5 Prayers to Pray for Difficult Family Relationships

When a New York office worker stopped to hear a street performer sing‚ the guitarist could tell this audience member had an ear for music. YouTuber Reginald Guillaume‚ also known as Guitaro 5000‚ loves getting people to share their hidden talents. That’s what inspired “Sing With Me‚” a project where the musician invites passersby to join him in song. This time‚ he opened up the mic for an Alicia Keys cover with Katie Smith‚ an employee at a local office who happened to be walking nearby. Although the office worker told Reggie that she was passionate about her job‚ she also revealed that she’s always loved to sing. In fact‚ it had been only six months ago that she was on stage in California. However‚ she left the state to pursue new opportunities in New York. Screengrab from guitaro5000/YouTube “I love my job‚” she said. “I wouldn’t trade it for the world.” Katie chose to perform a cover of “If I Ain’t Got You” by Alicia Keys. Her rendition of the soulful love song blew her listeners away! In fact‚ Reggie invited the office worker to sing an encore: Adele’s hit‚ “Hello.” Watch the video below to hear this woman’s incredible voice! You can find the source of this story’s featured image here. The post Office Worker Joins Busker And Shocks Passersby With Incredible Alicia Keys Cover. appeared first on InspireMore.

A judge decided to release Ron Jeremy to a 'private residence' because of deteriorating health; women the disgraced porn icon is accused of assaulting shared frustration and acceptance.

Prediction: Harvard Will Have a New President Next Year

For many of us‚ dogs are our best friends. But have you wondered what would happen to your dog if we suddenly disappeared? Can domestic dogs make do without people?At least 80 percent of the world’s one billion or so dogs actually live independent‚ free-ranging lives – and they offer some clues. Who would our dogs be if we weren’t around to influence and care for them?What are dogs?Dogs hold the title of the most successful domesticated species on Earth. For millennia they have evolved under our watchful eye. More recently‚ selective breeding has led to people-driven diversity‚ resulting in unique breeds ranging from the towering Great Dane to the tiny Chihuahua.Humanity’s quest for the perfect canine companion has resulted in more than 400 modern dog breeds with unique blends of physical and behavioral traits. Initially‚ dogs were bred primarily for functional roles that benefited us‚ such as herding‚ hunting and guarding. This practice only emerged prominently over the past 200 years.Some experts suggest companionship is just another type of work humans selected dogs for‚ while placing a greater emphasis on looks. Breeders play a crucial role in this‚ making deliberate choices about which traits are desirable‚ thereby influencing the future direction of breeds.Are we good for dogs?We know certain features that appeal to people have serious impacts on health and happiness. For instance‚ flat-faced dogs struggle with breathing due to constricted nasal passages and shortened airways. This “air hunger” has been likened to experiencing an asthma attack. These dogs are also prone to higher rates of skin‚ eye and dental problems compared with dogs with longer muzzles.Many modern dogs depend on human medical intervention to reproduce. For instance‚ French Bulldogs and Chihuahuas frequently require a caesarean section to give birth‚ as the puppies’ heads are very large compared with the mother’s pelvic width. This reliance on surgery to breed highlights the profound impact intensive selective breeding has on dogs.And while domestic dogs can benefit from being part of human families‚ some live highly isolated and controlled lives in which they have little agency to make choices – a factor that’s important to their happiness.Dogs without usNow imagine a world where dogs are free from the guiding hand of human selection and care. The immediate impact would be stark. Breeds that are heavily dependent on us for basic needs such as food‚ shelter and healthcare wouldn’t do well. They would struggle to adapt‚ and many would succumb to the harsh realities of a life without human support.That said‚ this would probably impact fewer than 20 percent of all dogs (roughly the percentage living in our homes). Most of the world’s dogs are free-ranging and prevalent across Europe‚ Africa and Asia.But while these dogs aren’t domesticated in a traditional sense‚ they still coexist with humans. As such‚ their survival depends almost exclusively on human-made resources such as garbage dumps and food handouts. Without people‚ natural selection would swiftly come into play. Dogs that lack essential survival traits such as adaptability‚ hunting skills‚ disease resistance‚ parental instincts and sociability would gradually decline.Dogs that are either extremely large or extremely small would also be at a disadvantage‚ because a dog’s size will impact its caloric needs‚ body temperature regulation across environments‚ and susceptibility to predators.Limited behavioral strategies‚ such as being too shy to explore new areas‚ would also be detrimental. And although sterilized dogs