Here's my Marvel Defenders No Spoilers Early Review video and Final Trailer. It's everything you hoped for! 👊 ► http://bit.ly/2uNJJX2


#defenders #marvel #netflix #daredevil #ironfist #lukecage #jessicajones #avengers #infinitywar #comics #punisher

President Donald Trump's comments about the white nationalist rally last weekend are hurting not just his political standing, but his pocketbook.

Samsung Galaxy S8 is the best-selling Android phone in Q2 2017, but iPhone 7 is king of the world

Obonu TV Homowo Health Walk On Saturday - The 2017 Obonu TV Homowo Health Walk comes off on Saturday August 18, 2017. According to the organisers, the programme starts at 6:00am from James Town (Manste Agbona), where selected Keep Fit Clubs will converge and march through the principal streets to the Ghana Broadcasting Corporation at Kanda. Theo Armah, Sports Producer and Presenter on Obonu TV and Radio said the programme ...

FINAL: The Baltimore Ravens start the preseason 2-0! #BALvsMIA

#Sports #NFL

(Credit: NFL)

Perseids over the Pyrénées
Image Credit & Copyright: Jean-Francois Graffand
https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap170818.html

This mountain and night skyscape stretches across the French Pyrenees National Park on August 12, near the peak of the annual Perseid meteor shower. The multi-exposure panoramic view was composed from the Col d'Aubisque, a mountain pass, about an hour before the bright gibbous moon rose. Centered is a misty valley and lights from the region's Gourette ski station toward the south. Taken over the following hour, frames capturing some of the night's long bright perseid meteors were aligned against the backdrop of stars and Milky Way.

Nigel Hayes agrees to Knicks deal after calling New York ‘dirty’ http://nyp.st/2fQE4J8

Weighing in on the Dumbbell Nebula

The 'Dumbbell nebula,' also known as Messier 27, pumps out infrared light in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Planetary nebulae are now known to be the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun.

The "Dumbbell nebula," also known as Messier 27, pumps out infrared light in this image from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. The nebula was named after its resemblance to a dumbbell as seen in visible light. It was discovered in 1764 by Charles Messier, who included it as the 27th member of his famous catalog of nebulous objects. Though he did not know it at the time, this was the first in a class of objects, now known as "planetary nebulae," to make it into the catalog.

Planetary nebulae, historically named for their resemblance to gas-giant planets, are now known to be the remains of stars that once looked a lot like our sun. When sun-like stars die, they puff out their outer gaseous layers. These layers are heated by the hot core of the dead star, called a white dwarf, and shine with infrared and visible-light colors. Our own sun will blossom into a planetary nebula when it dies in about five billion years.

The Dumbbell nebula is 1,360 light-years away in the Vulpecula constellation, and stretches across 4.5 light-years of space. That would more that fill the space between our sun and the nearest star, and it demonstrates how effective planetary nebulae are at returning much of a star's material back to interstellar space at the end of their lives.

Spitzer's infrared view shows a different side of this recycled stellar material. The diffuse green glow, which is brightest near the center, is probably from hot gas atoms being heated by the ultraviolet light from the central white dwarf.

A collection of clumps fill the central part of the nebula, and red-colored radial spokes extend well beyond. Astronomers think these features represent molecules of hydrogen gas, mixed with traces of heavier elements. Despite being broken apart by the ultraviolet light from the central white dwarf, much of this molecular material may survive intact and mix back into interstellar gas clouds, helping to fuel the next generation of stars. Similar structures are seen in the Helix and other planetary nebulae.

This image was made using data from Spitzer's infrared array camera. Blue shows infrared light with wavelengths of 3.6 microns, green represents 4.5-micron light and red, 8.0-micron light.

If you think that the effort to Repeal and Replace the Affordable Care Act is really about making things better then you most likely have not been paying attention. They wanted to decrease taxes on the wealthy and they wanted to reverse an important civil rights reform.

NASA Voyager at 40: Keep Reaching for the Stars | JPL
Aug.17, 2017: In the late summer of 1977, NASA launched the twin Voyager spacecraft. These remote ambassadors still beam messages back to Earth 40 years later, with data from their deep space travels. Voyager 1 is about 13 billion miles from Earth in interstellar space, and Voyager 2 is not far behind.

