Using a white light projection board, Senior Airman Erin O’Connell makes a sunspot drawing from a projected image of the sun. (U.S. Air Force photo/Senior Airman Andrew Lee)
During one 24-hour period this past Mother’s Day weekend, three of the strongest flares in an extraordinarily active year for solar activity lit the far side of the sun. All three were X-class solar flares, the strongest the sun can send into the atmosphere.
An X-class solar flare is the strongest type of solar flare, but the series of eruptions earlier this year weren’t directly facing Earth. Still, solar analysts at Holloman Air Force Base, N.M., Sagamore Hill, Mass.; Kaena Point, Hawaii; Learmonth, Australia and San Vito, Italy know stronger events could cause more serious consequences.
They watch the sun 24 hours a day for signs of solar activity that could disrupt communications or put astronauts and air crews at risk.
Last summer, a solar flare sparked northern lights in southern Canada and northern United States and potentially caused the worst blackout in India and Pakistan on record. Within two minutes, solar analysts at two of the five observatories in the Solar-Electro-Optical Network sent an alert to the Air Force Weather Agency’s Space Weather Operations Center at Offutt Air Force Base, Neb.
“There are $250 billion in DOD assets relying on our information,” said Senior Master Sgt. Shane Siebert, chief of the Holloman Solar Observatory, Detachment 4, 2nd Weather Squadron.
“We’re the only source in DOD that provides 24/7 space weather observations.”
The Air Force has appointed the service’s first female chief scientist to lead the way in the technology and science fields.
The Air Force appointed Dr. Mica Endsley as its first woman chief scientist to lead the way in the technology and science fields.(Photo provided by the U.S. Air Force)
Dr. Mica Endsley assumed her new duties and responsibilities as the Air Force’s 34th chief scientist June 3 in support of Air Force senior leaders and airmen across the service.
“Having served on the Air Force Scientific Advisory Board for many years, I’ve had the pleasure of working closely with the current and several former Air Force chief scientists,” Endsley said.
“I know this is a tremendous opportunity to help the Air Force excel in its goal of maintaining the critical technological edge that gives our airmen a strategic advantage.”
“I’m pleased to have Dr. Endsley as a part of the Air Force team,” Welsh said. “She follows in the footsteps of many superb minds that have advanced our technological edge and provided much-needed capabilities to our airmen. Although she arrives at a very challenging time, I’m confident she’ll continue a proud legacy of chief scientists who use innovation and strong leadership to keep our Air Force the world’s finest.”
Successfully maintaining that technological edge Welsh mentioned is a key job, Endsley said, and she plans to use every available resource to effectively and cost efficiently get the job done in support of airmen.
This is one of the prototype foot prosthetic devices at the Medical Center Prosthetics center. (Photo by Jessica L. Tozer)
Losing a leg is one of the scarier scenarios when it comes to military deployment.
Unfortunately, it’s also a possibility. I joined the Army in 2002, and at that time I remember rumblings about what would happen if and when we got deployed. Back then it was practically an inevitability. We discussed all manner of possibilities, from the best to the worst, all with the knowledge that anything and everything could happen to us downrange.
Losing a limb was one of those things.
Many of us weren’t sure how we would handle that situation. Some were genuinely fearful, worried that having one (or more) leg(s) less would cost them more than just their walking rights. At that time, prosthetic technology was slowly starting to progress, but you could see that some things were in the early stages of improving.
The idea of losing a leg was more debilitating, in a sense. Amputees could end up walking with a painful limp, or confined to a wheelchair, the prospect of standing tall a less than likely scenario.
However, the advances in prosthetic development have gone leaps and bounds (and yes, I use that term deliberately) since 2002. Technological and mechanical advancements are working in tandem to give service members who gave their limbs for their country the chance at a normal, albeit bionic life.
Just a few of the different iterations of bionic joints at the Medical Center Prosthetics. (Photo by Jessica L. Tozer)
From excellent materials, to control mobility advancement, to even the chance at controlling manufactured limbs with the human mind, the prosthetics of the past are evolving into the assistance for an ambulate future.
I spent some time with the jovial Scot, and he explained some of the more fantastic advances and advantages to military prosthetics.
The exciting thing about this, my dear readers, is that this field only continues to grow and expand. Advances in this field are being made every day, reaching ever-closer to turning the prosthetic leg into a a more perfectly formed extension of the human body. But, as Ian observed, it’s not so much the technology as it is finding the right fit.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s a bionic limb or a peg leg,” Ian says, “if it’s comfortable for the amputee that’s what matters.”
Jessica L. Tozer is a blogger for DoDLive and Armed With Science. She is an Army veteran and an avid science fiction fan, both of which contribute to her enthusiasm for technology in the military.
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Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of this website or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.
This is the second in an Armed with Science two-part series about cyber bullying. Read the first part here.
(graphic illustration by Jessica L. Tozer)
The trolling cyber bully is sort of like an eternal, inescapable antagonizer.
Internet access is practically a swipe and a tap away these days. That is great and super convenient for a lot of things, but when that accessibility is being exploited, it can lead to disaster.
