The NASA Astrobiology Program has started the process of outlining future research directions at the organization. Roughly every ten years, the program updates NASA’s official Astrobiology Roadmap – a document that guides research and technology develop

ment across NASA and encompass the space, Earth, and biological sciences. This time around, the program is opening the process up to the wider astrobiology community and calling for the public to participate in decisions that will guide research funding and missions for the coming decades.

In May of this year, the Astrobiology Program launched the Astrobiology Future site (www.astrobiologyfuture.org/). The site hosts on-line hangouts and discussions, with each week dedicated to different scientific topics. This week kicks off with talks concerning the Early Evolution of Life and the Biosphere and Planetary Conditions for Life. The webinars begin today (Monday, May 20) at 1pm Eastern Standard Time. Video and transcripts from previous weeks are also available on the site, and there is still time be involved.

Road mapping history

The first NASA Astrobiology Roadmap resulted from a meeting of 150 scientists at the NASA Ames Research Center on July 20-22, 1998. The discussion focused on a set of fundamental questions that were developed at a workshop on astrobiology held in 1996. The group of scientists drafted a document that was designed to guide astrobiology research for the next 20 years (with a particular emphasis on the first 5 years). Since then, the roadmap has been updated with contributions from scientists and technologists selected from government, universities and private institutions.

The 1996 Astrobiology Roadmap outlined ten goals for research at NASA, and in 2008 this list was refined to seven:
Understanding the nature and distribution of habitable environments in the universe
Exploring for habitable environments and life in our own Solar System
Understanding the emergence of life
Determining how early life on Earth interacted and evolved with its changing environment
Understanding the evolutionary mechanisms and environmental limits of life
Determining the principles that will shape life in the future
Recognizing signatures of life on other worlds and on early Earth.

Each of these goals are expanded by objectives in the roadmap that directly inform how research funding is distributed by NASA. Previous versions of the roadmap are available from the Astrobiology Program website at: astrobiology.nasa.gov/roadmap

6) If husbands want more sex, women should do everything they can to give it to them. Focus on the Family’s marriage counselor Juli Slattery is blunt about: Married men need sex, and so wives who aren’t providing enough need to step up. While she claims she isn’t trying to guilt trip women into having more sex, she argues that sex is a physical, emotional, spiritual, and relational need men have. (Though apparently not when they’re single and can’t even fill this need on their own time.) “You cannot love him as a husband but reject him sexually,” she says, suggesting that regardless of the hold-up, women whose husbands want sex more need to find a way to provide it.

7) However, if wives want more sex, they should learn to go without. Slattery has very different advice for wives whose problem is that they want to get laid more, but have unwilling husbands. While you should move heaven and earth to drum up more desire for a husband who wants more sex, if you’re the undersexed one, you’re instructed to tell yourself “friendship, seasoned love, and shared history are often enough to maintain a marriage in which sex is no longer possible”. Men who want more sex are entitled to wives who try to provide it, women who aren’t getting any are told to be happy with “forms of physical affection that don’t involve the pressure of sexual intercourse, such as back rubs, holding hands, playful touching, and hugging”.

More: 10 Most Absurd Sex Tips From the Christian Right

PS - Just tested the new LGF Bookmark functionality - “saaweet”!

If you need further proof that Congressional Republicans are waging a War on Women, you need look no further than Thursday’s congressional committee hearing on H.R. 1797: District of Columbia Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act, a bill sponsored by notoriously anti-choice Representative Trent Franks (R-AZ8) that would criminalize abortions after the 20th week. There are currently 98 women serving in the House of Representatives. Not one of them was present on this panel. Not one female representative sat on the committee that will determine whether to make abortion illegal after the 20th week. The committee was comprised entirely of men, overwhelmingly white men. How telling.

This is a decision that reifies patriarchal control of women’s bodies, so it makes sense that white men of privilege sit atop their mighty throne, dictating what women can and cannot do with their own bodies. In a patriarchal society, women are expected to cede to men’s opinions and mandates, especially around maters of reproduction. H.R. 1797 cloaks itself in the guise protecting the “unborn” by using shoddy science and manipulative rhetoric in order to undermine women’s reproductive autonomy and reify patriarchal control of women’s bodies. If this weren’t the case, why would the panel be comprised solely of men?

More: Why Women Everywhere Should Thank This Republican White Male Anti-Choicer

House Panel Debating Whether to Legislate Women’s Lady Parts is Made Up of 8 Men

8 men

Republican members of the House are trying to push nationwide abortion legislation that would ban women’s access to the procedure after 20 weeks without any exceptions for victims of rape, incest or the health of the mother. The bill was (obviously) struck down by the Circuit Court of Appeals in Arizona for being unconstitutional on Tuesday, but Representative Trent Franks isn’t giving up his dream to legislate your lady parts. He organized a House Judiciary Subcomittee on Thursday morning to discuss the bill, but I guess everyone who has a uterus was busy that day? The picture above is what the Huffington Post’s Laura Bassett encountered when she sat down to hear a panel set-up to debate the bill.

Remind you of anything?

“Crisis Pregnancy Centers” (CPCs) or Pregnancy Resource Centers advertise on your campus and in your community. They pose as comprehensive women’s health clinics and advertise under “abortion” and “family planning” services, but do not offer abortion services, contraception, or referrals.

CPCs often provide false information about abortion, birth control, and the effectiveness of condoms for the prevention of STIs and HIV. Ultimately, their tactics delay or intimidate women from receiving comprehensive medical care.

