Risks of Consanguinity

Earliest Embryonic Lethality Gene Identified

EurekaAlert! – November 4, 2015 -- A new study, published in the open access journal Genome Biology, has identified a single gene (TLE6) which, when mutated, is responsible for human embryonic lethality at an earlier stage of development than has ever previously been documented.

Many genetic mutations exist which are fatal to developing embryos, but identifying them can be difficult, especially in the earliest stages of embryonic development. Identifying the genetic mutations responsible for embryo lethality provides new insights into the biological processes underlying embryonic development, and could also potentially lead to improved fertility treatments, by allowing scientists to screen and identify unviable embryos before implantation as part of IVF treatment.

Researchers from Alfaisal University and King Faisal Specialist Hospital and Research Centre, Saudi Arabia worked with two consanguineous families, where a marriage has taken place within the same family, in which several women were having persistent difficulties conceiving after IVF treatment. Using gene sequencing to study the embryos conceived by these women, the researchers found that a mutation in a single gene (TLE6) was halting the development of embryos at a very early stage.

Around one in seven people worldwide live in communities with consanguineous marriages, which is particularly common in North Africa, the Middle East and West Asia. In consanguineous marriages, there is often an increased prevalence of homozygous recessive genotypes. This makes the effects and characteristics of these genotypes much easier to identify and study, allowing researchers to gain new insights into genetic development.

Although previous studies have worked with consanguineous families to identify genes responsible for embryonic lethality in the late first trimester and beyond, this is the first study to pinpoint a gene which works in the earliest stages of embryonic development at the pre-implantation stage. Although the mechanism by which mutation in TLE6 stops embryonic development is not clear, the results show that the identified mutation in the maternal effect gene TLE6, which encodes a component of the sub-cortical maternal complex, impairs binding to other components of this complex. These results are supported by available data from mouse models in which deficiency of the individual components of the sub-cortical maternal complex results in an arrest at very early stages of embryonic development. The researchers suggest that mutations in TLE6 and other components of the subcortical maternal complex may be an under recognized cause of female infertility in humans.

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-11/bc-eel110315.php

List of Dystopian Films

This is a list of dystopian films. A dystopia (from the Greek δυσ- and τόπος, alternatively, cacotopia, kakotopia, cackotopia, or anti-utopia) is an imaginary community or society that is undesirable or frightening.  It is literally translated as "not-good place", an antonym of utopia. Such societies appear in many artistic works, particularly in stories set in a future. Dystopias are often characterized by dehumanization, totalitarian governments, ruthless megacorporations, environmental disaster, or other characteristics associated with a dramatic decline in society. Dystopian societies appear in many subgenres of fiction and are often used to draw attention to potential as well as real-world trends and issues in society, which can range from environmental, cultural, political, economical, religious, psychological, ethical, scientific to technological issues, which if unaddressed could potentially lead to dystopia.

Not to be confused with List of apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic fiction.

