Company Provides Memorial Space Flights

It was considered eccentric and almost impossible to fathom when counter-cultural icon Timothy Leary did it, but now it's a service available to all. Celestis is a company that provides memorial funeral services for those who want their cremated remains to orbit in outer space--and it's even somewhat affordable.

Celestis, Inc. is an affiliate company of Space Services, Inc., a Houston, Texas-based aerospace company who helped popularize the notion of public participation space flights. They were responsible for launching Leary's ashes, and have since done the same for Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry in 1997, and most recently his wife Majel Barrett Roddenberry is scheduled for next year. But now the company offers various services for the entire public.

Ranging from $695 to $12,500, customers have the options to send their loved ones just above the earth and back, into Earth's orbit, into the lunar orbit or surface, or even into deep space.

Give the website a glance and see if somebody you knew could finally have a dream fulfilled.

Mike Duke: Man with a Green Plan

Multi-billion corporation Wal-Mart has suddenly seemed to have grown a conscience. Wal-Mart, Inc. has vowed its new leadership plan to "expand efforts to reduce waste, use renewable energy and push suppliers to clean up their act," the company's incoming chief executive officer said Monday.

Mike Duke will become the company's new boss on the first of February, and claims he wants to "accelerate" Wal-Marts efforts in sustainability. The "Sustainability Milestone Meeting," which was broadcast over the Internet, was used to set the mood for the company to turn a new leaf. Duke says his plans are non-negotiable. "I am very serious about it. It's not something of the past. This is all about the future," he proclaimed.

Efforts to reduce waste by using renewable energy have been a strategy in improving Wal-Mart's reputation since 2005. The company is now holding more energy-efficient products, as well as selling only concentrated laundry detergent by eliminating phosphate in the product.

Phosphate compounds are "a water pollutant that can damage aquatic ecosystems by stimulating the growth of algae," (Nicole Maestri, Reuters) which decreases oxygen for fish and plants. Phosphates are believed to be the main contributor to phosphate-based water pollution. The company is looking to eliminate the chemical entirely from detergent in the near future.

Duke's Wal-Mart will also cut back on packaging by 5 percent by the end of 2013 in American regions, which include stores in Canada, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Central America, Brazil and Argentina. There are 2,300 store locations within the region.

Duke wishes to crack down on unacceptable products made in supplying countries such as China, and hold them to stricter regulations, including environmental ones. He reiterated the need for employees not to put these issues on "the backburner."

Wal-Mart's shares went up 10 cents at $48.45 on the New York Stock Exchange after the meeting took place.

People Can’t Help Smiling

In an article by Jeanna Bryner of LiveScience.com, she describes the findings of a new study that shows facial expressions are in genes.

By comparing the facial expressions from more than 4,800 photographs of sighted and blind judo athletes at the 2004 Summer Olympics and Paralympic Games, researchers were able to determine that sighted and sightless form the same “social smile” when faced with the same social context--in this case, winning a medal.

Social smiles use only the mouth muscles, while true smiles, known as Duchenne smiles, cause the eyes to twinkle and narrow and the cheeks to rise.

Both sighted and sightless athletes in the photographs used social smiles during the medal ceremonies.

"Losers pushed their lower lip up as if to control the emotion on their face, and many produced social smiles," said researcher David Matsumoto, a psychologist at San Francisco State University.

The athletes also exhibited the same expressions when exhibiting sadness, which Matsumoto says is shown by a downturned mouth and the raising of the inner eyebrows.

One idea behind the study had been that people worldwide learn how to match facial configurations with certain emotional states by watching others. Using photos of the blind athletes disproved this theory, as they could not watch others making faces.

"Individuals blind from birth could not have learned to control their emotions in this way through visual learning, so there must be another mechanism," Matsumoto said. "It could be that our emotions, and the systems to regulate them, are vestiges of our evolutionary ancestry. It's possible that in response to negative emotions, humans have developed a system that closes the mouth so that they are prevented from yelling, biting or throwing insults."

