It’s Official: Astronauts Can Grow Potatoes in Martian Soil

Rosalie Chan

In The Martian, astronaut Mark Watney starts growing a farm on Mars using the potatoes meant for Thanksgiving dinner. As it turns out, this might actually be possible in real life if humans ever do colonize Mars. Scientists from the International Potato Center (CIP) (yes, it’s an actual thing) successfully grew potatoes grown in a synthetic soil that mimics the Martian earth.

The CIP started the Potatoes on Mars project in February 2016 in Lima, Peru to see how potatoes would grow and survive in Martian conditions. Wednesday’s announcement of positive results could open up a world of extraterrestrial agriculture that makes it much easier for future generations living on another world to keep themselves full and fed.

“The question we want to know is, can you grow food on Mars,” Chris McKay of NASA’s Ames Research Center tells Inverse. “Potatoes are a good example of a good food. We eat a lot of them. There’s been a lot of research on potatoes as a life support crop. For this particular crop, we want to know how close to Mars-like conditions can potatoes grow.”

Scientists chose to experiment with potatoes because these crops have a high genetic capacity for adapting to extreme environments. Previously, the CIP has grown potatoes that can tolerate conditions caused by climate change, like soil salinity and drought. For this experiment, scientists grew potatoes in soil from the Pampas de La Joya desert in southern Peru, which is dry and similar to Mars’s soil.

These potatoes have been growing inside a CubeSat, which has a container with soil and the tubers and a suite of sensors and cameras to monitor the conditions. It delivers nutrient rich water and simulates Mars’s temperature, air pressure, and atmosphere.

The scientists will continue conducting experiments to find out what kind of potatoes grow best and what minimum conditions potatoes need to survive, including low pressures and low temperatures. This experiment also has practical uses for Earth, as scientists will test whether potatoes can grow in extreme conditions that might hit Earth because of climate change.

On Earth, farmers grow potatoes under warm conditions, but on Mars, the temperatures and pressure are much lower. However, if potatoes can stand Mars-like conditions, in the future, astronauts might not need to build a greenhouse that simulates Earth-like conditions.

“Maybe it could be a tenth of Earth-like conditions,” McKay says. “That makes the greenhouse a lot easier to build.”

Right now, astronauts in space currently eat freeze-dried space food. But for extended missions, like missions to Mars, this isn’t practical, as astronauts need more nutrients, and freezing takes up resources. Plus, if we move onto Mars, we need a sustainable way to grow food and produce oxygen — otherwise, we’ll run out.

NASA’s Advanced Food Technology Project is working on solutions to feed astronauts in space while minimizing waste and energy costs. If we were to send a crew to Mars now, we’d have to load their spacecraft with 7,000 pounds of food. But growing fruits and vegetables would lessen the amount of food astronauts would need to bring to Mars. Plus, astronauts will be healthier and happier from eating food that is not irradiated turkey or astronaut ice cream.

Previously, scientists have engineered an artificial leaf that can produce oxygen and sugar, proposed growing food and medicine using genetically engineered bacteria, planted sweet potatoes and strawberries in simulated Martian conditions, and even 3D printed pizza.

According to McKay, in the near future, NASA hopes to take this potato experiment to the red planet to actually grow them on Mars’s red soil. The payload would have to be as minimal as possible.

“We’d do that experiment way before people go to Mars,” McKay says. “The first time we grow potatoes on Mars isn’t going to be for someone’s dinner. It will be to make sure it works.”

Like Mark Watney, in the future, we may survive on Mars by getting our fill of potato carbs, without having to alter the soil much. But hopefully our crops don’t get destroyed by an airlock explosion.

“It looks like potatoes can do fine in the soil,” McKay says. “You don’t need to add human manure the way they did in that movie.”

Photos via International Potato Center

WHAT'S NEXT

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{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

Why This Part of the Universe Makes No Sense to Scientists

Cassie Kelly

New data from NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and the Herschel Space Observatory is undoing a century of scientific evidence, boggling astronomer’s minds and proving that nothing in the universe is set in stone.

There are several star clusters sprinkled throughout the Large Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy neighboring the Milky Way. A star cluster is a group of stars, originally believed to all be created around the same time, and held together by gravity until galactic winds eventually sweep them apart. Clusters have acted as a kind of control group for scientists who are studying how new stars form. But, now, it appears they aren’t actually controlled environments at all.

