A process called transcranial magnetic stimulation is rising in popularity to help where other treatments have failed. Some patients of magnetic therapy say that the treatment has been a God-send. One day it was like a light switch went off, explains Steve Newman, 60, that underwent clinical trials for the severe depression.

Over the next few centuries, magnetic therapy built-up into a form of quackery. A Connecticut physician and sometime mule trader, advocated the waste of metallic tractors for the rehabilitation of various diseases of humans and horses.2 The user of the tractors swept the tractors ended the injured area for a few minutes to magnetize off the noxious electrical fluid that lay at the foot of suffering. They reported the testimonials and Perkins became very born with a silver spoon in your orifice. The Sears catalogue advertised magnetic boot inserts.
The biological effects of pulsating electromagnetic fields are hypothesized to be due to electrical rather than magnetic forces. Magnetism generates a voltage in tissue according to the equation.
Any effects of a static magnetic field against tissue cannot be electrical geographically.

How to Get Magnetic Therapy Information to Find the Suitable Treatment for You is filed under magnetic therapy.

Originally  Written by: Bonlie, Dean, D.D.S.

Dr. Bonlie is an experienced researcher, inventor, consultant and lecturer in the field of biomagnetism. His scientific theory on the action of magnetism on living tissue has made him a widely accepted authority in this field. His research has resulted in the invention of a unique magnetic sleep pad which restores the earth’s depleted environmental magnetism back to the body. He is currently chairman of the Scientific Research Committee of the North American Academy of Magnetic Therapy.

Some time ago, I was running a Research and Development lab in electronics and was called in to consult on a study being done by a doctoral candidate at the University of Alberta on the effects of magnetism on patients with asthma. Their study was based on Japanese literature which suggested that there is a magnetic deficiency syndrome because the earth is no longer putting out sufficient magnetic field. So they were trying to supplement the earth’s magnetic field by using magnetic beds, and they obtained very good results for about two months, but then had a reversal of the benefits. When I measured the fields given by the magnetic beds, I discovered they had reversing magnetic fields, and I thought maybe that was the problem. So I recommended to the university that they rerun the study with beds using a unidirectional field like the earth’s. A unidirectional field is natural to the body, whereas reversing fields produce a stimulatory response which will fall off in time.

CYCLIC DECLINE OF OUR GEOMAGNETIC FIELD

At first I questioned whether their thesis that the earth has lost 90% of its magnetic field over the last 4,000 years was correct. I then did an exhaustive study on previous research and discovered three facts which prove there has been a decrease in the earth’s magnetic field. First, the U.S. Geological Survey has kept records of the earth’s magnetic field for the last 160 years, and it shows a steady decline of 5% per 100 years. Interestingly enough, when the planets were aligned January 23, 1997, we got a little increase; it went up 20% from .4 gauss to .5 gauss. When they go out of alignment, the magnetic field goes back down. But overall there has been a steady decline. Secondly, scientists have determined that there has been an actual 90% loss by taking samples of lava flows from volcanos at different times in the earth’s history and studying the alignment of the little magnetite crystals in the lava. The more they are aligned, the greater the magnetic field was. This is called hysteresis and is a well known procedure used by geologists to determine the age of rocks. The third method is deep sea core samplings of the alluvial fans of rivers which bring up a cross section of the layers of sediment. These show that we have 500,000 year cycles in the magnetic field of the earth. We start out below zero, increase to a maximum, and decrease again. They found only 4.5 million years of cycles, and every 500,000 years, there was a layer of fossils, which appears when there was a reversal of the magnetic field. These 500,000 year cycles are coincidental with the geological ages of the earth. Organisms cannot live without their supportive magnetic field. Dr. Robert O. Becker was part of the scientific group that evaluated this data. In his book Cross Currents, he goes into it in quite a lot of detail. When you put this information together with the physiological effects suffered by cosmonauts when they were outside the earth’s magnetic field for extended periods, we begin to realize the effects. Early cosmonauts lost 80% of their bone density. Spacecraft now have magnetic generators to eliminate these problems.

EFFECTS OF ZERO MAGNETIC FIELD

Valerie Hunt, Ph.D., who did research on energy fields at the University of California, Los Angeles, investigated this further. She had a “mu” cage built that she could put subjects in for observation. Mu metal will cancel out magnetic fields of the magnitude of the earth’s magnetic field and the electromagnetic pollution which surrounds us. Two individuals were placed in the room and connected with EEG, EMG and ECG devices to measure effects on the body in the absence of environmental magnetic fields. To her amazement, in just a few minutes they began to sob and said they felt like they were falling apart emotionally. In a few more minutes, they were beginning to lose coordination and muscle control, and she had to pull them out to avoid affecting the heart muscle. All this in just a matter of minutes! So we are going to have a problem coming with the reduction of our environmental magnetism. In September, 1996, NASA announced that within the next 800 years, we will have no more magnetic field.

WHY ARE WE LOSING OUR MAGNETIC FIELD?

We need to understand why we are losing the magnetic field of the earth. As the earth spins, there is a net flow of lava underneath the earth in the opposite direction to the spin because of the gravitational pull of the core which is solid. This creates the magnetic field of the earth because the lava is super heated, and it is ionic – it is like a bunch of electrons flowing in a loop in a wire. When there are electrons flowing in a loop, there is always a magnetic field. Lava is congealing on the underside of the earth’s crust as it is cooling. It is a well-documented scientific fact that the earth’s crust is cooling. The more the crust of the earth cools, the greater the diversion of magnetic field beneath the crust. You have seen the domed cities in “Star Wars” movies. We will have to have artificial magnetic fields and total environments to maintain life on this planet when we lose our magnetic field in the future. Eventually, the sun’s radiation will strike the earth’s crust with such force, it will warm it up again. When it gets hot enough to melt the inside of the crust, a magnetic field will rebuild, and life can begin to form again.

