Taylor Jackson's List: Computer Applications

• When people have questions about these scenarios, they often turn to the Internet.
• Christmas will come this year. The planet Nibiru doesn't exist, and there is no correlation between the end of the calendar and the end of the world — the calendar would simply start over.

• "If there were anything out there like a planet headed for Earth," he says, "it would already be the brightest object in the sky after the sun and moon. Everybody on Earth could see it.

  "Go out and look. It's not there. You don't need to ask the government or me, just use your eyes. There's no interloper out there headed into the solar system."

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• The ancient Maya of Mexico and Guatemala kept a calendar that is about to roll up the red carpet of time, swing the solar system into transcendental alignment with the heart of the Milky Way, and turn Earth into a bowling pin for a rogue planet heading down our alley for a strike.
  
  

    None of it is true. People you know, however, are likely becoming a bit afraid that modern astronomy and Maya secrets are indeed conspiring to bring our doom.
• If people know you’re an astronomer, they will soon be asking you all about it.
• Moreover, the winter-solstice sun won’t even pass closest to it on the sky for another 200 years.
• There is no planet alignment on the winter solstice in 2012.

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• "We are speaking out against deceit, lies and twisting of the truth, and turning us into folklore-for-profit. They are not telling the truth about time cycles," charged Felipe Gomez, leader of the Maya alliance Oxlaljuj Ajpop.
• Experts say that for the Maya, all that ends in 2012 is one of their calendar cycles, not the world.

• Question (Q): Are there any threats to the Earth in 2012? Many Internet websites say the world will end in December 2012. 

   Answer (A):The world will not end in 2012. Our planet has been getting along just fine for more than 4 billion years, and credible scientists worldwide know of no threat associated with 2012.
• Q: Is NASA predicting a "total blackout" of Earth on Dec. 23 to Dec. 25? 

   A: Absolutely not. Neither NASA nor any other scientific organization is predicting such a blackout. The false reports on this issue claim that some sort of "alignment of the Universe" will cause a blackout. There is no such alignment (see next question). Some versions of this rumor cite an emergency preparedness message from NASA Administrator Charles Bolden. This is simply a message encouraging people to be prepared for emergencies, recorded as part of a wider government preparedness campaign. It never mentions a blackout.
• Q: Could planets align in a way that impacts Earth? 

   A: There are no planetary alignments in the next few decades and even if these alignments were to occur, their effects on the Earth would be negligible. One major alignment occurred in 1962, for example, and two others happened during 1982 and 2000. Each December the Earth and sun align with the approximate center of the Milky Way Galaxy but that is an annual event of no consequence.
• Q: Is there a planet or brown dwarf called Nibiru or Planet X or Eris that is approaching the Earth and threatening our planet with widespread destruction?  

   A: Nibiru and other stories about wayward planets are an Internet hoax. There is no factual basis for these claims. If Nibiru or Planet X were real and headed for an encounter with the Earth in 2012, astronomers would have been tracking it for at least the past decade, and it would be visible by now to the naked eye. Obviously, it does not exist. Eris is real, but it is a dwarf planet similar to Pluto that will remain in the outer solar system; the closest it can come to Earth is about 4 billion miles.
• Q: Is the Earth in danger of being hit by a meteor in 2012? 

   A: The Earth has always been subject to impacts by comets and asteroids, although big hits are very rare. The last big impact was 65 million years ago, and that led to the extinction of the dinosaurs. Today NASA astronomers are carrying out a survey called the Spaceguard Survey to find any large near-Earth asteroids long before they hit. We have already determined that there are no threatening asteroids as large as the one that killed the dinosaurs. All this work is done openly with the discoveries posted every day on the NASA Near-Earth Object Program Office website, so you can see for yourself that nothing is predicted to hit in 2012.
• Q: How do NASA scientists feel about claims of the world ending in 2012? 

   A: For any claims of disaster or dramatic changes in 2012, where is the science? Where is the evidence? There is none, and for all the fictional assertions, whether they are made in books, movies, documentaries or over the Internet, we cannot change that simple fact. There is no credible evidence for any of the assertions made in support of unusual events taking place in December 2012.
• Q: Is there a danger from giant solar storms predicted for 2012? 

   A: Solar activity has a regular cycle, with peaks approximately every 11 years. Near these activity peaks, solar flares can cause some interruption of satellite communications, although engineers are learning how to build electronics that are protected against most solar storms. But there is no special risk associated with 2012. The next solar maximum will occur in the 2012-2014 time frame and is predicted to be an average solar cycle, no different than previous cycles throughout history.