List

The Tenth Victim (1965), 12 Monkeys (1995), 1984  (1956), 2081 (2009), A Boy and his Dog (1974), A Clockwork Orange (1971), A Scanner Darkly (2006), A.I. (2001), Aeon Flux (2005), Akira (1988), Alphaville (1965), The Animatrix (2003), Antiviral (2012). Atlas Shrugged Part I (2011), Automata (2014), Babylon A.D. (2008), Batman (1989), Battle Royale (2000), Battlefield Earth (2000), Blade Runner (1982), Blindness (2008), Book of Eli (2010), The Bothersome Man (2006), Brave New World (1980), Brazil (1985), Cargo (2009), Casshern (2004), CHAPPiE (2015), Cherry 2000 (1987), Children of Men (2006), City of Ember (2008), City of Lost Children (1995), Cloud Atlas (2012), Code 46 (2003), Colossus, the Forbin Project (1970), The Congress (2013), Dark City (1998), Dark Metropolis (2010), Daybreakers (2009), The Day the Earth Caught Fire (1961), Dead End Drive-in (1986), Death Race 2000 (1975), Death Race (2008), Death Watch (1980), Demolition Man (1993), Le Dernier Combat (1983), District 9 (2009), Divergent (2014), The Divergent Series: Insurgent (2015), Downstream (2010), Dredd (2012), Ellcia (1993), Elsyuium (2013), The End of Evangelion (1993), Ender’s Game (2013), Equilibrium (2002), Escape from L.A. (1996), Escape from New York (1981), eXistenZ (1999), Farenheit 451 (1966), Fantastic Planet (1973), FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions (1973), The Fifth Element (1997), Forbidden Planet (1956), Fortress (1993), Freejack (1992), Futureworld (1976), Gamer (2009), Gattaca (1997), Ghost in the Shell (1995), The Giver (2014), The Handmaid’s Tale (1990), Hardware (1990), Harrison Bergeron (1995), The Hunger Games (2012), The Hunger Games: Catching Fire (2013), The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part I (2014), I Am Legend (2007), I, Robot (2004), Idiocracy (2006), The Inhabited Island (2009), In Time (2011), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978), The Island (2005), La Jetee (1962), Johnny Mnemonic (1995), Judge Dredd (1995), Kin-dza-dza (1986), Land of the Blind (2006), The Last Battle (1983), The Last Man on Earth (1964), The Lego Movie (2014), Logan’s Run (1976), Looper (2012), Mad Max (1979), Mad Max: The Road Warrior (1981), Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome (1985), Mad Max Fury Road (2015), The Man Who Fell to Earth (1976), The Matrix (1999), The Matrix Reloaded (2003), The Matrix Revolutions (2003), Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into the Future (1985), The Maze Runner (2014), Metropia (2009), Metropolis (1927), Metropolis (2001), Minority Report (2002), Moon (2009), Natural City (1997), Never Let Me Go (2010), Nineteen Eighty-Four (1984), Nirvana (1997), No Blade of Grass (1970), Oblivion (2013), The Omega Man (1971), On the Beach (1959), Outland (1981), Paranoia 1.0 (2004), Planet of the Apes (original series) (1968-1973), Planet of the Apes (reboot series) (2011 to present), Pleasantville (1998), The Postman (1997), Priest (2001), Punishment Park (1971), The Purge (2013), The Purge: Anarchy (2014), Radio Free Albemuth (2010), Renaissance (2006), Repo Man (1984), Repo Men (2010), Repo! The Genetic Opera (2008), Resident Evil series (various), The Road (2009), RoboCop (1987), Rollerball (1975), The Rover (2015), The Running Man (1987), Seconds (1966), Silent Running (1972), Sleep Dealer (2008), Sleeper (1973), Snowpiercer (2013), Surrogates (2009), Southland Tales (2007), Soylent Green (1973), The Stand (1994), Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002), Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith (2005), Strange Days (1995), Tank Girl (1995), Tekken (2010), The Terminator (1984), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), Terminator 3 (2003), Terminator Salvation (2009), They Live (1998), The Thing (1951), Things to Come (1936), THX 1138 (1971), The Time Machine (1960), The Trial (1962), Total Recall (1990), Total Recall (2012), Transcendence (2014), Ultraviolet (2006), V for Vendetta (2006), Videodrome (1983), WALL-E  (2008), Watchmen (2009), Waterworld (1995), Westworld (1973), When Worlds Collide (1951), World on a Wire (1973), Z.P.G. (1972), Zardoz (1974), The Zero Theorem (2014), Z for Zachariah (2014)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_dystopian_films

George Gobel's Unique Style

George Leslie Gobel (May 20, 1919 – February 24, 1991) was an American comedian and actor.  He was best known as the star of his own weekly NBC television show, The George Gobel Show, which ran from 1954 to 1960 (the last season on CBS, alternating with The Jack Benny Program).

Early Years

He was born George Leslie Goebel in Chicago, Illinois, His father, Hermann Goebel, was a butcher and grocer who had emigrated to the United States with his parents in the 1890s from the Austrian Empire. His mother, Lillian (MacDonald) Goebel, was born in Illinois to immigrant parents from Scotland. He was an only child.

Gobel graduated from Theodore Roosevelt High School in Chicago in 1937.

Gobel initially pursued an entertainment career as a country music singer, appearing on the National Barn Dance on WLS radio, and later on KMOX in St. Louis.  Gobel enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces during World War II and served as a flight instructor in AT-9 aircraft at Altus, Oklahoma and later in B-26 Marauder bombers at Frederick, Oklahoma.  In a 1969 appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson, Gobel joked about his stateside service, "There was not one Japanese aircraft that got past Tulsa." After his discharge at the end of the war, he switched from singing to comedy.