For more about the Voyager mission, visit:
https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/voyager/

Credit: NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Duration: 3 minutes, 27 seconds
Release Date: August 17, 2017

+NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
+NASA Solar System Exploration
+COSMOSonTV
+The Planetary Society

#NASA #Astronomy #Science #Space #Voyager #Spacecraft #SolarSystem #Interstellar #Exploration #History #JPL #Pasadena #California #UnitedStates #STEM #Education #HD #Video

Enjoy one of the best tribute for MMA Superstar Conor McGregor.  If this video doesn't get you pump than nothing will. https://goo.gl/YZfWMG

Join us at the launch of our 2018 Swimsuit Calendar!
Read more on: bit.ly/2fPfybA

#Sports #NFL #Cheerleaders

(Credit: New England Patriots Cheerleaders)

People close to Steve Bannon tell NBC News he feels on safe ground amid White House infighting stemming from President Donald Trump’s divisive response to the violence in Charlottesville.

Bannon, who has rarely given on-the-record interviews since assuming his position as Trump’s chief White House strategist, reached out to speak with three news outlets in the past 48 hours, using those conversations to criticize colleagues, threaten to fire others and appearing to relish the ongoing national racial tensions.

His comments signal that Bannon, the former head of Breitbart News, is digging in for the long haul amid the turmoil and turnover that has roiled Trump’s cohort of top advisers in recent weeks.

This was Alexander Stevens, a Senator from Geogia, who served as Vice-President under Jeff Davis, The President of the Confederate States of America.

8 More Chrome Extensions Hijacked to Target 4.8 Million Users

Google's Chrome web browser Extensions are under attack with a series of developers being hacked within last one month.

https://goo.gl/DfKWVv

#google #chrome #extension #security #hacked

Modi interacted with young entrepreneurs at NITI Aayog's 'Champions of Change' event

http://mybs.in/2UY4sil

Actress Charlize Theron dreams of AIDS-free S.Africa - Johannesburg (AFP) - Oscar-winning Hollywood actress Charlize Theron hopes to create an AIDS-free generation in her home country South Africa which has one of the highest rates of HIV infection in the world. The star who is the founder of Charlize Theron Africa Outreach Project which supports community-based HIV programmes said the country's ridiculously large HIV burden was hard to ignore an ...

WISE Unveils a Treasure Trove of Beauty

A rich collection of colorful astronomical objects is revealed in this picturesque image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer; the cloud is found rising above the plane of the Milky Way in the night sky.

A rich collection of colorful astronomical objects is revealed in this picturesque image of the Rho Ophiuchi cloud complex from NASA's Wide-field Infrared Explorer, or WISE. The Rho Ophiuchi cloud (pronounced 'oh-fee-yoo-ki' and named after a bright star in the region) is found rising above the plane of the Milky Way in the night sky, bordering the constellations Ophiuchus and Scorpius. It's one of the nearest star-forming regions to Earth, allowing us to resolve much more detail than in more distant similar regions, like the Orion nebula.

The amazing variety of colors seen in this image represents different wavelengths of infrared light. The bright white nebula in the center of the image is glowing due to heating from nearby stars, resulting in what is called an emission nebula. The same is true for most of the multi-hued gas prevalent throughout the entire image, including the bluish, bow-shaped feature near the bottom right.

The bright red area in the bottom right is light from the star in the center -- Sigma Scorpii -- that is reflected off of the dust surrounding it, creating what is called a reflection nebula. And the much darker areas scattered throughout the image are pockets of cool, dense gas that block out the background light, resulting in absorption (or 'dark') nebulae. WISE's longer wavelength detectors can typically see through dark nebulae, but these are exceptionally opaque.

The bright pink objects just left of center are young stellar objects (YSOs). These baby stars are just now forming; many of them are still enveloped in their own tiny compact nebulae. In visible light, these YSOs are completely hidden in the dark nebula that surrounds them, which is sometimes referred to as their baby blanket.

