First day of summer 2013 has nothing on northern Norway's 60 days of sun

The first day of summer 2013 in the United States, the longest day of the year, still has less sunlight than northern Norway right now. Territories in the arctic circle have, effectively, 60 first days of summer.?

By Saleha Mohsin,?Guest Blogger / June 21, 2013

The first day of summer 2013 is the year's longest day in terms of sunlight, but it still pales in comparison to the amount of sun in northern Norway. This photo was taken in North Cape at exactly midnight.

Courtesy of Saleha Mohsin

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Today the sun will shine for 18 hours, 50 minutes and 1 second.

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Saleha Mohsin is an American journalist living in Norway with her British husband, Faisal, and their two-year-old son, Mazen. She grew up in Ohio and worked in London, where she wrote for the popular British tabloid?The Daily Mirror and?Businessweek. Her experiences as an expat living in Oslo are the basis of her Edge of the Arctic blog.

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Now I realize that in December, when the days are short and the imposing darkness begins to wear on me, I?ll regret having said this: I?m tired of the sun. My body needs the kind of peace that only a dark, starry night can provide.

At first I was looking forward to being in Oslo on June 21, the longest day of the year. The best remedy for a grim Norwegian winter is the buildup to the summer solstice. But I went on a whirlwind trip with the Foreign Press Association into the?Arctic Circle?where, for five days, I didn?t see a cloud in the sky. Just the intense, bright yellow sun. In northern Norway towns like?Kirkenes,?Honningsv?g,?and?Vard?, the sun doesn?t set for 60 days. Even when the peak of the midnight sun has passed, twilight increases by just 40 minutes each day. There isn?t a proper dark night from April through August.

The first two days I was charmed by the whole thing. Sunshine all the time! Having to wake up about four hours earlier than I?d like?didn?t feel so tough because the brightness and surprisingly warm weather lifted my spirits.

After a few days I started to feel tired. The sun was there when I got up at 6am for a press conference with the prime ministers of Russia and Norway, and at 2pm when we drove to the Norwegian-Russian border for a ceremony. When I clambered into bed at 11pm, I could see the sunshine bursting through the ineffective hotel curtains. My eyes opened for a moment around 3am and the blazing sun made me feel like I had fallen asleep watching television in the middle of the day. Even after eight hours of sleep I still felt like all I?d had a power-nap.

By the end of the week I was programmed to fall asleep when the lights were simply turned off. I nearly nodded off during a Power Point presentation by an oil company executive.

Fortunately for them, localers are used to 60 days of sunshine in the summer and 60 days of darkness in the winter. I spoke to a native of Finnmark County in the High North and he said besides being a little more tired than usual in the summer, he didn?t find it too challenging. ?We aren?t depressed drunks in the winter, nor are we hyperactive in the summer,? he said, debunking ubiquitous myths. ?It?s really not a big deal.?

I was lucky enough to have the chance to go to?North Cape?(Nordkapp?in Norwegian), a 1,007-foot-high cliff with a plateau that attracts tourists from around the world to see the midnight sun in the summer and?northern lights?in the winter.

North Cape is the second northern-most point of Europe, a mere 2,102.3 kilometers from the North Pole. It has restaurants, a small chapel for weddings, a museum, a theater with a short video about the natural beauty of the High North, and a cheesy souvenir shop.

North Cape offers panoramic views of the point where the?Norwegian Sea,?which is?part of the?Atlantic Ocean, meets the?Barents Sea, part of the?Arctic Ocean.

The midnight sun can be seen from 14 May to the 31st of July. The sun reaches its lowest point from 12:14 ? 12:24am during those days.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/Fs9zy2UzoXk/First-day-of-summer-2013-has-nothing-on-northern-Norway-s-60-days-of-sun

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Debt Management: 5 Reasons Paying Down Your Debt Might Be ...

Debt.

It?s something that we Americans have been eager to pile on and slow to pay off. A 2012 survey by Bankrate.com suggests that 25 percent of Americans carry more credit card debt than emergency savings.? And according to NerdWallet.com, the average amount of credit card debt per indebted household stood at a staggering $15,216 as of June, 2013.

If just looking at those numbers makes you squeamish, you?re not alone. Carrying mass amounts of debt is bad for us in more ways than one and can have severe long-term effects that go well beyond our finances.

Here are 5 ways in which it might be more important than you realized to begin strategizing your debt-reduction plan today?

1.)??? Your health

You know that thing people say when the going gets tough - ?At least you have your health?? Well if you?re in debt, you might not be as healthy as you?re letting on.

