Fw: How Much Would It Cost to Be Batman in Real Life?

How Much Would It Cost to Be Batman in Real Life?

It would cost $682 million for a real-life Batman to fund his world-saving lifestyle, thanks to the price of high-tech cars, gadgets, his mansion and training, a new infographic says.

The infographic, created by MoneySupermarket.com, looks at how much it would cost to run Batman's empire. The main conclusion? It's not easy on the wallet.

In fact, Batman's collection of vehicles alone cost about $80 million. His Tumbler/Batmobile alone has a price tag of $18 million due to its jet engine, front-mounted machine guns, remote-control system and GPS technology.

Meanwhile, it would cost about $37,000 each year to run Wayne Manor and the Bat Cave. His weapons cost about $10,000 — from a $50,000 TLPS Grappling Hook Launcher to a $15,000 thermal camera and a $5,000 night-vision monocular. Three Batarang Throwing Stars cost about $1,000.

Other pricey accessories include a memory cloth polymer cape ($40,000), ultrasonic bat attractor ($1,000), a retinal projection system featured in his mask ($10,000), forearm blades ($1,000) and custom boosts ($1,000).

Batman's training and education costs vary. Military pilot training would be $500,000, as would training for special firearms and several engineering degrees.

DISCLAIMER:
If you are not the intended recipient or have received this message in error, please notify the sender by return email at your earliest convenience and delete this email, do not use, peruse, disseminate, distribute or copy this message or any file attached to this message. Any such unauthorized use, is prohibited and may be unlawful

Thorium and Air India Flight 101

Based on facts

 

Prologue

An interesting read - all episodes can be read individually or continuously.

All events described in this document are facts and can be studied in detail in wikipedia or other Internet sources.

 

 

Episode: Thorium

 

 

Thorium
Thorium is a naturally occurring radioactive chemical element with the symbol Th and atomic number 90. It was discovered in 1828 and named after Thor, the Norse god of thunder.

 

Thorium is estimated to be about three to four times more abundant than uranium in the Earth's crust. Similar to quartz extracted from sand, it is chiefly refined from a type of sand called monazite sand.

 

Reserve estimates

Under the USGS (US Geological Survey) estimate, USA, Australia, and India have particularly large reserves of thorium. Both the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) and OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) appear to conclude that India may possess the lion's share of world's thorium deposits.

 

The Government of India's latest estimate, shared in the country's Parliament in August 2011, puts the recoverable reserve at 846,477 tones.

 

When compared to uranium, there is a growing interest in developing a thorium fuel cycle due to its greater safety benefits, absence of non-fertile isotopes, and its higher occurrence and availability. India's three stage nuclear power programme is possibly the most well known and well funded of such efforts.

 

Research and development of thorium-based nuclear reactors, primarily the Liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR), has been or is now being done in India, China, Norway, U.S., Israel and Russia.

 

Nuclear Fuel

India has the capability to use thorium cycle based processes to extract nuclear fuel. This is of special significance to the Indian nuclear power generation strategy as India has one of the world's largest reserves of thorium, which could provide power for more than 10,000 years , and perhaps as long as 60,000 years.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Episode: Air India Flight 101

 

 

The FlightThe Boeing 707-437 VT-DMN had first flown on 5 April 1961 and was delivered new to Air India on 25 May 1961. It had flown a total of 16,188 hours.

 

 

The Morning of 24 January 1966Designated as Air India Flight 101, it was a scheduled passenger flight from Mumbai to London, operated by a Boeing 707, registration VT-DMN and named Kanchenjunga. After leaving Bombay, it had made two scheduled stops at Delhi and Beirut and was en route to another stop at Geneva. At Flight Level 190, the crew was instructed to descend for Geneva International Airport after the aircraft had passed Mont Blanc (the highest mountain in the Alps, Western Europe, and the European Union. It rises 4,810.45 m (15,782 ft) above sea level and is ranked 11th in the world in topographic prominence.).

 

The pilot, thinking that he had passed Mont Blanc, started to descend and flew into the Mont Blanc range in France near the Rochers de la Tournette, at an elevation of 4,750 metres (15,584 ft). All 106 passengers and 11 crew were killed.

 

VHF omnidirectional radio range (VOR) - It is a type of short-range radio navigation system for aircraft, enabling aircraft to determine their position and stay on course by receiving radio signals transmitted by a network of fixed ground radio beacons, with a receiver unit.

At the time, aircrew fixed the position of their aircraft as being above Mont Blanc by taking a cross-bearing from one VHF omnidirectional range (VOR) as they flew along a track from another VOR. However, the accident aircraft departed Beirut with one of its VOR receivers unserviceable.

 

The investigation concluded:

a) The pilot-in-command, who knew on leaving Beirut that one of the VORs was unserviceable, miscalculated his position in relation to Mont Blanc and reported his own estimate of this position to the controller; the radar controller noted the error, determined the position of the aircraft correctly and passed a communication to the aircraft which, he believed, would enable it to correct its position.

b) For want of a sufficiently precise phraseology, the correction was mis-understood by the pilot who, under the mistaken impression that he had passed the ridge leading to the summit and was still at a flight level which afforded sufficient safety clearance over the top of Mont Blanc, continued his descent.

 

Wreckage of the crashed Boeing still remains at the crash site. In 2008, a climber found some Indian newspapers dated 23 January 1966; an engine from the Air India Flight 245 crash aircraft was also found.