MAGNETIC FIELDS AFFECT LIVING TISSUES

Magnetic fields affect every atom in your body. The electrons in the atom orbit around the nucleus. By increasing the magnetic field, the charge on the atom will increase momentarily, the velocity of the orbiting electrons increases, and the valence electrons begin to jump energy orbits. The atom begins to vibrate at a higher intensity, and in Physics that is called precession. Precession means wobble and is simply increased molecular action caused by increased magnetic field. This creates a conical orbit on some of the electrons and bipolarization of some atoms due to dimagnetism. The net result of this increased molecular activity is enhanced electron transfer, which of course is the basis of every chemical reaction in your body. This is why a decreased magnetic field leads to less molecular activity and decrease in the enzymes in the body. To summarize: Enhanced magnetic field brings increased speed of electrons and protons, which increases molecular activity, resulting in more efficient chemical reactions, providing a basic energy catalyst for improving body function.

BODY ELECTRICITY

There are really two electrical systems in the body. The motor and sensory nervous system is the one which we are all familiar with. The one that is not so familiar is the vitality or direct current system. Dr. Becker made this discovery and learned that the electricity in this vitality system travels from the brain down the myelin sheath on the outside of the nerve rather than down the axon in the middle of the nerve. He also discovered that the electricity returns by way of the fascia (connective tissue) back to the dura mater of the spinal cord and from there back to the brain. These return currents are called meridians in eastern cultures. Scar tissue or misalignment of the vertebrae can cause interruption of this current flow because of the pressure they exert on this tissue which is semiconducting and very sensitive to pressure. Exercise is very good because it allows more electricity to flow to the periphery.

MAGNETIC RESONANCE

The vitality system which has a pulsed DC field causes a magnetic resonance process to happen in the body which restores energy. Every atom in your body has its own resonance frequency. That is how, by using a spectroscope, we determine what kind of an atom it is. If you pulse at the same frequency as a harmonic of the atom’s frequency, you will get the same effect as pushing a child in a swing. When you push a swing at just the right point, you can get it to go higher and higher with very little effort. That is basically what magnetic resonance is doing in your body. This happens primarily during sleep, which is what the sleep cycle is all about. The brain’s pulsed frequency starts out about 7.5 hertz and goes down to 1.2 to 2 hertz and back up again. This happens every 90 to 110 minutes. The purpose of it is to resonate all the different organs in the body. Every organ in your body has a different but specific resonance frequency which is a harmonic of all the frequencies of all the elements (atoms) that make that organ. The organ resonance frequency will vary at times according to what you have eaten and how fatigued or depleted you are.

POWER LINES AND MICROWAVE TRANSMISSION

You have undoubtedly heard that (AC) alternating current fields are harmful to your health. The electromagnetic fields from power lines are putting out 60 Hz AC…that means 120 pulses per second (cps). The body only operates at between 2 and 12 cps. In an emergency it has been known to go as high as 30, but never to 120. If the electromagnetic field coming from a power line is stronger than the electromagnetic field from the brain, then it will interfere with the proper magnetic resonance process of sleep. Electric blankets are problematic because they are so close to the body during the important restorative sleep time. Studies show increased rates of cancer and other chronic conditions for people who live underneath, or very close to big power lines. High usage of cellular telephones is another cause for concern. Even if you do not use or own one, you are being bombarded by the microwave transmission towers that carry their signals. Microwave is a very high frequency that interferes with magnetic resonance. Technology has created amazing wonders, but the price may be too high in the end.

EFFECT OF A REVERSED MAGNETIC FIELD

In my research, I have built varying types of magnetic devices, and one of the most interesting was a big electromagnet which created a unidirectional field which could be reversed. Using this principle, we designed a bed to give a pure field of 4 gauss like we had on earth 4,000 years ago. Two people were trying it out, and I checked on them after half an hour and asked them how they felt. They both immediately said “This is wonderful”. Then I reversed the magnetic field. In twenty minutes they could hardly even get out of bed. They ached from head to toe. Then I reversed the magnetic field again, back to normal, and half an hour later, they said “Oh, boy, this feels good again”. Direction is everything when we are talking about magnetic field and the human body.

FREQUENCY

Second to direction in magnetism is frequency. Wrong frequency is bad, but you can solve that problem by using a DC magnetic field with no frequency. This will allow you to dramatically raise the resonance frequency without causing damage to the tissue. If you apply a given frequency, then you block some of the natural magnetic resonances of the body. I also have a research bed that simulates all the frequencies that the brain puts out, giving a dramatic sleep in just an hour, but you will feel as restored as if you’ve had several hours.

UNIDIRECTIONAL VERSUS REVERSING MAGNETIC FIELDS

Magnetism used properly can gain a lot of energy for the body; magnetism used wrongly can use up the body’s energy. In this context, I am referring to sleep pads containing permanently charged ceramic magnets of different sizes creating reversing magnetic fields of varying strengths and marketed for home use. The Chinese first started using magnets to perform acupuncture. Much later the Japanese did a take-off on the concept and made a sleep pad using small magnets which create a whole-body acupuncture-type response. Most of the sleep pads on the market are of this type, having reversing magnetic fields. They give good results initially, but will fade with time. A unidirectional field like the earth’s will speed up cellular reactions, but when it reverses, the opposite happens. That will slow down all the electrons and protons which will slow or stop electron transfer. Anoxia could occur in the tissues and result in cellular death if the body did not respond to this emergency. The brain will start putting out a lot more electricity to make a counter-magnetic field and rushing more blood to the area wherever that magnet is to raise the oxygen levels to prevent anoxia. All this action draws down on the body’s reserves of energy to respond to this artificially created problem. Fortunately these products use small magnets which have little penetration into the body. Whenever anyone uses a single magnet or any type of magnetic wrap or magnetic jewellery, they are always getting a reversing field which will create a smaller or larger version of this adverse body response. Short-term usage of the smaller magnets as a treatment device can be very beneficial in pain and symptom relief; however they do not replace using a proper unidirectional magnetic sleep pad to enhance the earth’s magnetic field.

UNIDIRECTIONAL FIELD

You can build up body vitality by placing yourself in a unidirectional field with the same polarity as the earth. The only way to accomplish this is to have a magnet bigger than the body and strong enough to completely penetrate the body. These are not readily available. However, I designed a magnetic sleep pad that creates a unified field that will give the same effect as being on a magnet as big as your bed. This pad is placed under your mattress and is strong enough to go up through the mattress, through your body and four feet into the air, with the return field occurring outside the edges of your bed. So essentially you are sleeping on a huge magnet. It restores a magnetic field like the earth had 4,000 years ago when it was ten times stronger than it is now. This pad will cause precession or increased molecular action throughout the body.

