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FAQs
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How can I apply for a UK visa from a European country when I am in the EU country on a work visa? I am an Indian national.
Unfortunately, many non-EEA nationals living in Germany need a visa to travel to the UK as a Schengen visa or German residency permit doesn’t allow entry to the UK. In this answer, I will try to explain the process of getting a Visa (tourist) for non-EEA nationals living in Germany.SEE ALSO: https://thehonest.blog/uk-visit-...Do I need a UK Visa?Before you visit the UK, the most important question you should ask is: Do I need a Visa? You can check if you need a UK Visa here: https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/yFollow the simple steps:Select your countrySelect the intention for your visit to the UK. For example, if you want to visit the UK as a tourist, select “Tourism”Select if you will be traveling with or visiting either your partner or a family member in the UK. If you are traveling with or visiting either your partner or a family member in the UK, you will be asked to select if you have an article 10 residence card.What is an article 10 residence card? Read HereAfter following the above steps, you will be shown if you need a visa or not. In case if you need a visa, you will also be informed of the exact visa type you will need.UK Standard Visitor visaThis type of visa is valid for:visiting the UK on holidayto see your family and friends,do business (for example, conference, meeting, etc; but you CANNOT do paid or unpaid work),take part in sports or creative events, orreceive private medical treatment.Study for up to 30 days (as far as it is not the main reason for your visit)It is valid for up to 6 months from the date of issue and costs £93 (as of Sept. 2018), excluding User pay fee (£59) and fees for any selected Value added services at TLScontact. The last time I applied for a UK standard visitor visa (July 2018), I paid €176 including User pay fee and an additional €30 for express courier return (value-added service).UK Visa type: Standard VisitorFees (as of Sept 2018): Visa Fee: £93, User pay fee: £59Validity: Up to 6 months (multi-entry)Earliest you can apply: 3 months before the intended date of travelAverage processing time: 2~3 weeks (maybe longer during the rush season)Visa centers in Germany: Düsseldorf, Munich, BerlinHow to apply?Go to https://www.visa4uk.fco.gov.uk/h... and create an account (if you don’t have one already; otherwise log in to your existing account).Login into your visa4uk account and select: “Apply for myself” – if you are applying for yourself “Apply for someone else” – if you are applying for a family member or a friendFill in the form that appears. Make sure you fill in all the details as mentioned in your passport and other supporting documents. You may see a notification that says “Please note there is an additional fee…”. This refers to the User Pay fee mentioned above.Select the visa type, that was suggested by https://www.gov.uk/check-uk-visa/yNote the reference number starting with “GWF”. It will be needed later on.Now select “Create application”Now select “go to application” and fill in all the details thoroughly.Sign the declaration (Electronic Signature)Book an appointment (You will have to select a location from Düsseldorf, Munich or Berlin). In my experience, Düsseldorf has the fastest processing time. You can check the visa processing times here: https://visa-processingtimes.hom...Pay the visa fee (~ €176 in Aug 2018). There are many options to pay the visa fee like PayPal, Master/Visa cards, Maestro cards, etc. Note: If you want to withdraw your application, you may only get a full refund of visa fee if you cancel the appointment and submit a written request at least 5 days before your scheduled appointment.Once the payment is successful, go to https://uk.tlscontact.com/de/dus...Select the same location from step 8 at TLScontact website.Click register (if you don’t already have an account). Otherwise login into your existing account.Click “Add an applicant” (Blue button at bottom of the page).Enter the GWF number from “step 5”, all other details as mentioned in your passport.If you select the return courier service, it will cost you €30 in addition. If you don’t select this service, you will have to come back to the visa center to pick up your passport after the visa is issued (or rejected). I would highly recommend this service if you don’t live near one of the visa centers.A list of Required Documents is mentioned here: UK visit visa for Non-EEA nationals living in Germany - The Honest BlogVisa appointmentYou and every who is applying with you (friends/family) have to be present in person.Carry all required documents in original (to be on the safer side) and a photocopy (A4 size). In case you forget to get a photocopy, most visa centers have a photocopying machine (but they charge as much as 50 cents per copy).Arrive at the visa appointment location 15 minutes in advance.Don’t carry too much luggage or any dangerous items – your bags will be checked before allowing you to enter in.In case if you have opted for courier return for your passport, you may be asked to fill an additional form confirming the return address.Once your name / GWF number is called, you have to submit all the documents followed by biometrics (fingerprints and photo will be taken). Note: There are no British officials present at the time of document collection. There will be no formal visa interview. You will not be asked any questions (only document collection). The TLScontact representatives will blindly collect the documents you provide them. They will not tell you if something is missing or is extra. It is your duty to make sure you provide all the documents you want to be considered for your visa process (There is no harm in providing an extra document, but failing to provide even a single required document can result in a rejection). Note: Make sure you have don’t have any tattoos (like Henna) on your fingers that will hamper them from obtaining fingerprints.TLScontact will retain your current passport and copy of all the documents. You will be given a TLScontact checklist (Example below) and sent a confirmation email as well.This is the end of the visa application procedure. Note: There are some paid value-added services that allow you to apply and keep hold of your passport during the decision making process. You will have to submit the passport at a later point in time for visa stamping.Normally, after 2-3 weeks you will receive a notification email that your passport is ready for collection. You can track the progress of your visa on TLScontact website.Passport collectionIf you have opted for express courier return, you will receive your passport by courier (Usually it is sent by DHL express. You have to be present at home to collect it as a signature is needed. It is not delivered to neighbors or Packstation).If you have opted for express courier return, you will need to go the visa application center with the following documents to collect your passport (once you receive a confirmation that the passport is ready for collection):TLScontact checklist.Original and photocopy of a Photo-ID (for example: Driving license or Aufenthaltstitel).If collected by someone else, they will need original Authorisation form and representative’s valid photo ID document (copy & original) in addition to the above two documents.If collecting for a minor, a copy of the birth certificate is required.