In some of these star clusters, a research group from the International Centre for Radio Astronomy Research in Perth observed the presence of newborn stars, which would indicate the cluster are not on a timestamped life but rather constantly evolving. To verify this, the group cross-matched the sites of the clusters with sites of newborn stars. In the resulting analysis, scientists concluded that there were at least 15 young stars residing in much older clusters. The results are published in the new issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

“We believe the younger stars have actually been created out of the matter ejected from older stars as they die, which would mean we have discovered multiple generations of stars belonging to the same cluster,” Kenji Bekki an ICRAR astronomer and co-author of the new paper, said in a press release.

This throws all previous knowledge of clusters out the window, affecting models and data that have been collected over the past 100 years. To further understand this new discovery, scientists will be using the Hubble Space Telescope to probe the Large Magellanic Cloud with ultraviolet light to see beyond the stellar dust shrouding the young stars from scientists’ view.

“If we point Hubble at the clusters we’ve been studying, we should be able to see both young and old stars and confirm once and for all that star clusters can contain several generations of stars,” said Bekki.

Photos via NASA/JPL-Caltech/M. Meixner (STScI) & the SAGE Legacy Team.

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{ https://www.inverse.com/ }

The Gigantic Megaliths of Ural Mountains in Russia

{ https://www.youtube.com/ }

The secret world of the Knights Templar revealed: Caverns used by the shadowy warrior monks 700 years ago are just a few feet inside a rabbit hole 

By James Dunn For Mailonline

Once used as a ceremonial spot for the followers of a secretive religious sect, these are the underground caves offering safe haven after leaders of the free world brutally dismantled the group's power base.

The caves in Shropshire were once a place of pilgrimage and worship for followers of the Knights Templar, a feared fighting force during the Crusades who built an international power base on their reputation and spoils.

The untouched caverns date back to a time when the Knights were prominent before King Philip IV of France, fearful of their power and deeply in their debt, attempted to dismantle the renowned group.

Many were tortured into confessions and burnt at the stake in order to publicly discredit them, but after they were literally forced underground, caves such as those in Shropshire offered haven to members and followers.

The Caynton Caves lay untouched for years and it is still not known exactly when they were carved. Some believe it was by their knights 700 years ago while some think it was by their followers in the 17th century.

In recent times they have been used by numerous groups including druids and pagans wishing to find a safe place to worship, as the Templar's followers had used it for centuries ago.

Although they were closed up five years ago after the landowners became sick of the constant requests and found the caves strewn with litter and new carvings, adding to the crosses etched in the walls from long ago.

Photographer Michael Scott, from Birmingham, 33, captured the eerie pictures of the inside for the first time since it was shut in 2012. He said: 'I traipsed over a field to find it, but if you didn't know it was there you would just walk right past it. It's probably less than a metre underground, so it's more into the field than under it.

'Considering how long it's been there it's in amazing condition, it's like an underground temple.'

Shadowy: Once used as a ceremonial spot for the followers of a secretive religious sect, these are the underground caves offering safe haven after leaders of the free world brutally dismantled the group's power base

Historic: The caves in Shropshire were once a place of pilgrimage and worship for followers of the Knights Templar, a feared fighting force during the Crusades who built an international power base on their reputation and spoils

Enlightened: Sunlight rushes in through the small openings in the caves, just metres under the surface of the ground in Shropshire, once used by followers of the Knights Templar (right, stock image) that made its name in the Crusades

Forced underground: The untouched caverns date back to a time when the Knights were prominent before King Philip IV of France, fearful of their power and deeply in their debt, attempted to dismantle the renowned group

Scratching the surface: The entrances to the caves look barely bigger than rabbit holes when seen from the ground above but below is an intricate underground cavern

Born again: In recent times they have been used by numerous groups including druids and pagans wishing to find a safe place to worship, as the Templar's followers had used it for centuries ago

Casting a shadow: The caves were closed up five years ago after the landowners became sick of the constant requests and found the caves strewn with litter and new carvings, adding to the crosses etched in the walls from years gone by

Light it up: Photographer Michael Scott, from Birmingham, set out in search of the historical wonder after seeing a video of it online and captured the eerie pictures of the inside for the first time since it was shut in 2012

Holy place: Inside the caves, as well as plenty of places to rest candles, there is what appears to be a basic stone altar on the wall on the right

Hole in the wall: The intricately carved caves feature cleverly engineered pillars to hold the weight and make them safe for the worshipers inside, as well as ornate archways and squares 

Lost in time: The Caynton Caves lay untouched for years and it is still not known exactly when they were carved. Some believe it was by their knights 700 years ago while some think it was by their followers in the 17th century

Safe haven: In recent times they have been used by numerous groups including druids and pagans wishing to find a safe place to worship, as the Templar's followers had used it for centuries ago.