We can also see some of the oldest stars in our Milky Way galaxy in this image, found in two separate (and much more distant) globular clusters. The first cluster, M80, is on the far right edge of the image towards the top. The second, NGC 6144, is found close to the bottom edge near the center. They both appear as small densely compacted groups of blue stars. Globular clusters such as these typically harbor some of the oldest stars known, some as old as 13 billion years, born soon after the universe formed.

There are two other items of interest in this image as well. At the 3 o'clock position, relative to the bright central region, and about two-thirds of the way from the center to the edge, there is a small faint red dot (more visible in the larger downloadable image files).

That dot is an entire galaxy far far away known as PGC 090239. And, at the bottom left of the image, there are two lines emerging from the edge. These were not created by foreground satellites; they are diffraction spikes (optical artifacts from the space telescope) from the bright star Antares that is just out of the field of view.

The colors used in this image represent specific wavelengths of infrared light. Blue and cyan (blue-green) represent light emitted at wavelengths of 3.4 and 4.6 microns, which is predominantly from stars. Green and red represent light from 12 and 22 microns, respectively, which is mostly emitted by dust.

JPL manages the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. The principal investigator, Edward Wright, is at UCLA. The mission was competitively selected under NASA's Explorers Program managed by the Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. The science instrument was built by the Space Dynamics Laboratory, Logan, Utah, and the spacecraft was built by Ball Aerospace & Technologies Corp., Boulder, Colo. Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.

FINAL: The Tampa Bay Buccaneers win! #TBvsJAX

#Sports #NFL

(Credit: NFL)

Dramatic daisy

My flowers in colors https://www.paolodalprato.com/macro-a-colori

#macrophotography #hqspmacro #hqspflowers #fotomaniaitalia #daisy #macroaddict #ilovephotography 

Elegant dispersal

Bloody crane's-bill (Geranium sanguineum)

Svartskog, Norway

Taking the time to observe the development of the seeds of the many plant species is perhaps not remotely as interesting as watching the colorful blossoms of summer. Yet many know and love the seeds of the dandelions, and you definitely have some other plant species in your garden, then it is easy to just take a regular glance at one or more flowers and see how each slowly transforms to a fruit. And what kind of fruit it develops can be truly amazing and sometimes requires a magnifying glass. Or a macro lens.

This species got its name from the long beak-shaped fruit, and looks really amazing long before the seeds are ripe and ready to be transported as far from the plant as possible. Some species rely on attaching their seeds to fur or feathers, others to be carried by the wind, and some simply eject the seeds into the air.

Although I have plenty of this species growing around my house, I rarely find such beautiful specimens like this one. I still am looking for one where all four are ejected, but this one will most definitely do in the meantime.

Image Copyright © 2017 +Morten Ross
Image Capture Date: 13 August 2017 19:09
Altitude: 10 meters

#flowers #plant #summer #svartskog #norway

#hqspflowers +HQSP Flowers
#BTPFlowerPro – +BTP Flower Pro , owned by +Nancy Dempsey , curated by +Иванка Гущерова
#flowerpower +FLOWER POWER

The human brain has a region of cells responsible for linking sensory cues to actions and behaviors and cataloging the link as a memory. Cells that form these links have been deemed highly stable and fixed.
Now, the findings of a Harvard Medical School study challenge that model, revealing that the neurons responsible for such tasks may be less stable, yet more flexible than previously believed.
The results, published Aug. 17 in the journal Cell, cast doubt on the traditional notion that memory formation involves hardwiring information into the brain in a fixed and highly stable pattern.
The researchers say their results point to a critical plasticity in neuronal networks that ensures easier integration of new information. Such plasticity, the researchers said, allows neuronal networks to more easily incorporate new learning, eliminating the need to form new links to separate neurons every time. Furthermore, they said, once a memory is no longer needed, neurons can be more easily reassigned to other important tasks.
Our experiments point to far less stability in neurons that link sensory cues to action than we would have expected and suggest the presence of much more flexibility, and indeed a sort of neuronal efficiency said study senior author Chris Harvey an assistant professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. We believe this trade-off ensures the delicate balance between the ability to incorporate new information while preserving old memories.
The Harvard Medical School study involved experiments with mice repeatedly running through a virtual maze over the course of a month.
Analyzing images of brain activity in a brain region involved in navigational decision making, the researchers noted that neurons did not stabilize into a pattern.
Instead, the set of neurons forming the mice’s maze-running memories kept changing for the duration of the study.
In fact, neurons kept switching roles in the memory pattern or left it altogether, only to be replaced by other neurons.
Individual neurons tended to have streaks where they’d do the same thing for a few days, then switch Harvey said. Over the course of weeks, we began to see shifts in the overall pattern of neurons.

