Daily Archives: February 17, 2017

All aboard for Cosplay on the high seas – The New Paper

Posted: February 17, 2017 at 1:40 am

Top-class cosplayers from eight countries in the region will be competing at the Asia Cosplay Meet Championship this weekend aboard Royal Caribbean's 15-deck Mariner of the Seas cruise ship.

Back for its second edition, Cosfest Sea: Beyond The Great Horizons will feature US guest cosplayers for the first time, a cosplay parade along the ship's 136m-long Royal Promenade, and a superheroes costume museum for passengers to try on outfits.

All guests aboard - cosplayers and non-cosplayers alike - are welcome to watch the competitors from Singapore, Thailand, the Philippines, Korea, Japan, Indonesia, Hong Kong and China vie for the top prize.

The champions from Thailand won $2,000 in cash last year.

At the championship, teams of three will dress up as characters from any movie, TV series or anime, and perform acts of sword fighting, dancing or singing before a panel of judges.

It is not all fun and games for the cosplayers, some of whom learn new dance routines or make their costumes from scratch.

Event co-organiser Stephanie Loh, president of The Singapore Cosplay Club, said: "Some contestants even undergo martial arts training to play their role."

Ms Loh, 34, who also cosplays as comic book character Wonder Woman and Elsa from the movie Frozen, said tickets for this year's Cosfest Sea sold out last December.

This is earlier than for last year, a testament to the growing popularity of cosplay here.

Ms Loh said: "It takes courage to express what you like in costume, but more people are plucking up the courage to do so.

"That's why cosplay is so refreshing to Singaporeans."

Royal Caribbean's corporate communications manager Chin Ying Duan said last year's cruise saw full capacity, exceeding 3,500 passengers, and this year will be the same.

The ship also has an ice-skating rink, full-sized sports court, DreamWorks Entertainment theatre, six whirlpools, boutiques and cafes.

The cruise ship will leave Singapore this afternoon and make a stop in Penang before returning on Monday morning.

Tickets cost $495 a person.

Co-organiser Takahan Tan, 42, who also cosplays as Batman, is glad about the rising popularity of Cosfest Sea.

He said: "We want to make it better each year so the cosplay culture can continue spreading".

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All aboard for Cosplay on the high seas - The New Paper

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Goodbye government: Six guys who started their own micronations – The South African

Posted: at 1:40 am

Goodbye government: Six guys who started their own micronations
The South African
Australia has a surprising number of people who ditched the government and started their own micronations. There are about 100 micronations across the world, most of them happens to be in Australia with 35 currently in place. A Micronation is an entity ...

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Tavanipupu Private Island Resort, Solomon Islands: The South Pacific’s best kept secret – Blue Mountains Gazette

Posted: at 1:39 am

16 Apr 2016, 12:15 a.m.

Luxury gets a Solomon Islands spin at this stunning resort.

Tavanipupu Private Island Resort. Photo: The Bondi Travel Bug

The island resort: Tavanipupu Private Island Resort.

Bungalows at Tavanipupu Private Island Resort.

The Royal Bungalow at Tavanipupu Private Island Resort.

Dancers at Tavanipupu Private Island Resort.

We're experiencing a Pijin language version of 'Who's on First'. Nudagus is telling us he is not the most important Gus on Tavanipupu Island. "There's another Gus," he says. "The other Gus is the boss so I'm 'Nudagus'. A-nother-Gus." He points to his 'Nudagus' nametag.

Right now Nudagus is more important than the other Gus as Nudagus is the Gus bringing the cocktails. We wonder whether he is called 'Nudagus' at home or what his name would be if the other Gus left the resort. But that way lies madness and we return to gazing at the radiant sunset over the lagoon.

Tavanipupu Private Island Resort is the Solomons' most luxurious destination. Located in Marau Sound in Guadalcanal Province, it's 25 minutes by air from Honiara in an eight-seater Islander aircraft to a grass airfield, followed by a 20 minute boat ride to the resort.