See the light: The caves add fuel to the widely held view that the Templar were not disbanded in the 14th century after being attacked by the French king, but instead went underground and still exert control within many powerful organisations

{ http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ }

Two Foo Fighters Following Plane Over Sweden On Feb 25, 2017, Photos, UFO Sighting News.

Date of sighting: February 25, 2017

Location of sighting:  Gnesta, Sodermanland, Sweden

Source: MUFON #82564

Back in WWI and WWII this type of UFOs were called Foo Fighters. A large glowing orb that was as big as a car and often matched speed with the fighter planes, flying a log side them for hours at a time. Awesome to see they are still out there. 
Scott C. Waring

 

Eyewitness states: 

Me and my girlfriend where out on our lawn, I´ve had my camera with me as usually. My girlfriend noticed an airplane in the sky above with some strange gloving lights behind it. I managed to take one photo before it dissapered behind a cloud.

{ http://www.ufosightingsdaily.com/ }

This House Was 3D Printed in Less Than 24 Hours

The first demonstration of the 3D printing technology is a cozy, 400-square-foot (37 square meters) home with an unusual, curved shape.

Credit: Apis Cor

A new house has been erected in a town outside Moscow, but this home was not built in the traditional sense — it was constructed with 3D printing.

The first 3D-printed residential home, engineered by the tech startup Apis Cor, took less than a day to construct and cost under $11,000 to complete. A mobile 3D printer created the building's concrete walls and partitions as a fully connected structure, rather than printing the building in panels at an off-site facility as is usually done, the company said. The portable machine was then removed from the building, and a group of contractors completed the home — adding the roof and windows, and finishing the interior.

By shifting the construction of the building's shell to 3D printing, Apis Cor aims to prove that this type of construction can be "fast, eco-friendly, efficient and reliable." [The 10 Weirdest Things Created by 3D Printing]

"We want to help people around the world to improve their living conditions," Nikita Chen-yun-tai, Apis Cor's founder and inventor of the mobile printer, said on the company's website. "That's why the construction process needs to become fast, efficient and high-quality as well. For this to happen, we need to delegate all the hard work to smart machines."

The first example of this work is a cozy, 400-square-foot (37 square meters) home with an unusual, curved shape. The curved design of the home was chosen to demonstrate the 3D printer's ability to print the construction material in any shape, according to Apis Cor.

Inside, the 3D-printed home has all of the standard features of a traditionally built house. The studio-style dwelling has a hall, bathroom, living room and compact kitchen. Apis Cor partnered with Samsung on the demonstration house; the electronics giant provided the home's appliances, including a TV with the same curvature as the living-room wall.

Apis Cor estimated that the total cost of the demonstration house's construction was about $25 per square foot, or $275 per square meter. Of the total $10,134 it cost to build the home, the windows and doors were the most expensive components, the company said.

While the total construction savings of the demonstation house compared to a tranditional home are difficult to estimate, Apis Cor representatives said in a statement that savings from 3D printing the building walls are guaranteed.

Original article on Live Science.

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{ http://www.livescience.com/ }

'Dinosaurs didn't have a space program and they became extinct', head scientist shares findings in Thunder Bay

By Cathy Alex, CBC News

This artist's concept allows us to imagine what it would be like to stand on the surface of the exoplanet TRAPPIST-1f, located in the TRAPPIST-1 system in the constellation Aquarius.

(NASA/JPL-Caltech/T. Pyle (IPAC))

">

The search for life beyond earth is helping to shed light on our past, our present, and our future, says James Green, the director of planetary science at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration headquarters in Washington, D.C.

"I think this is a fundamental question of inquiry at the moment," said Green, who is speaking Wednesday night in Thunder Bay as part of research and innovation week at Lakehead University.

• Finding life on 7 exoplanets will be a challenge: Bob McDonald

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"It's really all about the concept of how life started and are there locations beyond Earth where life could have started, and that's kind of important to know because they may be our neighbours someday."