Multiple studies over the years suggest a correlation between indebtedness and stress. Depression, anxiety, panic attacks and ulcers have all been linked to debt-related stress by medical experts at WebMD, among other online resources.

If you?re stressing out about your debt, there?s a good chance that your health is taking a direct toll as well.

2.)??? Your dating life

As the New York Times reported on late last year, a question that comes up more and more on first and second dates is, ?What?s your credit score??

No, seriously.

High debt can lead to a bad credit score in more ways than one ? minimum payments too big to pay off each month, or sky-high amounts owed that make you look like a high risk in the eyes of creditors ? but you probably didn?t think it would hurt your dating life, too.

With the Great Recession hardly in our rearview mirror, a frugal and responsible spender is considered by many these days a must in a mate.? Don?t let debt derail your dating life.

3.)??? Your career

Not only can a poor credit score derail your hopes of getting hired for your dream job (it can), but the debt often associated with such credit woes can lead to a lack of productivity in the workplace.

As reported by The Guardian, two-thirds of those polled by the Consumer Credit Counseling Service said that, ?Work has become difficult due to the constant worry about debt?. How you make your living can suffer from debt problems at home as well, yet another reason why formulating a debt-reduction plan is one of the most important things you can do for your well-being.

4.)??? Your future financial goals

Obviously, carrying a high amount of debt puts future ?milestone purchases? in jeopardy, since big-ticket items like a car and a home require good credit for reasonable loan interest rates.

Carrying a high amounts of debt ? especially credit card debt ? raises a red flag to lenders that you?re unwilling or unable to pay off your debts. Naturally, this could mean high interest rates on the above items that might nudge them out of your price range; that is if you?re approved at all.

Finally?

5.)??? Your estate

Let?s assume that you already own your own home and have moved into your retirement years. The estate you?ve worked to build upon and maintain for your financial well-being as well as the well-being of your benefactors (i.e. your spouse, your kids, your grandchildren, etc.) relies considerably on how much debt you carry when you pass on.

While the children of a parent who has passed isn?t liable to pick up the tab on unpaid debts at the time of their debt, creditors are ultimately the ones paid off first in an estate sale. That is to say, your benefactors won?t receive a dime of your sold estate until your creditors have been paid in full.

Carrying an unsustainable amount of debt has negative impacts in both the future and the present. Consider your financial situation, ask yourself if it is making your life stressful, and begin to strategize on how you plan to pay down your debt as soon as possible.

We recommend making a budget, setting realistic but aggressive financial goals, and even telling your friends and loved ones about your plan to pay down your debt to nothing. A support system is helpful when paying down debt and you might even rally a few of your debt-stricken friends to join you on the wagon as well.

Whatever it takes, just know that devising a plan today is the first step to gaining a better dating life, a better career and ? perhaps most importantly ? the ability to finally get some sleep at night.

Photo Credit: Images Money

Source: http://www.dumblittleman.com/2013/06/debt-management-5-reasons-paying-down.html

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Tobii And Synaptics Partner On Ultrabook Prototype With Eye Tracking Tech

You will gaze at your computer, and your computer will gaze back. That's the inevitable path of progress in interface design, as evidenced by ongoing projects from companies like Leap Motion, Umoove, pmdtechnologies and more. Now, Sweden's Tobii Technology is taking a step forward with its own approach, via a prototype ultrabook design created in partnership with touchpad company Synaptics.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/eTPMXkN7qpU/

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Nissan launching $100 per month Leaf battery replacement program in 2014

How much would a Leaf owner pay to banish range anxiety? If your answer was "$100 a month," then Nissan's got a proposition for you. The car maker is gearing up to launch a domestic battery replacement program for its EV in 2014 that'll set you back that aforementioned sum. Similar to Nissan's setup in Europe, if your battery can only hold nine out of 12 bars worth of charge, it'll replace the unit with a new or reconditioned unit. The company insists that very few will ever actually need to replace the battery, but hey, squeezing $1,200 a year out of its existing customers is a sure-fire way to inspire loyalty.

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/06/21/nissan-leaf-battery-program/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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Birkenstock Shoes Being a Low-priced Way of Bettering Your Health ...

A Birkenstock product sales event is often a actual welcome browsing event for all the individuals who care for their ft because it lets you get a keep on these marvelous sneakers without the need of paying overmuch. 1st, let us have a look at what Birkenstock shoes actually are. Birkenstocks are sneakers created out of natural materials like cork and leather-based utilized in order to ameliorate the wellness of the feet and with them, the wellness of the entire entire body.