EFFECTS OF MAGNETIC TREATMENT ON ATHLETES

We studied athletes to compare their performance before and after we put them in a magnetic field. In 13 weeks their strength increased by 20%, while their resting heart rates went down by 20%. They were able to do 40% more work with no increase in heart rate. Most of the Canadian decathlon team were on these magnetic beds and they found up to four times increased speed of healing. This really is not surprising. Orthopedic surgeons have been using an FDA device called a PEMF device (pulsed electro magnetic frequency) for years on non-union fractures. In 90% of cases, the fracture will knit together after the magnetic treatment. It also works with muscle and ligament tears.

CONDITIONS WHICH RESPOND WELL TO INCREASED MAGNETISM

We did a survey of 100 people who had been using magnetic beds for over seven months. Any briefer study in magnetism is ineffective because it may indicate an initial good response which will not last. We found a reduction in arthritic pain; 80% elimination of migraine headaches; 80% reversal of PMS symptoms; 80% to 95% relief of symptoms of Chronic Fatigue and fibromyalgia; 46% had total relief of insomnia; 43% reported a significant increase in energy. This gives you some idea of how the energy crisis due to the earth’s declining magnetic field might affect us. We gain a lot of benefits when we have enough energy.

Note: Persons with pacemakers cannot use a magnetic sleep pad as it will interrupt the function of their pacemaker.

Dr. Bonlie’s MagnetiCo Power Sleep Pads may be ordered by calling his office at 1-800-265-1119, or Fax: 403-730-0885.

…atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but  repelling upon being squeezed into one another…

Richard P. Feynman

An electron is a sub-atomic particle. It means to say that it is one of the constituents of an atom. Like every particle, it has a few characteristics. It has mass, electrical charge and spin. To most people, the idea of mass and charge is clear. The mass of the electron is about 9.1 x 10^-31 kg. It’s charge is about 1.6 x 10^-19 C. In this article, it is intended to have a clearer idea of another property of a electron, the electron SPIN.

Let us do an experiment. We bring a piece of Iron next to a magnet(for example, a piece of lodestone). The piece of Iron gets attracted to the magnet. Next, we bring another piece of Iron near the first piece of Iron as it is still stuck (by magnetic force of attraction) to the magnet. We see that the second piece of Iron is also attracted to the first piece of Iron.

A second experiment. We bring a piece of Graphite near the magnet. It does not get attracted. We dont even feel any force (not felt by human senses).

A third experiment. We keep the piece of Iron in contact with the magnet for a long time (say a few months). Alternatively, we rub the magnet (in one direction only) on the piece of Iron. Now we see that the piece of Iron attracts other pieces of Iron even though there is no other magnet around.

Now, we ask the question “what is it that is happening to the piece of Iron when it gets in contact with the magnet?”. As an answer, we are taught in elementary school,is that all pieces of Iron contain tiny magnets which will get aligned (unlike poles attracting each other and like poles repelling each other), making the piece of Iron act like the bigger magnet. We are also told in school that this is not the case with the piece of graphite. But we are taught in school that all matter is made of atoms and all atoms consist of electrons revolving around a nucleus that is positively charged. That is fair enough. This means that the piece of Iron and the piece of Graphite are both made of atoms containing electrons and nuclei. What is so different in the piece of Iron that makes it magically become a magnet? What causes the tiny magnets in the piece of Iron?

There is a property of an electron, like mass and charge which causes these effects. That property is called the electron SPIN. So, electrons have not just two but actually three fundamental properties: mass, charge and SPIN. The charge of an electron is negative. But the peculiarity of the property spin is that an electron could have either a “Positive” spin or a “Negative” spin. Therefore, depending on the number of electrons with “Positive” and number of electrons with “Negative” spins, an atom may or may not have a total spin. Atoms of Iron have a net SPIN which leads them to behave like tiny magnets.

There are several WRONG ideas about the electron spin, seemingly used to simplify the concept. We will begin the description by stating those wrong ideas.

1. The electron can be visualised as a charged sphere.
2. The electron rotates about it’s own axis.
3. Spin of an electron is determined by the direction of rotation of the electron or how fast the electron rotates.
4. All other descriptions and analogies originating from Classical Physics.

The first two of the above list are wrong because the electron is conceptualised to be a point-charge. It cannot be a sphere or a cube or anything else. There is no rotation of a point. To understand Spin, we need Quantum mechanics. There is simply no classical analogue of a spin. You cannot picturise it classically in any way.

A lot of confusion probably originates because of the term spin. It is just the name given, for historical reasons, to a fundamental property of the electron. Mass and charge are also names given to fundamental properties. The name spin does not mean that there is something spinning about some axis. Just as mass can be felt only in a gravitational field (more generally, in the presence of any acceleration) and electric charge needs an electric field to show up some physical effects, spin of an electron needs a magnetic field to show physical effects. It has properties similar to angular momentum in Quantum mechanics. A peculiarity of the electron spin is that it can take two values, +½ or -½ of a unit. A more detailed description needs some Quantum mechanics.

So, to explain our experiments, in an atom of Graphite, the electrons are arranged so that there are as many electrons with spin of +½ as there are electrons of spin -½. Therefore, the net spin is zero on each atom. Whereas in an atom of Iron, there is an excess two electrons with spin +½ than electrons with spin -½. Therefore, just as a net electrical charge shows a response in an electrical field, atoms with a net spin show a response in a magnetic field. The atoms in a piece of Iron therefore behave like tiny magnets which tend to get aligned in a magnetic field.

Have you noticed that energies around got denser and more intense? Have any of your plans or ideas have been suddenly postponed or reversed? Have your body felt physically any different recently? Have you suffered unusual headaches, backaches, bone aches, felt unusually thirsty?