'Not necessarily science fiction'

Research on the other planets in our solar system, and beyond, is starting to show "they may have harboured life in the past, and then, on top of that, there's environment that we're uncovering right now in the planets, and moons in particular, that may be conducive for life today, so it's a very exciting time for us," said Green.

James Green, director of planetary science at NASA headquarters in Washington, D.C. says this is "exciting time" for researchers studying the origins of life in the universe. He is speaking in Thunder Bay, Ont., on Wednesday.

(NASA)

It is becoming increasingly possible that it could one day be science fact, "not necessarily science fiction" that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe.

"Every step we take we get positive indications that something unusual is going on that we need to investigate further," said Green.

'What is our destiny?'

Sometimes that investigation offers hints of what may be to come, for those of us who call Earth home.

"What is our destiny of this species as we go millions of years into the future?," said Green, noting that Earth may not be in the safest location in the solar system, due to the presence of a large number of near-Earth objects, which have collided with our planet in the past, and will likely do so again in the future.

He points to the Earth's rock record, which suggests an impact with a nearby object of a significant size sending an enormous amount of debris into the atmosphere, blocking out the sun and leading to the extinction of more than 80 per cent of the life that existed on the planet at the time.

"The dinosaurs didn't have a space program and they became extinct."

Green's presentation, The Search for Life Beyond Earth, in Space and Time, begins at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday March 8 in ATAC 1003 at Lakehead University.

The presentation will be livestreamed.

James Green, director of planetary science at NASA, says the search for life beyond Earth is one of the fundamental areas of inquiry of our time.

(Lakehead University)

{ http://www.cbc.ca/news/ }

What IS the US military up to? Yet another 'alien portal’ opens in sky over secret base

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MH370 'FOUND on Google Earth' – ex US Air Force man claims THIS is the missing plane

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UFO 2017: CHILEAN NAVY RELEASE 10 MIN OF UFO FOOTAGE IN INFRARED

Unexplained UFO video just released from the Chilean Navy

The remarkable nine-minutes recorded by two Chileans from military showing an unidentified flying object (UFO) ejecting an unknown substance into the air, was introduced into the media society by Chilean government, after two years of long analyses and investigations.

CEFAA, the Chilean government's UFO investigations branch, was the only one at that time released such type of images. CEFAA works under the auspices of Chilean Air Force, committees of military experts, technicians and academics from many disciplines. None of them have been able to reach a consensus about what that object is, an object observed by those two militaries from coastal patrol.

When all the investigations among UFO's cases are accomplished, and the events are named as unidentified air phenomenas, the government's branch release them into the media. The General Ricardo Bermudez, the director of CEFAA in that period, explained: "We do not know exacly what that object was, but we do know for sure what that object wasn't." And "what that object wasn't" comes up with a long list of conventional explanations.

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{ http://www.disclose.tv/ }

Nuclear Weapons and UFOs

Since the dawn of the Atomic Age, hundreds of UFOs have been sighted over, or near, nuclear power plants, nuclear research laboratories, nuclear weapons launch control centers and nuclear warhead storage facilities. According to Dr. Donald Johnson of the Nuclear Connection Project:

A good percentage of these reports occurred at highly restricted government research and production facilities such as Los Alamos (NM), Oak Ridge (TN), Hanford (WA), and Savannah River (SC). Highly trained government scientists and personnel who had been granted top-secret military clearance made many of these reports.

As indicated by Francis Ridge, Coordinator of the Nuclear Connection Project:

The first major UFO sighting wave occurred in the summer of 1947 with over 800 sightings of ‘daylight discs’ or ‘flying saucers’. The sightings peaked and ceased within days of a reported crash of an object at Roswell, New Mexico.

At the time, New Mexico was the center of the world’s cutting edge rocket science research, nuclear weapons development, and newly operating radar systems. Some well known scientists such as physicist Stanton Friedman, believe it was these new technological projects that attracted the many UFO visits to New Mexico. Clearly someone other than the U.S. government was interested in these science/engineering breakthroughs. To retrieve a report of dozens of these UFO incidents, Google: UFO Intelligence Summary for the Nuclear Connection Project.