 

On 21 August 2012  a 9 kg jute bag of diplomatic mail, stamped "On Indian Government Service, Diplomatic Mail, Ministry of External Affairs" was recovered by a mountain rescue worker and turned over to local police. An official with the Indian Embassy in Paris took custody of the mailbag, which was found to be a "Type C" diplomatic pouch meant for newspapers, periodicals and personal letters. The mailbag was found to contain, among other items, still-white and legible copies of The Hindu and The Statesman from mid-January 1966, Air India calendars and a personal letter to the Indian consul-general in New York, C.G. K. Menon. The bag was flown back to New Delhi on a regular Air India flight, in the charge of C. R. Barooah, the flight purser. C.R. Barooah's father, R.C. Barooah, was the flight engineer on Air India Flight 101.

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Episode: Indian Nuclear Programme

 

 

Homi J. BhabhaHomi Jehangir Bhabha, FRS (30 October 1909 – 24 January 1966) was an Indian nuclear physicist, founding director, and professor of physics at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Colloquially known as "father of Indian nuclear programme", Bhabha was the founding director of two well-known research institutions, namely the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and the Trombay Atomic Energy Establishment (now named after him); both sites were the cornerstone of Indian development of nuclear weapons which Bhabha also supervised as its director.

 

 

Career

Starting his scientific career in nuclear physics from Great Britain, Bhabha returned to India for his annual vacation prior to start of theWorld War II in September 1939, prompting Bhabha to remain in India, and accepted a post of reader in physics at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore, headed by Nobel laureate C.V. Raman. During this time, Bhabha played a key role in convincing the Congress Party's senior leaders, most notable Jawaharlal Nehru who later served as India's first Premier, to start the ambitious nuclear programme.

 

As part of this vision, Bhabha established the Cosmic Ray Research Unit at the institute, began to work on the theory of the movement of point particles, while independently conduct research on nuclear weapons in 1944.

 

In 1945, he established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Bombay, and the Atomic Energy Commission in 1948, serving its first chairman. In 1948, Nehru led the appointment of Bhabha as the director of the nuclear programme and tasked Bhabha to develop the nuclear weapons soon after. In the 1950s, Bhabha represented India in IAEA conferences, and served as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955. During this time, he intensified his lobbying for developing the nuclear weapons, and soon after the Sino-Indo war, Bhabha aggressively and publicly began to call for the nuclear weapons.

 

 

Tata Institute of Fundamental Research

When Bhabha was working at the Indian Institute of Science, there was no institute in India which had the necessary facilities for original work in nuclear physics, cosmic rays, high energy physics, and other frontiers of knowledge in physics. This prompted him to send a proposal in March 1944 to the Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata Trust for establishing 'a vigorous school of research in fundamental physics'.

 

The trustees of Sir Dorabji Jamsetji Tata Trust decided to accept Bhabha's proposal and financial responsibility for starting the Institute in April 1944. Bombay was chosen as the location for the prosed Institute as the Government of Bombay showed interest in becoming a joint founder of the proposed institute. The institute, named Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, was inaugurated in 1945  in 540 square meters of hired space in an existing building.

 

In 1948 the Institute was moved into the old buildings of the Royal Yacht club. When Bhabha realized that technology development for the atomic energy programme could no longer be carried out within TIFR he proposed to the government to build a new laboratory entirely devoted to this purpose. For this purpose, 1200 acres of land was acquired at Trombay from the Bombay Government.

 

Thus the Atomic Energy Establishment Trombay (AEET) started functioning in 1954. The same year the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) was also established. He represented India in International Atomic Energy Forums, and as President of the United Nations Conference on the Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy, in Geneva, Switzerland in 1955. He was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1958.

 

India's three-stage nuclear power programmeBhabha is generally acknowledged as the father of Indian nuclear power. Moreover, he is credited with formulating the country's strategy in the field of nuclear power to focus on extracting power from the country's vast thorium reserves rather than its meager uranium reserves. This thorium focused strategy was in marked contrast to all other countries in the world. The approach proposed by Bhabha to achieve this strategic objective became India's three stage nuclear power programme.

 

Bhabha paraphrased the three stage approach as follows:

“ The total reserves of thorium in India amount to over 500,000 tons in the readily extractable form, while the known reserves of uranium are less than a tenth of this. The aim of long range atomic power programme in India must therefore be to base the nuclear power generation as soon as possible on thorium rather than uranium… The first generation of atomic power stations based on natural uranium can only be used to start off an atomic power programme… The plutonium produced by the first generation power stations can be used in a second generation of power stations designed to produce electric power and convert thorium into U-233, or depleted uranium into more plutonium with breeding gain… The second generation of power stations may be regarded as an intermediate step for the breeder power stations of the third generation all of which would produce more U-233 than they burn in the course of producing power. ”

 

Stage I – Pressurized Heavy Water Reactor

In the first stage of the programme, natural uranium fueled pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWR) produce electricity while generating plutonium-239 as by-product. PHWRs was a natural choice for implementing the first stage because it had the most efficient reactor design in terms of uranium utilization, and the existing Indian infrastructure in the 1960s allowed for quick adoption of the PHWR technology.

 

 

Stage II – Fast Breeder Reactor

In the second stage, Fast breeder reactors (FBRs) would use a mixed oxide (MOX) fuel made from plutonium-239, recovered by reprocessing spent fuel from the first stage, and natural uranium. In FBRs, plutonium-239 undergoes fission to produce energy, while the uranium-238 present in the mixed oxide fuel transmutes to additional plutonium-239. Thus, the Stage II FBRs are designed to "breed" more fuel than they consume. Once the inventory of plutonium-239 is built up thorium can be introduced as a blanket material in the reactor and transmuted to uranium-233 for use in the third stage.
The surplus plutonium bred in each fast reactor can be used to set up more such reactors, and thus grow the Indian civil nuclear power capacity till the point where the third stage reactors using thorium as fuel can be brought online.

 

 

Stage III – Thorium based Reactors

A Stage III reactor or an Advanced nuclear power system involves a self-sustaining series of thorium-232-uranium-233 fueled reactors. This would be a thermal breeder reactor, which in principle can be refueled – after its initial fuel charge – using only naturally occurring thorium.