Intensive waves of solar activity are the reasons of these rather strong disturbances in Earth’s magnetic field, which recently caused significant magnetic storms. This natural process not only affected our bodies physically, but our emotional and mental states as well.

Shadow emotions, thoughts and energies within oneself are coming up to the surface, making us to feel angry, ashamed, pity etc. Most of it is not ours, most of it was picked from others due to the general nervoiusness of mass consciousness, but some is what we were hiding skillfully for a long time. Therefore its utterly important to be  aware and alert while this is happenning! Its just a period, during which we have to stay strong and aware of our actions, emotions and thoughts.

I have briefly channelled from St Germain on this subject and he said: ”You have to be and stay conscious now always. Its not hide and seek time. Its time to open up the cards and be conscious of yourself, your greater self, your reality, mass consciousness reality and distinction between new and old energies. You can’t let your self be asleep while awake or blind while living. Be detached. Be CONSCIOUS Creator! In darkness of unconsciousness anything can be created, but that anything wont go through to the new reality.”

Basically if anything negative comes out on the surface, do not hide it again, deal with it! Our soul (emotional or mental feild whatever you call it) want to get rid off it, as there wont be any room for the shadow energies/emotoins/thoughts when we’ll enter new reality! Its tough, but we will get through it! We will succeed in creating our beautiful new realities, however in order to make it less stressful and less painful we have to be conscious. Its that simple!

There are also few things we can do to help our bodies to stand these intense waves - drink plenty of water (literally lots! 3-4 litres – wont do any harm!), and eat lots of greens, ’cause they contain light-body cells, and that what our body needs at the moment – energy of the light!

with light and love

PS: hope this advise was helpful. If you felt/feel something like that, or have other good ideas of dealing with this, and dont mind sharing, please leave your comment!

October 31, 2009

HIS EXCELLENCY
BAN KI-MOON
Secretary General
United Nations

Dear Mr. Secretary General:

Greetings!

Every 5th of June since 1972 is commemorated by the United Nations as the World Environment Day.

In 2010-2011, scientists report that there will be a solar maximum that has not occurred since fifty years ago as reported in this article from Science@NASA:

a (solar) storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958. Read more about it here

This and other factors will result in major disasters during the period in question. Our group of professionals advocating environment protection and disaster damage diminution respectfully request the United Nations to support our effort to organize a Geo Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit in 2010 and we are determined that this gathering be convened in Manila, Philippines.

In this connection, may we respectfully request the following:

1. United Nations and its concerned departments participate in the Summit and help in organizing said event
2. The Year 2010 be declared as the International Geo Hazard Mapping Year
3. The month of April 2010 be declared as the International Disaster Risk Reduction Month; and finally,
4. The date of April 17, 2010 be declared as the first World Hazards Awareness Day.

That these declarations be formally announced in Manila prior to the Summit.

Thank you ever so much! Mabuhay!!!

Respectfully yours,

Organizers HMES 2010

I am not an astronomer but I have always been fascinated by space and space exploration. I sincerely believe that colonizing new planets or moons is humans’ best hope for the future.

So, while I am doing my best to save our current planet, I try to keep an eye on outer space, the progress and discoveries. Seriously, things up there are really exciting.

Scientists knew that the solar system is surrounded by the heliosphere – a bubble of magnetism. It bounces from the Sun and provides the first line of defence against cosmic rays and interstellar clouds that try to enter our local space. No one has actually seen it, because it emits no light.

Heliosphere Credit: NASA

A year ago, on October 19th, 2008, NASA launched the IBEX (Interstellar Boundary Explorer) spacecraft. Its mission was to monitor the heliosphere and the interactions between solar wind particles and interstellar medium particles, that is gas and dust trapped in the vacuum of space. IBEX, measures these travelling medium particles and the scientists use this information to create maps of the boundary.

The first results have taken scientists by surprise. The maps are bisected by a bright, winding ribbon of high-energy emissions of unknown origin.

ENA fine details in the ribbon. Credit: Southwest Research Institute

The ribbon looks bright in the IBEX images, but actually it does not glow at least in any conventional sense. The ribbon is not a source of light, but rather a source of particles-energetic neutral atoms or ENAs  (ionised particles). ENAs are produced in the very edge of the heliosphere, but some of them happen to travel in just the right way so that they enter the IBEX spacecraft for collection.

The ribbon runs perpendicular to the direction of the galactic magnetic field just outside the heliosphere, and according to David McComas, IBEX principal investigator, “That cannot be a coincidence.”

So far, nobody knows what does it mean. This truly remarkable discovery show just how little we currently understand about the interactions between the heliosphere and the rest of the galaxy. But, there is no doubt that theorists will figure this out- hopefully, soon.

Source and further reading NASA

Researchers create portable black hole

Physicists have created a black hole for light that can fit in your coat pocket. Their device, which measures just 22 centimetres across, can suck up microwave light and convert it into heat.

The hole is the latest clever device to use ‘metamaterials’, specially engineered materials that can bend light in unusual ways. Previously, scientists have used such metamaterials to build ‘invisibility carpets’ and super-clear lenses. This latest black hole was made by Qiang Chen and Tie Jun Cui of Southeast University in Nanjing, China, and is described in a paper on the preprint server ArXiv1.

Black holes are normally too massive to be carried around. The black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, for example, has a mass around 3.6 million times that of the Sun and warps the very space around it. Light that travels too close to it can become trapped forever.

The new meta-black hole also bends light, but in a very different way. Rather than relying on gravity, the black hole uses a series of metallic ‘resonators’ arranged in 60 concentric circles. The resonators affect the electric and magnetic fields of a passing light wave, causing it to bend towards the centre of the hole. It spirals closer and closer to the black hole’s ‘core’ until it reaches the 20 innermost layers. Those layers are made of another set of resonators that convert light into heat. The result: what goes in cannot come out. “The light into the core is totally absorbed,” Cui says.

“I am very impressed,” says John Pendry, a theoretical physicist at Imperial College London. Pendry says that the black hole is yet the latest example of the many strange devices that can be built with metamaterials. But, he adds, it is not a perfect black-hole analogy. The enormous gravity of real black holes causes them to emit an eerie quantum glow, known as Hawking radiation. “The optical device reported in this paper has no internal source of energy and therefore cannot emit Hawking radiation,” Pendry says.

