Brite objects

If You Sit At A Desk, You Need Webble

KEEP YOUR RESTLESS LEGS AND FEET MOVING EFFORTLESSLY AT WORK, SCHOOL AND HOME.

The Way You Sit Is Wrong

We have spent our entire childhoods being told to sit still, which turns out to be exactly the opposite of the way our bodies are designed.

Sitting still places considerable stress on our backs, severely restricts our blood flow, and can even change our metabolism. Doctors say we should change our posture every 20 minutes.

That’s why Webble enables your lower body to move in four distinct ways while sitting: forward and backward, side to side, in circles, and up and down. Read more about Webble .

The Footrest That Moves

Webble combines a very old idea — bodies at rest tend to stay at rest, and bodies in motion tend to stay in motion — with the latest in modern ergonomics. Of course, no one moves unless it’s fun. And Webble is way fun. Watch Webble in motion.

What People Say About Webble

BUSINESSWEEK

“To stay comfortable and healthy in your new office, you may want to try this active footrest. Rather than staying in place, it has four wheels and spring suspension to keep your legs moving, blood flowing, and reduce pressure on your back.”

“It even has a spring suspension and self-braking mechanism so that your co-workers don’t walk off with it (because I know they would!).”

“For those with the infamous ‘ants in their pants,’ we bring you the BriteObjects Webble. It’s essentially a balance board that doesn’t require balance, instead serving more as entertainment for your feet while couped up at a desk all day.”

“ The latest in ergonomic design, you’ll be stretching and spinning your feet, all the while making out like you’ve got Marty McFly’s hoverboard strapped to your toes.”

“It looks like a very sleek, stylish skateboard without wheels or a little surfboard. It’s Webble, a rather ingenious alternative to those silly under-the-desk stationary bikes, and similar in concept to those wobble boards that help you develop balance.”

“You don’t realize how stationary your legs remain at your desk until you start using the Webble. On a typical work day before using the Webble, I would cross my legs at my desk, not really moving them around except to get up for a break…I noticed a dramatic difference: My legs felt rested — not achy— at the end of the day.”

“In order to promote the physiological benefits of movement and motion of lower leg activity, in addition to remedying the all-around-lameness of lazy legs at the workplace, BriteObjects has developed the Webble, an ergonomic ottoman that lets your lower half surf the floor while you surf the web, pretending to work.”

Mysterious Bright Object Spotted On Titan

June 23, 2014 | by Justine Alford

Photo credit: JPL-Caltech/ASI/Cornell/NASA/PA. Left image - the usual coastline of Ligeia Mare. Right - the strange bright feature spotted in July last year.

Astronomers scouring through images taken by NASA’s Cassini spacecraft last year have discovered a fleeting bright spot in one of the seas of Saturn’s moon, Titan. The intriguing feature, which has been coined "Magic Island," had never seen observed in this sea before and it vanished again some days later. Although the scientists are uncertain of its identity at the moment, they speculate that it could be a glimpse of dynamic geological processes occurring in the northern hemisphere. The study has been published in Nature Geoscience .

Titan. the largest of Saturn’s 62 moons. is an intriguing and strangely Earth-like world that has sparked great interest from scientists in recent years. It is shrouded in a thick, golden atmosphere of mostly nitrogen that is reminiscent of an early Earth and it has an extensive system of lakes, seas and rivers filled with liquid ethane and methane.

Almost a year ago, Cassini snapped a series of images of Titan including some its second-largest sea, Ligeia Mare, which were sent to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory at Caltech for processing and analysis. Whilst flicking through the images and comparing them to older data to look for any changes, researchers discovered a curious bright spot in Ligeia Mare that was not present in images taken before the July 2013 observation.

The bright feature was around 12 miles long and 6 miles wide and was located about 6 miles off the southern shore. It was present in one image taken on 10 July but it had vanished in a subsequent data set taken on 26 July. Furthermore, prior to the 10 July observation, Ligeia Mare was as still as a statue and was completely devoid of ripples or waves.

The scientists ruled out that the blob could be due to errors in the imaging equipment and have been racking their brains to come up with ideas for what it could be. Titan’s northern hemisphere is currently undergoing a transition from spring to summer, which could be responsible for the bright feature. In light of this, the team has proposed four hypotheses that they believe could explain the phenomenon.

The first idea is that waves may be picking up due to the seasonal transition; if this is the case then the image would be the first observation of deep-sea waves on this moon. Warmer weather brings with it stronger winds, therefore it is possible that as the northern hemisphere starts to heat up the winds are kicking up waves in the sea.