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What’s the most epic way a process server has ever served legal papers?
During my divorce I did the majority of the writing, paperwork, and delivery to save costs. Since saving cost was part of the reason I got quite creative with process serving. In the local court rules (every court jurisdiction has their own rules) there were only two restrictions. You couldn't do it yourself. The person signing that they did it had to be over 18 years old. There was no verification. There was no identification. There was no requirement that they show up to court to prove anything. A signature on the court approved form said they were over 18 and they delivered some papers. Good to go.My ex's attorney was doing her best job to raise billable hours and delays in the process. At some point in time she had made a mistake and brought a motion to an ex-parte court (only one party needs to be present ex-parte). The ex-parte court overlooked that this motion could only be ordered ex-parte with my signature on an agreeing form. I didn't agree! I got notice she did this on a Friday through the courts electronic forms processing. I couldn't see what she did until Monday. Because of other rules and process I only had that day to correct it. I didn't even get a certified copy until Tuesday!I didn't have time to go home and study it. I didn't have time to get legal help. I hammered it out on my laptop in the court lobby, printed it at Kinko's a block away, and then had another conundrum. Attorney's are supposed to make a good faith effort to tell the other party about ex-parte motions. Of course she didn't do that for me, but I was going to for her. I printed another set of complete documents that would move her motion from ex-parte to our actual assigned judge on the required 14 day calendar. A cover sheet explained this was my good faith message about an ex-parte action, and also moving her motion to the motions calendar.This would require a process server. I'm running out of time. I can't do it myself. The other attorney's office is across the street from the Kinko's in the downtown core.This is the epic part, and just revenge for the (dis)honest mistake and wasting my day. I walked outside the courthouse, found the stinkiest, liquor drenched bum I could find. I paid him $10 to go to her office, of a major law firm, in a top story of huge skyscraper, and deliver them and sign the paperwork saying he did it. I accompanied him, told the building lobby attendants he had legal business there and showed them her business card. Up the elevators, walked past the receptionist for the firm who just sat there open-mouthed. Same thing “he has legal business with
”. Down the hall, she was in a meeting with other attorneys. So he walked right in, dropped off the papers, now loaded with his stench, the other attorneys are backing away wondering what the hell, and I said “see you in 30 minutes if you object.”I made it back to the courthouse and to the ex-parte court in time to explain the error, the corrected paperwork, get a revised order canceling her order, and putting everything on the 14 day calendar. The accepting clerk asked if this had been served. Yes, here you are: a Service of Process document, properly signed by a drunk, snaggletoothed, unbathed bum.The 14 day extension gave me enough time to write a valid objection and her motion was denied. The actual issue was of little importance except it inconvenienced me. It would have been a pretty routine temporary change in a six year custody battle. She got petty about it, and I got petty back in spades. -
How does bitcoin work? Who actually pays for the mining done?
Approximately once every 10 minutes since January 3, 2009 at 18:15:05 UTC, one miner in the world has found/will find a valid Bitcoin block that meets the current difficulty requirements. When that happens, the block reward and the transaction fees will be distributed to the wallet(s) configured by that miner in that block. These two sources make up all of a miner’s income.Block rewards are the only way that new Bitcoins are min[t]ed. The block reward started at 50 BTC/block and halves every 210,000 blocks. This is why the current block reward is 12.5 BTC/block as of Sept 2017.Transaction fees for a block are the sum of the fees paid for all new transactions included in that block. For example, I might send you .5 BTC and specify a fee of .00004 BTC as incentive for miners to include that transaction in their block. The first miner to include that transaction in an accepted block will then earn that .00004 BTC in addition to the block reward and fees from other included transactions.Early on, transaction fees were a negligible source of miner income since there were very few transactions and the block reward was high. However, as the block reward diminishes and the number of transactions grows this trend will reverse and block rewards will become negligible and transaction fees will dominate earnings.Mining pools are another layer on top of this. Instead of the reward and fees going to a single miner, they instead have a number of miners pooling their efforts and splitting the rewards based on that pool's rules. In this way, if it would normally take you 10,000 years on average to find a block by yourself, you can instead join a mining pool and get small fractions of a block reward regularly based on your mining contribution and the pool's rules.Compare that to solo mining without a mining pool, where until you find a valid block you won't get a single Satoshi.