Nevertheless, Cui says that the hole could prove useful. By the end of the year his team hopes to have a version of the device that will suck up light of optical frequencies. If it works, it could be used in applications such as solar cells.

See also:
Chinese Scientists Create First-Ever Artificial Black Hole
Artificial Black Hole Created in Chinese Lab
Chinese Scientists Build Working Black Hole
Scientists Make Desktop Black Hole
Artificial Black Hole Created in Chinese Lab
Table-Top Black Hole Can Absorb Light
Chinese Lab Creates Artificial Black Hole
How to Create a Black Hole on a Lab Bench
Metamaterial Revolution: The New Science of Making Anything Disappear
Metamaterial

/is that a black hole in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?

If any of you have driven down Depot Street in the River Arts District lately, you have probably noticed the new, LEED certified mixed-use building (I believe the first in the region) going up next to the Fine Arts League.

This building is part of the Glen Rock Depot, an affordable place-based development with commercial and retail and affordable living spaces being developed by non-profit Mountain Housing Opportunities.  It is a place-based collaborative business space for arts, environment, and technology-based businesses, an intentional space for collaborative work.

This on-site camera gives you a semi-live peak at the building being built.  Make sure to click on Time Lapse for a really cool view.

Sunspots, Magnetic Fields and Cosmic Energy

I was bouncing around on the web recently and found an interesting article about the Earth’s magnetic field flipping. I also read about sunspots and the way the Sun’s magnetic pole flips. Here are the Cliff notes.

The Earth’s magnetic field protects us from cosmic rays from outer space. When the field gets weaker, more cosmic energy reaches the planet.

You probably already know that the Earth’s magnetic field has flipped (reversed direction) many times in its long history. The last flip was about 780,000 years ago. The flip occurs when the magnetic field is really weak and it has been getting weaker for the last two millennia. Two thousand years ago the magnetic field of the Earth was very strong, about 11 VADM [1022 A m2 (whatever that means)]. Now the number is down to about 7.8 VADM. (BTW: They figure out how strong the field is and which direction it goes by studying rock, especially sedimentary and volcanic rock.)

But before you run out and buy “Field Flip Insurance” you should know that historically the VADM has always dropped below 2 when the magnetic poles reversed. At the rate the magnetic field is weakening it will be at least a couple of thousand years before is gets that low. Of course, that could change. There is some evidence that the weakening of the magnetic field is happening much faster than normal. We are living in unusual times.

The Sun’s magnetic field also protects us from cosmic rays. The sun goes through regular 11-year cycles of high sunspot activity to low or no sunspots. This cycle is actually half of a longer, 22-year cycle of solar activity. Each time the sunspot count rises and falls, the magnetic field of the Sun reverses polarity; the orientation of magnetic fields in the Sun’s northern and southern hemispheres switch. Thus, in terms of magnetic fields, the solar cycle is only complete (with the fields back the way they were at the start of the cycle) after two 11-year sunspot cycles.

Right now the sunspot activity is at it’s lowest called the Solar Minimum. The Sun’s magnetic field flips when the sunspot activity is high, at the Solar Maximum. The last time this happened was at the beginning of 2002. Since this is a regular 11-year cycle, we can expect the next Solar Flip to happen in 2013. No surprise there!

Our planetary magnetic field is the lowest it’s been in thousands of years and the solar magnetic field is at its minimum. This means that we are receiving more cosmic energy than ever before. At the same time we are at a sort of lull with such a quiet Sun.

The low magnetic fields perfectly describe what so many of us are experiencing right now. We are more able to access the cosmic energies and beings that are outside of the magnetic field (the Veils of Illusion or Earth Game programming). This is really exciting, because we can feel so many amazing potentials, yet at the same time we are feeling stuck, exhausted and frustrated. We know something new is coming, but we can’t get there yet.

Another reason for our slowness and exhaustion is that our bodies have been going through huge changes. You can be really tired but at the same time not able to fully relax. There is a part of you that knows that all is well and everything is in divine timing.

What is entering and anchoring in our reality now is a sense of knowing. Think back to several years (or months) ago. Have you noticed that you are more sure of yourself? Is it easier to make decisions? Are you less likely to ask for advice from family or friends? Do you worry less (or not at all) about what others are thinking about you? What is leaving our reality now is doubt. Even though the world around you might not look different, that no longer makes you doubt yourself (as much). It is like the dreams I mentioned in last month’s article and audio (http://spiritofmaat.com/sep09/sarahs_dream.html) where I had been pretending to be a teenager in school again but now I remember who I really am. Even though the world in my dream totally supported the version of reality with me being a student, I know better.

When you came into this life, you took on an agreement to forget your true divine nature and to pretend to be just a human, with karma and lessons to be learned. Now is the time to wake up and remember who you really are, a bright, beautiful Infinite Being, a Starseed with great wisdom and abilities.

Your Greater Self (Oversoul) is that part of you that remembers who you really are, an Infinite Being of cosmic origin, great beauty and light. Our human selves have perhaps had a mental idea about it, but the Greater Self knows it and lives it without any doubt. When you maintain a clear connection with your Greater Self, you can trust your ability to know what you need to know, when you need to know it. You can release doubt. This activates specific DNA and begins the transformation to your New Energy body.

The DNA is not the “brain” the cell, DNA does not choose what your body creates. Instead, it is like a storage unit of possibilities. What activates the DNA is your state of mind and your beliefs. Dr. Bruce Lipton wrote about this in his book, The Biology of Belief. This new state of mind, of confidence and knowing (without doubt) activates specific strands of DNA that hold the New Energy Template for your body.

With the Sunspot activity super low and the Earth’s magnetic field weakening we have easier access to cosmic energies and those exciting potentials. At the same time there is a lull in the “action”. This is the perfect time to connect with our Greater Selves, activate our New Template and rest and relax as our bodies transform. So rather than being frustrated at the slow times, we can trust that it is all in perfect order, without doubt!

