Smartphone Apps Protect and Warn

Iphones make many of us nervous, but new iphone apps can save you from both big and small problems. One of these apps warns you about high levels of solar activity, which fluctuates over an 11-year cycle, It’s likely to peak over the next year, which could send radioactive particles from strong solar storms, via cosmic rays, down to the Earth (NOTE: Subscribers can still listen to this show). This could cause major problems for the 1,000 satellites now flying in space, but will probably only effect your cell phone use, unless the radiation is so strong that we need to take cover.

In BBC News, Jonathan Ball quotes researcher Ephraim Fischbach as saying that one of the biggest geomagnetic storms on record–the Carrington event of 1859. According to Fischbach, "There was so much energy from this solar storm that the telegraph wires were seen glowing. Because we now have a sophisticated infrastructure of satellites, power grids and all sorts of electronic systems, a storm of this magnitude today would be catastrophic. Having a day and a half warning could be really helpful in averting the worst damage."

Another phone app will help you protect yourself from pesticides by identifying whether the food you’re about to eat really is organic. A company called Lapka is developing an iPhone plug-in that it claims can detect fake organic food. Since organic food has become so popular that the demand is outstripping the supply, this can be a major problem.

In the Huffington Post, Drew Guarini writes: "Sensors in the device measure humidity, temperature, radiation and, something called, ‘organicity,’ which apparently reveals how ‘organic’ a food is. Currently in the prototype stage, the plastic and wood sensors plug into your iPhone’s headphone jack. The device pokes a piece of food with a steel probe to check the nitrate concentration, a chemical component commonly used in fertilizers that are non-organic in nature."

Sometimes what seems like a small problem to other people can be a BIG problem for us–Visitor contact is one of those experiences. Other people laugh and think it’s silly, but it’s not if you have to deal with it. We’re here to help, and one of the major ways we do this is by interviewing contactees–just for our subscribers–and letting them tell their stories in their own words.