The manicured resort is as stunning in real life as anything you could find in a travel brochure. There are just 11 bungalows of three different classes plus a 'Royal' bungalow and each is free-standing, spacious and quite luxe, certainly by Solomon's standards. All wooden with thatched rooves, vaulted ceilings and 'kastom' (traditional) furnishings and dcor plus shells and flowers the bungalows reflect the serenity and beauty of the resort. My four-poster king bed is enveloped by a sprawling mosquito net that sways under the ceiling fan, the bathroom is modern and expansive and a porch with a day bed, hammock and lagoon views beckons.

Don't expect Wi-Fi, TV, air-con or drinkable tap water in your room. You won't miss them anyway. Tavanipupu is about the languid lagoon, sultry breezes, scuttling hermit crabs, reef snorkelling with endless visibility and the get-away-from-it-all story of a lifetime. They do have room service though just bang the drum on your front porch and you'll get Nudagus. (Or Anuda-staffer, but let's not start that again.)

Anuda drum announces that lunch or dinner is served in the open-air dining room next to the bar. The menu mostly consists of fish from the lagoon and their own organic vegies and eggs. The meals we have are excellent and we also enjoy a breakfast on the porch, delivered right on 'Solomon's time' 45 minutes late. Which couldn't have mattered less. Romantic dinners on the jetty are also popular.

In addition to the sublime snorkelling, you can explore the island by bike or on foot and the tranquil lagoon by kayak or paddle board, although some parts of the lagoon are culturally significant and off-limits to women. All genders can take a sunset cruise, go on the market trip to Marau station on Thursdays or join a fishing expedition ($AU150) to catch your dinner. You can arrange a day on your own sandy cay with a gourmet lunch and there's even a cosy little overwater Spa where you can have a massage while gazing into the water.

Locals claim Tavanipupu is the South Pacific's best kept secret but the secret was blown somewhat when the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge stayed here during their 2012 tour of the Pacific. They tell the tale of the cordon of coconuts laid around the Royals' bungalow by their security detail, who no doubt had a protocol to follow, even though the greatest threat would have been tripping over a coconut. They tell of Prince William's love of the cocktail he ordered, declaring it the "best Pina Colada in the world". And they claim this is where Prince George was conceived. How the Cambridges must have loved the paparazzi-free seclusion.

The Royal connection continues on the adjacent island of Marapa, where Wills and Kate visited the local traditional village. We follow in the Royals' paddle prints and take a dugout canoe on the short, wobbly ride across the channel.

We receive a triple 'welkam' women splash in the shallows, girls dance gracefully and men and boys put on an aggressive haka-like display. A palm tree planted by the future king of England now holds pride of place in the centre of the village. The villagers display their cooking, carving and construction skills with joyous, bright smiles and as we leave, they farewell us with laughter and waves while the youngsters show off with somersaults from the jetty. Visits here or to other villages can be arranged at Tavanipupu.

This may not be the easiest resort to reach but the experience is transcendent and you'll be able to drop the name Tavanipupu into conversations. Just pray they haven't hired a third Gus.

http://www.tavanipupu.com

http://www.visitsolomons.com.sb

Solomon Airlines flies direct from Sydney and Brisbane to Honiara with connections to Marau airstrip. See http://www.flysolomons.com; Phone 1300 894 311.

If you have a night or two in Honiara, stay at the Heritage Park Hotel. See http://www.heritageparkhotel.com.sb; http://www.mysolomons.com.au

Rates from $A200 (Island) - $300 (Royal) per bungalow per night. Transfers to and from the local airfield are included. Meal packages essential unless you plan to survive on coconuts, crabs and fish you catch yourself include full breakfast, a two-course lunch and a three-course dinner are available for $A85 per person per day.

Mal Chenutravelled as a guest of Solomon Islands Visitor Bureau and Solomon Airlines.

The story Tavanipupu Private Island Resort, Solomon Islands: The South Pacific's best kept secret first appeared on The Sydney Morning Herald.

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Spreading the Faith: Moving Coins and Moving Communities – Patheos (blog)

Posted: at 1:38 am

I posted recently on issues of migration and mission, and how each of those terms can be applied to the spread of religions. In particular, I stressed the many factors that might cause a religion to spread, quite apart from conscious, deliberate evangelization. Often, we exaggerate deliberate missionary activity while underplaying the role of other forms of population movement that might be non-intentional, casual, even accidental, and definitely not directed toward religious goals. To illustrate this, let me draw a parallel with the spread of material goods.