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• First of all, it's not even a prophecy. It happens to be when their long count calendar ends. Why should that hold any significance for us?

• Regulators shut down global PC 'tech support' scam
• FTC announces a crackdown on a massive international computer tech support scam that allegedly swindled tens of thousands of consumers in six countries.
• October 3, 2012

• by Zack Whittaker and Shara Tibken
• The U.S. Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and other international regulatory authorities today said they shut down a global criminal network that allegedly bilked tens of thousands of consumers by pretending to be tech support providers.

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• acute hemorrhagic fever
• Deadly New Virus Uncovered In Africa
• caused a small isolated outbreak of acute hemorrhagic fever in central Africa  in the summer of 2009.
  
• Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC),  

  killed two people and  left one person seriously ill.
• name Bas-Congo virus (BASV), after the province where the three people lived.
• The 2009 Outbreak
• 15-year-old boy from a village called Mangala in the DCR suddenly got ill and  started bleeding from the nose and gums and vomiting blood.
• He got worse very quickly and died three days later.
• week later
• 13-year-old girl
• started with
• who went to the same school as the boy, started with the same
• symptoms
• also died within three days.
• rapidly
• worsened
• cared for her
• another week after the girl died
• male nurse
• symptoms.
• transferred to hospital and survived
• UCSF team leader was Charles Chiu
• Deep Sequencing Reveals BASV
• revealed nothing
• Initial tests
• more members of the consortium got involved,
• eventually,
• genetic tests
• uncovered a completely new virus.
• tests used a new approach called "deep sequencing"
• generates millions of sequences of DNA from a clinical sample
• then stitches them together using computer algorithms and human  analysis.
  
• Chiu says the new virus, BASV, is quite unlike other viruses in Africa known to  be behind deadly outbreaks of acute hemorrhagic fever, such as Ebola virus,  Lassa virus, and Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever virus.
• BASV Is More Like Rabies
• Genetically, BASV bears more resemblance to rabies viruses, which cause a  different type of infection, a neurological illness that can take months to  develop but invariably kills, explains Chiu.
  
• virus belongs, like rabies, to a family called the rhabdoviruses.
• " 

  BASV was present in the  blood of the lone survivor at a concentration of over a million copies per  milliliter.
• very different from any other rhabdovirus,"
• No other rhabdovirus is known to cause the acute, rapid and deadly  hemorrhagic fever seen in the three cases in the Congo. For example, rabies  can be deadly if untreated, but it doesn't progress in the rapid and deadly  fashion seen with BASV.

• Reservoir Unknown: More Work to Do
• When the researchers did an antibody test on the man who survived, and those who  had come into contact with him, they concluded while the virus may spread from  person to person, the likely source is not in humans, but in another species,  such as an insect or rodent.
• The likely "reservoir" and how the virus spreads from it is still being  sought.
  
  
• Chiu's team is still working on new ways to diagnose the new virus so that  health officials in central Africa can identify it quickly should there be  another outbreak.
• Joseph Fair, co-author and vice president of Metabiota, says:
  
  "Known  viruses, such as Ebola, HIV and influenza, represent just the tip of the  microbial iceberg."
  
  "Identifying deadly unknown viruses, such as  Bas-Congo virus, gives us a leg up in controlling future outbreaks," he  adds.
  

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• Ramsey Musallam’s A.P. Chemistry class
• Sacred Heart Cathedral Preparatory in San Francisco
• Students work in groups, and when they have a question, they call him over. He arrives with iPad in hand and records his voice and his writing on the iPad, which he immediately uploads to the class website so other students can benefit from the explanations instantaneously. (This, by the way, is another form of flipped teaching, he says.)
• “This way, if I need to explain a common question, everyone can access it,” he says. “I don’t have to repeat myself going from group to group.”
• school’s cell phone policy is shifting, as they try to sort out their social policies.

  • how???
• “Right now, kids can’t use cell phones unless a teacher instructs them, but that’s evolving,” says principal Gary Cannon. But if kids are using them to take pictures, they’re not reprimanded by faculty.
• The staff fully recognizes that the cell phone is just a tool

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• • cool! I never knew that!!!!
• Cell Phones for Soldiers is a non-profit organization dedicated to providing cost-free communication services to active duty military members and veterans.