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12 July 2021 Danish Student solves how the Universe is reflected near black holesAstrophysics:In the vicinity of black holes, space is so warped that even light rays may curve around them several times. This phenomenon may enable us to see multiple versions of the same thing. While this has been known for decades, only now do we have an exact, mathematical expression, thanks to Albert Sneppen, student at the Niels Bohr Institute. The result, which even is more useful in realistic black holes, has just been published in the journal Scientific Reports. A disk of glowing gas swirls into the...

This past year, my wife and I developed a delightful habit of “Monday’s with Eli.” He is my soon-to-be 5 year-old grandson. He has a nearly 4 month-old baby brother, whose time in the womb was the occasion for our weekly baby-sitting duties. With my retirement, his presence was a new challenge to “find things to do.” He is an energetic boy, bright, with quick interest in almost anything around him. Our duties took us on long walks in the local arboretum, visits to the local dam, a train-yard, and countless forays into the woods across the street. There have...

Stephen Maciejewski dropped to a knee on a Center City sidewalk Wednesday morning and gently scooped up a yellow-billed cuckoo that had smashed into a skyscraper and died on its way to Central America or the West Indies. “This probably happened yesterday,” said Maciejewski, a 71-year-old retired social worker and volunteer for Audubon Pennsylvania. He labeled a plastic bag with the time, date, and location, tucked the slim migrator into it, and continued his rounds. Maciejewski gets emotional when he speaks about all the birds he finds, but nothing, he says, prepared him for what happened Friday. “So many birds...

I live to write. I write to live. The close of 2019 marks two full decades since I entered national newspaper syndication. You are reading the 1,571st column I've filed with Creators Syndicate. The years have flown and so have the words: More than one million of them carefully marshaled each week for the past 1,043 weeks to enlighten, entertain and enrage. Thank you, Creators Syndicate founder Rick Newcombe, for your steadfast support and friendship. Thank you to the hundreds of newspaper op-ed and website editors who publish my work. Thank you to the thousands of readers over the past...

At first glance, it's just a float ... until .....

AP learns fired McCabe kept personal memos regarding Trump WASHINGTON (AP) — Andrew McCabe, the onetime FBI deputy director long scorned by President Trump and just fired by the attorney general, kept personal memos regarding Trump that are similar to the notes compiled by dismissed FBI chief James Comey detailing interactions with him, The Associated Press has learned. It was not immediately clear whether any of McCabe’s memos have been turned over to special counsel Robert Mueller, whose criminal investigation is examining Trump campaign ties to Russia and possible obstruction of justice, or been requested by Mueller. McCabe’s memos include...

TIKRIK – Since the American Revolutionary War, men and women have fought to attain and preserve what Thomas Jefferson described in the Declaration of Independence as our “unalienable rights … life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”“History shows that [many] sacrificed their lives and some of their freedoms for other people’s freedoms,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Michael S. McCoy, the top noncommissioned officer of the 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, out of Fort Riley, Kan. “That’s what we do in the military. We sacrifice a lot of our own freedoms to provide [and protect] the freedom of...

Reflections on Germany(Munich) I’ve been walking the last two days through Munich. Much of the city core was bombed out by the allies by spring 1945. Yet today there is little evidence of such destruction. The museums are among the best in the world, the streets and parks spotless, the infrastructure superb, and the people as hard at work as ever. To walk an urban street in Germany is a different experience from say in Athens or Istanbul—traffic follows law, pedestrians are respected, horns are used rarely, trash is absent. In other words, things work and work well. Such observations...

Whenever I reflect on the most important moments of my life it's always those seemingly insignificant and casual conversations that come to mind. In every possible way he could devise, my father tried to impart to me the lessons and values he had learned the hard way, hoping against hope that my journey would be less torturous than his own. The most profound message that my Dad delivered to me was: "Put in a little effort now and it will pay off for the rest of your life." Of course, as a precocious (some say obnoxious) pre-teen I put more...

A team of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute has created the world’s first material that reflects virtually no light. Reporting in the March issue of Nature Photonics, they describe an optical coating made from the material that enables vastly improved control over the basic properties of light. The research could open the door to much brighter LEDs, more efficient solar cells, and a new class of "smart" light sources that adjust to specific environments, among many other potential applications.Most surfaces reflect some light — from a puddle of water all the way to a mirror. The new material has almost...