When I was an undergraduate, one of the people teaching medieval history was the great Philip Grierson, who was primarily a numismatist, a scholar of coins. His classes were so memorable because he actually passed around original late Roman gold coins from his vast personal collection, objects of great beauty and value and nobody left the room until every single one was accounted for. (There is a wonderful obituary of him). Quite apart from that showmanship, Grierson left a powerful impact on my own thinking by his remarkable ability to ask searching questions, particularly about issues of intention.

Grierson launched a minor revolution in history and archaeology, by asking the simple question of how a particular coin or treasure had ended up where it was found. (One key work was a 1959 article called Commerce in the Dark Ages: A Critique of the Evidence.) If for instance you found a hoard of fourth century Roman coins in Sweden or Ireland or Persia, earlier scholars had discussed this as evidence of trade or commerce. Nonsense, said Grierson. Well yes, he said, it might conceivably have been commerce in something like the modern sense, but there were any number of other possible ways of transmission:

There are other means whereby goods can pass from to hand, means which must have played a more conspicuous part in the society of the Dark Ages than they would in more settled and advanced periods. They can be characterized most briefly as theft and gift, using theft to include all unilateral transfers of property which take place involuntarily plunder in war would be the commonest type and gift to cover all those which take place with the free consent of the donor. Somewhere be two would be a varied series of payments, such as ransoms, compensations, and fines, while such payments as dowries, the wages of mercenaries, property carried to and fro by political exiles, would all form part of the picture. Our difficulty lies in trying to estimate their relative importance.

The hoard could have been plunder or booty, stolen during raids or warfare. (As career paths, raiding and trading merged seamlessly into one another). A precious object might have been tribute, given under a greater or lesser degree of coercion. It might have been a political bribe.

Or, critically, it might have been connected with the gift-giving that was such a critical part of early societies. That last mechanism was all the more important when we moved into societies where written evidence was sparse, as in the Viking era. Every heroic epic describes gift giving between chiefs and magnates, often on a scale that was well, epic.

This image is in the public domain

And whatever the means of connection, the coin (or helmet, or necklace) might have passed through twenty hands before it reached its final destination. It certainly need not have been a direct transition. The fact that object A was found in location B said precisely nothing about any direct relationships between A and B.

Grierson was highlighting the prejudices of mainstream economic historians, who naturally tended to see the past in rational and peaceful terms they could naturally identify with. Hence, they saw gold coins moving as commerce between peaceful communities, which made nonsense of old stereotypes of rampaging barbarians. In reality, those barbarian raids were by far the most likely means by which wealthy Romans might have been forced to give up their cherished treasures.

In fact, said Grierson, you shouldnt use loaded words like commerce without further evidence, as the very word implies some knowledge of intention. When in doubt about that intention, admit it: be agnostic. As he concluded,

In general, we do not know how coins or jewellery or similar objects reached their destinations, and with so many possibilities from which to choose any conclusions that we draw can only be of the most tentative description. Much evidence alleged to prove the existence of trade proves nothing of the kind, and in dealing with the Dark Ages, in cases where we cannot prove, we are not entitled without a careful weighing of the evidence to assume.

People are different from inanimate objects, and in modern cases, you can actually ask them why they moved. But words like migration and mission absolutely imply intention, which might be obscure. Historically, people might move as missionaries or slaves, as refugees or utopian colonists, as economic migrants or fugitives from justice. In Griersons terms, these individuals or families might have been gifts, or plunder, or items of commerce. In any of those cases, they often carried their religions with them. (The same caveats apply to understanding DNA evidence in terms of deliberate migration, but that is a different story).

In modern times, migrants usually move in search of work and a livelihood. And someone could and should write a magnificent book on the role of students as vectors of faiths and denominations.

As with the economic historians, scholars of religion have some unacknowledged prejudices. When they trace the spread of faith or faiths, there is a natural tendency to concentrate on the work of identifiable named individuals, commonly professional clergy or missionaries. Such accounts have the advantage of allowing readers to trace the narrative through one or more individual lives. The problem is that writing the past in such a way tends to exaggerate the significance of such conscious mission activity. Often, it also means retroactively imposing deliberate intention on a process that was in fact much more haphazard and undirected.