Dec. 16, 2008: NASA’s five THEMIS spacecraft have discovered a breach in Earth’s magnetic field ten times larger than anything previously thought to exist. Solar wind can flow in through the opening to “load up” the magnetosphere for powerful geomagnetic storms. But the breach itself is not the biggest surprise. Researchers are even more amazed at the strange and unexpected way it forms, overturning long-held ideas of space physics.

“At first I didn’t believe it,” says THEMIS project scientist David Sibeck of the Goddard Space Flight Center. “This finding fundamentally alters our understanding of the solar wind-magnetosphere interaction.”

The magnetosphere is a bubble of magnetism that surrounds Earth and protects us from solar wind. Exploring the bubble is a key goal of the THEMIS mission, launched in February 2007. The big discovery came on June 3, 2007, when the five probes serendipitously flew through the breach just as it was opening. Onboard sensors recorded a torrent of solar wind particles streaming into the magnetosphere, signaling an event of unexpected size and importance.

“The opening was huge—four times wider than Earth itself,” says Wenhui Li, a space physicist at the University of New Hampshire who has been analyzing the data. Li’s colleague Jimmy Raeder, also of New Hampshire, says “10²⁷ particles per second were flowing into the magnetosphere—that’s a 1 followed by 27 zeros. This kind of influx is an order of magnitude greater than what we thought was possible.”

The event began with little warning when a gentle gust of solar wind delivered a bundle of magnetic fields from the Sun to Earth. Like an octopus wrapping its tentacles around a big clam, solar magnetic fields draped themselves around the magnetosphere and cracked it open. The cracking was accomplished by means of a process called “magnetic reconnection.” High above Earth’s poles, solar and terrestrial magnetic fields linked up (reconnected) to form conduits for solar wind. Conduits over the Arctic and Antarctic quickly expanded; within minutes they overlapped over Earth’s equator to create the biggest magnetic breach ever recorded by Earth-orbiting spacecraft.

Above: A computer model of solar wind flowing around Earth's magnetic field on June 3, 2007. Background colors represent solar wind density; red is high density, blue is low. Solid black lines trace the outer boundaries of Earth's magnetic field. Note the layer of relatively dense material beneath the tips of the white arrows; that is solar wind entering Earth's magnetic field through the breach. Credit: Jimmy Raeder/UNH.

The size of the breach took researchers by surprise. “We’ve seen things like this before,” says Raeder, “but never on such a large scale. The entire day-side of the magnetosphere was open to the solar wind.”

The circumstances were even more surprising. Space physicists have long believed that holes in Earth’s magnetosphere open only in response to solar magnetic fields that point south. The great breach of June 2007, however, opened in response to a solar magnetic field that pointed north.

“To the lay person, this may sound like a quibble, but to a space physicist, it is almost seismic,” says Sibeck. “When I tell my colleagues, most react with skepticism, as if I’m trying to convince them that the sun rises in the west.”

Here is why they can’t believe their ears: The solar wind presses against Earth’s magnetosphere almost directly above the equator where our planet’s magnetic field points north. Suppose a bundle of solar magnetism comes along, and it points north, too. The two fields should reinforce one another, strengthening Earth’s magnetic defenses and slamming the door shut on the solar wind. In the language of space physics, a north-pointing solar magnetic field is called a “northern IMF” and it is synonymous with shields up.

“So, you can imagine our surprise when a northern IMF came along and shields went down instead,” says Sibeck. “This completely overturns our understanding of things.”

Northern IMF events don’t actually trigger geomagnetic storms, notes Raeder, but they do set the stage for storms by loading the magnetosphere with plasma. A loaded magnetosphere is primed for auroras, power outages, and other disturbances that can result when, say, a CME (coronal mass ejection) hits.

The years ahead could be especially lively. Raeder explains: “We’re entering Solar Cycle 24. For reasons not fully understood, CMEs in even-numbered solar cycles (like 24) tend to hit Earth with a leading edge that is magnetized north. Such a CME should open a breach and load the magnetosphere with plasma just before the storm gets underway. It’s the perfect sequence for a really big event.”

Sibeck agrees. “This could result in stronger geomagnetic storms than we have seen in many years.”

A video version of this story may be found here. For more information about the THEMIS mission, visit http://nasa.gov/themis

Author: Dr. Tony Phillips | Credit: Science@NASA

From Live Science

The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something.

“It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented,” said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.

A plastic cage was also designed by physicist Da-Ming Zhu at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, to keep the mice in during levitation. Its top remained open to let in air, food, water and video surveillance, and its bottom was filled with small holes to allow waste removal.

From time to time, mice would kick the walls of the cage, causing it to briefly drop off from the levitation zone before re-entering it and floating again.

…..end snip….

Okay, I’m amused.  And fascinated. And a wee bit sorry for the mousies. Stoned, floating and mousy is no way to go through life son.

Loggerhead turtles use the earth's magnetic field to navigate. Click to visit the Lohmann Lab at UNC to learn more.

When I first heard the term “biomagnetism” it captured an obscure fantastical corner of my imagination. But the reality of magnetic sensing in all sorts of animals — from butterflies to sea turtles to whales — and the ways they use it is the sort of science that rivals the most brightly colored dreams of sci-fi writers.  About two weeks back, I mused on the mechanism driving the earth’s magnetic field and what causes magnetic field reversals. When these flipping events occur, the earth’s magnetic field wans in intensity. Periods of declining magnetism are born out for hundreds to thousands of years, with sometimes wild fluctuations in the magnetic field lines. But what effect does declining or fluctuating magnetism have on species that rely on the earth’s magnetosphere like a global positioning system device? And how do they sense magentic fields anyways?