The study is published in the January 2009 issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Peace Games

In an effort to combat violence with a “get ‘em while they’re young” strategy, Peace Games offers to teach children to resolve conflicts without violence.

Found at PeaceGames.org, Peace Games offers programs through elementary schools, families and volunteers, to help children grow and live in a safe, conflict-free environment.

Peace Games has many goals that they want to meet in their quest for peace at a childhood level, including building children’s knowledge, relationships and opportunities to be peacmakers, while involving the community at large. The other goals include inspiring new generations of educators and activists as well as removing the stigma of the connection between violence and youth.

For this last goal, Peace Games strives to show that youths are not just victims of violence, but also peacemakers. Not all young people are bullies or bullied, nor are all children likely to commit gun-related incidents in schools. Many children try to help others and avoid conflict and Peace Games want to help build that up through their various partnerships.

Since 1992, when Peace Games was founded by Dr. Francelia Butler, Peace Games has grown to be a national organization, with programs found in nearly every major city in the nation. The program model for Peace Games begins at the school level and then goes on to incorporate more people that can help make a positive impact. From the students, the program grows to include school staff, families, volunteers and eventually the community that supports the school.

If you are interested in becoming a part of Peace Games, the organization offers training programs to help teach and promote peace in a violence-free atmosphere.

Many talk about the need for social change and doing something about the schools, but Peace Games seems to really be getting involved and making peace a reality.

For more information, visit PeaceGames.org.

Continental Airlines Takes Flight with Biofuel

Continental Flight No. 9990 recently became the first by a U.S. commercial airliner to test biofuel in flight.

"Nothing has been modified," Erik Bachelet, president of engine manufacturer CFM International, told Discovery News. "The aircraft is expected to resume its normal daily service after the operation."

During a two-hour flight, the aircraft burned a fuel made of algae and jatropha, a plant that grows in arid lands. The test flight, designed to find how the airplane performs with one of its engines burning a fuel that is 50 percent petroleum-based and 50 percent derived from plants, required special licensing from the FAA and had no passengers aboard.

"We're looking to see that the biofuel performs the same as traditional fuel," said Continental spokeswoman Susannah Thurston.

The biofuel was blended with standard airplane fuel to meet density requirements for optimal jet engine performance.

Jennifer Holmgren, general manager at UOP, a Honeywell company that develops and licenses technology to refineries explained that while it possible to meet the rigorous standards using just biofuel, it is still to expensive. The cost is expected to drop with growing demand.

UOP focused on using algae as alternative fuel so as not to interfere with land space that is used to grow food.

Holgrem says that biofuel licensing should happen later this year and that it may be used primarily within the next 10 to 15 years.

The pilots on the test reported that there was no discernible difference in the performance of biofuel from their regularly used jet fuel and that they actually used less biofuel than jet fuel when landing, an added bonus.

Continental Airlines follows on the heels of similar biofuel tests conducted by Virgin Atlantic and Air New Zealand and Japan Airlines is to conduct a biofuel test at the end of the month.

New Creatures Discovered in the Australian Deep

In a recent search of unexplored Australian water, scientists have discovered several previously unknown species of marine life. In a joint US-Australian research project off the coast of the southern island of Tasmania, the team, led by lead researcher Ron Thresher, "search for life deeper than any previous voyage in Australian waters." A submerged robot named Jason was used to explore a rift in the earth's crust known as the Tasman Fracture Zone, a sheer two kilometer (1.24 mile) drop to 4,000 meters (13,200 feet) below the ocean's surface.

"Our sampling documented the deepest known Australian fauna, including a bizarre carnivorous sea squirt, sea spiders and giant sponges, and previously unknown marine communities dominated by gooseneck barnacles and millions of round, purple-spotted sea anemones," Thresher said.

The sea squirt, also known as an ascidian, stands 50 centimeters tall on the sea floor at a depth of just over 4,000 meters. It traps prey in its funnel-like front section if they touch it when they swim past. On ship blogger, Adam Subhas, described the sea squirt as "basically an underwater Venus fly trap, but much bigger."