Fake clinics target college students by locating near campuses and advertising “free” pregnancy tests. According to a 2008 survey by the Feminist Majority Foundation, 48% of responding Campus Health Centers include CPCs on their referral lists for students facing unintended pregnancies.

It is estimated that 3,500 CPCs exist nationwide, outnumbering comprehensive women’s health clinics. Most fake clinics are affiliated with one or more national anti-choice organizations.

Use our toolkit to expose fake clinics on your campus!

Sign our online petition demanding an end to federal funding for fake clinics and abstinence only programs!

More: Feminist Campus - Campaign to Expose Fake Clinics

The spoiler version is that out in California, where the state government and advocacy groups are actually interested in doing Obamacare right, things are looking pretty good. They’re standing up their exchanges and it turns out premiums for basic bronze and more comprehensive silver health plans will actually come in lower than anticipated.

This is almost unambiguously good news for Obamacare.

You can tell it’s good news because it’s obviously good news, but also because the brigade of conservative writers who comb the news for every last Obamacare glitch in less cooperative states have been pretty quiet about it.

More: Game Over for Obamacare Saboteurs?

Matthew Lang at Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, says the danger arises when the rifle falls into the hands of those who are neither hunters nor military snipers. “If it starts to find its way to individuals that plan to use it for other purposes, there will be a lot of time and money spent figuring out how to secure any public area if the number of possible snipers has significantly increased.”

More: ‘Self-Aiming’ Rifle Turns Novices Into Expert Snipers - Tech - 20 May 2013

A big change in the lethality of military technology brought about by the widespread adoption of gun powder powered weapons where guns, cannons and bombs etc, replaced spears, arrows, swords, rocks etc allowed the slaughter that began with Napoleon’s adoption of the concept of “total war”. When an entire societies industrial production is rallied to produce new newer technology lethal weapons and then the human resources of the society are lined up to use those weapons slaughter ensues. This facts and trends are famous in military history.

So, the British Long Bow made Armored Night obsolete. But the skills and experience to be a long bowmen were extensive and their intrinsic firepower, limited.

Gunpowder powered guns replaced the long bowmen and almost anyone could fire them. But early technology made them inaccurate so to have any effect soldiers had to line up in numbers in order to have any effect.

Then came riffling and machine guns and until new tactics evolved these lines of soldiers were mowed down in droves.

One of the big advantages the highly trained US Military had over foes in Iraq and Afghanistan was there marksmanship (non-sniper and sniper) while their foes mostly only used , “spray and pray” tactics.

Now with this, any average moron can be a sniper. And $22k is only the price before mass production and technological development reduce this. As this technology spreads military tactics as well as civilian regulations will have to adapt.

What Earths rings would look like from DC

Last month we shared some photo illustrations by science artist Ron Miller that showed what the night sky would look like if other planets in our solar system replaced the moon. Now Miller is back again with an equally interesting concept: what would landscape photos look like if Earth had a ring like Saturn’s?

It’s nice having a moon, but “for spectacular skies it might almost be worth trading in our moon for a ring like Saturn’s,” Miller says.

His illustrations show a ring that is in the same proportion to our planet as Saturn’s are to it. They show the different views people on the ground would see depending on where they live.

From the equator, the rings would pass directly overhead and show up as a thin, bright line in the sky, “arching from horizon to horizon.” Here’s what a photograph of Quito, Ecuador would look like at night:

More: What Landscape Photos Would Look Like if Earth Had a Ring Like Saturn’s

Anyway, here’s my thesis:

Raiders of the Lost Ark is not an action-adventure movie about an archaeologist who plays by his own rules and saves the day. Instead, the film is an exploration of Marion Ravenwood’s crippling drug addiction. An addiction that was born from her unhealthy relationship and continued association with Indiana Jones.

Is it true? Who cares. Can I prove it? Well, not proof in the sense of research or evidence — proof only so far as crafting an internally consistent argument, relying solely upon the clues within the movie.

More: 4 Reasons ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ Is Secretly About Drugs

What is going on in Stockholm? This is nuts.

A car set on fire burns, following riots in the Stockholm suburb of Kista late May 21, 2013.(Reuters / Fredrik Sandberg)

Youth gang riots in the Swedish capital Stockholm have entered fifth straight night. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country’s worst outbreak of violence in years.

At least six vehicles were torched throughout the city late on Thursday while the police called for reinforcements from other Swedish cities bracing for further unrest.

Firefighters were putting out flames that engulfed several cars and a school in immigrant-dominated areas of Stockholm.

The night before, the fire brigades were called to some 90 different blazes. On the fourth night of violence, youths torched over 30 cars in 15 neighborhoods along with a restaurant in Skogas, south of Stockholm. Three law enforcement officers were injured, police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren reported.

Stockholm firefighters were busy throughout the night, saying they had “never before seen so many fires raging at the same time.” Some 90 blazes were reported in total, most of them reportedly caused by the rioters. Still, the fourth night of violence was relatively quiet compared to the previous three, RT’s Peter Oliver reported from Stockholm.

Leaders of immigrant communities were out on the streets in a bid to stop young people from rioting. Despite their efforts, as soon as the night fell, groups of arsonists took to the streets to set cars on fire. RT’s Peter Oliver witnessed rioters throwing stones at police and journalists alike.

…“In Sweden you’ve got welfare, access to the educational system – up to university level, you got access to public transport, libraries, healthcare – to everything. And still they feel that they [immigrants] need to riot through stones and Molotov cocktails. It’s ridiculous and a bad excuse,” Swedish Democrats MP Kent Ekeroth told RT.

…Parents of the rampaging teenagers and community religious leaders are now spending sleepless nights on the street in an effort to prevent their children from wreaking havoc.