I first started wondering about these things when a series of quirky news items caught my eye, all involving animals and our earth’s magnetic field. Last August, NPR reported on a study that purported evidence for bovine magnetism. Researchers using Google Earth found that the majority of the time, more than happenstance anyways, cows will orient themselves on a north-south axis when laying down in a field or when grazing.  The German research team, led by Hynek Burda of the University of Duisburg-Essen, also found this to be true in deer. The big question is, Why would cows and deer need this, or is it a remnant mechanism from an ancestor? Then I read a few reports about whale beaching events in the Atlantic Ocean and researchers theorizing that perhaps whales follow magnetic lines in the seafloor that run roughly north-south. But there are sometimes fractures where magnetic lines run perpendicular to the main path, and one hypothesis is that if whales are following these magnetic highways, perhaps they sometimes take a wrong turn onto a perpendicular magnetic side-street — or perhaps solar flares scramble the magnetic field, causing them to get off course — and follow it right up to the point where they beach themselves. (For an overview on magnetic sensing in elasmobranchs and cetaceans, this sensory biology page may be useful, with the whale discussion at the very end.) Even though researchers have not been able to prove for sure that whales do this (or how), they have documented bacteria that live in seawater orienting and swimming along geomagnetic field lines, a trait called “magnetotaxis.” I’ve only read the abstract, but in a recent paper in Applied and Environmental Microbiology, Christopher T. Lefevre et al. show that some of these microbes swim in an axial alignment in both directions toward either the north or south pole, while others swim only uni-directionally, with a clear preference for one pole or the other depending upon which hemisphere they live in. {1} They also conclude “oxygen is a determinant factor that controls magnetotactic behavior.”

Looking to animals that researchers know use magnetoreception* actively, for migration and moving around, there are lots of examples in birds, bats, moles, salmon, butterflies, turtles and whales. (*I learned this is what the cool kids call magnetic detection and orienteering… apparently “biomagnetism” was hijacked by new-agers hawking healing crystals.) Wired magazine very recently ran an article covering new research on magnetoreception in birds, that delves into the mechanisms of how their inner compasses work (Klaus Schulten, June 2009, Biophysical Journal, “Magnetoreception through Cryptochrome May Involve Superoxide”) {2}. According to this idea, birds have a light-sensitive protein in their eye that works in tangent with a specific kind of oxygen molecule called a superoxide “to form an in-eye compass,” (article by Brandon Keim). This is really a fascinating little piece, and it skims research seeking to prove the “superoxide theory” which predicts that a biochemical reaction occurs in birds’ eyes, which allows them to literally see a visual directional cue based on the geomagnetic field. For more on the history of scientific observation of magnetic sensing in birds, read the introduction to this paper by Klaus Shluten, et al., “A Model for Photoreceptor-Based Magnetoreception in Birds.” {3} Also, check out this Neurophilosophy blog post, “Homing in on magnetoreception” which covers some experimental work examining the flight patterns of GPS-tagged homing pigeons flying through a natural magnetic anomaly. As if that wasn’t neat enough, another paper describes the basis of two different types of magnetoreceptors in birds — one in the eyes, as covered above, and “one based on magnetite near the beak.” {4} Magnetite is a mineral that, like it sounds, has magnetic properties. But it is also characterized as being directionally-dependent, with the directionality being imposed by an external magnetic field.  Magnetite was also the main mechanism in the marine bacteria’s sensing, they synthesize it and it is located along their axis. Biogenic magnetite crystals have been shown to swing like a needle due to external magnetic fields, and may help to trigger position sensors. Magnetite is also found in many other animals including… us. It was first documented in human brain tissue in 1992 by Kirschvink et al., in an article published in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences. {5}

All of this is fascinating, but what happens when the earth’s magnetic field declines, or when it flips entirely? As I tried to ply the scientific literature for an answer, I ran into several abstracts from studies in the 70s and 80s seeking to find the relationship between mass extinctions and magnetic reversals, but there does not appear to be a unified opinion about this. Seems the scientific jury is still out. (Anyone know of more recent work?) I did find a few papers that found strong correlations between the extinction of one or more species and magnetic reversals, so it appears there is some effect whether direct or indirect. And even though I thought this would be a two-post series, it may need to stretch to a third so I can do some more searching in the literature. Stay tuned…

NOTES:
{1} Lefèvre, Christopher T. et al. 2009. “Characterization of Bacterial Magnetotactic Behaviors by Using a Magnetospectrophotometry Assay.” Applied and Environmental Microbiology. (75):12, pg. 3835-3841
{2} Schulten, Klaus. 2009. Biophysical Journal. “Magnetoreception through Cryptochrome May Involve Superoxide” (96):12, pg. 4804-4813
{3} Ritz, Thorsten, Salih Adema and Klaus Schulten. 2000. “A Model for Photoreceptor-Based Magnetoreception in Birds.” Biophysical Journal. (78):2, pg. 707-718
{4} Mouritsen, Henrik and Thorsten Ritz. 2005.”Magnetoreception and its use in bird navigation.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology. (15):4, pg.406-414
{5} Kirschvink, J.L., A Kobayashi-Kirschvink, and B J Woodford. 1992. “Magnetite biomineralization in the human brain.” Proceedings of the National Academies of Science. 89(16): 7683–7687

Magnetic earth

A while ago I joked with a friend about some mishaps in my life, flippantly quipping that they must be due to solar flares. “Or earth’s demagnetizing poles!” He joked. “Yeah, where does all that iron go?” I shot back. Then I wondered, No really, what happens?

I knew that the earth’s magnetic poles flipped periodically, and that these events are recorded in volcanic rocks and “magnetic striping” in the seafloor, but I didn’t know why the poles flipped. Or what happened to animals that rely on magnetic sensing during these events. So I pulled my old geology textbook off my bookshelf (no, I’m not telling you what year I took GEO-2010!), and did a little digging on the internet to fill in the holes. I learned enough for at least two posts — one on the earth processes (today), and a second on the magnetic sensing in animals (later). Here goes:

Earth core

Most geologists accept a hypothesis that the earth’s magnetic fields are generated by electrical currents in the earth’s molten outer core, which are in turn caused by convection that churns at an accelerated rate compared to convection in the mantle (we’re talking about several orders of magnitude difference in the rates here, like a million times faster).  But until the mid-1990s, apparently no one had a plausible model to describe why the earth’s magnetic field was self-sustaining (the temps at the core apparently prevent any material from being permanently magnetized), why the magnetic poles are roughly aligned with the rotational axis, and why the poles flipped periodically.