They found not only new species, but also new evidence of global warming’s threat to sea life. Ancient coral fields, dating back more than 10,000 years, as well as modern-day deep-water coral reefs were found, and Thresher said samples taken would provide ancient climate data for use in global warming projections. Although more testing is needed, it is suspected that ocean acidification is behind the change.

"If our analysis identifies this phenomenon as the cause of the reef system's demise, then the impact we are seeing now below 1,300 meters might extend to the shallower portions of the deep-reefs over the next 50 years, threatening this entire community," Thresher said.

The rise of temperatures in the world’s oceans are blamed on global warming, which is caused by the build-up in the atmosphere of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide. This is also blamed for higher acidity in seawater.

Climate change will also be responsible for the death of the Great Barrier Reef within decades if global warming is not stopped.

Paper Homes Provide New Hopes

Weighing less than a Volkswagen Golf and designed as angular and modern deco as anything you'd find in the Hollywood Hills, the new paper house is an eco-friendly solution for the Third World's shantytowns, but I wouldn't be surprised to see them turn up in America eventually.

Invented by Gerd Niemoeller under the Swiss-based company The Wall AG, the 36 square meter home retails for roughly $5,000 and is made almost entirely out of paper--resin-soaked cellulose recovered from recycled cardboard and newspapers to be exact. The material is surprisingly durable and constructed in a way to provide excellent insulation. Each home comes with eight built-in single and double beds, book shelves, a kitchen table with benches, as well as a veranda and a sealed-off area housing a shower and a lavatory.

The 58-year-old engineer who invented the house designed it with refugees and the poorest people in mind. "People don't want to flee their countries, they've been driven to leave their homes out of the need to survive," he told Time Magazine. "The number of migrants, refugees living in improvised housing, is going to grow with climate change, and we offer an alternative." The alternative will provide a more affordable and environmentally conscious substitute to the iron sheds often seen in the slums of the developing world. Some are even excited by the aesthetics the paper homes will offer.

According to Time, more than 2,000 units have already been ordered by a Nigerian company, and inquiries have also been coming in from Angola, Zimbabwe, and South America. Interestingly enough, several Americans are leaving comments on the news site's message board asking how they can purchase the homes for themselves, even though Niemoeller is advertising them by claiming the home "has been designed so that a family can slaughter an animal on the veranda, wash it in the shower and hang it, along with fish, on an integrated washing line."

Rising Sea Levels Claim California Beaches

Rising sea levels are probably three of the scariest words having to do with global warming, and according to the Los Angeles Times, California is now forced to pay attention to them. New research shows that Malibu's Broad Beach is shrinking at a faster rate than originally thought, and coastal development isn't helping matters either.

The LA Times writes:

Sandwiched between the advancing sea and coastal armor built to protect multimillion-dollar homes, the strip of sand is being swept away by waves and tides. Soon, oceanographers and coastal engineers contend, the rising ocean will eclipse the clash between the beach-going public and the private property owners: There will be no dry sand left to fight over.

"If the latest projections of sea level rise are right, you can kiss goodbye the idea of a white sandy beach," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "You are going to be jumping off the sea wall onto the rocks below."

The rise of sea levels, which have swelled about eight inches in the last century, are projected to accelerate with global warming.

Depending on the slope of the beach, every inch of sea-level rise claims an average of 50 inches of land. Currently scientists among the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change are predicting that sea levels could expect to rise anywhere from two to four feet over the next century, making the prospects of California beaches all the more questionable.

Coastal development is also making it more difficult for the beaches to replenish their natural sand. Rivers and streams that ordinarily deposit sediment to the beaches are being continually dammed and channeled through concrete to send flooding waters safely out to sea.

As far as finding any hope in the situation, scientists are proposing that residential and commercial development retreat landward so waves and tides can naturally gnaw away at the back-beach dunes and hillsides as they have for millenniums, thus creating the beaches of the future.

Trying to tell Malibu home owners they'll have to give up their ocean-front views is a story for another day, however.


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