Terminal Lucidity

Terminal lucidity is the subject of an interesting article in Scientific American.  The term refers to "The (re-)emergence of normal or unusually enhanced mental abilities in dull, unconscious, or mentally ill patients shortly before death, including considerable elevation of mood and spiritual affectation, or the ability to speak in a previously unusual spiritualized and elated manner."  For example " A 92-year-old woman with advanced Alzheimer’s disease... hadn’t recognized her family for years, but the day before her death, she had a pleasantly bright conversation with them, recalling everyone’s name."  At one of the links in the article a reasonable postulate is that when the brain is dying, an inhibitory hemisphere or locus dies first, releasing normal function by memory cells that had previously been suppressed.

Brains on Sugar

 New Picture Emerging of Young Brains on Sugar

Scientists are discovering that neurological changes that create addictive brains can begin at a very young age, while the brain is still developing. What does that mean for children and sweets? Could some of them be addicted to sugar?

Wait a minute, not so fast ...

"A German man committed to a high-security psychiatric hospital after being accused of fabricating a story of money-laundering activities at a major bank is to have his case reviewed after evidence has emerged proving the validity of his claims."

Vortex

Vortices in swimming pools are way more complicated and interesting than you would expect   What you're really seeing is both ends of a "half-vortex ring."

YouTube link.

Big Block

The largest known block of stone carved by humans weighed an incredible 1,650 tons.  It was created in about 27 B.C. but never used for construction.

2014 On Pace for Hottest Year

November in Books, 2014 On Pace for Hottest Year

With November data recorded, 2014 is on track to be the warmest year on record.

Worse Than Predicted

Greenland Ice Loss May Be Worse Than Predicted

A warming planet may lead to swifter ice loss on Greenland’s ice sheet, and faster sea level rise for the rest of the world than previously predicted, scientists said Monday. 

California needs 11 trillion gallons of water to recover from ongoing drought

NASA GRACE satellite data reveal the severity of California’s drought on water resources across the state. 

The map below shows the trend in water storage between September 2011 and September 2014. 

A new analysis of NASA satellite data reveals that it will take about 11 trillion gallons of water (42 cubic kilometers), which is about 1.5 times the maximum volume of the largest reservoir in the USA, to recover from California's continuing drought. Cool, no big deal.
More from the presentation by NASA scientists Dec. 16 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco:

A team of scientists led by Jay Famiglietti of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, used data from NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellites to develop the first-ever calculation of this kind -- the volume of water required to end an episode of drought.
Earlier this year, at the peak of California's current three-year drought, the team found that water storage in the state's Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins was 11 trillion gallons below normal seasonal levels. Data collected since the launch of GRACE in 2002 show this deficit has increased steadily.
"Spaceborne and airborne measurements of Earth's changing shape, surface height and gravity field now allow us to measure and analyze key features of droughts better than ever before, including determining precisely when they begin and end and what their magnitude is at any moment in time," Famiglietti said. "That's an incredible advance and something that would be impossible using only ground-based observations."
GRACE data reveal that, since 2011, the Sacramento and San Joaquin river basins decreased in volume by four trillion gallons of water each year (15 cubic kilometers). That's more water than California's 38 million residents use each year for domestic and municipal purposes. About two-thirds of the loss is due to depletion of groundwater beneath California's Central Valley.
In related results, early 2014 data from NASA's Airborne Snow Observatory indicate that snowpack in California's Sierra Nevada range was only half of previous estimates. The observatory is providing the first-ever high-resolution observations of the water volume of snow in the Tuolumne River, Merced, Kings and Lakes basins of the Sierra Nevada and the Uncompahgre watershed in the Upper Colorado River Basin.

More on GRACE here.

In A Blaze of Glory

Venus Express to Flame Out in Blaze of Glory

Already running on fumes as its fuel reserves dwindled, Venus Express' most recent attempts at maintaining its altitude fell short.

Wait, There's More ...

Wait, There's More: Curiosity Confirms Organics on Mars

NASA’s rover Curiosity has found organic compounds on Mars, the first definitive proof of building blocks for life on the Red Planet that also exist on Earth. 

Excited Shelter Dogs on Their Way to a New Home

The dogs shown here are from shelters, accustomed to a lonely existence behind bars with minimal human contact. Then suddenly, a visitor or a family has them sprung from their kennel, and after a brief meeting, the dog is put on a lead and placed in a car. Some of the more timid dogs are scared at first, which may show in their faces. But many are simply ecstatic to be free and with a person who seems to have an interest in taking care of them and showing them kindness. That thrilled, hopeful expression is captured on many of the faces of the dogs in these photos as they ride to their new home.
See more photos of dogs freed from shelters here. 