Then in 1995 a pair of researchers published the first major study to explain these mechanisms {1}.  You can read the detailed explanation at GeoDynamo. A crude two-line summary might go like this: as the earth rotates, parts of the conductive,  liquid outer core solidifies on to the inner core, in a process where the crystallization of iron gives off latent heat (despite the high temps in the core, the pressure is so great that the material “freezes” onto the

Helical fluid swath within outer core. Credit: G. A. Glatzmaier

inner core). This heat instigates thermal buoyancy in the liquid outer core, causing fluid swaths to rise and be less viscous than other parts. Compositional buoyancy is also created by the lighter materials left in the outer core as the heavier iron particles accrete on to the inner core.  At the same time, because the earth rotates, the Coriolis effect causes a shearing effect on the liquid, resulting in twisted, helical convection currents within the outer core. This combination of convection and twisting results in an eastward flow closer to the inner core boundary and a westward flow closer to the outer core-mantle boundary. This convective movement within the conductive core kick-starts an electric current, and the current itself generates a magnetic field too, which explains the self-sustaining generation of both the electric current and the magnetic field lines. Apparently, the Glatzmaier- Roberts model was the first to give a plausible mechanism for how the earth’s magnetic field continually renews itself . Okay, that is more than a two-line summary but I am not known for my brevity. (Whew, I hope I got that all right… if I mangled something, drop me a line.)

Even better, when allowed to play out over time, the Glatzmaier- Roberts model mimicked a magnetic polar flip. From what I understand, they didn’t structure their model to try to mimic this, but because they factored in the earth’s rotation, the polar flipping happened as a result of this parameter. Apparently the magnetic lines emanating from the twisted convecting outer core can become tangled, leading to periodic “islands” of flipped polarity at the earth’s surface that tend  to forecast a reversal event. These “islands” and the tangled magnetic lines lead to an overall weakening of the magnetic field (forces cancel each other out). The fluctuations grow stronger, causing declining magnetism, and then the chaotic system flips and stabilizes again.

When a reversal occurs, instead of the magnetic lines departing from the south pole and diving back down into the north pole, as we are used to observing, they suddenly shoot out of the north pole and ride back to the core via the south pole. For a really neat visual of how this works, visit NOVA’s Magnetic Storm pages, where they have a QuickTime video of the model {2}. We know these flips have occurred in the past because they are recorded in volcanic rocks and the seafloor in what scientists call the paleomagnetic record. What’s even neater is that Mars used to have a magnetic field too, but it de-activated about 4 billion years ago.

The paleomagnetic record shows that the earth’s poles have flipped roughly – very roughly – every 250 thousand years or so. It’s definitely not a highly regularized phenomenon, and yet it occurs with some regularity the farther out you dial the geological time scale. The record also shows that it’s been about 720 thousand years since the last flip-flop, and that today’s magnetic field has been weakening for about 300 years. The entire flipping process can take several hundred to several thousand years.

Solar wind and magnetosphere

Because the earth’s magnetic field protects the surface from solar radiation and solar wind {3}, I’m curious to learn what happens to ecosystems, and animals that rely on magnetic sensing, when the magnetic field weakens and flips. Stay tuned, and I’ll let you know what I find out…

NOTES:
{1} G.A. Glatzmaier and P.H. Roberts, “A three-dimensional self-consistent computer simulation of a geomagnetic field reversal,” Nature, 377, 203-209 (1995).
{2} NOVA science programming, Magnetic Storms, original air date November 18, 2003, retrieved online August 2, 2009.
{3} Physical Geology Revealed, 2nd edition. David McGeary and Charles Plummer. pg 38-39.

October 31, 2009

HIS EXCELLENCY
BAN KI-MOON Secretary General
United Nations

Dear Mr. Secretary General:

Greetings! Every 5th of June since 1972 is commemorated by the United Nations as the World Environment Day. In 2010-2011, scientists report that there will be a solar maximum that has not occurred since fifty years ago as reported in this article from Science@NASA:

a (solar) storm is coming–the most intense solar maximum in fifty years. The prediction comes from a team led by Mausumi Dikpati of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR). “The next sunspot cycle will be 30% to 50% stronger than the previous one,” she says. If correct, the years ahead could produce a burst of solar activity second only to the historic Solar Max of 1958. Read more about it here

This and other factors will result in major disasters during the period in question. Our group of professionals advocating environment protection and disaster damage diminution respectfully request the United Nations to support our effort to organize a Geo Hazard Mapping and Environment Summit in 2010 and we are determined that this gathering be convened in Manila, Philippines. In this connection, may we respectfully request the following:

1. United Nations and its concerned departments participate in the Summit and help in organizing said event
2. The Year 2010 be declared as the International Geo Hazard Mapping Year
3. The month of April 2010 be declared as the International Disaster Risk Reduction Month; and finally,
4. The date of April 17, 2010 be declared as the first World Hazards Awareness Day.

That these declarations be formally announced in Manila prior to the Summit.

Thank you ever so much! Mabuhay!!!

Respectfully yours,

Organizers HMES 2010

QCA Levels

Pupil Friendly Levels

Literacy PowerPoint

Framework Science PowerPoint

Assessment for learning PowerPoint

Assessment for learning Questions (levels3-6)

Assessment for learning Answers (levels3-6)

‘true or false’ PowerPoint

Additional PowerPoint

Quick Quizzes

Quick Quizzes Answers

Practice Exams

Summary Sheets

‘wordsearch’

science quiz

word search

crossword

Homeworks : 1 / 2 / 3 / 4

Clip Bank:

Magnetic Field Lines (2′52″)

Electricity and Magnetism (1′21″)

Generating Electricity with Magnetism (0′33″)

How a DC Motor Works (1′29″)

Using a Magnetometer (2′51″)

Are All Metals Magnetic? (1′34″)

Magnetic Force Fields (3′04″)

History of Magnetism (2′12″)

Making Metal Magnetic (3′36″)

A Magnet Factory (2′22″)

Everyday Uses for Magnets (1′57″)

Magnetic Fields (Flash)

Understanding Magnets (Flash) “SIM”

Understanding Magnets (Flash)

Magnetism and Electric Current (Flash)

Plotting a Magnetic Field (Flash)

Magnets (Quiz)

Level Assessed Task