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How do I file income tax return in India?
Greeting Friends !!!If you are going to file it yourself, then following is the procedure:-Before you start the process, keep your bank statements, Form 16 issued by your employer and a copy of last year's return at hand. Next, log on to http://incometaxindiaefiling.gov...Follow these steps:Step 1: Register yourself on the website. Your Permanent Account Number (PAN) will be your user ID.Step 2: View your tax credit statement — Form 26AS — for the financial year 2015–16 . The statement will reflect the taxes deducted by your employer actually deposited with the I-T department. The TDS as per your Form 16 must tally with the figures in Form 26AS. If you file the return despite discrepancies, if any, you could get a notice from the I-T department later.Step 3: Under the 'Download' menu, click on Income Tax Return Forms and choose AY 2016–17 (for financial year 2015–16 ). Download the Income Tax Return (ITR) form applicable to you.Which Income Tax Return Form Require to file or applicable F.Y. 2015–16 by Hetal M Kukadiya on Tax Knowledge Bank - IndiaStep 4: Open the downloaded Return Preparation Software (excel or Java utility) and complete the form by entering all the details , using your all documentsStep 5: Ascertain the tax payable by clicking the 'Calculate Tax' tab. Pay tax (if applicable) and enter the challan details in the tax return.Step 6: Confirm all the information in the worksheet by clicking the 'Validate' tab.Step 7: Proceed to generate an XML file and save it on your computer.Step 8: Go to 'Upload Return' on the portal's left panel and upload the saved XML file after selecting 'AY 2016-2017 ' and the relevant form. You will be asked whether you wish to digitally sign the file. If you have obtained a DS (digital signature), select Yes. Or, choose 'No'.Step 9: Once the website flashes the message about successful e-filing on your screen, you can consider the process to be complete. The acknowledgment form — ITR—Verification (ITR-V ) will be generated and you can download it.Step 10: you can Verify online with EVC Pin or Take a printout of the form ITR-V , sign it preferably in blue ink, and send it only by ordinary or Speed post to the Income-Tax Department-CPC , Post Bag No-1 , Electronic City Post Office, Bangalore - 560 100, Karnataka, within 120 days of filing your return online.Its Advisable to go with CA help for filling Tax return. There are lots of amendment come in every year, to file accurate return and Tax planning benefit etc so Prefer to go with expert like CA, Tax Preparer etc…Be Peaceful !!!
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What are the consequences of writing out business checks that you suspect will not clear? Done by the office manager at the dire
This subject is covered — as with all things legally speaking: mostly/in part — by Article 3 of the Uniform Commercial Code (UCC). The UCC is a federal law that many, but not all, state and local jurisdictions have adopted. While I’m going to rely on this, I’m also going to rely on my extensive experience; and, for the record, I am in Texas.Let’s deal with some ambiguities in the question, first.Is the business incorporated (this includes nonprofits)?Is the office manager an officer or director of the corporation? — Here, director refers to having a seat on the board of directors (BOD) of the corporation, not that managing director, e.g., (of some division) is your job title.A managing director or other director, where that is a job title, may be an officer of the corporation. That would matter. For instance, a managing director might also hold the title of Vice President.A corporate charter, usually registered with the Secretary of State of some State (e.g., Delaware), will ask for a listing of important people: the President, usually at least one Vice President, a Secretary, and a Treasurer, though it’s not uncommon for those last two roles to be united as Secretary-Treasurer. — These are your corporate officers. At least, the most basic ones.Notice: CEO and CFO, etc. — these are not listed.A corporation’s (and really, any business’s) bylaws will set out how directors of the Board will be chosen; how many; etc. And, in here, you may find the C-suite titles, like Chief Executive Officer and Chief Information Officer.A limited liability company (LLC) has members and managers. The various types of partnerships have partners, of course (and partners can be corporations or LLCs).It appears that the office manager should how the business he or she works at was formed. — Don’t trust the way the business’s name is styled on the sign outside; that tells you nothing about what is really going on.However, if you don’t even know if you’re an officer of the company, it might not matter. Unless it does. — So, if you’re going to be endorsing bad checks, you should figure this out.One thing that may help you, in any situation, is to sign the check in a way that indicates your representative capacity. For instance:Jared Maloney, CFOXYZ 123, INC.—You are making it known thatThis is a business, so put your job title after your signature. — You are signing in a representative capacity only.Don’t rely on the preprinted information at the top of the check. — You are signing on behalf of (OBO) something or someone else. Write that thing or person’s name on the check near where you signed your name and indicated your title with respect to that thing or that person.A sole proprietorship may have a name like Maloney’s Computers. It may also have a name like Computer Depot. — What’s missing is that the second version is a sole proprietorship operating under an assumed name, and the full title of the business might be Jared Maloney doing business as Computer Depot.The is a presumption, almost, that the owner of the sole proprietorship is the officer-equivalent. In fact, he or she may say that he’s the President of the company, or Owner of the company, interchangeably.Be careful, though. Most anything can have an assumed name.