might have advantageous survival traits‚ they would be unable to pass their genes on to future generations.No more designer breedsUltimately‚ a different type of dog would emerge‚ shaped by health and behavioral success rather than human desires.Dogs don’t select mates based on breed‚ and will readily mate with others that look very different to them when given the opportunity. Over time‚ distinct dog breeds would fade and unrestricted mating would lead to a uniform “village dog” appearance‚ similar to “camp dogs” in remote Indigenous Australian communities and dogs seen in South-East Asia.These dogs typically have a medium size‚ balanced build‚ short coats in various colors‚ and upright ears and tails. However‚ regional variations such as a shaggier coat could arise due to factors such as climate.In the long term‚ dogs would return to a wild canid lifestyle. These “re-wilded” dogs would likely adopt social and dietary behaviors similar to those of their current wild counterparts‚ such as Australia’s dingoes. This might include living in small family units within defined territories‚ reverting to an annual breeding season‚ engaging in social hunting‚ and attentive parental care (especially from dads).This transition would be more feasible for certain breeds‚ particularly herding types and those already living independently in the wild or as village dogs.What makes a good life for dogs?In their book A Dog’s World‚ Jessica Pierce and Marc Bekoff explore the idea of “doomsday prepping” our dogs for a future without people. They encourage us to give our dogs more agency‚ and consequently more happiness. This could be as simple as letting them pick which direction to walk in‚ or letting them take their time when sniffing a tree.As we reflect on a possible future without dogs‚ an important question arises: are our actions towards dogs sustainable‚ in their best interests‚ and true to their nature? Or are they more aligned with our own desires?By considering how dogs might live without us‚ perhaps we can find ways to improve their lives with us.Bradley Smith‚ Senior Lecturer in Psychology‚ CQUniversity Australia and Mia Cobb‚ Research Fellow‚ Animal Welfare Science Centre‚ The University of MelbourneThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

There has been increased interest in unidentified flying objects (UFOs) ever since the Pentagon’s 2021 report revealed what appears to be anomalous objects in US airspace‚ dubbed unidentified aerial phenomena (UAP). Fast forward to 2023‚ and Nasa has already formed a panel to investigate the reports and appointed a director  for UAP research.A newly founded Pentagon desk has also released footage of mysterious metallic orbs. What is perhaps most remarkable is that David Grusch‚ a former intelligence officer‚ testified under oath before the US Congress‚ stating that he had interviewed around 40 people involved in secret programmes dealing with crashed UFOs.I am interested in searching the sky for alien‚ physical objects which may one day tell us whether we are alone in the galaxy. Consider this: within our own Milky Way galaxy‚ there are 40 billion Earth-sized‚ potentially habitable planets.Human ingenuity has enabled us to engineer and launch probes like Voyager and Pioneer‚ capable of reaching the closest stars. We’ve initiated efforts such as the Breakthrough Starshot programme which aims to reach nearby star Alpha Centauri in just a few decades by exploring innovative propulsion methods. Sending a probe may be more economical than sending out radio or laser communication if there is no need to hurry.If humans can send a probe to another star‚ why couldn’t another civilisation send a probe to our Solar System? Such a probe could make it to the main asteroid belt and lurk on an asteroid.Or‚ it could make its way to the Earth‚ entering our atmosphere. If observed‚ it would be branded as a “UFO”. A civilisation capable of producing and sending probes could dispatch millions of them on exploratory missions throughout our galaxy.Some may argue that such probes could only exist if they adhere to the laws of physics and engineering as we understand them today. However‚ humanity is a relatively young civilisation‚ and our knowledge is constantly evolving.While humans have dreamt of flying for millennia as we gazed at the skies‚ it has only been 120 years since the Wright brothers achieved the first powered flight. That’s about as long ago as Albert Einstein published his theory of special relativity.Is it really so difficult to imagine that a civilisation that is hundreds of thousands years older than ours might have learned more about the laws of physics or developed a few more engineering tricks?If a civilisation were to evolve into artificial intelligence (AI)‚ it might survive for millions of years. This could mean it would casually regard slow to a neighbouring star as nothing more than a leisurely stroll.That said‚ few astronomers felt impressed by the US Navy videos or government reports. We need significantly better evidence and data than what has been presented so far.Unveiling UFOsHow can we test whether there are extra terrestrial probes near Earth‚ and whether they can be tied to the possible UFO