As 2006 passes into the history books, it might just end up being lost, as nothing of really great significance took place in the country. There also wasn't much in the way of world events that significantly affected life in Russia. Analysts summing up the last 12 months make mention of shake-ups in the Prosecutor General's Office and the Justice Ministry, as well as the Sakhalin-2 scandal, in which the state unexpectedly played the "concern about the ecology" card in order to increase Gazprom's share of the project's profits. But did these events make much of a wave with Russians?...

Renee' Willis-Williams Reflections: Why I Deployed to Afghanistan By Renee' Willis-Williams U.S. Army Corp of Engineers KABUL, Afghanistan, Oct. 20, 2006 — My story is like most people who come to Afghanistan; in some small way, I wanted to make a difference by aiding in the recovery of the Afghan National lives, with an emphasis on women’s health issues and the improvement of the infant mortality rate, which is one of the highest in the world - 147 deaths for every 1,000 live births. As a woman and a mother of twin 3-year old boys, John Thomas and Rodgers...

It was 15 years ago today that our 8-year-old son Ryan suffered a severe brain injury that left him unable to walk or talk or feed himself. He was in the hospital (in two hospitals, actually) for over six months, and ever since has lived with us at home. I thought I would share some of the lessons I've learned in these past 15 years: Some Run Away I thought I'd start out with the most unpleasant reality first. That in times of real trouble, some people you thought were your true-blue friends or close family members you thought were...

Humans Do Not Understand Mirror Reflections, Say Researchers General Science : December 21, 2005 Newsletter Psychologists at the University of Liverpool have found that people still find it difficult to understand how mirrors work. Dr Marco Bertamini, from the University’s School of Psychology, conducted a number of experiments by covering a mirror on a wall and inviting participants to walk along a line parallel to the mirror. He asked them to guess the point at which they would be able to see their reflection. Results showed that people believe they can see themselves even before they are level with the...

Advent – He Comes!  The King of GloryDaily Meditations Advent  is the sacred season of anticipation and expectation in which we come to terms with the deepest yearning of our soul – a yearning fulfilled only in Jesus Christ.  As we wait in longing for the coming of the Christ child at Christmas, we turn over to him all the false satisfactions – the compromises – of our life.  To live Advent is to live in the awareness of a Presence that changes us.  Our Advent preparation is marked by vigilance – custody of the heart in which we keep our...

Ronald Reagan kept a diary -- handwritten, blue-inked reflections and observations of nearly every day of his eight years in the White House -- and now it will be published, executives of HarperCollins and the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library Foundation announced yesterday. The existence of the five leather-bound volumes embossed with a gold presidential seal was not a secret. Key entries were quoted in the press during the investigation into the Iran-contra arms sale controversy in the mid-1980s: "I agreed to sell TOWs to Iran" -- Jan. 17, 1986. Reagan drew on the diary for his 1990 memoir, "An American...

Easter Reflections -- 50 Days of the Easter Season “Let everyone fast for the 40 days of Lent,” the early Church writers urge, “but let no one fast during the 50 days of Easter.” The Easter Season is the Church’s most ancient and beautiful season. For the next 50 days until Pentecost, in the Sunday Gospels, we’ll find the Risen Christ by a lakeshore…on a mountain top…coming through closed doors. The Paschal Candle will burn brightly in our church as we, like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, feel our hearts burning within us and experience the fire...

Six minutes a day. That's what you are asked to give during these next 43 days -- the 27 days of Advent Season, and the 16 days of the Christmas Season. The key to the second post for each day (except Sundays) will be walking through the first part of Matthew's Gospel a little bit at a time. The key to the first post is like a buffet table with a variety of thoughts about the Advent and Christams Seasons, the feast of the day, and various traditions and customs. All of this provides the framwwork for you to enjoy...

Click on the calendar's individual days here

ADVENTThe word Advent is from the Latin adventus for "coming" and is associated with the four weeks of preparation for Christmas. Advent always contains four Sundays, beginning on the Sunday nearest the feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, (November 30) and continuing until December 24. It blends together a penitential spirit, very similar to Lent, a liturgical theme of preparation for the Second and Final Coming of the Lord, called the Parousia, and a joyful theme of getting ready for the Bethlehem event.Since the 900s Advent has been considered the beginning of the Church year. This does not mean...