar and unbalanced our mainstream
concept of medicine is. First, we are all mortal
and will die regardless of the efforts of any
practitioner of any brand of medicine. Second,
we forget that no physician has ever healed
anyone -- the physician merely stabilizes the
body (or mind) in a crisis, allowing the body
(or mind) to heal itself. Because we hold the
physician responsible for the healing, we split
physicians into two camps -- the real doctors
and the quacks -- and identify the former
with medical conservatism and the latter
with anything else. This leads to comments
like `raising false hopes’ -- in spite of the fact
that all hopes are false in the long term, while
in the short term hope itself may be the most
important factor in healing.

“Spontaneous remission is a well-
documented category of healing which baffles
physicians. If there are any reproducible
factors associated with spontaneous remission,
they appear to lie in the areas of faith healing,
prayer, laying-on of hands, meditation, and
other sources of `false hope.’ Who is going
to perform the rigorous studies to test these
instances, if not parapsychologists? How
many conservative physicians or medical
researchers are going to put their reputation
and future livelihood on the line by really
studying this `crank medicine=?”

People who are experiencing severe grief
need a good friend more than they need
pills. A study done by Mount Sinai School of
Medicine in New York showed that men whose
wives had died experience a significant decline
in the activity of lymphocytes, white blood
cells involved in the body’s disease-fighting
system. An estimated 700,000 Americans
over 50 lose their spouses each year, and
about 7,000 deaths a year are attributed to
bereavement. Know someone whose spouse
has recently died? Call them every day for a
week or a month or longer and let them know
someone still cares.

THE VALUE OF EMPATHY

Immunoglobulin-A (IgA) is our immune
system’s first line of defense against upper
respiratory infections. IgA works by killing
many viruses. Psychologist David McClelland
and colleagues spent several months studying
the responses of Harvard students after
viewing such scenes as Mother Theresa
of Calcutta working among India’s poor.
McClelland measured a sharp increase in the
IgA content of the saliva of the students who
had just viewed the films.

McClelland also discovered that the “healers”
who cheer up people and make them feel
better about themselves invariably raise the
IgA level of the patients. This, according to
McClelland, is one factor that contributes to
the healing that takes place.

MUSIC

A related factor is the inclusion of
“uplifting” music in our daily lives. In
general, music with a regular rhythm and
tempo (as opposed to spacey New Age music)
is best. We have found Bach’s well-tempered
clavichord, and Mendelssohn’s Spinning Song
very integrating to the nervous system.

DON’T WORRY, BE HAPPY

Occasionally, a student will ask us, “Aren’t
you worried about getting poison oak?” They
may also ask if we’re worried about tics,
snakes, or any of the other things we could
encounter in the outdoors. I respond that, no,
I am not worried, since worry is bad for the
heart and is known to actually increase the
body’s cholesterol level, thicken the arteries,
and increase the blood pressure. The point
wasn’t to be flip, since next I tell the students
how to deal with poison oak, tics, whatever.
The point is to not worry.

Worry, hate, anxiety, fear -- these and other
negative emotions are bad for our health.
Though this is a vast subject upon which
many books have been written, the emotion
of hate causes (among other things) excess
hydrochloric acid to secrete into the stomach,
and the emotion of fear causes (among other
things) an excess flow of andrenalin which
weakens the kidneys.

Are there viable alternatives to fear, to hate,
to worry? Yes, definitely. But you must first
CHOOSE to abandon hostility. Try doing
two “good” things for every “bad” thing that
enters your life. And should you find yourself
entertaining destructive thoughts about
another person, immediately say to yourself,
“regardless whether that thought about so-
and-so is true, he or she has these outstanding
traits” and then remind yourself of those good
traits.

We must emphasize that we are not referring to
some sort of “positive thinking” where we affirm
things to be so which are not so; rather, we’re
talking about retraining our brain so we don’t
continue to allow our own thoughts and emotions
to result in our own sickness and disease.

We’d like to hear from you!

What’s on YOUR Mind?

Mountain Views News 80 W Sierra Madre Blvd. No. 327 Sierra Madre, Ca. 91024 Office: 626.355.2737 Fax: 626.609.3285 Email: editor@mtnviewsnews.com Website: www.mtnviewsnews.com