Among some of the most interesting UFO incursions have been those at U.S. nuclear weapons facilities. One of the world’s foremost UFO/nuclear weapons researchers is writer Robert Hastings, author of  UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites. Hastings has secured testimony of over 150 retired U.S. military officers and enlisted personnel who have observed UFOs, some of which have interrupted operations of nuclear weapons sites in the U.S. and overseas. In some cases, underground based nuclear missiles malfunctioned while disc-shaped objects silently hovered over their launch control centers. Similar incidents have occurred at numerous nuclear weapons storage areas and B-52 bomber alert pads. To retrieve declassified documents concerning these incidents, click here or here.

One of the most prominent U.S. UFO incidents occurred at Whiteman Air Force Base, Knob Noster, Missouri, where in 1984 the Air Force deployed 150 Minuteman nuclear missiles on high alert status which were presumably aimed at dozens of strategic areas in the Soviet Union. In support of those actively deployed warheads, were additional “spare” warheads which were stored in above ground containers known as “igloos”.

One late night at Whiteman, Airman 1st class Dale Hogan and his fellow airman, known only as George, were driving near the “igloos” when the motor of their jeep malfunctioned so that they had to park near igloo 4018. Upon doing so, Hogan saw a black disc approximately 50 feet in diameter hovering some 50 to 100 feet over the igloo. When Hogan, approached the igloo, he saw a pencil-thin, bluish-red light coming straight from the overhead disc doing a grid pattern examination of the igloo starting at one corner of the object and going back and forth about every three inches. At one point Hogan put his hand into the beam of light which changed to the color purple and burned his fingers. Hogan said: “…my hand was like numb! Like pins and needles…”

As the disc continued to survey the igloos, George called the Base Security Officer for orders. Shortly
thereafter, a security team was dispatched to the area, and the Lt. Colonel in charge ordered Hogan and George to move behind the igloo. Then a very large video camera was set up with a large spot light being beamed on the black disc. And, at that point, several Marine Harrier jet planes were dispatched to the area as the UFO began to move away from the igloos. As the jets approached the disc, the UFO easily outmaneuvered their pursuit and sped faraway from the area. As their chase was to no avail, the Harriers returned to Whiteman and landed. Then the UFO returned to the igloos and continued emitting the red-blue beam of light at the top of their surfaces. This grid search ended at about 4:30 a.m. and the disc ‘lit up’ and shot straight up in the sky never to be seen again.

Following this strange episode, Airmen Hogan and George were “debriefed”. by four men in gray suits and by several Whiteman officers. As part of the debriefing, Hogan and George were required to sign a non-disclosure agreement stating that they would never discuss the Whiteman UFO incident with anyone, and were told told that a violation of the agreement would result in immediate discharge from the Air Force, along with several other serious penalties.

In a very detailed interview with journalist and TV anchor, Linda Moulton Howe, Hogan repeated the following threats that were made by Whteman officers at the end of his debriefing:

Airman Hogan, bullets are cheap! People die all the time. They commit suicide on a regular basis. If you ever disclose what happened this night, you will not like the future. And family members die all the time – horrible deaths! Houses burn down. People die in car crashes all the time. So, for your family’s sake, I would not disclose what happened tonight.

To retrieve LInda Moulton Howe’s interview with Airman Dale Hogan, click here or watch embedded video above[

Bill Wickersham, MU Adjunct Professor of Peace Studies

{ http://exonews.org/ }

Yet more evidence emerges that our universe is a grand simulation created by an intelligent designer

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

{ http://www.naturalnews.com/ }

Yet more evidence emerges that our universe is a grand simulation created by an intelligent designer

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) There's a lot of buzz in the news about a new scientific study that statistically supports the idea that our known universe is actually a grand computer simulation. This is mainstream science, and the idea isn't a whacky as you might first suppose. I've actually written about this several times in articles about consciousness and the nature of reality. This news, by the way, also supports the idea of a Creator who brought this universe -- and everything in it -- into existence by design.

A new scientific paper published in arXiv and co-authored by Silas Beane from the University of Bonn reveals strong statistical evidence that our reality is, indeed, a grand computer simulation. The title of the paper is Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation.

Here's what it means in layman's terms

Here's the super easy way to understand all this. Your computer display screen has a finite number of pixels available, and this is called the "screen resolution" such as 1920 x 1440. This means there are 1920 pixels across and 1440 pixels vertically.

Everything you see on your computer screen must be drawn and depicted using these pixels, and nothing can be displayed that's only half a pixel. For example, you can't draw a vertical line on the screen that exists between the pixels that are hard-wired into the screen resolution. Everything you view on the monitor -- a computer game, a website, even a video -- is essentially transposed onto the "lattice" of pixels that exist in your hardware.