 

KAMINI (Kalpakkam Mini reactor) is a research reactor at Indira Gandhi Center for Atomic Research in Kalpakkam, India. Its first criticality was on October 29, 1996. It produces 30 kW of thermal energy at full power. KAMINI is cooled and moderated by light water, and fueled with uranium-233 metal produced by the irradiation of thorium in other reactors.

 

KAMINI was the first reactor in the world designed specifically to use uranium-233 fuel.

 

As a result of Bhabha's vision, "India has the most technically ambitious and innovative nuclear energy program in the world. The extent and functionality of its nuclear experimental facilities are matched only by those in Russia and are far ahead of what is left in the US."

 

 

Death

He was awarded Padma Bhushan by Government of India in 1954. He later served as the member of the Indian Cabinet's Scientific Advisory Committee and provided the pivotal role to Vikram Sarabhai to set up the Indian National Committee for Space Research.

 

After his death, the Atomic Energy Establishment at Trombay was renamed as the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in his honour. He is one of the most prominent scientists that India has ever had. Bhabha also encouraged research in electronics, space science, radio astronomy and microbiology. The famed radio telescope at Ooty, India was his initiative, and it became a reality in 1970.

 

In January 1966, Bhabha died, while heading to Vienna, Austria to attend a meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency's Scientific Advisory Committee.

 

Among the 106 passengers died in the crash of Air India Flight 101 on 24 January 1966, was the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission Dr Homi Jehangir Bhabha.

 

Many possible theories have been advanced for the air crash, including a conspiracy theory in which Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is involved in order to paralyze India's nuclear program.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

 

Episode: Thorium - revisited

 

The Great Thorium RobberyAccording to recent published report in ‘The Statesman’, the government has failed to control the export of monazite, the raw material from which thorium can be extracted, and has allowed extraction of 2.1 million tons of monazite.

 

The report estimates that if the thorium extracted from the monazite is estimated at $100 per ton, then the loss to the exchequer is approximately RS 48 lake crone, in addition to the incalculable loss to the nuclear fuel program.

 

The report comments on UPI's policy on natural resources. It says, “Since the UPA government assumed office in 2004 with Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister, 2.1 million tones of monazite, equivalent to 195,300 tons of thorium at 9.3 per cent recovery, has disappeared from the shores of India.”

 

‘Thorium disappearing’ should be considered more serious as it is related with India’s Nuclear programme. Thorium is a clean nuclear fuel of strategic importance for both nuclear energy generation and nuclear-tipped missiles. The beaches of Orissa Sand Complex, Manavalakurichi in Kanyakumari district of Tamil Nadu and the Aluva-Chavara belt on the Kerala coast have been identified under the Mines and Minerals (Development and Regulation) Act, 1957, as the main monazite bearing areas in the country.

 

In most other countries, thorium reserves are embedded in rocks which require elaborate processing to extract.

 

Public sector Indian Rare Earths Limited (IREL) having divisions at Chatrapur in Orissa, Manavalakurichi in Tamil Nadu, Chavara and Aluva, and its own research centre in Kollam in Kerala, is the only institution authorised to extract thorium from monazite sands.

 

Financial Loss

If the Comptroller and Auditor-General were to audit the accounts of the IREL and the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), custodians of fissile minerals, the coalgate scam would look like small change. The missing thorium, conservatively estimated at $100 a ton, works out to about Rs 48 lakh crore, putting all other UPA scams in the shade.

 

The beach placer mining sector was opened to private entrepreneurs in 1998. Export of beach sands registered a quantum jump after 2005. As if to promote exports, even radioactive minerals, much needed for our nuclear energy programme, are allowed to be taken out of the country unchecked.

 

To add insult to injury, private exporters of prohibited minerals are presented with Special Awards and Certificates of Merit by the Chemicals and Allied Products Export Promotion Council (CAPEXIL) of the Government of India.

 

Indiscriminate mining, if not monitored and regulated, can cause severe erosion in the coastal areas.

 

Destroying Ramsetu: Easy approach to Thorium rich beaches?

 

It is considered that a large chunk of Thorium would be washed away if Ram Sethu is blasted. And almost all of it would be lost if another tsunami strikes the region. The Sethusamudram Canal, if built destroying RamSethu, will be beneficial to  private parties for easy snatching of beach sand for Thorium available on beaches of Tamil Nadu and Kerala.

 

The social organizations which protested against Sethusamudram Project said that since India had rich thorium resources and the technology to use it, the US was pressuring the Centre to speedily implement the Sethusamudram project (through India-US Nuclear Deal).

 

“We suspect an international conspiracy to prevent India from becoming a nuclear power as the thorium deposits will meet the country’s requirement for 400 years,” said a spokesperson of the Vishva Hindu Parishad which criticized destroying of Ramsetu.

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

2012

2012 millenarianism is a present-day cultural meme proposing that cataclysmic or transformative events will occur in the year 2012. The forecast is based primarily on what is claimed to be the end-date of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar, which is presented as lasting 5,125 years and as terminating on December 21 or 23, 2012, along with interpretations of assorted legends, scriptures, numerological constructions and prophecies.

A New Age interpretation of this transition posits that, during this time, the planet and its inhabitants may undergo a positive physical or spiritual transformation, and that 2012 may mark the beginning of a newer sociopolitical age for the global community. Conversely, many believers in 2012 millenarianism believe that it marks the beginning of Armageddon. The 2012 doomsday prediction idea has been disseminated in numerous books and TV documentaries, and has spread around the world as an Internet meme through websites and discussion groups.
Mesoamerican Long Count calendar.