                                                               George Gobel, c. 1954

Television

Gobel began a comedy show on NBC in 1954.  It showcased his quiet, homespun style of humor, a low-key alternative to what audiences had seen on Milton Berle's shows. A huge success, the popular series made the crewcut Gobel one of the biggest comedy stars of the 1950s. The weekly show featured vocalist Peggy King and actor Jeff Donnell, as well as numerous guest artists, including such stars as Jimmy Stewart, Fred MacMurray, Henry Fonda and Tennessee Ernie Ford.  In 1955, Gobel won an Emmy Award for "most outstanding new personality."

On October 24, 1954, Gobel hosted Light's Diamond Jubilee, a two-hour TV special broadcast on all four US television networks of the time.

Gobel and his business manager David P. O'Malley formed a production company, Gomalco, a composite of their last names Gobel and O'Malley. This company also produced the first four years (1957–61) of the 1957-63 television series Leave It to Beaver.

The centerpiece of Gobel's comedy show was his monologue about his supposed past situations and experiences, with stories and sketches allegedly about his real-life wife, Alice (nicknamed "Spooky Old Alice" and played by actress Jeff Donnell). Gobel's hesitant, almost shy delivery and penchant for tangled digressions were the chief sources of comedy, more important than the actual content of the stories. His monologues popularized several catchphrases, notably "Well, I'll be a dirty bird" (spoken by the Kathy Bates character in the 1990 film Misery), "You don't hardly get those any more" and "Well then there now" (spoken by the James Dean character during a brief imitation of Gobel in the 1955 film Rebel Without a Cause).

                                                        Gobel with Hoagy Carmichael

Gobel's show used some of television's top writers of the era: Hal Kanter, Jack Brooks and Norman Lear.  Peggy King was a regular on the series as a vocalist, and the guest stars ranged from Shirley MacLaine and Evelyn Rudie to Bob Feller, Phyllis Avery and Vampira.

Gobel labeled himself "Lonesome George," and the nickname stuck for the rest of his career. The TV show typically included a segment in which Gobel appeared with a guitar, started to sing, then got sidetracked into a story, with the song always left unfinished after fitful starts and stops, a comedy approach that prefigured the Smothers Brothers. He had constructed a special version of the Gibson L-5 archtop guitar featuring diminished dimensions of neck scale and body depth, befitting his own smaller stature. Several dozen of this "L-5CT" or "George Gobel" model were produced in the late 1950s and early 1960s. He also played the harmonica.

In 1957, three U.S. Air Force B-52 Stratofortress bombers made the first nonstop round-the-world flight by turbojet aircraft. One of the bombers was called "Lonesome George." The crew later appeared on Gobel's primetime television show and recounted the mission, which took them 45 hours and 19 minutes. Lonesome George, the non-breeding Galapagos tortoise that was the last of its 10-million-year-old species and that died in June 2012, was also named after Gobel.

From 1958 to 1961, Gobel appeared in Las Vegas at the El Rancho Vegas and in Reno at the Mapes Hotel. In 1961, Gobel starred (with Sam Levene, Barbara Nichols, and Paula Stewart) in a Broadway musical called "Let It Ride!" Score by Jay Livingston and Ray Evans. Gobel's singing voice proved accurate and charming in a laid-back manner. Critics compared the show unfavorably to "How to Succeed in Business ..." and it closed after only a couple of months in New York.

TV Guest Appearances

Gobel was a guest on various TV programs, including The Ford Show Starring Tennessee Ernie Ford, The Bing Crosby Show, The Dinah Shore Show, Death Valley Days, and Johnny Carson's The Tonight Show. An episode of My Three Sons in December, 1960 was titled "Lonesome George", where Gobel played himself on the episode. In an often-replayed segment from a 1969 episode of The Tonight Show, Gobel followed Bob Hope and Dean Martin, walking onstage with a plastic cup with an unidentified drink. Gobel ribbed Carson about coming on last and having to follow major stars Hope and Martin. He quipped to Carson, "Did you ever get the feeling that the world was a tuxedo and you were a pair of brown shoes?", to which Carson, Hope, Martin, and the audience came unglued with laughter. After the laughter died down, Carson asked Gobel about his career in World War II as a fighter pilot. Gobel feigned bewilderment at why people laugh when he says that he spent the war in Oklahoma, pointing out that no Japanese plane ever got past Tulsa. Gobel also began to get some unexpected laughs, being unaware that Dean Martin had begun flicking his cigarette ashes into Gobel's drink. Observing all of this, Carson finally asked rhetorically, "Exactly what time did I lose control of the show?!"