Your hardware, in effect, has a hard-wired "resolution limit" which defines the smallest size of any object that can be depicted on the screen.

Now, zoom out to the "real" world in which we live. Here in the real world, we think that there are no pixels and that we can move fluidly to any location we wish. We are not digitized being, we think; we're analog beings living in a fluid world without the pixelation of a computer screen, right?

Not so fast. As it turns out, our "reality" is also pixelated, just at a very fine resolution. This study out of Bonn revealed that the energy level of cosmic rays "snaps to" the "resolution" of the universe in which we live. The very laws of electromagnetic radiation, in other words, are confined by the resolution of the three-dimensional simulation we call a "universe."

The existence of this construct, if proven, also proves intelligent design by a conscious Creator who built the universe to begin with. This is the upshot of this scientific discovery that most scientists refuse to acknowledge. But the conclusion is inescapable: If our universe is a carefully-constructed simulation, then by definition there must have been a purpose behind its construction as well as a Creator who built it.

For the record, my personal belief is that the Creator set all the physical constants in the universe and then initiated the so-called "Big Bang" and let things play out from there. I do not believe our Creator "tinkers" with the universe at a micro level on a day-to-day basis. But I do believe there very well may have been individuals throughout history who found ways to "bend the rules" of the Matrix ever so slightly and thereby perform the very kind of miracles we see described in ancient texts.

"The structure of the underlying lattice"

The authors of this new paper describe their conclusion as following: "The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice."

This "underlying lattice" is what I'm describing as a "resolution" of our physical simulation.

There's other evidence of this, too: Plank's Constant, for example, is by itself yet more evidence that the physical universe in which we live is quantized to a particular resolution. In fact, even light behaves in a quantized manner, which is why "light packets" are called quanta.

Our universe, it turns out, is digital, not analog. Heck, even your DNA is digital, not analog. You are a digitized physical being imbued with a non-material consciousness that transcends this physical simulation. Realizing this is a lot like taking the red pill in The Matrix and being shown that the universe you thought was real is actually just a grand computer simulation.

Of course, once you grasp that we are living in a grand simulation, the next obvious question is: Who built it?

Intelligent Design

One obvious answer is that we built it! Not "we" the humans here on Earth, but rather the "we" which is a highly advanced civilization of seemingly supernatural beings with incomprehensibly powerful technology. We collectively built the simulation, the theory goes, and then agreed to selectively insert our consciousness into the simulation in order to have a "human life experience" on this planet. But that's only one possibility from all this.

Another possible answer is that HE built it. Who is He? He is God, our Creator. He is a consciousness with literal God-like powers who is omnipresent and all-powerful. He created our universe (i.e. designed and then launched the simulation) while providing a mechanism for free will consciousness to "wake up" inside the simulation in the bodies of newly-born beings. Upon death in the simulation, your consciousness leaves the simulation and returns to its source, which is the actual reality that transcends this one. This is possibly why people who have survived near-death experiences consistently report their experience as being a "hyper reality" that feels like it is "a thousand times more real than life on Earth."

For the record, I have always believed in a supernatural Creator of our universe; our God. I also believe -- and have good evidence -- that God is an all-loving being and that the overriding purpose of our existence in this universe is to express our free will and thereby have a self-aware experience which advances our knowledge of who we are. More details on this below...

What would be the purpose of intelligently designing a grand computer simulation?

If our universe was consciously created, then it must have been created for a purpose. In his book Proof of Heaven, near-death survivor Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, describes the purpose in great detail on page 48 of his book:

Through the Orb, [God] told me that there is not one universe but many -- in fact, more than I could conceive -- but that love lay at the center of them all. Evil was present in all the other universes as well, but only in the tiniest trace amounts. Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth -- no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger picture love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be triumphant.

The primary purpose of life in this realm, it seems, is to experience personal growth and learn how to overcome Evil. This explains why we all seem to be surrounded by so much evil on a day-to-day basis. We are drowning in evil precisely because our souls chose to be here and learn how to defeat it.

At the end of our Earthly lives, we are then judged on our performance. As I wrote in a previous article:

Upon our death, we are judged by a higher power, and that judgment takes into account our performance in these areas. Did we achieve a measure of self-awareness? Did we work to overcome evil? Did we express love and compassion and help uplift others with knowledge and awareness?