phenomenon? There are many options. Analysing materials from potentially crashed UFOs could give irrefutable proof. This would require state-of-the-art techniques to determine if these wrecks exhibit exotic or distinctly different characteristics of manufacture.Obtaining such exotic samples‚ if they indeed exist‚ may prove challenging – they are rumoured to be in the hands of private companies. But newly proposed legislation might offer a solution to that problem in United States by mandating that all artificial materials from any non-human intelligence be surrendered to the US government.In the projects I lead‚ we are searching for artificial non-human objects by looking for short light flashes in the night sky. Short flashes typically occur when a flat‚ highly reflective surface — such as a mirror or glass — reflects sunlight. It could‚ however‚ also result from an artificial object emitting its own internal light.Such short light flashes sometimes repeat and follow a straight line as the object tumbles in space during its orbit around the Earth. This is why satellites often appear as repeating light flashes in images.Historical photographic plates taken before the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957 have revealed the presence of nine light sources (transients) that appear and vanish within an hour in a small image‚ defying astronomical explanations. In some cases‚ the transient light sources are even aligned‚ just like when short flashes come from moving objects.The three disappearing stars. [Edited‚ higher-resolution version of Fig 2 in paper by Solano et al. (2023)(https://academic.oup.com/mnras/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnras/stad3422/7457759)]‚ CC BYThe most recent finding of this kind shows three bright stars in an image dated July 19‚ 1952 (coincidentally‚ the same time as the famous Washington UFO flyovers). The three stars were never seen again.Searching for alien probes in the modern night sky presents a serious but necessary challenge. A new research programme‚ known as ExoProbe‚ searches for short light flashes from potential alien objects with the help of multiple telescopes.To verify the authenticity of each flash‚ it must be observed in at least two different telescopes. Since these telescopes are separated by hundreds of kilometres‚ any light flash caused by an object within the inner Solar System enables the measurement of parallax — the apparent shift in the position of an object as seen from two different points — and the calculation of the distance to the object.The ExoProbe project also uses its own methods to filter out light flashes from the millions of space debris fragments and thousands of satellites cluttering the sky. By adding a telescope taking real-time spectra (the wavelength distributions of the light) of the objects in a wide field‚ you can analyse the transients before they vanish into nothingness.Finally‚ increasing the number of telescopes further enhances accuracy in measuring parallax and determining the actual three dimensional location of the object. Ultimately‚ the goal is to identify any potential alien object and bring it back to Earth for further study.Some 60 years of searches for extraterrestrial civilisations in the radio frequencies have yielded no candidates whatsoever. We find ourselves at a moment in time when new paths must be explored. That means we can finally focus our attention closer to home. Regardless of the outcome‚ this journey is certainly an homage to our insatiable curiosity.Beatriz Villarroel‚ Assistant professor of Physics‚ Stockholm UniversityThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Physicists have long struggled to explain why the universe started out with conditions suitable for life to evolve. Why do the physical laws and constants take the very specific values that allow stars‚ planets and ultimately life to develop? The expansive force of the universe‚ dark energy‚ for example‚ is much weaker than theory suggests it should be – allowing matter to clump together rather than being ripped apart.A common answer is that we live in an infinite multiverse of universes‚ so we shouldn’t be surprised that at least one universe has turned out as ours. But another is that our universe is a computer simulation‚ with someone (perhaps an advanced alien species) fine-tuning the conditions.The latter option is supported by a branch of science called information physics‚ which suggests that space-time and matter are not fundamental phenomena. Instead‚ the physical reality is fundamentally made up of bits of information‚ from which our experience of space-time emerges. By comparison‚ temperature “emerges” from the collective movement of atoms. No single atom fundamentally has temperature.This leads to the extraordinary possibility that our entire universe might in fact be a computer simulation. The idea is not that new. In 1989‚ the legendary physicist‚ John Archibald Wheeler‚ suggested that the universe is fundamentally mathematical and it can be seen as emerging from information. He coined the famous aphorism “it from bit”.In 2003‚ philosopher Nick Bostrom from Oxford University in the UK formulated his simulation hypothesis. This argues that it is actually highly probable that we live in a simulation. That’s because an advanced civilisation should reach a point where their technology is so sophisticated that simulations would be indistinguishable from reality‚ and the participants would not be aware that they were in a simulation.  