Hasta La Gadget!

We all need help maintaining our personal spiritual practice. We hope that these Daily Meditations, prayers and mindful awareness exercises can be part of bringing spirituality alive in your life.

Today’s meditation features an instructional video by yogi Seane Corn. Yoga, meditation and mindfulness practices are all based in the breath, though throughout our day we typically pay little attention to our breathing. Take a moment to breathe fully and deeply today, and notice the results.

Satellite data has confirmed that the amount of freshwater released into the Gulf of Alaska from streams and rivers in Alaska and northern Canada is about 1.5 times what the Mississippi River dumps into the Gulf of Mexico each year.

That astounding flow of water is from rainfalls that soak Southeast Alaska and the south side of the Alaska Range. The other half comes from the melting of snow and ice from glaciers.

Glaciologist Anthony Arendt is an author of a recent paper in which researchers used different pieces of information to determine the fresh water input to the northern Pacific from Alaska and northwest Canada. He works at the Geophysical Institute at UAF and studied data from a NASA mission that features two satellites orbiting Earth about 300 miles above our heads.

Those instruments measure gravity while racing around the planet in formation about 137 miles apart. Arendt and many other scientists have used this gravity information to calculate changes, in his case the loss of ice and snow from glaciers and massive icefields in Alaska and northern Canada. His data confirmed work done since the 1980s based on stream gauges, weather station data and computer models.

By comparison, the Mississippi River drains 31 states and two provinces. Ranked by discharge, it is the 10th largest river on the planet. The Yukon, which we tend to think of as big, is 41st.

So, the mountains and rainforests of southern Alaska are dumping a lot of water into the ocean. What does that mean?

READ MORE AT ALASKA DISPATCH NEWS

Snapchat is one of those big ironies of Internet history. It was originally designed to be safe and private due to the “ephemeral” nature of shared content. That, however, was used as a license to share revealing photos, which would eventually get leaked circulated to the public. Add to that more recent complaints about the company’s security practices, or lack … Continue reading

It seems like Superfish is still one hot fish even after Lenovo has admitted its lapses in addressing the rather eerie security situation. Discovery of Superfish and Komodia, the software company that makes it all possible, has led researchers to look for other traces of the software and the results they ran into are rather shocking. It’s almost acceptable that … Continue reading

In what was easily the most moving Oscar speech of the night, winning screenwriter Graham Moore discussed suicide awareness.

“I tried to commit suicide at 16 and now I’m standing here,” Moore said after accepting the Oscar for Best Adapted Screenplay for writing “The Imitation Game.” “I would like for this moment to be for that kid out there who feels like she doesn’t fit in anywhere. You do. Stay weird. Stay different, and then when it’s your turn and you are standing on this stage please pass the same message along.”

Backstage at the Oscars following the victory, Moore said making the speech was difficult, but necessary.

“It was hard. I’m a writer — when am I ever going to be on television?” Moore said. “This was my 45 seconds in my life to get on TV and I might as well use it to say something meaningful.”

Moore said depression is something he’s dealt with since he teenage years, but cited his supportive family as a blessing.

“My mother was sitting next to me tonight and I know for her, [having] seen me in all the stages of this, it was very meaningful,” he said. “I feel very blessed to have friends and family around to support me — not everyone has that and I am aware of that.”

“The Imitation Game” chronicles the real story of British mathematician Alan Turing, who helped solve the Enigma code during World War II. After the war, Turning was prosecuted for homosexuality in Britain and died by suicide in 1954 at 41 years old. Speaking to BuzzFeed after the Oscars, Moore said Turing’s tragic story also acted as an impetus for his speech.

“I’m not gay, but I’ve never talked publicly about depression before or any of that and that was so much of what the movie was about and it was one of the things that drew me to Alan Turing so much,” Moore said. “I think we all feel like weirdos for different reasons. Alan had his share of them and I had my own and that’s what always moved me so much about his story.”

For a full list of Oscar winners, go here.

Need help? In the U.S., call 1-800-273-8255 for the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline.