Article #1: Using Your Time Wisely

The question often asked is do we really use our time to our own best interests? To the best interests of our family, and the best interests of our employer (or employees, if we happen to be the boss)?

A study was done at a typical American plant and it was discovered that the people working on the line and paid an average wage watched an average of 30 hours of television each week. The person in charge of the line watched an average of 25 hours of television a week. The foreman watched an average of 20 hours of television a week; the plant superintendent watched an average of 15 hours of television a week; the vice president of the plant watched an average of 12-15 hours of television each week. The president watched an average of 8-12 hours of television every week. The chairman of the board watched an average of 4-8 hours of television a week, and 50% of that time the chairman was watching training videos.

Apparently this study reveals that those with fewer television hours are those who climb higher, further and faster.

Could this be because much of the time spent watching television is either for entertainment or just to relax? Now all of that's not bad, but I'm wondering if we were to reduce in the average person's life the time spent watching television by only 20%, what would the family and financial, as well as health, benefits be? Chances are good there would be more time for relating with others within the family, more time for exercising, and more time for taking care of other important things that are always there for families to do together.

What about the contributions we could make to society if we reduced our television watching time by only 20%? Research shows that people who get involved in voluntary activities for the betterment of others invariably do better in their own careers and personal lives. There is just something inspiring about doing something for others.

Perhaps you are familiar with this quote, You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want. It's certainly something to think about, isn't it? So, think about it – follow through and structure your time in such a way that you are learning and doing instead of just laughing and looking. Don't misunderstand. Some laughing and looking is good. Too much of it will not take you from where you are to where you want to go.

Discovery #3: Mars' South Pole Ice Deep and Wide

March 15, 2007
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2007-030

Pasadena, Calif. -- New measurements of Mars' south polar region indicate extensive frozen water. The polar region contains enough frozen water to cover the whole planet in a liquid layer approximately 11 meters (36 feet) deep. A joint NASA-Italian Space Agency instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express spacecraft provided these data. This new estimate comes from mapping the thickness of the ice. The Mars Express orbiter's radar instrument has made more than 300 virtual slices through layered deposits covering the pole to map the ice. The radar sees through icy layers to the lower boundary, which is as deep as 3.7 kilometers (2.3 miles) below the surface. "The south polar layered deposits of Mars cover an area bigger than Texas. The amount of water they contain has been estimated before, but never with the level of confidence this radar makes possible," said Jeffrey Plaut of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena Calif. Plaut is co-principal investigator for the radar and lead author of a new report on these findings published in the March 15 online edition of the journal Science. The instrument, named the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionospheric Sounding (MARSIS), also is mapping the thickness of similar layered deposits at the north pole of Mars. "Our radar is doing its job extremely well," said Giovanni Picardi, a professor at the University of Rome "La Sapienza," and principal investigator for the instrument. "MARSIS is showing itself to be a very powerful tool to probe underneath the Martian surface, and it's showing how our team's goals, such as probing the polar layered deposits, are being successfully achieved," Picardi said. "Not only is MARSIS providing us with the first-ever views of Mars subsurface at those depths, but the details we are seeing are truly amazing. We expect even greater results when we have concluded an ongoing, sophisticated fine-tuning of our data processing methods. These should enable us to understand even better the surface and subsurface composition." Polar layered deposits hold most of the known water on modern Mars, though other areas of the planet appear to have been very wet at times in the past. Understanding the history and fate of water on Mars is a key to studying whether Mars has ever supported life, since all known life depends on liquid water. The polar layered deposits extend beyond and beneath a polar cap of bright-white frozen carbon dioxide and water at Mars' south pole. Dust darkens many of the layers. However, the strength of the echo that the radar receives from the rocky surface underneath the layered deposits suggests the composition of the layered deposits is at least 90 percent frozen water. One area with an especially bright reflection from the base of the deposits puzzles researchers. It resembles what a thin layer of liquid water might look like to the radar instrument, but the conditions are so cold that the presence of melted water is deemed highly unlikely. Detecting the shape of the ground surface beneath the ice deposits provides information about even deeper structures of Mars. "We didn't really know where the bottom of the deposit was," Plaut said. "Now we can see that the crust has not been depressed by the weight of the ice as it would be on the Earth. The crust and upper mantle of Mars are stiffer than the Earth's, probably because the interior of Mars is so much colder." The MARSIS instrument on the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter was developed jointly by the Italian Space Agency and NASA, under the scientific supervision of the University of Rome "La Sapienza," in partnership with JPL and the University of Iowa, Iowa City. JPL manages NASA's roles in Mars Express for the NASA Science Mission Directorate, Washington.

For information about NASA and agency programs, visit: www.nasa.gov