While it’s been public knowledge for quite some time that various meditation techniques, such as classical meditation, yoga, and tai-chi, can improve one’s overall health and well-being, a new statistical study shows that these practices have a related tangible benefit to society, in that it appears that they reduce the need for the use of health care services.
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Hurricane Patricia, which struck southern Mexico over the weekend made landfall so quickly that it declined within hours into a tropical storm, then broke up into disorganized cells. Patricia was the most powerful hurricane ever recorded. However, the speed with which it came ashore in a relatively arid area meant that its vertical circulation was impeded, and what could have been a great disaster became an event involving flooding and minor wind damage.
Farther north in Texas, an extension of the storm complex dumped as much as 20 inches of rain east of Dallas, but for the most part the state experienced a rainfall 4 to 6 inches, which is resulting in a significant increase in water levels in reservoirs and aquifers.
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NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory has just announced that they have discovered an asteroid that will pass near the Earth on October 31. While it will zip by us at a safe distance, at approximately 280,000 miles (450,000km) away, just outside of the Moon’s orbit, the asteroid is troubling in that it was only detected on October 10, less than two weeks ago.
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The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has released their forecast for the upcoming 2015-2016 winter season, of which is expected to be strongly influenced by the current El Niño pattern in the Pacific.
NOAA is predicting that above-average temperatures will persist across the northern US and down the west coast, while temperatures across the southeast are expected to be below average.