In the 1970s, Gobel was a regular panelist on the television game show Hollywood Squares hosted by Peter Marshall. He was also the voice of Father Mouse in the 1974 Christmas special Twas the Night Before Christmas, and sang the song Give Your Heart a Try in that production. He also made a guest appearance on Hee Haw in 1976. In the early 1980s Gobel played Otis Harper, Jr., the mayor of Harper Valley in the television series based on the film Harper Valley PTA.

Films

When ratings soared on The George Gobel Show (rated in the top ten of 1954-55), Paramount promoted Gobel as their new comedy star, casting him as the lead in The Birds and the Bees (1956), a remake of The Lady Eve (1941), with David Niven (playing a third-billed supporting role under Gobel and leading lady Mitzi Gaynor).

However, Gobel's TV success did not translate to the big screen. The film performed so poorly at the box office that release was delayed on his second Paramount movie, I Married a Woman, filmed in 1956 but not released until 1958. Although scripted by Goodman Ace, it also resulted in disappointing ticket sales, and Gobel's career as a Paramount movie star came to an abrupt end. He settled into a succession of TV guest star appearances and did not return to movie screens until two decades later, as a character actor in Joan Rivers' Rabbit Test (1978), followed by The Day It Came to Earth (1979) and Ellie (1984). He made nine TV movies during the 1970s and 1980s.

Gobel was considered for the voice of Winnie-the-Pooh by Walt Disney, but turned it down after reading the books and finding Pooh to be "an awful bore."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Gobel

 

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Afterword by the Blog Author

Gobel was a uniquely calm and low-key celebrity.  His folksy manner and likeability could and would turn with lightning speed into explosively comic remarks and reactions.  He was unequalled as the straight man in comedy routines.  Although the Smothers Brothers and Sonny Bono carried this tradition into the 1960s and 1970s, Gobel never had a genuine successor.  He was an original.

 

I have not seen the movie I Married a Woman, but is difficult to believe that it was a bomb, especially since it was filmed at the height of Gobel’s career and was taken from a screenplay by Goodman Ace, himself a huge talent at radio comedy who became a writer for the best comedians of the early television era (see the blog entry on “Easy Aces.” of December 26, 2013)

The Last Hollywood Star

Olivia Mary de Havilland (born July 1, 1916) is a British-American actress known for her early ingenue roles, as well as her later more substantial roles.  Born in Tokyo to English parents, de Havilland and her younger sister, actress Joan Fontaine, moved to California in 1919. She performed as Melanie Hamilton in Gone with the Wind (1939) and in eight co-starring roles opposite Errol Flynn, including Captain Blood (1935), The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938), Dodge City (1939), Santa Fe Trail (1940), and They Died with Their Boots On (1941). She is one of the last living actors/actresses from the Golden Age of Hollywood. At the age of 99, she is the oldest living actor who has won an Academy Award, and she is the last surviving major actor from the film Gone with the Wind.

                                                      De Havilland as Melanie Hamilton
                                                      Wilkes in Gone with the Wind, 1939

De Havilland won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949); de Havilland and sister Fontaine are the only siblings to have won lead acting Academy Awards. She also received the National Board of Review Award, the New York Film Critics Circle Award, the Italian National Syndicate of Film Journalists Silver Ribbon, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup for her performance in The Snake Pit (1948). She was awarded the Golden Globe Award for her performance in The Heiress in 1950 and for Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna in 1987. In 1960, she was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for her work in films. In 2008, she was presented with the National Medal of Arts by President George W. Bush.

Throughout the late 1930s, de Havilland appeared in a variety of light romantic comedy films, including Call It a Day (1937), Four's a Crowd (1938), and Hard to Get (1938), as well as period films such as Anthony Adverse (1936) and The Great Garrick (1937). Her refined demeanor and beautiful diction made her particularly effective in the latter films. While her performances were generally well received by critics and the public, they did not advance her career toward the more serious roles she desired.  One such role was the character of Melanie Hamilton in David O. Selznick's upcoming film adaptation of Margaret Mitchell's epic novel Gone with the Wind. Having read the novel, de Havilland knew she could bring the character to life on the screen. According to some sources, her sister Joan Fontaine was approached by director George Cukor to audition for the role. Interested more in playing Scarlett O'Hara, Fontaine reportedly turned him down, recommending her sister.  Ultimately, Jack L. Warner’s wife Ann was instrumental in de Havilland getting the part.  She was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.