And Philip Grierson would have been astounded to see himself cited in the context of missionary history.

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Nash says ‘there’s more to be done’ on diversity at State of the County address – Gwinnettdailypost.com

Posted: at 1:38 am

Gwinnett County Chairwoman Charlotte Nash said all residents of Gwinnett County should be respected during her State of the County Address on Thursday, directly referring to the ongoing controversy surrounding Commissioner Tommy Hunter even if she didnt mention him by name.

The commission has been bombarded with calls for Hunters resignation, or for his colleagues to remove him from office, since he called U.S. Rep. John Lewis a racist pig and referred to Democrats as Demonrats and Libtards on Facebook a month ago.

Nash previously sent a letter of apology to Lewis, but she took a firmer stance with Gwinnettians on the issue in her address during a luncheon at the Infinite Energy Center in Duluth.

Inclusion does not just happen, she said. It takes intentional effort. Let me be perfectly clear failure to respect all Gwinnettians and welcome their participation in our community is neither acceptable nor smart. Gwinnetts future success depends on all of us, working together to build the community.

We must engage and empower leaders from our diverse population who love Gwinnett to champion this important work.

Hunter has been under fire since his remarks surfaced in the media, and it has since grown to engulf his colleagues on the commission and others. On Tuesday night, a Gwinnett NAACP meeting where Hunter was the guest speaker erupted into turmoil as members expressed displeasure at his being invited to the meeting and called for the chapters president to resign.

County leaders have made efforts to learn more about minority issues recently, including visiting the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta on Tuesday.

During Nashs speech, which highlighted Gwinnett as a remarkable place, Nash addressed the countys efforts on community outreach and bringing leaders from diverse population groups together to address community issues.

Her remarks on the need to show respect toward all people in Gwinnett drew applause from the hundreds of people who attended the luncheon.

Efforts outlined by Nash to increase that include improving outreach efforts related to small business and minority applicants, making sure the history of Gwinnetts African-American community is featured in next years bicentennial celebrations, establishing a TV Gwinnett program aimed at highlighting diverse cultural communities in the county, getting more young people into the Gwinnett 101 government education program, getting county leaders to make site visits to cultural groups around the county, raising the among diverse community interaction taking place by opening up county facilities more.

Theres more to do, as recent events have shown, Nash said. I have made a personal commitment to seek ways to increase my own understanding of varied racial and cultural backgrounds. I hope that my fellow commissioners will do the same.

To symbolize our deepened commitment to engage with our diverse community, we are adopting the tagline Many Voice, One Gwinnett.

She even took a page from the younger social media savvy generation and encouraged Gwinnettians to use #ManyVoicesOneGwinnett on places such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to promote unity among the countys diverse populations.

Forthcoming projects also teased

While Nashs comments on diversity and inclusion was the most timely part of her speech, she also gave attendees a hint at what can be expected.

She said work is progressing on the countys partnerships with Norcross and Duluth leaders to build new downtown libraries in both cities for example. More than that, however, she said there have been talks between the county and officials in Lawrenceville and Snellville to build new library branches in those cities as well.

Work to develop an extensive trail system around the county was also highlighted.

The county, cities, and CIDs are developing a countywide plan to guide the creation of a remarkable trail network, Nash said. Not only will a robust network of pathways give folks another choice for travel, the connections and activity add to the feeling of community that so many are seeking and thats good for development, too.

She also said demolition work is expected to begin in the near future on the former Olympic tennis center near Stone Mountain and Snellville.

Well be seeking a private sector partner through a competitive process, so start thinking about what makes sense for the site, Nash said. The Evermore CID is anxiously awaiting the venues transformation.

Also on the topic of CIDs, Nash said the county will be working with two of its districts, the Gwinnett Place CID and the Gwinnett Village CID, on projects this year.

Gwinnett Place is looking to improve connectivity around its namesake mall, Pleasant Hill Road and McDaniel Farm Park as part of its ACTivate Gwinnett Place master plan. Meanwhile, Gwinnett Village is working on an update to its Livable Centers Initiative plan and will work with the county on traffic flow and pedestrian access improvements.