“The sun is shining brighter, and that energy can be powering the winds,” lead author Jason Hofgartner told The Guardian. “All you would need is a light breeze, around half a meter per second.” However, he also doubts that the winds could ever be strong enough to produce substantial waves .

Alternatively it is possible that it is some of the solid material that is in suspension in the sea, or frozen material that has started to rise to the surface as the northern hemisphere warms. Lastly, it is also feasible that it could be a surge of gas released from the sea floor which would ascend to the surface as bubbles.

“Likely, several different processes - such as wind, rain and tides - might affect the methane and ethane lakes on Titan. We want to see the similarities and differences from geological processes that occur here on Earth,” Hofgartner said in a news-release. “Ultimately, it will help us to understand better our own liquid environments here on Earth.”

Solar System Objects Included in Bright Object Avoidance

No object (besides the Sun) poses a threat to instrument safety. However, an observer may wish to avoid observing the Earth and other bright moving objects to avoid compromising observations of faint targets. Therefore, the visibility windows calculated by the Spitzer planning tools avoid certain bright moving targets by default. The observer may choose to override the default (a) Earth/Moon or (b) other bright object avoidance. For example, to observe Jovian satellites, one would turn off (b) and leave (a) in effect.

The observer can choose to override the default. It should be noted that it is the observer's responsibility to check for any bright inertial targets in the field of view that might compromise the observation . and there are some that will heavily saturate the instruments. A list of most of the objects known to saturate the instruments is available below.

Known inertial bright objects

Note that as of S13 (November 2005), (1) Spot can overlay these bright objects on visualizations, and (2) proposers need to justify observing these objects.

The SSC reserves the right to put a scheduling hold on AORs that may or may not be included on these lists as a result of impacts these bright objects would have on subsequent observations.

In assessing whether or not your particular target will saturate or what the amount of scattered light from off-field sources is, please see Table 6.13 and Section 6.1.2.2.3 in the Warm Spitzer Observer's Manual .

Bright Objects as of November 1, 2005 (S13)

Things to avoid while using.

These lists, and those accessed through Spot, may contain erroneous entries. It is the responsibility of the observer to visualize the bright source locations on corresponding images in Spot to verify the reality of the listed objects.

For IRAC, targets are subject to flagging as bright objects if they are within 10 arcmin of the center of an IRAC aperture. This distance is subject to change at any time.

Brightest Planets

What's up there? Many wondrous things! There are many objects that might be visible and get your notice. The p lanets Venus, Jupiter, Saturn and maybe Mars and even Mercury may be bright enough to garner your attention.

The inner planets, Mercury and Venus will always be relatively low in the sky and be visible in the evening or morning because of the geometry of their orbits and the Earth's. The outer planets, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can be seen throughout the night from evening to morning and can appear in the sky anywhere from horizon to zenith (the point in the sky directly above you). This is also due to the geometry of their orbits and the Earth’s.

How Common Are Unidentified Bright Objects on Brain MRIs in Children With Neurofibromatosis Type 1?

Background

UBOs are defined as areas of increased T2 signal intensity without mass effect or contrast enhancement most commonly found in the cerebellum, brainstem, and basal ganglia. UBOs are present in 43% to 93% of children with NF1.

The objective of a recent study was to investigate the possibility of including the presence of UBOs as a diagnostic criterion for NF1 in children.

The study has concluded that the sensitivity for the presence of unidentified bright objects (UBOs) for the diagnosis of neurofibromatosis type 1 (NF1) is 70%, with a specificity of 100%.

MRIs were acquired independently and analyzed by two neuroradiologists according to a protocol, which was to identify UBOs, their location, and the presence of mass effect, contrast enhancement, or restrictive diffusion.

Neuroradiology Review

The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

Course Directors: David Yousem, MD, MBA and Doris Lin, MD, PhD Maintaining certification requires not only medical knowledge to deliver quality care but also other essential elements that must be developed and maintained throughout every radiologist’s career. Therefore, this program serves as a comprehensive review of neuro-radiology and prepares the participants to tackle imaging of the brain, spine, head and neck, as well as the vascular anatomy of the central nervous system. Click here to read more or order: Neuroradiology Review

Results of the Study

Forty patients were included in the case group and 48 patients in the control group. The mean age at presentation was 11 years in the case group and 7 years in the control group. UBOs were seen in 70% of children with a diagnosis of NF1 and in none of the children in the control group. The sensitivity of the presence of UBOs in patients with NF1 was 70%. Accordingly, the specificity was 100%, and the positive predictive value was 100%.

The basal ganglia was the region most affected, followed by the thalamus. There was no restrictive diffusion abnormality, and no mass effect was associated with the UBOs.