De Havilland received the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performances in To Each His Own (1946) and The Heiress (1949), and was also widely praised for her Academy Award–nominated performance in The Snake Pit (1948), one of the earliest films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness and an "historically important Hollywood exposé of the grim conditions in state mental hospitals".  De Havilland was lauded for her willingness to play a role that was completely devoid of glamour and that confronted such controversial subject matter. She won the New York Film Critics Award for both The Snake Pit and The Heiress.

Chalabi Finally Dies

Ahmed Abdel Hadi Chalabi (30 October 1944 – 3 November 2015) was an Iraqi politician.

He was interim Minister of Oil in Iraq in April–May 2005 and December 2005 – January 2006 and Deputy Prime Minister from May 2005 to May 2006. Chalabi failed to win a seat in parliament in the December 2005 elections, and when the new Iraqi cabinet was announced in May 2006, he was not given a post. Once dubbed the "George Washington of Iraq" by American supporters, he later fell out of favor and came under investigation by several U.S. government sources. He was also the subject of a 2008 biography by investigative journalist Aram Roston, The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, And Obsessions of Ahmad Chaabi and a 2011 biography by 60 Minutes producer Richard Bonin, Arrows of the Night: Ahmad Chalabi's Long Journey to Triumph in Iraq.

Chalabi was a controversial figure, especially in the United States, for many reasons. In the lead-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), with the assistance of lobbying powerhouse BKSH & Associates, provided a major portion of the information on which U.S. Intelligence based its condemnation of the Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, including reports of weapons of mass destruction and alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Most, if not all, of this information has turned out to be false and Chalabi has been called a fabricator.  That, combined with the fact that Chalabi subsequently boasted, in an interview with the British Sunday Telegraph, about the impact that their alleged falsifications had on American policy, led to a falling out between him and the U.S. government. Furthermore, Chalabi was found guilty in the Petra banking scandal in Jordan.  In January 2012, a French intelligence official stated that they believed Chalabi to be an Iranian agent.

As a Banker in Jordan

In 1977, he founded the Petra Bank in Jordan.  In May 1989, the Governor of the Central Bank of Jordan, Mohammed Said Nabulsi, issued a decree ordering all banks in the country to deposit 35% of their reserves with the Central Bank.  Petra Bank was the only bank that was unable to meet this requirement. An investigation was launched which led to accusations of embezzlement and false accounting. The bank failed, causing a $350 million bail-out by the Central Bank.  Chalabi fled the country before the authorities could react. Chalabi was convicted and sentenced in absentia for bank fraud by a Jordanian military tribunal.  Chalabi maintained that his prosecution was a politically motivated effort to discredit him.

It was reported by BBC News in May 2015 that the Jordanian government was considering whether to pardon Chalabi, in part to ease the relations between Jordan and the new Iraqi government of which Chalabi was a member.  According to one report, Chalabi proposed a $32 million compensation fund for depositers affected by Petra Bank's failure. The website for Petra Bank contains a press release stating that Chalabi would refuse the pardon.  Although Chalabi always maintained the case was a plot to frame him by Baghdad, the issue was revisited when the U.S. State Department raised questions about the accounting practices of the Iraqi National Congress (INC).  According to The New York Times, "Chalabi insisted on a public apology, which the Jordanians refused to give."

Invasion of Iraq

Before the Iraq War (2003), Chalabi enjoyed close political and business relationships with some members of the U.S. government, including some prominent neoconservatives within the Pentagon.  Chalabi was said to have had political contacts within the Project for the New American Century, most notably with Paul Wolfowitz, a student of nuclear strategist Albert Wohlstetter, and Richard Perle. He also enjoyed considerable support among politicians and political pundits in the United States, most notably Jim Hoagland of The Washington Post, who held him up as a notable force for democracy in Iraq.  He was a special guest of First Lady Laura Bush at the 2004 State of the Union Address.