December, 2012 marks the ending of the current baktun cycle of the Mesoamerican Long Count calendar. The Long Count set its "time zero" at a point in the past marking the end of the previous world and the beginning of the current one, which corresponds to either 11 or 13 August 3114 BC in the Gregorian calendar.

The first book to suggest that this date might have apocalyptic implications was The Maya by archaeologist and anthropologist Michael D. Coe,[6] originally published in 1966, in which he said:
There is a suggestion . . . that Armageddon would overtake the degenerate peoples of the world and all creation on the final day of the thirteenth [baktun]. Thus ... our present universe ... [would] be annihilated on December 23, 2012, when the Great Cycle of the Long Count reaches completion.
In 1988, the anthropologist Munro S. Edmonson similarly argued that "there appears to be a strong likelihood that the eral calendar, like the year calendar, was motivated by a long-range astronomical prediction, one that made a correct solsticial forecast 2,367 years into the future in 355 B.C.

Theories
A number of hypotheses have been advanced by various esoteric writers and mystics with regard to how the world will end in 2012.

New Age
Author Daniel Pinchbeck popularized New Age concepts about this date, linking it to beliefs about crop circles, alien abduction, and personal revelations based on the use of entheogens and mediumship in his 2006 book 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl.
Semir Osmanagić, the archaeologist responsible for promoting the Bosnian pyramids, referred to 2012 in the conclusion of his book The World of the Maya. He suggests that "Advancement of DNA may raise us to a higher level" and concludes, "When the 'heavens open' and cosmic energy is allowed to flow throughout our tiny Planet, will we be raised to a higher level by the vibrations".

Galactic alignment
John Major Jenkins in the mid-1980s, noting the correspondence of the December 21 date with the winter solstice in 2012. This date was in line with an idea he terms the Galactic Alignment.
In the Solar System, the planets and the Sun share roughly the same plane of orbit, known as the plane of the ecliptic. From our perspective on Earth, the Zodiacal constellations move along or near the ecliptic, and over time, appear to recede counterclockwise by one degree every 72 years. This movement is attributed to a slight wobble in the Earth's axis as it spins. As a result, approximately every 2160 years, the constellation visible on the early morning of the spring equinox changes. In Western astrological traditions, this signals the end of one astrological age (currently the Age of Pisces) and the beginning of another (Age of Aquarius).

Jenkins suggests that the Maya based their calendar on observations of the "dark rift", a band of black dust clouds in the Milky Way, which the Maya called the Xibalba be or Black Road. Jenkins claims that the Maya were aware of where the ecliptic intersected the Black Road and gave this position in the sky a special significance in their cosmology. According to the hypothesis, the Sun precisely aligns with this intersection point at the winter solstice of 2012. Jenkins claimed that the classical Mayans anticipated this conjunction and celebrated it as the harbinger of a profound spiritual transition for mankind. New Age proponents of the galactic alignment hypothesis argue that, just as astrology uses the positions of stars and planets to predict the future, the Mayans plotted their calendars with the objective of preparing for significant world events.

Timewave zero and the I Ching
Timewave zero, which is part of Novelty theory, is a pseudoscientific numerological formula that purports to calculate the ebb and flow of "novelty", defined as increase in the universe's interconnectedness, or organised complexity, over time. According to Terence McKenna, who conceived the idea in the early 1970s, the universe has a teleological attractor at the end of time that increases interconnectedness, eventually reaching a singularity of infinite complexity on December 21, 2012, at which point anything and everything imaginable will occur instantaneously. This idea has failed to gain any scientific credibility or recognition.

End of the world
Various ideas have been advanced giving reasons why the end of the world might happen suddenly in 2012, although none resemble scientific predictions. One idea involves a geomagnetic reversal, which could be triggered by a massive solar flare, one with energy equal to 100 million atomic bombs.[31] This is supported by evidence that the Earth's magnetic field is weakening, which indicates an impending reversal of the north and south magnetic poles. Scientists believe the Earth is overdue for a geomagnetic reversal, and has been for a long time, even since the time of the Mayans, because the last reversal was 780,000 years ago. Critics, however, claim geomagnetic reversals take up to 5,000 years to complete, and do not start on any particular date.

Also, while NASA expects a particularly strong solar maximum sometime between 2010 and 2012, there is no scientific evidence linking a solar maximum to a geomagnetic reversal. A solar maximum would be mostly notable for its effects on satellite and cellular phone communications.
Another apocalyptic idea circulating about 2012, which has existed in various forms since 1995 and has changed dates at least twice since then, is that a large planet, called Nibiru, will collide with or pass by Earth in that year. This idea has been ridiculed by astronomers, who point out that such an object so close to Earth would be visible to anyone looking up at the night sky.

Dissemination
Interest in the 2012 doomsday prediction has spread in recent years as a result of a groundswell of Internet sites and blogs, as well as numerous books and television series on the subject.

The movie 2012 (http://whowillsurvive2012.com/), directed by Roland Emmerich (director of Independence Day, Godzilla, 10,000 B.C. & Day After Tommorow)is scheduled for release on November 13, 2009. A viral marketing campaign by Sony Pictures Digital Inc. for the film features a website from the supposedly scientific "Institute for Human Continuity" describing the various doomsday scenarios meant to occur in that year.

Note:
This is a fact - 2012, December 31 - The Kyoto Protocol will expire.
The Kyoto Protocol is a protocol to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC or FCCC), an international environmental treaty with the goal of achieving "stabilization of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that would prevent dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system.

How Humans Would Get to Mars

As the 40th-anniversary celebrations of the moon landing end, a human voyage to Mars remains a holy grail for NASA.

"We're still looking at human exploration of Mars as one of the goals of the future at the top level," said NASA researcher Bret Drake with Lunar and Mars Integration at Johnson Space Center in Houston. "Having a human actually set foot on another planet would be one of the greatest adventures possible, one of the greatest monuments to history."