All in all, there is a lot to celebrate when we look at our remarkable community and its prospects for the future, Nash said.

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In recently unearthed essay, Winston Churchill anticipated space travel and extraterrestrial life – Washington Post

Posted: at 1:38 am

Quoting Winston Churchill has always been something of a pastime.

If youre going through hell, keep going.

History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.

Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few.

What hasnt often been quoted is theessay he penned in 1939 titled Are We Alone in the Universe? concerning that very question.That isnt surprising, as the 11 typed pages were never published before being lost to the world for more than three decades.

Churchill, who served as British prime minister from 1940 to 1945 and then again from 1951 to 1955, updated his manuscript in the late 1950s while staying at a French villa owned by Emery Reves, his publisher. Nothing came of it, and eventuallyRevess wife Wendy passed the manuscript along to the National Churchill Museum in Fulton, Mo. There it gathered dust until last year, when the museums new director, Timothy Riley, discovered and handed it over to Israeli astrophysicist and author Mario Livio.

In anarticle published in this weeks edition of the science journal Nature, Livioexamined the essays contents. Churchills work will be unveiled today at theNational Churchill Museum, where visitors can view several of its pages.

The most striking takeaway from the essay is how modern Churchills conclusions were. One obvious example: One day, possibly even in the not very distant future, it may be possible to travel to the moon, or even to Venus or Mars, he wrote 30 years before Neil Armstrongs historic journey.

His more nuanced views of the potential for extraterritorial life, though, mirrors many modern arguments in astrobiology, most notably that in the ever-expanding vastness of the universe, such life is likely. As Livio wrote:

In essence, he builds on the framework of the Copernican Principle the idea that, given the vastness of the Universe, it is hard to believe that humans on Earth represent something unique.

Perhaps Churchills mostintuitive prediction, as Livio noted, was that of the habitable zone. While Churchill didnt use this modern term, he closely described it.

After noting thatall living things of the type we know require water, Churchill observed that the presence of water thus the potential for life likely requires a rocky planet at the right distance from a star to be between a few degrees of frost and the boiling point of water.

Then, as Livio wrote, Churchill also considers the ability of a planet to retain its atmosphere, explaining that the hotter a gas is, the faster its molecules are moving and the more easily they can escape. Consequently, stronger gravity is necessary to trap gas on a planet in the long term.

Given these requirements, the former prime minister concluded that Venus and Mars were the only places in our solar systemthat could support life.

In other words, he predicted the first definition of the habitable zone more than 60 years ago. According to PBS, The habitable zone first encompassed the orbits of Venus to Mars, planets close enough to the sun for solar energy to drive the chemistry of life but not so close as to boil off water or break down the organic molecules on which life depends.

One of the aspects of Churchills essay most praised by Livio, ironically, is a segment in which Churchill was off the mark.

In a segment focused on other solar systems (I am not sufficiently conceited to think that my sun is the only one with a family of planets, he wrote), Churchill wrote in affirmation of a model suggested in 1917 by astrophysicist James Jeans which argued that stars are formed from the gas that is torn off a star when another star passes close to it.

But Livio praised Churchills skepticism of the now dismissed model. Via Livio:

Now Churchill shines. With the healthy skepticism of a scientist, he writes: But this speculation depends upon the hypothesis that planets were formed in this way. Perhaps they were not. We know there are millions of double stars, and if they could be formed, why not planetary systems?

In his essay, Churchill blended his science with his experience with humankind: I, for one, am not so immensely impressed by the success we are making of our civilization here that I am prepared to think we are the only spot in this immense universe which contains living, thinking creatures, or that we are the highest type of mental and physical development which has ever appeared in the vast compass of space and time.

Churchills curiosity about the universe shouldnt come as a surprise. In addition to being a regaled statesman and military strategist, Churchill had a scientific mind.

He had a tremendous intellect, Westminster College president Benjamin Ola Akande said in a statement. Even though Great Britain was on the brink of war at the time, Churchill continually educated himself and wrote thought-provoking essays that demonstrated his leadership beyond government and military affairs, but also in science.