The CIA was largely skeptical of Chalabi and the INC, but information allegedly from his group (most famously from a defector codenamed "Curveball") made its way into intelligence dossiers used by President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to justify an invasion of Iraq. "Curveball", Rafid Ahmed Alwan al-Janabi, fed officials hundreds of pages of bogus "firsthand" descriptions of mobile biological weapons factories on wheels and rails.  Secretary of State Colin Powell later used this information in a U.N. presentation trying to garner support for the war, despite warnings from German intelligence that "Curveball" was fabricating claims.  Since then, the CIA has admitted that the defector made up the story, and Powell said in 2011 the information should not have been used in his presentation.  A later congressionally appointed investigation (Robb-Silberman) concluded that Curveball had no relation whatsoever to the INC, and that press reports linking Curveball to the INC were erroneous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Chalabi

An Afterword about Chalabi

Fiasco by Thomas E. Ricks is a famous book published in 2006 about the 2003 Iraq war.  Ricks sounds thumps Chalabi and the serious effort by elements at the Pentagon to make Chalabi the new head of state for Iraq after the American conquest of the nation in the spring of 2003.

Exoplanet Losing Its Atmosphere

Worlds within Worlds: Hubble Peels
Back the Layers of a Warm Neptune
NASA -- Oct. 31, 2015 -- They say you can’t judge a book by its cover. But what about planets?

Take Neptune for example. For many years, especially since 1989 when Voyager 2 flew past Neptune and measured its gravity field, astronomers have known that the blue giant harbors a secret world inside. Hidden deep below the azure cloud tops lies a rocky core not much larger than Earth. Uranus has one, too! These “worlds within worlds” could have exotic properties including scorching hot oceans and diamond rain.

If only researchers could peel back the clouds for a closer look….

About 30 light years away, a Neptune-sized planet is having some of its layers peeled back.

Astronomers using NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have discovered an immense cloud of hydrogen evaporating from a Neptune-sized planet named GJ 436b.

“This cloud is spectacular,” says the study’s leader, David Ehrenreich of the Observatory of the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “The research team has nicknamed it ‘The Behemoth.’”

The planet’s atmosphere is evaporating because of extreme irradiation from its parent star—a process that might have been even more intense in the past.

“The parent star, which is a faint red dwarf, was once more active,” says Ehrenreich. “This means that the planet’s atmosphere evaporated faster during its first billion years of existence. Overall, we estimate that the planet may have lost up to 10 percent of its atmosphere.”

GJ 436b is considered to be a “Warm Neptune” because of its size and because it is much closer to its parent star than Neptune is to our own sun. Orbiting at a distance of less than 3 million miles, It whips around the central red dwarf in just 2.6 Earth days. For comparison, the Earth is 93 million miles from the sun and orbits it every 365.24 days.

Systems like GJ 436b could explain the existence of so-called “Hot Super-Earths.”

“Hot Super-Earths” are larger, hotter versions of our own planet. Space telescopes such as NASA’s Kepler and the French led CoRoT have discovered hundreds of them orbiting distant stars. The existence of The Behemoth suggests that Hot Super-Earths could be the remnants of Warm Neptunes that completely lost their gaseous atmospheres to evaporation.

Finding a cloud around GJ 436b required Hubble’s ultraviolet vision. Earth’s atmosphere blocks most ultraviolet light so only a space telescope like Hubble could make the crucial observations.

“You would not see The Behemoth in visible wavelengths because it is optically transparent,” says Ehrenreich. On the other hand, it is opaque to UV rays. “So when you turn the ultraviolet eye of Hubble onto the system, it’s really kind of a transformation because the planet turns into a monstrous thing.”

The ultraviolet technique could be a game-changer in exoplanet studies, he adds. Ehrenreich expects that astronomers will find thousands of Warm Neptunes and Super-Earths in the years ahead. Astronomers will want to examine them for evidence of evaporation. Moreover, the ultraviolet technique might be able to spot the signature of oceans evaporating on Earth-like planets, shedding new light on worlds akin to our own.

Maybe you can’t judge a book by its cover, but you can judge a planet by its Behemoth.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2015/31oct_worlds/

Outcast or Exile or Pariah

Outcast defined brilliantly in the Urban Dictionary

Outcast

1.- someone who doesn't belong in his main social area (work, school, the street) Has only a few friends, but usually doesn't really hang out with them. Someone who is told by his betters that he has wisdom beyond his years, but his peers make fun of him for it. He's a little insane, after all, humans are social creatures. But his heart is mature, calm and kind. He never really does anything big for himself, and most of the things he does are for other people. He's just misunderstood, and people hate him for no reason. He's usually the victim of every negative stereotype and rumor. But hey, he doesn't have a social life, it doesn't matter to him, he hardly has anything to lose.