The experiments are part of the research team’s ongoing efforts to unravel the mysteries of memory formation and, specifically, how the brain captures external cues and behaviors to perform recurring tasks such as navigating a space using landmarks. Imagine a person driving a familiar route to the grocery store who sees the bank and turns right at that corner without even having to think about it consciously.
To mimic that process, mice in the study were trained to run down a virtual passage, a computer-generated maze displayed on large screens in front of a treadmill, and turn right if they were given a black cue or left if they were given a white cue.
Researchers imaged hundreds of neurons in the part of the brain responsible for spatial decision making as the mice were galloping down the virtual maze.
Once the navigational links were firmly established in the mice’s brains over the course of a few weeks, the researchers expected the activity of the neurons to look the same from day to day. During maze runs that occurred within 24 hours of each other that was, indeed, the case.
Neurons that activated in response to the white cue could be distinguished from neurons that activated in response to the black cue.
However, over the course of several weeks the line between cues in individual neurons blurred and the memory pattern began to drift across neurons, the researchers observed.
A neuron that had been associated with the black cue would lose its specialization and be replaced by another, or it might even become associated with the opposite white cue. This came as a surprise to the researchers.

We were so sure that the neurons would be doing the same thing every day that we designed the study expecting to use the stable pattern as a baseline said study first author Laura Driscoll a graduate student in the neurobiology department. After we realized the neurons were changing roles, we had to rethink parts of the study.
The researchers tested how the pattern changed when they added shapes as a third cue while the mice were navigating the maze. After some reassignment of individual neurons as the mice learned the new cue, the researchers found very little change to the overall activity pattern.
This finding supports the idea that networks of neurons storing memories stay flexible in order to incorporate new learning, the researchers say.
The researchers hypothesize that neuronal stability may differ across various brain regions, likely depending on how often the skill or memory they encode needs to be modified. For a task like navigation, which frequently requires the brain to incorporate new information, it would make sense that the neurons remain flexible, Harvey said. However, more instinctual physical responses, such as blinking, may be hardwired with little neuronal drift over time.
The results provide a fascinating early glimpse into the complexities of memory formation, Driscoll said. To elucidate the big picture of memory formation and storage across brain regions, researchers say they hope to study other areas of the brain involved with different types of decision-making and memories.
I hope this research inspires people to think of memory as something that is not static Harvey said. Memories are active and integrally connected to the process of learning.

Welcome to the new space race.

People and their robots are daring to dream for the Moon (as part of the #GLXP) - and National Geographic Magazine took an in-depth look for the August 2017 issue:

Evening events, mentoring, women's lunch, meditation, 5k run... See what's happening at #OSSummit:

At 17, Marcus Aurelius was adopted. It made him heir to the throne of Rome.
Born into a wealthy family, Aurelius was primarily raised in the household of his grandfather. Both his parents passed away relatively early in his life.
From the start, his defining characteristic was his pursuit of knowledge. He was drawn to philosophy, and he was particularly interested in Stoicism a subset based on the notion that behaviors, not thoughts or words, should define virtue.
According to legend, the old Emperor Hadrian took notice of him after a brush with death, and impressed with a young Aurelius, Hadrian adopted him into his line of succession. Aurelius upheld his duty to the state for over 20 years, through the death of Hadrian and throughout the rule of Antoninus Pius, until the day he became the Emperor of Rome.