A crewed mission to the red planet is a daunting challenge that lies at the edge of current technological capabilities and possibly beyond. Still, NASA keeps a strategy to go there and constantly keeps up to date with new ideas.

"Mars is one of those targets of fascination that has been around a long time," Drake said.

How to get there
A voyage to Mars would take a crew about 180 days. So far NASA is exploring two options for propulsion there — a nuclear thermal rocket and a chemical engine.

A nuclear thermal rocket, would use a nuclear reactor to super-heat a gas and blast it out the nozzle to generate thrust. "It's a very high-performance vehicle, and we think it's very safe, not radioactive at launch, but it is a nuclear system," Drake said. "The idea for the chemical engine is similar to that used on the space shuttle, liquid oxygen and liquid hydrogen. It's a fairly well-known technology, but it's not as efficient as nuclear thermal."

To reach the Martian surface, NASA envisions an aerodynamic lander that flies down with thrusters to help it descend. The ascent vehicle that takes the crew back into space for the six-month trip home will likely rely on a combination of methane and liquid oxygen. "Oxygen is present in the Martian atmosphere in the carbon dioxide, so you can use resources on Mars to make it," Drake said.

Before the crew even gets to Mars, the plan is to send as much cargo there ahead of time as possible. "That way we can know it's operating right before we ever commit the crew," Drake said. "A Mars mission is not like a lunar mission where you can come home at any time — once they're committed, a crew is out there for years."

The very habitat the crew stays at on the Martian surface would be sent ahead of time. "You can also do things like produce and store oxygen from resources at Mars beforehand for the crew and the ascent vehicle. You could generate water as well."

Big crew, long stay
NASA envisions a crew of six astronauts for a Mars mission. "That's about what's required for the skills needed — a commander, scientist, engineer, medical officer, things like that, as well as cross-training," Drake said. "They'll need expertise in a wide range of disciplines."

Currently NASA envisions a long stay for a crew at Mars, about 500 days.
"Crew autonomy is vital, because there's an up to 40 minute time delay in communication between Earth and the crew because of the distance," Drake said. "And the crew doesn't have a capability for re-supply — they'll just have what they send ahead or what they bring with them — so when things fail, they'll have to be able to repair them. They must be self-sufficient."

To survive the voyage, air and water need to be completely recycled regularly.
"We're learning a lot on the International Space Station right now on air revitalization and water recovery," Drake said. "What's nice about Mars is that there's carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, so that can help get us oxygen and water for the crew. In terms of food, we're looking at smaller systems, 'salad machines,' to grow food for the crew. Fresh food is not only good for nutrition, but good for the mind as well. A fresh tomato can really boost psychology."

Mental and physical challenges
The long hardship of roughly two-and-a-half years in space with only a few people in a potentially lethal environment will undoubtedly challenge the psyches of Mars explorers.
"The Russians are conducting a test right now that hopefully will shed light on the behavioral sciences aspect of a Mars mission," Drake said. "Looking at other remote exploration endeavors is helpful as well — Antarctica, or submarines — all that feeds into the human behavioral aspects of crew selection."

A key concern for astronauts as well as during the stay on Mars is dangerous radiation in the form of storms of high-energy particles from the sun as well as cosmic rays from deep space. "The best radiation protection material is hydrogen, or water, which is rich in hydrogen," Drake said.
On the surface of Mars, NASA envisions that cargo deployed ahead of time can produce water before the crew arrives to use as a shield during the crew's stay there. On the way to and from Mars, the ship could be configured so that water and food surround areas where crew spend most of their time, but "a 'storm shelter' aboard the ship will be an integral part for short events of radiation that can be lethal," Drake said.

"It's humanity's next step to understanding and expanding our presence outward," Drake said. "We view human exploration of Mars as being an international endeavor, most likely not limited to just one country, but probably of global scale.

DNA seen through the eyes of a coder

DNA seen through the eyes of a coder or If you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

http://ds9a.nl/amazing-dna/ Interesting article about DNA structures ...

If you like this article, try out the fiction The Judas Strain by James Rollins

Survival of the Fittest

Euthanasia

In certain countries, euthanasia – the right to die, is officially permitted. Euthanasia is the practice of medically-assisted death.

In general, “the mercy killing”, as commonly known, relives the patient out of his pain and worries when it was medically accepted that there is no more cure for his sickness or simply cannot be saved anymore.

Euthanasia may be conducted with consent (voluntary euthanasia) or without consent (involuntary euthanasia).

Euthanasia entails the withholding of common treatments (such as antibiotics, pain medications, or surgery) or the distribution of a medication (such as morphine) to relieve pain, knowing that it may also result in death. Passive euthanasia is the most accepted form, and it is a common practice in most hospitals. Non-aggressive euthanasia entails the withdrawing of life support and is more controversial. Aggressive euthanasia entails the use of lethal substances or forces to kill and is the most controversial means.

Before jumping to the debate of righteous or evilness of this procedure, let us look into what leads to the mercy killing?

Case 1: The dying patient XX is financially sound.

Case 2: The dying patient YY is financially broken.

Both of them are at their last stages, surviving just because of the life supporting gadgets connected to him. The medical opinion is that they cannot be saved and will be bed ridden with all the pain and suffering.

In both the above cases it was suggested for euthanasia and followed.

What does this imply? Besides judging whether it is justified or unjustified or right to die, it is simply that since these patients cannot survive and also they are undergoing a lot of pain and suffering, mercy killing was done.

Crudely, still to state, in perspective of the majority of decision makers, this avoids further time spent for them and unwarranted expenses.

The pain and suffering a person feels during a disease, even with pain relievers, can be incomprehensible to a person who has not gone through it. Moreover, despite modern painkillers, there is little available to deal with the problem of 'breathlessness', which makes many ailing patients feel they will suffocate.