Physicist Seth Lloyd from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US took the simulation hypothesis to the next level by suggesting that the entire universe could be a giant quantum computer.And in 2016‚ business magnate Elon Musk concluded “We’re most likely in a simulation” (see video above).Empirical evidenceThere is some evidence suggesting that our physical reality could be a simulated virtual reality rather than an objective world that exists independently of the observer.Any virtual reality world will be based on information processing. That means everything is ultimately digitised or pixelated down to a minimum size that cannot be subdivided further: bits. This appears to mimic our reality according to the theory of quantum mechanics‚ which rules the world of atoms and particles. It states there is a smallest‚ discrete unit of energy‚ length and time. Similarly‚ elementary particles‚ which make up all the visible matter in the universe‚ are the smallest units of matter. To put it simply‚ our world is pixelated.The laws of physics that govern everything in the universe also resemble computer code lines that a simulation would follow in the execution of the program. Moreover‚ mathematical equations‚ numbers and geometric patterns are present everywhere – the world appears to be entirely mathematical.Another curiosity in physics supporting the simulation hypothesis is the maximum speed limit in our universe‚ which is the speed of light. In a virtual reality‚ this limit would correspond to the speed limit of the processor‚ or the processing power limit. We know that an overloaded processor slows down computer processing in a simulation. Similarly‚ Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity shows that time slows in the vicinity of a black hole.Perhaps the most supportive evidence of the simulation hypothesis comes from quantum mechanics. This suggest nature isn’t “real”: particles in determined states‚ such as specific locations‚ don’t seem to exist unless you actually observe or measure them. Instead‚ they are in a mix of different states simultaneously. Similarly‚ virtual reality needs an observer or programmer for things to happen.Quantum “entanglement” also allows two particles to be spookily connected so that if you manipulate one‚ you automatically and immediately also manipulate the other‚ no matter how far apart they are – with the effect being seemingly faster than the speed of light‚ which should be impossible.This could‚ however‚ also be explained by the fact that within a virtual reality code‚ all “locations” (points) should be roughly equally far from a central processor. So while we may think two particles are millions of light years apart‚ they wouldn’t be if they were created in a simulation.Possible experimentsAssuming that the universe is indeed a simulation‚ then what sort of experiments could we deploy from within the simulation to prove this?It is reasonable to assume that a simulated universe would contain a lot of information bits everywhere around us. These information bits represent the code itself. Hence‚ detecting these information bits will prove the simulation hypothesis. The recently proposed mass-energy-information (M/E/I) equivalence principle – suggesting mass can be expressed as energy or information‚ or vice versa – states that information bits must have a small mass. This gives us something to search for.I have postulated that information is in fact a fifth form of matter in the universe. I’ve even calculated the expected information content per elementary particle. These studies led to the publication‚ in 2022‚ of an experimental protocol to test these predictions. The experiment involves erasing the information contained inside elementary particles by letting them and their antiparticles (all particles have “anti” versions of themselves which are identical but have opposite charge) annihilate in a flash of energy – emitting “photons”‚ or light particles.I have predicted the exact range of expected frequencies of the resulting photons based on information physics. The experiment is highly achievable with our existing tools‚ and we have launched a crowdfunding site) to achieve it.There are other approaches too. The late physicist John Barrow has argued that a simulation would build up minor computational errors which the programmer would need to fix in order to keep it going. He suggested we might experience such fixing as contradictory experimental results appearing suddenly‚ such as the constants of nature changing. So monitoring the values of these constants is another option.The nature of our reality is one of the greatest mysteries out there. The more we take the simulation hypothesis seriously‚ the greater the chances we may one day prove or disprove it.Melvin M. Vopson‚ Senior Lecturer in Physics‚ University of PortsmouthThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.