The image of the man
There’s much uncertainty regarding the details of Marcus Aurelius’ story. It’s almost 2,000 years old, and most sources are questionable at best.
The clearest image of the man is painted through a series of notes he wrote to himself, known by the name of Meditations.
Meditations is one the most influential works of Stoicism.
There isn’t much left to be said about it that hasn’t been said before. It’s a timeless manual for living a balanced life. More than a philosophy, however, it also gives us insight into the clarity with which Marcus Aurelius thought. He very much saw the world as it was rather than as he hoped it would be. That may not sound like an accomplishment, but it’s rarer than most of us would like to think.
The application of this kind of awareness pays dividends in every aspect of life, and we can dissect Aurelius’ story to break down how it can be deliberately nurtured.
First, the hurdle.

The problem of having an efficient brain
Every day, we’re loaded with external stimuli, and if we were to absorb each one of these stimuli, we wouldn’t be able to function properly. It would overwhelm our brain, and we would cease to operate in a way that would allow us to attend to our daily responsibilities.
As a result, the brain has efficiency filters. It’s good at figuring out what information we need and when. It knows that if you’re in a busy restaurant, for example, the sound of the person you’re talking to is more important than the background noise, so it adjusts.
This mechanism, however, unfortunately also comes with an unintended side-effect.
The byproduct is that, sometimes, attention isn’t fully deployed to certain areas of importance unless we’re active in directing it there. With efficiency, there’s compromise.
Michael Kane is a cognitive psychologist at The University of North Carolina who studies the interaction between memory and attention. In one of his experiments, he sampled students for their thoughts at eight random times in a day for a week.
Out of 124 participants, he found that, on average, people were thinking about something entirely different to what they were doing about 30% of the time.
This is a conservative number compared to the results turned up by similar work, and it shows how easy it is to neglect relevant information and fall into the trap of our brain’s default setting.
There are three ways to fight this.

1. Train yourself to fight the autonomous loop
Throughout Meditations, Aurelius is active in pointing out the value of looking beyond what we intuitively see on the surface in daily life to better understand the world. In his own words:
“Nothing has such power to broaden the mind as the ability to investigate systematically and truly all that comes under thy observation in life.”
Although attention doesn’t automatically lend itself to each relevant piece of information, we can train our brain to be more proactive. By keeping this fact at the top of our mind, we can paint a more representative picture of the world. That’s where awareness and clear thinking begin.
Set a few times in your day to really look and to listen. Be deliberate in seeking to bypass the compromise made by the autonomous brain. There’s a lot out there, and a lot of it matters.

2. Harness objectivity through another pair of eyes
One of the cornerstones of awareness is objectivity. It’s a kind of neutrality that aims to see the world as it is and not through personal judgment and bias. It’s not easy to cultivate.
By design, our senses absorb information in relation to where we are, what we’re doing, and how we feel. The world bombards us with stimuli, and these stimuli follow a different neural pathway in each of us. We all make sense of them differently.
We predominantly go through life understanding the world and influencing our behavior like we’re at the center of reality, and that everything around us derives its importance according to how it fits into our narrative. It warps our perception of our surroundings and how they unfold.
In cosmology, the Copernican Principle states that Earth has no privileged position in the universe. In spite of its importance to us, on a grander scale, it’s very unimportant. The same reasoning applies to people. Despite the intensity with which we feel and sense, much of what happens in the broader world isn’t just about us. There’s a larger picture, and there’s more going on. The sooner we can put aside our personal biases, the sooner we can understand reality for what it is rather than how we feel about it. It’s a crucial distinction.
Throughout his work, one thing that stands out about Aurelius is his profound ability to step away and out of his own mind and see the world and himself without emotional attachment.
It helps explain the depth of his insights. He was able to expand his circle of awareness by tuning himself out and by aspiring to see things from a pair of eyes with more than just a singular perspective. It’s a very practical tactic, and most of us don’t use it enough.
Step outside your own shoes, conceptualize your observations as if you’re in the body of someone else around you, and try to harness objectivity through a different host of eyes.

3. Routinely seek out ways to declutter the mind
One of the distinguishing aspects of Meditations is that Aurelius didn’t write it for anyone other than himself. By all accounts, it appears to be a very personal journal. There isn’t much coherence or structure to how it’s presented.
This tells us that his purpose for writing wasn’t necessarily to share his wisdom, but it was likely to practice clearing out and organizing his own mind.
There’s a lot of sense in doing that, and a look into the work of Dr. James W. Pennebaker explains why.
Pennebaker is a pioneer in writing therapy and a professor of Psychology at the University of Texas at Austin.
The American Psychological Association has recognized his work on the benefits of journaling as some of the most important in the field.
In 1994, Pennebaker and his team split people who had been out of a job for eight months into three groups. The first was asked to write about their layoff and how they felt about it, the second was invited to write but about nothing in particular, and the final group was given no writing instructions.
The result?