Battling Baldness

Beehive 'Spackle' May Help Battle Baldness

The resin-like material honeybees use to patch holes in their hives encourages hair growth in mice, scientists find. 

The Navy's New Drone Looks and Swims Like a Shark

This is the GhostSwimmer, a new drone developed for the US Navy. It's 5 feet long and designed to resemble a shark. It swims like one, too! It flips its tail back and forth, like a shark, to navigate waters between 10 inches and 300 feet deep.
An operator can use a 500-foot tether to control it, or command it to surface periodically to receive new instructions. The Navy hopes to use it for reconnaissance and ship inspection.
Hopefully future models will include features of the EATR, a robot that could, hypothetically, feed off human flesh. Because that would, I suspect, extend its range.

Ocean Acidification Die Off

Ocean Acidification Causing Pacific Oyster Die Off

Oysters are sensitive to increasingly corrosive seawater, and it's causing commercial oyster operations to fail. 

Chick Mimic

Amazonian Chick Mimics a Poisonous Caterpillar

In a bid to look unattractive to predators, the nestlings not only look like caterpillars but move just like them, too.

Animal Pictures

The Daily Drift

The Nineteenth of our trees of December ...!

 

Carolina Naturally is read in 200 countries around the world daily.   

 
Never Fear Underdog Is Here ... !

Today is  - Underdog Day

Don't forget to visit our sister blog: It Is What It Is

Some of our readers today have been in:

The Americas

Buenos Aires, Argentina

Curitiba and Sao Paulo, Brazil

Cambridge, Montreal, Quebec and Toronto, Canada 

Santiago, Chile

Bogota, Colombia

Mexico City and Tegucigalpa, Mexico

Luguillo and Mayaguez, Puerto Rico

The Bottom, Sint Eustatius-Saba

Caracas, Venezuela

Europe

Tirana, Albania 

Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina

Sofia, Bulgaria

Malarm, Croatia

London and Milton Keynes, England

Boulogne-Billancourt, Cerny, Oberhaslach, Paris, Roubaix, Rouen, Semeac and Villeurbanne, France

Berlin, Bornheim, Hamburg and Nuremberg, Germany

Athens and Thessaloniki, Greece

Reykjavik, Iceland

Dublin, Ireland

Brescia, Florence, Ivrea, Naples, Rome, Terlizzi and Vicenza, Italy 

Warsaw, Poland

Bucharest, Romania

Moscow and Ryazan, Russia

L'Olleria, Madrid, Palma and Valencia, Spain

Kista and Stockholm, Sweden

Swansea, Wales

Asia

Bangalore, Bhubaneshwar, Chennai, Gaya, Nangoli Jat, Shillong and Trichur, India

Gubengairlangga and Jakarta, Indonesia

Khavas Kuh and Tehran, Iran

Ramat Gan, Israel

Seoul, Korea

Kota Kinabalu and Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Islamabad, Pakistan

Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Singapore, Singapore

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Bangkok, Thailand

Africa

Cape Town, Johannesburg and Randburg, South Africa

The Pacific

Homebush and Melbourne, Australia

Makati, Philippines

Today in History

1154   Henry II is crowned king of England.  
1562   The French Wars of Religion between the huguenots and the catholics begins with the Battle of Dreux.
1793   French troops recapture Toulon from the British.  
1862   Confederate General Nathan B. Forrest begins tearing up the railroads in Union generals Grant and Rosecrans rear, causing considerable delays in the movement of Union supplies.  
1900   The French Parliament votes amnesty for everyone involved in the Dreyfus Affair.
1909   American socialist women denounce suffrage as a movement of the middle class.  
1941   Japanese land on Hong Kong and clash with British troops.  
1941   Adolf Hitler assumes the position of commander in chief of the German army.  
1942   The British advance 40 miles into Burma in a drive to oust the Japanese from the colony.  
1944   During the Battle of the Bulge, American troops begin pulling back from the twin Belgian cities of Krinkelt and Rocherath in front of the advancing German Army.  
1945   Congress confirms Eleanor Roosevelt as U.S. delegate to the United Nations.  
1950   The North Atlantic Council names General Dwight D. Eisenhower as supreme commander of Western European defense forces.  
1959   Reputed to be the last civil war veteran, Walter Williams, dies at 117 in Houston.  
1974   Nelson Rockefeller is sworn in as vice president of the United states after a House of Representatives vote.  
1982   Four bombs explode at South Africa's only nuclear power station in Johannesburg.  
1984   British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and Chinese Premier Zhao Ziyang sign an agreement that committed Britain to return Hong Kong to China in 1997 in return for terms guaranteeing a 50-year extension of its capitalist system. Hong Kong was leased by China to Great Britain in 1898 for 99 years. 1998   President Bill Clinton is impeached. The House of Representatives approved two articles of impeachment against President Clinton, charging him with lying under oath to a federal grand jury and obstructing justice. Clinton was the second president in American history to be impeached.  
2001   The highest barometric pressure ever recorded (1085.6 hPa, 32.06 inHg) occurs at Tosontsengel, Khovsgol, Mongolia.  
2001   Rioting begins in Buenos Aires, Argentina, during the country's economic crisis.  
2012   Park Geun-hye elected President of South Korea, the nation's first female chief executive.