Renaissance man that he was, Churchill was keenly interested in science,Liviosaid in a statement. For example, he was the first British prime minister to hire a science adviser and made the UK a friendly environment for scienceand scientists.

If nothing else, the unearthed essay serves as a reminder that politics and science can and indeed have gone hand in hand, each benefiting from the other. In a world in which the two are treated by some as adversaries, this message might be more powerful than ever.

As Livio wrote, At a time when a number of todays politicians shun science, I find it moving to recall a leader who engaged with it so profoundly. Particularly given todays political landscape, elected leaders should heed Churchills example: appoint permanent science advisers and make good use of them.

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Focus Friday: The necessity of space travel – The Daily Cougar

Posted: at 1:38 am

Space exploration is vital to our survival as a species. Its not difficult to see that we are using up and dirtying our planet at an unsustainable rate. Space is our only answer. It is only a matter of time before we begin to have to seriously consider it as a living option. I once heard, space is like Nebraska. Its desolate and not many people live there, but people still find a way.

Furthermore, space is the one endeavor that the human race can agree to partake in as a species instead of by country. Whether or not that lasts in the next one hundred years as space flight and travel become cheaper remains to be seen. But it is vital to hold onto that agreement.

Space Exploration has globally coincided with the scientific boom that led to the creation of smartphones, televisions, internet and computers. While these attempts to colonize or explore outer space may not give immediate returns, this type of scientific inquiry allows mankind to materially prosper as these technologies can be used to improve the quality of life for all people.

The problem arises as nations fail to address problemsthat mankind has caused on Earth. Our hopes to colonize Mars or other planets seems a bit of a cop out for the problems we have on our own planet. The UAE vision to create a peaceful outer colony, while intentionally admirable, fails to address deeper problems within the context of nation states. The United States attempts to train astronauts for moon landings may reveal nostalgic hopes rather than an intent to progress further into scientific space exploration.

Let us remember that science is a tool to understand reality and to progress humanity. It should not be used to escape deeper problems that humankind is plaguing itself with. The deeper issue remains that scientific exploration and advancement must be a higher priority in our education and our political discourse as these pursuits lead to the betterment of the people.

Space makes people believe in the future. The reason that we have had such a great current investment in technology computers, cell phones, etc. is because children saw Neil Armstrong walking on the room. They saw a shuttle blasting into the stars. They believed that there was something more.

Exploring space is probably the most important thing we can do as humans. It makes us believe in something more. Though UAEs plan is far off and far-fetched for now it is extremely important. This plan makes us imagine; it makes us work harder to accomplish this unattainable goal. No one ever thought humans could touch the stars.

I may be somewhat biased, since I grew up near NASA, but there is an inherent need to touch the stars again. Children need a reason to believe in the future again. Space fills that need.

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Make space travel great again: NASA, heeding Trump, may add astronauts to a test flight moon mission – National Post

Posted: at 1:38 am


National Post
Make space travel great again: NASA, heeding Trump, may add astronauts to a test flight moon mission
National Post
President Donald Trump has indicated that he wants to make a splash in space. During his transition, he spoke with historian Douglas Brinkley about John F. Kennedy's famous 1961 vow to go to the moon before the decade was out. Now Trump and his aides ...
This guy invented a genius solution for pooping in space here's how it worksBusiness Insider
NASA Just Cracked An Embarrassingly Human ProblemGOOD Magazine
Space Poop: NASA's 3 ingenious ideas to help astronauts go to the looThe Memo
Slate Magazine (blog) -Kern Golden Empire -Observer Online -HeroX
all 197 news articles »

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Twins in space: intergalactic travel could change DNA – The Student

Posted: at 1:38 am

Space travel can do funky things to the human body. Its possible for astronauts to return to Earth slightly taller, with smaller muscles, more fragile bones, and the worst hangover ever.

When the American astronaut Scott Kelly returned to Earth, Nasa scientists had a unique opportunity: the ability to look at how space travel influences a persons DNA.

Scott Kelly is a twin. Between 2015 and 2016 he spent 340 days in space, making the International Space Station his home. Before, during, and after his trip, Scott gave blood samples for researchers to examine. Back on Earth, Scotts twin brother and retired astronaut, Mark Kelly, was also giving blood samples to researchers.