Today in many countries there is a shortage of hospital space. The energy of doctors and hospital beds could be used for people whose lives could be saved instead of continuing the life of those who want to die which increases the general quality of care and shortens hospital waiting lists. It is a burden to keep people alive past the point they can contribute to society.

Now, euthanasia is right or wrong? If every life has a right to live in this planet, why does they are deprived of that?

Simply, they cannot be saved any more and let start giving treatment to somebody who can be saved.

An extended scenario is that you are a doctor. There are 2 persons needed immediate medical attention in a war torn country – both of them in their 20s, but one is a civilian with severe developmental disability from birth and the other is soldier fighting for the country, wounded by shrapnel. You can provide medical assistance to only one with the resources and time you have – whom will you provide medical assistance? In other words, who will you let go die?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Death Penalty

Capital punishment is being followed in most of the countries. Why does the capital punishment is still being followed invariably in most of the developed, most civilized countries?

Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is the execution of a person by the state as punishment for a crime. In most places that practice capital punishment today, the death penalty is reserved as punishment for premeditated murder, espionage, treason, or as part of military justice. In some countries sexual crimes, such as rape, adultery and sodomy, carry the death penalty, as do some religious crimes. In some countries drug trafficking is also a capital offense. In China human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are also punished by the death penalty. In militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offenses such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny.

Supporters of capital punishment argue that it reduces crime rate, that it is less expensive than life imprisonment and is an appropriate form of punishment for some crimes. Opponents of capital punishment argue that it has led to the execution of wrongfully convicted, that it discriminates against minorities and the poor, that it does not deter criminals more than life imprisonment, that it encourages a "culture of violence", and that it violates human rights.

South Africa, which is probably the most developed African nation, does not have the death penalty. This fact is currently quite controversial in that country, due to the high levels of violent crime, including murder and rape

Why capital punishment does being followed? One major argument is the severe the punishment the lesser will be crimes.

When the state feels that the convict is extremely unfit to live in the common society, they are imprisoned and based on the crime they are punished with a death row. In other words, they are deprived their right to live because they are not socially unfit.

Should capital punishment be followed?

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Eugenics Theory

The word eugenics derives from the Greek word eu (good or well) and the suffix -genēs (born).
Eugenics is a theory about evolving socially fit breed of (human) generation, healthier and intelligent people to save earthly resources and lessen human suffering.

The means of achieving these goals focused on selective breeding, prenatal testing and screening, genetic counseling, birth control, in vitro fertilization, and genetic engineering etc.

From its inception eugenics was supported by prominent people, including H.G. Wells, Emile Zola, George Bernard Shaw, William Keith Kellogg and Margaret Sanger.

The basic ideals of eugenics can be found from the beginnings of Western civilization. The philosophy was most famously expounded by Plato, who believed human reproduction should be monitored and controlled by the state.

Mates, in Plato’s Republic, would be chosen by a “marriage number” in which the quality of the individual would be quantitatively analyzed, and persons of high numbers would be allowed to procreate with other persons of high numbers. In theory, this would lead to predictable results and the improvement of the human race. However, Plato acknowledged the failure of the “marriage number” since “gold soul” persons could still produce “bronze soul” children.

Other ancient civilizations, such as Rome, Athens and Sparta, practiced infanticide through exposure as a form of phenotypic selection. In Sparta, newborns were inspected by the city's elders, who decided the fate of the infant. If the child was deemed incapable of living, it was usually killed. It was more common for girls than boys to be killed this way. Trials for babies were conducted which included bathing them in wine and exposing them to the elements. To Sparta, this would ensure only the strongest survived and procreated.

The 12 Tables of Roman Law, established early in the formation of the Roman Republic, stated in the fourth table that deformed children would be put to death. In addition, patriarchs in Roman society were given the right to "discard" infants at their discretion. This was often done by drowning undesired newborns in the Tiber River. The practice of infanticide in the ancient world did not subside until the Christianization of the Roman Empire.

Sir Francis Galton systematized these ideas and practices according to new knowledge about the evolution of man and animals provided by the theory of his cousin Charles Darwin during the 1860s and 1870s. After reading Darwin's Origin of Species, Galton built upon Darwin's ideas whereby the mechanisms of natural selection were potentially thwarted by human civilization. He reasoned that, since many human societies sought to protect the underprivileged and weak, those societies were at odds with the natural selection responsible for extinction of the weakest; and only by changing these social policies could society be saved from a "reversion towards mediocrity," a phrase he first coined in statistics and which later changed to the now common "regression towards the mean."

He began by studying the way in which human intellectual, moral, and personality traits tended to run in families. Galton's basic argument was "genius" and "talent" is hereditary traits in humans. He concluded since one could use artificial selection to exaggerate traits in other animals, one could expect similar results when applying such models to humans. According to Galton, society already encouraged dysgenic conditions, claiming the less intelligent were out-reproducing the more intelligent. Galton's formulation of eugenics was based on a strong statistical approach.

Eugenics eventually referred to human selective reproduction with intent to create children with desirable traits, generally through the approach of influencing differential birth rates. These policies were mostly divided into two categories: positive eugenics, the increased reproduction of those seen to have advantageous hereditary traits; and negative eugenics, the discouragement of reproduction by those with hereditary traits perceived as poor. Negative eugenic policies in the past have ranged from attempts at segregation to sterilization and even genocide. Positive eugenic policies have typically taken the form of awards or bonuses for "fit" parents who have another child. Relatively innocuous practices like marriage counseling had early links with eugenic ideology.