“This kind of bullying, it cuts to the core of a kid and decimates them.”Dr. Mark Fisher, Chief of Behavioral Pediatrics at the Military Mental Health Clinic, Fort Meade, MD
Here are a few things kids and parents can do to help deal with, or even prevent, cyber bullying
1. KNOW THIS STUFF. You cannot deal with a problem you do not understand.
Dr. Fisher says that if you don’t know where to go to learn, find someone who already uses this stuff: a kid down the street, a nephew or niece, someone who knows the ropes. Have them show you where to go and what to do. Learn about the environment your child is being bullied in.
“I don’t care if you have to make yourself a reference dictionary, do it. Know what BFF and LOL mean,” he says. “Know what you’re doing. Don’t feign ignorance.”
Three dimensional seabed map of Chatham Rise displays two pockmark features, each approximately 10 kilometers in diameter, on the southern flank of the Chatham Rise seafloor. Water depth, in meters, is indicated in the legend on left. (Courtesy Research Expedition SO226-2, 2013)
Geochemistry analysis conducted by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory of fossil sediment injection structures off the New Zealand coast in February and March reveal no presence of modern day expulsions of methane gas, a potential contributor to global ‘greenhouse effect’ warming.
The main focus of this most recent expedition was to investigate the geological origin of seafloor anomalies discovered during a 2007 marine-life survey on the Chatham Rise.
During the 2007 survey scientists discovered several large seafloor craters, or pockmarks, including a giant 11 kilometers by 6 kilometers pockmark in water depths of about 1,000 meters, considered immense compared with pockmarks observed elsewhere in the world.
Scientists from Germany, New Zealand, and United States used the two-leg voyage aboard the German research vessel, R/V Sonne, to map and investigate giant seabed features and subsurface structures characteristic of large scale gas-rich fluid migration about 500 kilometers east of Christchurch, South Island, New Zealand.
While the gas and related sediment chemistry results demonstrate this system is no longer geochemically active, these very large pockmarks — 11 kilometers by 6 kilometers in diameter and 100 meters deep — are part of a much larger field of many thousands of smaller pockmarks that extends eastward along the Chatham Rise.
Nothing like a great view of the sun first thing in the morning, right?
The sun is captured in a “starburst” mode over Earth’s horizon by one of the Expedition 36 crew members aboard the International Space Station, as the orbital outpost was above a point in southwestern Minnesota.
Disclaimer: The appearance of hyperlinks does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Defense of this website or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities such as military exchanges and Morale, Welfare and Recreation sites, the Department of Defense does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. Such links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this DoD website.
This is the first in an Armed with Science two-part series about cyber bullying
(graphic illustration by Jessica L. Tozer)
Cyber bullies are everywhere.
They’re antagonistic and insulting. Intentionally confrontational. In many cases even racist, homophobic, sexist, or just plain prejudice. And, just like any other social parasite, trolling cyber bullies grow with every negative response they get. They’re not always easily dismissed, either. You can’t just walk away from the stream of insulting comments they started on your Facebook wall, now can you?
I call this effect “keyboard courage”.
The keyboard is to the user what the bottle of alcohol is to the drinker. Like alcohol, the inhibitions and judgments that would normally be there are absent when the user (bully or victim) takes to the keyboard. This choice causes people to make damaging, embarrassing, or in some cases dangerous and even illegal mistakes. They can be uncharacteristically violent, or oppositional, or emotional.
And sometimes when you start letting the vitriol flow you have a hard time stopping. Or ignoring. Or turning the other cheek. It can even become an obsession. This keyboard courage is giving trolls an avenue to ply their terrible trade, and it’s causing more than just angst and mild irritation.
In many cases, this kind of behavior can result in physical or psychological damage to others.
If you’re familiar with the phrase “rock or something,” then you’ve probably used a Flameless Ration Heater to warm up a Meal, Ready-to-Eat.
Lauren Oleksyk of the Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center’s Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate, holds a Flameless Ration Heater and a Meal, Ready-to-Eat. This is the 20th anniversary of the heater’s introduction. (Photo by David Kamm, NSRDEC Photographer)
To this day, the phrase remains part of a pictogram on the package of the heater, known as the FRH, which was developed at Natick Soldier Research, Development and Engineering Center‘s Department of Defense Combat Feeding Directorate and is celebrating its 20th anniversary in 2013.
It refers to directions that advise warfighters to place the FRH at an angle when heating up a Meal, Ready-to-Eat, commonly known as an MRE.
“The term ‘rock or something’ has now reached cult status,” said Lauren Oleksyk, team leader of the Food Processing, Engineering and Technology Team at Combat Feeding. “It’s just taken on a life of its own.”
Oleksyk was there at the beginning with colleagues Bob Trottier and now-retired Don Pickard when the FRH and that memorable phrase were born in 1993.
“We were designing the FRH directions and wanted to show an object to rest the heater on,” Oleksyk recalled. “(Don) said, ‘I don’t know. Let’s make it a rock or something. So we wrote ‘rock or something’ on the object, kind of as a joke.”
The joke has legs. As Oleksyk pointed out, there now are T-shirts and other items for sale that bear those words. “Rock or something” even has its own Facebook page.
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