The participants that recorded their layoff experiences were notably more likely to find new jobs in the aftermath of the study. By writing, they were able to formally declutter the stress and the noise in their minds and become more aligned with what they were feeling. It gave them the push they needed to grasp where they were and where they needed to go.
Similar studies by Pennebaker have shown the benefits of journaling range from helping people better manage trauma to a bolstered immune system.
By journaling, Aurelius was able to extract the information restlessly roaming around in his mind and organize it into concrete principles he could strive towards. For others, this same effect is reached through meditation, nature walks, or even certain types of exercise.
The human mind is extremely noisy, but by creating a routine that allows us to clear it up, we can make it less so. By building a habit that focuses on ordering our thoughts, we can declutter the complexity that comes with living in an increasingly busy and crowded world.

All you need to know
Awareness is defined as a state of being conscious. Conscious of relevant knowledge, conscious of surroundings, and conscious of personal feelings and thoughts. It’s a state of mind that aims to understand reality as close to the truth as possible.
Marcus Aurelius is known today as what the Greek philosopher Plato characterized as a Philosopher King. A political leader who actively aspired to wisdom and was primarily driven towards knowledge. A leader who relentlessly asked what it means to live well. More than his virtues and desires, however, what drove Aurelius to successfully lead one of the most powerful empires in history was his ability to leverage the clarity of his mind.
The scope of your awareness defines the outer limit of what you can accomplish. The more you know, the more accurately you can understand your surroundings. The better you are at organizing your thoughts, the more possibilities lie ahead of you.
The ability to think clearly is a keystone advantage, and it can be acquired like any other skill. Practice.

Bitcoin: Shape The Future
New Bitcoin Documentary in the horizon to look out for. I am intrigued but, it feels like it might have an slant to it. Will post about it once it is released.

http://bit.ly/2id5VEv : #AmazonEcho #Alexa - Amazon Alexa just raised the stakes ahead of HomePod

On Monday, August 21, 2017, all of North America will be treated to an eclipse of the sun.
Anyone within the path of totality can see one of nature’s most awe inspiring sights - a total solar eclipse. This path, where the moon will completely cover the sun and the sun's tenuous atmosphere - the corona - can be seen, will stretch from Salem, Oregon to Charleston, South Carolina. Observers outside this path will still see a partial solar eclipse where the moon covers part of the sun's disk. NASA created this website to provide a guide to this amazing event. 

"Southpaw Regional Wrestling" will return to the WWE website and YouTube on Friday morning at 10am EST.

D Wade to Cleveland. First time I hope Stephen A is correct

.@PaulMalignaggi reveals ‘dirty’ habits from sparring that could affect the outcome of #Mayweather vs #McGregor
#UFC
http://bit.ly/2iakE2V

A writer who has known Donald Trump for three decades believes the US president will resign from office before the end of the year.

Deal: Grab the iPhone SE 32GB with AT&T prepaid service for just $149.99

Fox’s James Murdoch blasts Trump on Charlottesville: ‘There are no good Nazis’

Hackers will throw all kinds of bait at you in their phishing quest to hack your computer, phones, and emails to steal your information.

Windows 10 Photos app is slow to open or not working - If your Windows 10 Photos app is slow to open & takes a long time to load, or if it is or not working at all, then fix the problem by following these suggestions. In Windows 10 Microsoft replaced Windows [...] This post Windows 10 Photos app is slow to open or not working is from TheWindowsClub.com.

The Country Will Not Survive Without Me - Corruption comes in different forms. Corruption for money and wealth is a very common one. In politics another form of corruption is very common ndash; the lust for power. Initially they would ask for more power so that they can execute development plans more effectively. But it does not stop there. Then it is for staying in power for longer period. The love and lust for power take the ...