One of the earliest modern advocates of eugenics (before it was labeled as such) was Alexander Graham Bell. In 1881 Bell investigated the rate of deafness on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts. From this he concluded that deafness was hereditary in nature and, through noting that congenitally deaf parents were more likely to produce deaf children, tentatively suggested that couples where both were deaf should not marry. Bell warned that boarding schools for the deaf could possibly be considered as breeding places of a deaf human race.

Eugenics was supported by Woodrow Wilson, and, in 1907, helped to make Indiana the first of more than thirty states to adopt legislation aimed at compulsory sterilization of certain individuals. The U.S. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia law allowing for the compulsory sterilization of patients of state mental institutions in 1927.

Beginning with Connecticut in 1896, many states enacted marriage laws with eugenic criteria, prohibiting anyone who was "epileptic, imbecile or feeble-minded" from marrying.

During the 20th century, researchers conducted a number of studies to document the heritability of illnesses as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and depression. State laws were written in the late 1800s and early 1900s to prohibit marriage and force sterilization of the mentally ill in order to prevent the "passing on" of mental illness to the next generation. By 1945 over 45,000 mentally ill individuals in the United States had been forcibly sterilized. All in all, 60,000 Americans suffered from sterilization.

After the experience of Nazi Germany, many ideas about "racial hygiene" and "unfit" members of society were publicly renounced by politicians and members of the scientific community. The Nuremberg Trials against former Nazi leaders revealed to the world many of the regime's genocidal practices and resulted in formalized policies of medical ethics under the name of eugenics and the 1950 UNESCO statement on race. Many scientific societies released their own similar "race statements" over the years, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, developed in response to abuses during the Second World War, was adopted by the United Nations in 1948 and affirmed, "Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family.

Beginning in the 1980s, the history and concept of eugenics were widely discussed as knowledge about genetics advanced significantly. Endeavors such as the Human Genome Project made the effective modification of the human species seem possible again (as did Darwin's initial theory of evolution in the 1860s, along with the rediscovery of Mendel's laws in the early 20th century). The difference at the beginning of the 21st century was the guarded attitude towards eugenics, which had become a watchword to be feared rather than embraced.

A few scientific researchers such as psychologist Richard Lynn, psychologist Raymond Cattell, and doctor Gregory Stock have openly called for eugenic policies using modern technology. One attempted implementation of a form of eugenics was a "genius sperm bank" (1980–99) created by Robert Klark Graham, from which nearly 230 children were conceived (the best known donors were Nobel Prize winners William Shockley and J.D. Watson).

Eugenicists have argued that immigration from countries with low national IQ is undesirable. According to Raymond Cattell "when a country is opening its doors to immigration from diverse countries, it is like a farmer who buys his seeds from different sources by the sack, with sacks of different average quality of contents."
A similar screening policy (including prenatal screening and abortion) intended to reduce the incidence of thalassemia exists on island of Cyprus. Since the program's implementation in the 1970s, it has reduced the ratio of children born with the hereditary blood disease from 1 out of every 158 births to almost zero. Tests for the gene are compulsory for both partners, prior to church wedding.

There are some US states that require a blood test prior to marriage. While these tests are typically restricted to the detection of the sexually transmitted disease Syphilis, some partners will voluntarily test for other diseases and genetic incompatibilities. In 1971, the US organization The International Association for Voluntary Sterilization (AVS), called voluntary sterilization of low income Americans for birth-control purposes. AVS also focused on the International community, to encourage Third World/Developing World countries to utilise abortion and sterilization in order to control their population growth.

Dor Yeshorim, a screening program which seeks to reduce the incidence of many hereditary diseases among certain Jewish communities. In Israel, at the expense of the state, the general public is advised to carry out genetic tests to diagnose these diseases before the birth of a baby. If an unborn baby is diagnosed with one of these diseases among which Tay-Sachs is the most commonly known, the pregnancy may be terminate.

Most other Ashkenazi Jewish communities also run screening programs because of the higher incidence of genetic diseases. In some Jewish communities, the ancient custom of matchmaking is still practiced, and in order to attempt to prevent the tragedy of infant death which always results from being homozygous for Tay-Sachs, associations such as the strongly observant Dor Yeshorim test young couples to check whether they carry a risk of passing on fatal conditions. If both the young man and woman are Tay-Sachs carriers, it is common for the match to be broken off. The actual impact of this program on allele frequencies is unknown, but little impact would be expected because the program does not impose genetic selection. Instead, it encourages disassortative mating.

In modern bioethics literature, the history of eugenics presents many moral and ethical questions. Commentators have suggested the new eugenics will come from reproductive technologies that will allow parents to create "designer babies"

It has been argued that this non-coercive form of biological improvement will be predominantly motivated by individual competitiveness and the desire to create the best opportunities for children, rather than an urge to improve the species as a whole, which characterized the early 20th-century forms of eugenics.

While the science of genetics has increasingly provided means by which certain characteristics and conditions can be identified and understood, given the complexity of human genetics, culture, and psychology there is, at this point, no agreed objective means of determining which traits might be ultimately desirable or undesirable. Eugenic manipulations that reduce the propensity for criminality and violence, for example, might result in the population being enslaved by an outside aggressor it can no longer defend itself against. On the other hand, genetic diseases like hemochromatosis can increase susceptibility to illness, cause physical deformities, and other dysfunctions. Eugenic measures against many of these diseases are already being undertaken in societies around the world, while measures against traits that affect more subtle, poorly understood traits, such as criminality, are relegated to the realm of speculation and science fiction. The effects of diseases are essentially wholly negative, and societies everywhere seek to reduce their impact by various means, some of which are eugenic in all but name. The other traits that are discussed have positive as well as negative effects and are not generally targeted at present anywhere.
To conclude, Eugenic theories have prevailed for more than a century and been practiced by most of the world countries at one time or other either directly (eliminating the unfit) or indirectly (contraception methods for financially backward countries).