35 Features for Your Dream Home When You Strike it Rich

Home theater/swimming pool combo

You win a ridiculously high amount of dough in the lottery. You collect your winnings and decide to build the house of your dreams. What kind of amenities would you include? Are you a wine or spirits enthusiast enough to build a grand wine cellar? Are you a swimmer who would build indoor/outdoor pools? A hippophile who would build stables for horses? A bibliophile desirous of room for your large collection? The endless possibilities are enough to make one's head spin.
Here is a list of 35 items that would fit the bill. Even if some of them wouldn't necessarily be on your list, I think most of us can agree that it wouldn't exactly hurt to have them.

Glass door in kitchen floor leading to underground wine cellar

Office with space-saving bookshelves

Waterslide in bedroom closet leads to pool below

Al Franken Sends Uber Running By Questioning Their Privacy Policies

Uber responds to Seator Franken, but "it still remains unclear how Uber defines legitimate business purposes for accessing, retaining, and sharing customer data."…

“To Uber” is going to mean “to hide” soon, thanks to car service company Uber’s possum act in the midst of a self-made and perpetuated brand crisis.

Uber has been in hot water for many reasons, not the least of which has been disturbing suggestions and revelations about their lack of adherence to any coherent privacy policy after one of their executives told dinner companions (including a Buzzfeed editor — oops!) that Uber should use its access to personal information to dox journalists who don’t give the car service a stellar review.

This didn’t go over well, especially in the wake of Uber’s 6th grade level misogyny (pairing with a French escort service as drivers for a promotion) while selling its service to women as a safe ride home. In order to order to prove all was well, an Uber employee accessed a Buzzfeed journalist’s history without permission. Point made.

Thus they managed to raise even more alarms.

Uber finally got around to answering Senator Al Franken’s (D-MN) questions about its privacy policies in a letter (read it here) that while several paragraphs long, says basically nothing. They informed him that their privacy policy is on their app and website, but everyone knows that. What no one knows is when or if they enforce said privacy policies. Certainly their executive doesn’t seem to and the employees seem to operate under the belief that it’s fair game for them to access private information whenever they want.

Furthermore, the privacy and data collection policies cited on Uber’s website differ from their public claims and in fact do not support their public claims. This is part of what drew Franken’s attention to the car service’s public meltdown in the first place, given that Franken is the Chairman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Privacy, Technology, and the Law.

Uber offered no real answers on ow they use their GPS based app which can track users’ locations or the “dog’s view” tool. Senator Franken was not pleased. He issued the following statement in response to Uber’s lack of response:

“I believe Americans have a fundamental right to privacy, and that right includes the ability to control who is getting your personal location information and who it’s being shared with,” said Senator Franken. “I recently pressed Uber to explain the scope, transparency, and enforceability of their privacy policies. While I’m pleased that they replied to my letter, I am concerned about the surprising lack of detail in their response. Quite frankly, they did not answer many of the questions I posed directly to them. Most importantly, it still remains unclear how Uber defines legitimate business purposes for accessing, retaining, and sharing customer data. I will continue pressing for answers to these questions.”

So, the question is how does Uber define legitimate reasons for accessing, retaining and sharing personal information? That shouldn’t be too hard to answer if the company actually has a policy that they use.

People will just start to use alternative companies. It’s not that hard to make an app and develop a privacy policy that is strictly enforced. It certainly shouldn’t take weeks to sort out the details – had this already been done, the company wouldn’t be ducking and dodging now. But, just like any bad corporate actor, instead of owning up to their mistakes and trying to make it right immediately, we’re getting more avoidance and revisionism and moving of the goal posts.

Just call Green Tomato Cars if they have them where you are until Uber gets itself together. There is no excuse for not defining exactly what they are doing with people’s private information.