As you've probably already figured out, the vast majority of humans fail these tests. They die as bitter, selfish, substance-addicted, greed-driven minions of evil who mistakenly thought they were winning the game of life while, in reality, they were losing the far more important test of the Creator.

Looking around at our fellow human beings, you can't help but agree with my assessment that nearly everyone is failing the test. If we are here to overcome and resist evil, very few people are scoring very many points at all.

Having your consciousness attached to a human experience in this world seems to be the universal equivalent of "being thrown in the deep end" of Good vs. Evil. Making matters even more difficult, none of us is granted any sort of memory of why we are here and what we're supposed to do. We simply wake up as a newborn, and we have to figure things out for ourselves -- a challenge that often takes a lifetime. In fact, the achievement of "enlightenment" in a human lifetime is quite a remarkable feat by any measure.

What this means for your life

So what does all this mean in terms of the way you live your life here on Earth? If you believe the universe really is a grand simulation created by a higher power, then it forces you to rethink your philosophy on the purpose of life.

Some might say this is the perfect excuse to resort to selfish hedonism and turn your entire life into one vast entertainment parade. But that seems to be the wrong conclusion from all this, precisely because it ignores the importance of personal growth. I do not believe our universe is a childish playground; I believe it is a serious test of spiritual strength. You may or may not agree with all my points, but here's my philosophy on what to do with this realization:

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Yet more evidence emerges that our universe is a grand simulation created by an intelligent designer

by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger

(NaturalNews) There's a lot of buzz in the news about a new scientific study that statistically supports the idea that our known universe is actually a grand computer simulation. This is mainstream science, and the idea isn't a whacky as you might first suppose. I've actually written about this several times in articles about consciousness and the nature of reality. This news, by the way, also supports the idea of a Creator who brought this universe -- and everything in it -- into existence by design.

A new scientific paper published in arXiv and co-authored by Silas Beane from the University of Bonn reveals strong statistical evidence that our reality is, indeed, a grand computer simulation. The title of the paper is Constraints on the Universe as a Numerical Simulation.

Here's what it means in layman's terms

Here's the super easy way to understand all this. Your computer display screen has a finite number of pixels available, and this is called the "screen resolution" such as 1920 x 1440. This means there are 1920 pixels across and 1440 pixels vertically.

Everything you see on your computer screen must be drawn and depicted using these pixels, and nothing can be displayed that's only half a pixel. For example, you can't draw a vertical line on the screen that exists between the pixels that are hard-wired into the screen resolution. Everything you view on the monitor -- a computer game, a website, even a video -- is essentially transposed onto the "lattice" of pixels that exist in your hardware.

Your hardware, in effect, has a hard-wired "resolution limit" which defines the smallest size of any object that can be depicted on the screen.

Now, zoom out to the "real" world in which we live. Here in the real world, we think that there are no pixels and that we can move fluidly to any location we wish. We are not digitized being, we think; we're analog beings living in a fluid world without the pixelation of a computer screen, right?

Not so fast. As it turns out, our "reality" is also pixelated, just at a very fine resolution. This study out of Bonn revealed that the energy level of cosmic rays "snaps to" the "resolution" of the universe in which we live. The very laws of electromagnetic radiation, in other words, are confined by the resolution of the three-dimensional simulation we call a "universe."

The existence of this construct, if proven, also proves intelligent design by a conscious Creator who built the universe to begin with. This is the upshot of this scientific discovery that most scientists refuse to acknowledge. But the conclusion is inescapable: If our universe is a carefully-constructed simulation, then by definition there must have been a purpose behind its construction as well as a Creator who built it.

For the record, my personal belief is that the Creator set all the physical constants in the universe and then initiated the so-called "Big Bang" and let things play out from there. I do not believe our Creator "tinkers" with the universe at a micro level on a day-to-day basis. But I do believe there very well may have been individuals throughout history who found ways to "bend the rules" of the Matrix ever so slightly and thereby perform the very kind of miracles we see described in ancient texts.

"The structure of the underlying lattice"

The authors of this new paper describe their conclusion as following: "The numerical simulation scenario could reveal itself in the distributions of the highest energy cosmic rays exhibiting a degree of rotational symmetry breaking that reflects the structure of the underlying lattice."

This "underlying lattice" is what I'm describing as a "resolution" of our physical simulation.

