The Unlikely Buddha

The Great Attractor is a gravitational anomaly located within the Laniakea Supercluster. The Laniakea Supercluster encompasses approximately 100,000 galaxies stretched out over 160 Mpc (520 million ly) and has the approximate mass of 1017 solar masses. This is almost the same as that of the Horologium Supercluster.  The Great Attractor is so massive that it affects the motion of galaxies within its vicinity, including our own Milky Way galaxy.  It is called the Great Attractor because it is thought to be due to the presence of a large concentration of mass in that region of space, which attracts other galaxies towards it. -Unlikely Buddha 2023

  China’s new space station, Tiangong12 China’s new space station, Tiangong12 , is showcasing the nation’s expanding capabilities in space at a time when mounting military and technological competition with the U.S. is stoking geopolitical tension.  The space station, which consists of three key modules and a fourth one to be added later, is expected to carry out biological and life science research, as well as serve as a platform for China’s lunar and Mars exploration plans.  China aims to land astronauts on the moon before 2030 and establish a permanent presence there, challenging the U.S.'s dominance in space and its renewed commitment to crewed missions.  The launch of the space station also reflects China’s ambition to become a leading space power and a global player in scientific and technological innovation. However, China’s space program faces criticism and suspicion from the U.S. and its allies, who accuse it of lacking transparency and posing security threa...

  Unintended Consequences of the Opioid Crisis on Pain Patients The opioid crisis has affected millions of Americans who struggle with addiction and overdose. While the legal actions against Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, have exposed its deceptive marketing practices, the crisis also involves other factors. These include the overprescribing of opioids by doctors and the challenges faced by pain patients who rely on them. According to the US Pain Foundation, about 51 million Americans live with chronic pain that interferes with their daily activities. For these people, pain management is essential for their quality of life. Pain management can involve various approaches, such as medications, physical therapies, psychological therapies (such as cognitive behavioral therapy), relaxation techniques and meditation, mind and body techniques, and community support groups. However, despite these alternatives, there is still a demand for new and better pain medications. Orphangesic...

Psychology of  Twitter:  The Role of Self-Concept and Ego Twitter is a popular social media platform that allows users to share short messages of up to 280 characters, called tweets, with their followers. Twitter has more than 300 million active users who generate about 500 million tweets per day. What motivates people to use Twitter and what are the psychological effects of tweeting? One of the main reasons why people use Twitter is to express themselves and communicate with others. According to a study by Buffer, people tweet for various purposes, such as sharing information, opinions, emotions, humor, or personal updates. Tweeting can also serve as a way of creating and maintaining social connections, seeking feedback, support, or validation, and influencing others. However, tweeting also involves a certain degree of self-presentation and impression management. People may tweet strategically to create a desired image of themselves or to fit in with their audience. For examp...

Meet the Man Who Owns the Moon A loophole in a United Nations charter has allowed Dennis Hope to sell plots on the moon for more than 30 years. If you ask Dennis Hope , he'll tell you he's the richest man on Earth—in fact, he'll say he's the richest man in the Solar System. Why? Because, as far as he's concerned, he owns most of it. In the early 1980s, Hope, then unemployed for about a year, thought he'd be a good property owner and could make a living by managing real estate. He looked out the window and saw more unclaimed property than he could possibly fathom—the moon. He remembered a tidbit from a political science course he took in college—the 1967 United Nations Outer Space Treaty said no country could own the moon, but it says nothing about individuals. Hope wrote a letter to the United Nations saying the moon was his and asked the group to come up with a legal reason why an individual could not claim ownership of the moon. He never heard back. "I se...

  Quantum Entanglement Two particles in a dance of chance Spinning and weaving across the space They share a secret, a hidden glance A bond that nothing can erase They feel each other, no matter how far They mirror each other, no matter when They are entangled, like a star And its reflection in the water's zen They are one, yet they are two They are separate, yet they are whole They are mystery, yet they are true They are quantum, yet they are soul Unlikely Buddha ©2023

NASA’s massive moon rocket will cost taxpayers billions more than projected NASA auditor warns Congress NASA’s auditor didn’t mince words when he told lawmakers Tuesday that the space agency’s lunar program is going to cost a ton more per mission than initial projections suggested a decade ago. “We found that the first four Artemis missions will each cost $4.1 billion per launch, a price tag that strikes us as unsustainable,” NASA Inspector General Paul Martin said. Artemis is the name of NASA’s lunar program. It represents a series of missions for which the agency is developing its Space Launch System rocket and Orion capsule Motley Fool article NASA's new $4 billion rocketship may not be long for this world. When Sir Richard Branson announced last year that his company, Virgin Galactic, would begin charging $450,000 a ticket for tourist flights to space and back, minds boggled at the price tag. But if $450,000 sounds like a lot of money to you, you'd better sit down be...