The positive results of Birkenstocks can be professional right away simply because they modify the style you walk primarily. Firstly they 're pretty much all uncovered, so that your feet can respire, even when you 're acquiring on socks (which happens to be fully okay providing you don't drive them around your knees!) . This cuts down sweating as well as hazard with fungus or bacteriums perceptibly and will even get rid of some infections ensuing from having on shut shoes excessively frequently.

Second, Birkenstocks have a definitely specially prepared within the place your foot is retained totally cozy within to ensure that you do not need to care about slipping. This superior in shape leaves your ft unfastened to unclench rather than having to keep on towards the shoes is genuine reposeful as well as a marvellous rest on your foot muscular tissues. The actual inside assortment may perhaps show up unknown at the beginning simply because it's not necessarily flat like other sneakers, but your feet will increase accustomed thereto and in some cases favour it about other kinds for the reason that it retains them from acquiring wrung, flat or hollowed out in excess of the several years http://www.armaniwatchescollection.co.uk.

For a shoe doing exercises for your personal wellness, the good forces do not halt only at your feet. Your angle is ready, as well, which controls your back again hurting will get fewer or else you in impact protect against again hurting in case you 're nevertheless vernal. It really is like holiday break, but for toes. Becoming made outside of high-quality elements, Birkenstocks can be whole wet, soaked in H2O for warm summertime times and created clear any design and style you want without having nearly anything occurring. Just ideate having amazing ft through the entire working day in the summertime by exactly imbuing them in great H2O while in the morn! .

Quite a few shoe-selling internet sites and retailers have Birkenstocks on minimize level sale justly currently, as in just about every other time from the 12 months, and when you want to do a thing great in your ft, go check out them out and ensure you give your feet whatever they require for even considerably less revenue than typical on the Birkenstock slice price sale. http://www.premierchaussonsfrance.fr

Source: http://www.sharkscopers.com/blog/action2007/birkenstock-shoes-being-low-priced-way-bettering-your-health-and-fitness-and-wellbei

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The Red Queen was right: Life must continually evolve to avoid extinction

June 20, 2013 ? The death of individual species shouldn't be the only concern for biologists worried about animal groups, such as frogs or the "big cats," going extinct. A University of California, Berkeley, study has found that a lack of new, emerging species also contributes to extinction.

"Virtually no biologist thinks about the failure to originate as being a major factor in the long term causes of extinction," said Charles Marshall, director of the UC Berkeley Museum of Paleontology and professor of integrative biology, and co-author of the report. "But we found that a decrease in the origin of new species is just as important as increased extinction rate in driving mammals to extinction."

The effects of such a decrease would play out over millions of years, Marshall said, not rapidly, like the global change Earth is experiencing from human activities. Yet, the findings should help biologists understand the pressures on today's flora and fauna and what drove evolution and extinction in the past, he added.

The results, published June 20 in the journal Science Express, come from a study of 19 groups of mammals that either are extinct or, in the case of horses, elephants, rhinos and others, are in decline from a past peak in diversity. All are richly represented in the fossil record and had their origins sometime in the last 66 million years, during the Cenozoic Era.

The study was designed to test a popular evolutionary theory called the Red Queen hypothesis, named after Lewis Carroll's character who, in the book "Through the Looking Glass," described her country as a place where "it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place."

In biology, this means that animals and plants don't just disappear because of bad luck in a static and unchanging environment, like a gambler losing it all to a run of bad luck at the slot machines. Instead, they face constant change -- a deteriorating environment and more successful competitors and predators -- that requires them to continually adapt and evolve new species just to survive.

Though the specific cause of declining originations and rising extinctions for these groups is unclear, the researchers concluded that the mammals' death was not just dumb luck.

"Each group has either lost, or is losing, to an increasingly difficult environment," Marshall said. "These groups' demise was at least in part due to loss to the Red Queen -- that is, a failure to keep pace with a deteriorating environment."

Marshall and former UC Berkeley post-doctoral fellow Tiago Quental found that the animal groups were initially driven to higher diversity until they reached the carrying capacity of their environment, or the maximum number of species their environment could hold. After that, their environment deteriorated to the point where there was too much diversity to be sustained, leading to their extinction.

"In fact, our data suggest that biological systems may never be in equilibrium at all, with groups expanding and contracting under persistent and rather, geologically speaking, rapid change," he said.

Marshall and Quental, who is now at the University of Sao Paolo, Brazil, will present their results in two talks this Saturday, June 22, at the Evolution 2013 meeting in Snowbird, Utah.

Source: http://feeds.sciencedaily.com/~r/sciencedaily/top_news/top_environment/~3/ij2PGsuRi5I/130620142934.htm

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