So, does Eugenics is a right way to follow the base rule of “Survival of the fittest” or nature will take its own course on selecting a species to survive on the planet earth?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Action-T4

The idea of enforcing “racial hygiene” had been an essential element if Hitler’s ideology from its earliest days. The Nazi regime began to implement "racial hygienist" policies as soon as it came to power.

Adolf Hitler had read some racial-hygiene tracts during his period of imprisonment in Landsberg Prison. The future leader considered that Germany could only become strong again if the state applied to German society the basic principles of racial hygiene and eugenics. Hitler believed the nation had become weak, corrupted by the infusion of degenerate elements into its bloodstream. In his opinion, these had to be removed as quickly as possible. He also believed that the strong and the racially pure had to be encouraged to have more children, and the weak and the racially impure had to be neutralized by one means or another.

The July 1933 "Law for the Prevention of Hereditarily Diseased Offspring" prescribed compulsory sterilization for people with a range of conditions thought to be hereditary such as schizophrenia, epilepsy, Huntington's chorea and "imbecility". Sterilization was also mandated for chronic alcoholism and other forms of social deviance. This law was administered by the Interior Ministry which examined the inmates of nursing homes, asylums, prisons, aged care homes and special schools to select those to be sterilized.

It is estimated that 360,000 people were sterilized under this law between 1933 and 1939. The law was used punitively in some cases, against women convicted of prostitution.

It may be noted that racial hygienist ideas were far from unique to the Nazi movement, although Hitler expressed them in an extreme form. The eugenics movement had many followers among educated people, being particularly strong in the United States. Between 1935 and 1975, for example, 63,000 people were sterilized on eugenicist grounds in Sweden.

Hitler had always been in favor of killing those whose lives he judged to be "unworthy of life." The outbreak of war thus opened up for Hitler the possibility of carrying out a policy he had long favored. People with severe disabilities, even when sterilized, still needed institutional care. They occupied places in facilities which would soon be needed for wounded soldiers and people evacuated from bombed cities. They were housed and fed at the expense of the state and took up the time of doctors and nurses. All this the Nazis found barely tolerable even in peacetime, and totally unacceptable in wartime. Leading Nazi doctor, Dr Hermann Pfannmüller, said: "The idea is unbearable to me that the best, the flower of our youth must lose its life at the front in order that feebleminded and irresponsible asocial elements can have a secure existence in the asylum."

Initially, the Interior Ministry required doctors and midwives to report all cases of newborns with severe disabilities. Those to be killed were "all children under three years of age in whom any of the following 'serious hereditary diseases' were 'suspected': idiocy and mongolism (especially when associated with blindness and deafness); microcephaly; hydrocephaly; malformations of all kinds, especially of limbs, head, and spinal column; and paralysis, including spastic conditions.

Once war broke out in September 1939, the program expanded to include older children and adolescents. The conditions covered also expanded and came to include "various borderline or limited impairments in children of different ages, culminating in the killing of those designated as juvenile delinquents. Jewish children could be placed in the net primarily because they were Jewish; and at one of the institutions, a special department was set up for 'minor Jewish-Aryan half-breeds'". At the same time increased pressure was placed on parents to agree to their children being sent away. Many parents suspected what was really happening, especially when it became apparent that institutions for children with disabilities were being systematically cleared out, and refused consent. They were threatened that they would lose custody of all their children, and if that did not suffice the parents themselves could be threatened with call-up for "labour duty."[26] By 1941 over 5,000 children had been killed.

Soon plans developed to expand the program to adults, made preliminary arrangements for a national register of all institutionalized people with mental illnesses or physical disabilities.

Hundreds of patients were shot dead or killed by means of carbon monoxide gas in an improvised gas chamber. The idea of killing "useless" mental patients soon spread as Germans wounded from the Polish campaign were expected to be accommodated, creating a demand for hospital space.

Rhineland Bastard was a derogatory term used in Nazi Germany to describe children of mixed German and African parentage. Under Nazism's racial theories, these children were considered inferior to "pure Aryans" and consigned to sterilization. The program began in 1937, when local officials were asked to report on all "Rhineland Bastards" under their jurisdiction. All together, some 400 children of mixed parentage were arrested and sterilized.

In December 1946, an American military tribunal (commonly called the Doctors Trial) tried 23 doctors and administrators for their roles in war crimes and crimes against humanity. These crimes included the systematic killing of those deemed "unworthy of life," including the mentally retarded, the institutionalized mentally ill, and the physically impaired. After 140 days of proceedings, including the testimony of 85 witnesses and the submission of 1,500 documents, in August 1947 the court pronounced 16 of the defendants guilty.

The program is commonly described as one of "euthanasia," and this expression was used at the time by some of the officials responsible for carrying the program out, but it had little in common with euthanasia as this term is usually defined. It was not motivated by concern for the welfare of the people concerned or by a desire to release them from suffering – most of those killed were not suffering. It was carried out primarily according to the dictates of "racial hygiene" ideology, and secondarily to reduce the cost to the state of maintaining people with disabilities at a time when the overwhelming financial priority of the regime was rearmament. It was nearly always carried out without the consent of the people concerned or their families.

The Nazi's based their eugenics program on the United States' programs of forced sterilization.

The Nazi eugenics policy led to Germans suffering from cerebral palsy and other physical impairments being killed. Action T4 (German Aktion T4) was the official name of the Nazi Germany eugenics program which forcefully conducted euthanasia on Germans who were institutionalized or suffering from birth defects. In total, an estimated 200,000 people were killed as a result of the program.

Now the question is - what was that common among euthanasia, capital punishment, eugenics theory, Action-T4? All of them have been followed or are being followed all over the world irrespective of civilized / developed / third world / Nazi / pre-world war / post world war countries? They all are interconnected and form the basis for each of the other theory.