2.- Me

I'm an outcast, whether you like it or not, and there's nothing i can do for you socially, so why do you keep supporting me?

by da outkast February 12, 2005

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=outcast

= = = = = = = = = = = = = = == = = = = = = = = = = = = = =

Outcast [from Wikipedia]

The term outcast has its roots in the caste system, a form of social stratification based entirely on a person's birth family (usually paternal). The most famous caste system is the Indian caste system, which has since been outlawed, yet the caste a family used to hold, still holds some regard for marriage and other purposes. The family a person is born into is the caste they will belong to for their life; with the only exception being marriage, in which case the woman will move up or down depending upon the caste of the man's family. Outside of the caste system are people considered not to belong to any caste; either criminals or socially stigmatized. These people are known as outcasts. While in western cultures this may be seen as unfair, one must consider the culture. The people occupying a caste system in India believed in reincarnation, with a persons caste or status being based upon the way you lived your previous life. So being born into a specific caste was an indicator of how your previous life was lived. There are very radical caste systems as well, an example would be slavery in America.

In popular culture, an outcast is a person with social stigma or untouchability, who is rejected or 'cast out', as from home or society, or in some way excluded, looked down upon, or ignored.

History

In Ancient Greece it was customary to write a person's name on a piece of broken pottery, and later place it in a large container in a public location if one had behaved in a manner that was deemed overly aggressive or offensive. These broken pieces of pottery were called ostraka. If an individual were to have his or her name written 6,000 times the entire community would give that person the silent treatment for ten years. This was also the same procedure for banishing or 'ostracising' individuals from Ancient Greek society.

Civilization and Its Discontents

In Civilization and Its Discontents, psychologist Sigmund Freud propounds the fundamental tensions that exist for the individual and for the civilization that the individual lives within. Friction producing discontent, primarily stemming from the individual prioritizing his/her instinctual freedom (individuals quest for individual freedom) and civilization's needs for conformity and instinctual repression. Considered a text without unconsolation (focusing on the prevalence of human guilt and the impossibility of achieving unalloyed happiness) Freud contended that no social solution of the discontents of mankind is possible, all civilizations, no matter how well planned, can provide only partial relief.  Even Eros, is not fully in harmony with civilization. The realities of the human condition are to develop and focus upon a balance between the repressive burdens of civilization and the realization of instinctual gratification and the sublimated love for mankind. The reconciliation of nature and culture was considered impossible, for civilized existences produce guilt by the necessary suppression and control (thwarting) of persons' instinctual drives. Although elsewhere Freud had postulated mature, heterosexual genitality and the capacity to work productively as the hallmarks of health and urged that where id is, there shall ego be, it is clear that he held out no hope for any collective relief from the discontents of civilization. He only offered an ethic of resigned authenticity, which taught the wisdom of living without the possibility of redemption, either religious or secular.

Exiles

To be exiled is to be away from one's home (i.e. city, state or country), while either being explicitly refused permission to return and/or being threatened with imprisonment or death upon return. It can be a form of punishment.  Exile can also be a self-imposed departure from one's homeland. Self-exile is often seen to be in some way a protest by the person that claims it, to avoid persecution or legal matters ( tax,criminal allegations, or otherwise),through shame or repentance, or perhaps to isolate oneself in order to devote time to a particular thing. Article 9 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that, "No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.”

Exiles and Pariahs by Example

On the Indian sub continent the word pariah comes from the Tamil word parai, literally meaning "to say or tell something". In the olden days, paraiyar announced public messages. They would draw the attention of people around them by beating their animal skin drums and then make public announcements. They were mostly drawn from the lowest strata of society or caste. Hence the word pariah has become a general word for a low caste person. A cognate word exists in Malayalam language which is used to say something without any pejorative connotation. People will often avoid contact or communication with an outcast, and sometimes even restrain themselves from going near them. Generally, in these extreme cases, any individual who has sympathy for an outcast, and tries to befriend or socialize with them, may cause themselves to lose popularity, or even become an outcast themselves. Usually, a person is an outcast because they are unpopular, that is, they are generally disliked, or even hated by other people and have a low social status because of it. However, sometimes a person is an outcast because they are shy or feared by other people, and therefore rejected (as other people may try to avoid them). In severe cases, a social outcast may become depressed, as they may endure much persecution and discrimination from other people - a homeless wanderer; vagabond.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcast_(person)