Since Scott and Mark are twins, they share the same DNA. They are part of the aptly named Nasa Twin Study, in which 10 research labs from 12 US universities compare the changes to space traveller Scotts DNA versus those of Mark to see if there are differences in Scotts DNA which they could attribute to space travel.

One year later, the researchers are beginning to publish their early results.

Almost everyone is reporting that we see differences, states Christopher Mason, a geneticist from Weill Cornell Medicine and a researcher involved in the study.

Differences were expected. But many of the differences the researchers are finding are simply surprising.

One of the biggest surprises was the lengthening of Scotts telomeres while he was in space.

Telomeres are biological markers located at the end of DNA. Associated with health, age, and longevity, telomeres naturally shorten as a person ages.

According to Susan Bailey, another researcher involved in the study, [this] is exactly the opposite of what we thought. The common belief was that space travel would shorten the telomeres because of cosmic radiation and other dangers associated with space travel. But, curiously, once Scott returned to Earth his telomeres shortened to their normal length.

Some scientists speculate that the lengthening of Scotts telomeres is associated with exercise and a specialised space diet. However, this theory has not garnered consensus, and Nasa is now undergoing a one-year study looking at changes to the telomeres of astronauts.

Another surprise was the presence of 20,000 unique variations of mRNA in Scotts during space blood sample.

mRNA is a type of molecule produced directly from DNA. Different genes in the DNA can produce different mRNA, and mutations to DNA produce variations of the same mRNA molecules. However, the large number of mRNA variations seen in Scotts blood samples indicate the possibility of a space gene, which only produces these mRNA variants when the person is in space.

Other noted differences included different composition of gut bacteria and a decrease in DNA methylation, a biological marker which indicates the activity of a gene.

However, the researchers are careful to qualify which differences are due to space travel and which are due to the natural variation of DNA that occurs because of different overall life experience.

The information from the Nasa Twin Study marks the beginning of looking at space travel effects from a nature versus nurture standpoint.

Nasa plans to use this information to produce personalised medicine and diet during long term missions and further examine the stresses of long term space travel.

Image: Alanah Knibb

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Two-Time Space Traveling Astronaut to Speak at Black History … – Patriots Point

Posted: at 1:37 am

Back to Blog Chris Hauff Feb 16, 2017

On Thursday, February 23, two-time space traveling astronaut Christopher Cassidy will board the USS Yorktown to discuss the life and accomplishments of S.C. hero Ron McNair during a Patriots Point Black History Month symposium titled In the Spirit of Ron McNair. The free program begins at 11 a.m. and is open to the public.

McNair was born and raised in Lake City, S.C. during the Civil Rights Movement. In 1984, after overcoming countless obstacles, he became the second African-American astronaut to travel to space. Just two years later, he was killed in the tragic space shuttle Challenger explosion.

In addition to learning about McNairs life from his younger brother Eric McNair, the audience, which will include several hundred fifth grade students, will also hear firsthand accounts from Christopher Cassidy about space travel. The current National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) astronaut has spent more than 182 days in space, has visited the International Space Station (ISS), and completed six spacewalks.

Christopher J. Cassidy (Captain, U.S. Navy) was selected by NASA in 2004 and is a veteran of two space flights, STS-127 and Expedition 35.

We are honored to have the opportunity to host a program about the extraordinary Ron McNair, said Patriots Point Executive Director Mac Burdette. McNair was raised during times of segregation in the South, and despite that, he was able to persevere to astronomical heights. His story, paired with the experiences of current NASA astronaut Christopher Cassidy, will make for a very inspiring program. There are very few people who can say theyve met an astronaut.

Respected Charleston musicians, Lonnie Hamilton and Ann Caldwell will perform the National Anthem. Hamilton will also perform a song at the conclusion of the symposium in tribute of Ron McNair one McNair had planned to play aboard the space shuttle Challenger before the launch took his life.

Admission and parking for In the Spirit of Ron McNair is free. The program, which will also be streamed live through the museums social media pages, is part of the ongoing Ordinary People Doing Extraordinary Things symposium series.

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Two-Time Space Traveling Astronaut to Speak at Black History ... - Patriots Point

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