There's other evidence of this, too: Plank's Constant, for example, is by itself yet more evidence that the physical universe in which we live is quantized to a particular resolution. In fact, even light behaves in a quantized manner, which is why "light packets" are called quanta.

Our universe, it turns out, is digital, not analog. Heck, even your DNA is digital, not analog. You are a digitized physical being imbued with a non-material consciousness that transcends this physical simulation. Realizing this is a lot like taking the red pill in The Matrix and being shown that the universe you thought was real is actually just a grand computer simulation.

Of course, once you grasp that we are living in a grand simulation, the next obvious question is: Who built it?

Intelligent Design

One obvious answer is that we built it! Not "we" the humans here on Earth, but rather the "we" which is a highly advanced civilization of seemingly supernatural beings with incomprehensibly powerful technology. We collectively built the simulation, the theory goes, and then agreed to selectively insert our consciousness into the simulation in order to have a "human life experience" on this planet. But that's only one possibility from all this.

Another possible answer is that HE built it. Who is He? He is God, our Creator. He is a consciousness with literal God-like powers who is omnipresent and all-powerful. He created our universe (i.e. designed and then launched the simulation) while providing a mechanism for free will consciousness to "wake up" inside the simulation in the bodies of newly-born beings. Upon death in the simulation, your consciousness leaves the simulation and returns to its source, which is the actual reality that transcends this one. This is possibly why people who have survived near-death experiences consistently report their experience as being a "hyper reality" that feels like it is "a thousand times more real than life on Earth."

For the record, I have always believed in a supernatural Creator of our universe; our God. I also believe -- and have good evidence -- that God is an all-loving being and that the overriding purpose of our existence in this universe is to express our free will and thereby have a self-aware experience which advances our knowledge of who we are. More details on this below...

What would be the purpose of intelligently designing a grand computer simulation?

If our universe was consciously created, then it must have been created for a purpose. In his book Proof of Heaven, near-death survivor Dr. Eben Alexander, a neurosurgeon, describes the purpose in great detail on page 48 of his book:

Through the Orb, [God] told me that there is not one universe but many -- in fact, more than I could conceive -- but that love lay at the center of them all. Evil was present in all the other universes as well, but only in the tiniest trace amounts. Evil was necessary because without it free will was impossible, and without free will there could be no growth -- no forward movement, no chance for us to become what God longed for us to be. Horrible and all-powerful as evil sometimes seemed to be in a world like ours, in the larger picture love was overwhelmingly dominant, and it would ultimately be triumphant.

The primary purpose of life in this realm, it seems, is to experience personal growth and learn how to overcome Evil. This explains why we all seem to be surrounded by so much evil on a day-to-day basis. We are drowning in evil precisely because our souls chose to be here and learn how to defeat it.

At the end of our Earthly lives, we are then judged on our performance. As I wrote in a previous article:

Upon our death, we are judged by a higher power, and that judgment takes into account our performance in these areas. Did we achieve a measure of self-awareness? Did we work to overcome evil? Did we express love and compassion and help uplift others with knowledge and awareness?

As you've probably already figured out, the vast majority of humans fail these tests. They die as bitter, selfish, substance-addicted, greed-driven minions of evil who mistakenly thought they were winning the game of life while, in reality, they were losing the far more important test of the Creator.

Looking around at our fellow human beings, you can't help but agree with my assessment that nearly everyone is failing the test. If we are here to overcome and resist evil, very few people are scoring very many points at all.

Having your consciousness attached to a human experience in this world seems to be the universal equivalent of "being thrown in the deep end" of Good vs. Evil. Making matters even more difficult, none of us is granted any sort of memory of why we are here and what we're supposed to do. We simply wake up as a newborn, and we have to figure things out for ourselves -- a challenge that often takes a lifetime. In fact, the achievement of "enlightenment" in a human lifetime is quite a remarkable feat by any measure.

What this means for your life

So what does all this mean in terms of the way you live your life here on Earth? If you believe the universe really is a grand simulation created by a higher power, then it forces you to rethink your philosophy on the purpose of life.

Some might say this is the perfect excuse to resort to selfish hedonism and turn your entire life into one vast entertainment parade. But that seems to be the wrong conclusion from all this, precisely because it ignores the importance of personal growth. I do not believe our universe is a childish playground; I believe it is a serious test of spiritual strength. You may or may not agree with all my points, but here's my philosophy on what to do with this realization:

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