Legendary Comic Book Creator, Stan Lee, Dies At 95

On November 12th 2018, legendary comic book creator, Stan Lee died. He as 95. While the cause of his death was not immediately known, it has been said that his passing was due to pneumonia. Mr Lee is best known for the characters, Spider-Man, Iron Man, Thor, Captain America, Avengers, and many others, which he created or co created while working for Marvel Comics. Mr. Lee was a writer and editor in chief of Marvel Comics during the 60s.

Mr Lee was born Stanley Martin Lieber on December 28th 1922 in Manhattan, New York, NY. He began his career in comics in 1939, at the age of 17, working for Timely Comics, which would go on to become, Marvel Comics.  When he began scripting comics, he started using the name, Stan Lee, as his pen name. Mr Lee became the publisher of Marvel in 1972, a year after a story that he wrote threaten to create a controversy.

Some of Mr Lee's earliest collaborators included, Jack Kirby, with whom he created, the Fantastic Four in 1961 and artist, Steve Ditko, with whom he created Spider-Man, in 1962. Mr Lee moved to Hollywood in 1980 where he helped to develop Marvel Properties. Their first TV series, The Hulk, although airing for four years, was not viewed as a success. However, the success of an animated X-Men TV series which aired on FOX from 1992 to 1997, led to the live action X-Men franchise.

Through out the many films that Marvel has released, Mr lee has had a both a producer's credit and a cameo appearance. In the 1990s, he was named chairman emeritus of Marvel. Mr Lee's wife Joan B. Lee, died  July 6, 2017. He is survived by his daughters, Joan Celia Lee and Jan Lee.



'

Was Oumuamua An Alien Spacecraft?

On November 1st 2018, two Harvard astronomers posted a paper that endeavors to make the case that the asteroid Oumuamua was actually an alien spacecraft. Oumuamua is a cigar shaped object that was spotted passing through our solar system by the Pan-STARRS 1 telescope in Hawaii in 2017. In their paper, the two scientist mark as fact, that Oumamua was 400 meters long, but only a tenth as wide.

The object also flew by on a trajectory that places its origin somewhere outside our solar system, and it appeared to accelerate as it made its way through. The two researchers, Shmuel Bialy and Avi Leob believe that Oumuamua's acceleration is the most notable clue. While some have considered Oumuamua to be a comet, they point out that comets tend to develop a tail as they round the sun, but Oumuamua did not have one.

If this doesn't make the case for aliens, Bialy and Leob postulate that because of Oumuamua shape size and dimensions, it's possible that it could be a piece of advanced technology called a solar sail. A solar sail uses the power of whats known as the solar wind as a means of propelling a spacecraft. They suggest that Oumuamua may be a piece of debris that may have broken off from some alien craft. The two also posit that Oumuamua could have been a probe designed to gather information about possible life in our solar system.

The Kepler Sapce Telescope Goes End Of Mission

On October 30th 2018, NASA announced that its Kepler Space Telescope is out of fuel and will be officially decommissioned in a matter of weeks. The space craft which was launched on March 6th 2009 had already exceeded its planned 4 year mission. The Kepler Space Telescope was NASA's first attempt at detecting exo planets, or planets that orbit other stars in our galaxy. During its 9 year tenure, the Kepler Space Telescope discovered and confirmed 2,681 planets.

Sears Files For Bankruptcy

On October 14th 2018, Sears filed for Chapter 11 protection and officially declared bankruptcy. Sears opened for business in the 1880s as Sears, Roebuck, and Company. The once mail order giant had been struggling in recent years, trying to keep pace with online competitors such as Amazon and Walmart. Sears merged with Kmart in 2005 in an effort to keep the chain viable. Company execs. say that they expect to close 142 of its unprofitable stores by the end of 2018.

New Release!

Just released a new single in my given name, John Hughley, entitled, "Movin' On." It's now available at iTunes and Spotify!

Scientist Create A Brain To Brain Network

On September 23rd a team of scientists from the University of Washington and Carnegie Mellon University announced that they have successfully connected three living human brains, to form the worlds first neural social network. The teams leader, Dr. Rajesh P.D. Rao says that the new system is called BrainNet. In their research, the team was able to use the BrainNet interface to allow the three brains to play a game of Tetris.

In the study, the team used two senders and one receiver. The senders used electroencephalograms or EEGs, while the receiver used a transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS helmet. The two senders could see the game but the receiver could not. The senders sent messages to the receiver that were registered as flashes of light. This helped the receiver to orient the game pieces. The team was able to get an 81% success rate from five groups of three subjects each.

Windows 10 October 2018 Update Is Now Availale

On October 2nd 2018, Microsoft announced that its Windows October 2018 update is now available. The new update offers features such as the, Your Phone app, Cloud Clipboard, Dark Theme for file explorer, Search Previews, a new Screenshot Tool, improvements to Microsoft Edge, and better HDR/Ray-Tracing support. You can get the new update now by checking for new updates, or you can wait and the file will be pushed to you on Patch Tuesday.