"Might just be the most extraordinary image you have ever seen."

"Although it might not seem like much, the photo above might just be the most extraordinary image you have ever seen. Not because of crazy high megapixel count or amazing composition or even subject matter — we’ve seen images of planets orbiting stars before — but because it is the first ever image of a planet and its star over 63 light years away."

Behold the First Ever Image of a Planet and Its Star Over 63 Light Years Away

"Acquired by the world's most powerful planet-hunting instrument, the Gemini Planet Imager, it shows a 10-million-year-old planet called Beta Pictorus orbiting its giant parent star. It's the first such image to come from Gemini, which has been under development for over a decade but is only now producing data like this."

Gemini's First Image Shows a Planet Orbiting a Star 63 Light Years Away

Ultrarunners have more allergies, asthma, knee pain & stress fractures

"One of the first large-scale studies of ultrarunners -- those superhumans who race distances longer than the standard 26.2-mile marathon -- shows that these runners are more likely to suffer from more allergies and asthma."

"They also report more knee pain and stress fractures, but when you're running 50 miles at a time, that seems about right."

Source: Ultrarunners aren't always ultrahealthy

Related Post: Run 2,800 miles in 64 days - loose muscle, fat, and brain!

Testosterone & cortisol in high & low power poses

Urban farm in the outer skin of Tokyo office building

"Pasona HQ is a nine story high, 215,000 square foot corporate office building for the Japanese recruitment company, Pasona Group, located in downtown Tokyo. It is a major renovation project consisting of a double-skin green facade, offices, an auditorium, cafeterias, a rooftop garden and most notably, urban farming facilities integrated within the building. The green space totals over 43,000 square feet with 200 species including fruits, vegetables and rice that are harvested, prepared and served at the cafeterias within the building.  It is the largest and most direct farm-to-table of its kind ever realized inside an office building in Japan."

Follow link to images: Pasona H.Q. Tokyo

Hair samples on violent offenders?

A few weeks ago while at the hospital having lunch with some physician colleagues discussion turned to the recent Colorado school shooting. I argued that violent criminals should have hair samples tested for toxic metals. Today, Andrew Blankstein of NBC News published the article Are the Xbox and unleaded gas helping keep you safe from violent crime? Of the "seven other seldom-mentioned factors" that may be responsible for the decrease in U.S. homicide rates, Blankstein writes:

In a landmark 2007 study, Amherst College Public Health Professor Jessica Wolpaw Reyes found a remarkable correlation between lead exposure and violent crime. According to her calculations, exposure to the heavy metal could have accounted for between 28 percent and 91 percent of the 83 percent increase in violent crime in the U.S. between 1972 and 1992. And as lead exposure dropped, so too did violent crime, falling 56 percent during the 1990s, she found.

Teddy Roosevelt: Dare mighty things

"Far better it is to dare mighty things, to win glorious triumphs, even though checkered by failure, than to take rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much nor suffer much, because they live in the great twilight that knows neither victory nor defeat."

Teddy Roosevelt

HAPPY NEW YEAR FROM PALEOTERRAN!

The sun as view in different wavelengths by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO). Credit: collage image by NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center

PaleoTerran wishes you a wonderful new revolution around the Sun!

Image: NASA/SDO/Goddard Space Flight Center

Dr. Enrique Jacoby of the World Health Organization on packaged food

Image: Stuart Spivack from Cleveland, Ohio, USALeah Sottile, writing for The Atlantic asked Dr. Enrique Jacoby of the World Health Organization (WHO) why Americans getting sicker at a younger age:

"Are my friends sick, by chance, because they grew up eating Spaghetti-O’s and Kraft macaroni and cheese like every other kid in the 1980s? Are they victims of an era driven by convenience foods and sugary drinks?"

Jacoby’s response:

“Anyone that lives on mac and cheese, a lot of this packaged food, probably will grow up in one way or another addicted to this type of food. It’s well-known that there is very clear evidence that packaged foods are designed to be addictive. Do you know anyone who is addicted to chicken or fish or celery? That doesn’t exist.”

Source: Living Sick and Dying Young in Rich America

Related Post: Becoming Paleo, Part 1: The Yale Food Addiction Scale

Are young Americans getting sicker?

"I thought this would be the time when we’d be preparing for the rest of our lives: earning money, going on fun vacations, having families, building our careers. And we are, but at the same time, we’re doing it while we’re trying to manage pain symptoms, chase down prescriptions, and secure stable health insurance. When I was in college, I remember being prepared to survive in the workforce, but I don’t remember a class that told me how to do that if half of your household is in so much pain on some days that they can’t get to work. I’m barely over 30. I thought I had so much more time before I had to think about this stuff."

"I wondered if this was normal. Do we know so many people who are dealing with pain because people are just getting sicker in general?"

Living Sick and Dying Young in Rich America

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Fair winds for wind power

Image: Alessio Sbarbaro"Wind power is now competitive with fossil fuels" writes Kiely Kroh and Jeff Spross for ThinkProgress: 

 “We’re now seeing power agreements being signed with wind farms at as low as $25 per megawatt-hour,” Stephen Byrd, Morgan Stanley’s Head of North American Equity Research for Power & Utilities and Clean Energy, told the Columbia Energy Symposium in late November. Byrd explained that wind’s ongoing variable costs are negligible, which means an owner can bring down the cost of power purchase agreements by spreading the up-front investment over as many units as possible. As a result, larger wind farms in the Midwest are confronting coal plants in the Powder River Basin with “fairly vicious competition.” And even without the production tax credit, wind can still undercut many natural gas plants. A clear sign of its viability, wind power currently meets 25 percent of Iowa’s energy needs and is projected to reach a whopping 50 percent by 2018."

13 Major Clean Energy Breakthroughs Of 2013

Peace on Earth

Image credit: NASA

Eight days out from Earth, Galileo turned its camera home and captured our special place tucked in an arm of the Galaxy. There is only one Earth.