→ XYZ 123, INC. DBA Computer Depot is probably a valid business name. That means it’s a corporation even though it doesn’t have to say INC. on the end of its business signs!—And, this can get even more complex. LLCs can choose to be taxed like a sole proprietorship, or like an S-Corp., or like a C-Corp.Yes. — More than one type of corporation exists.—I’ve likely already lost 75% of my readership by now, so I won’t even talk about hybrid business structures where a general partnership has a corporation as the general partner and an LLC as the limited partner, and each has the same or different officers. — Attorneys and bright businesspeople (or conmen) can do some very interesting things if they have the internet and money for the filing fees.Let’s explore the sole proprietorship situation and assume you, the office manager, don’t know if the business is really structured as a sole proprietorship or if you’re an officer or director of the company yourself.You know you are an authorized signer on the bank account. Now, I’m bringing in the banking aspect of this.The other authorized signer on the business’s bank account is the President.You have a choice now. You’re not sure if the bank account will have enough funds in it to clear the check when it is received and presented by the recipient to his/its bank (and then by that bank to your business’s bank).How do I sign?—Jared Maloney, Office ManagerComputer Depot—Jared Maloney, OBO John Doe, President of Computer DepotIn today’s time, if you sign the second way, I doubt the check will have any trouble getting cashed by its recipient, so long as that recipient doesn’t present it directly to a teller of your bank.Years ago, I worked in new accounts at a retail bank, and I never saw such a signature on the signature card of any form of deposit bank account. — I wouldn’t have allowed that to be the signature of record on one, and I would have been very wary to authorize a teller to cash a check that was signed that way.This is how that works!The term relationship banker exists, and that gives you the idea that you have a specific person you deal with at your local bank. He or she is your banker. So, if you started your relationship with me on the deposit side of the bank, then your account would have my initials on it for bank employees to see. — Should there be an issue with you in the future, there was a good chance someone would call me about you for analysis or decision-making.If, however, you got a loan, and even sometimes when you were just a relatively big business customer, the officer assigned to you would be your lender. — Lenders tend to have titles like AVP, VP, SVP, and EVP. President, too, of course.At that point, your account, on its profile that bank employees could see, would see the initials of your officer as primary and then mine as secondary.For routine matters — for instance, you have a problem with a teller — and, that’s what we’re talking about now — a funny check is trying to be cashed issued from that account — the teller would call me first. If I couldn’t solve the problem within what I considered my relevant risk profile, or if it dealt with credit issues (e.g., “Does the loan officer want to honor your bad check or let it bounce?”), then I’d call up your lender, or his or her boss — if your lender was busy — to get an answer.Repeating, the issue is with the signature line sayingJared Maloney, OBO John Doe, President of Computer Depot—If a teller called me up, I’d check to see who the authorized signers were on the account. If Jared and John were both signers, then I don’t know if I would’ve cared.It just reads “An Authorized Signer on behalf of Another Authorized Signer, (who’s) President of The Company Named on the Account.”While that’s not the signature exactly found on the signature card (or the list of authorized signatures addendum), it contains the signature of one of the signers.If that was all in print, then that’s not a valid signature on the check. Obviously, you’d signed your name and print the President’s name. Don’t sign his name too!In either of the cases (whether Jared signed with his title [Office Manager], or if he signed in the OBO way), what if Jared Maloney is not an authorized signer on the check?—If that check is presented directly to a teller or other officer of your bank, and that person takes the time to figure out you aren’t an authorized signer, then the check won’t be honored. — The person (e.g., your employer or vendor or whoever) will be turned away.That’s not just bank policy. It’s a bank’s policy because banking regulations demand that it be bank policy. At least for banks that are FDIC-insured.And, on the flipside, as I said before, no matter how you sign the check (to create some idea of relinquishing all personal liability related to understanding of probable NSF situations in the future of that check!) — if you’re an authorized signer on the account — it’ll likely be cashed if the check is presented directly to your bank.And, if the person or the representative of the business, to whom the check was written, presents the check electronically to their own bank, or in a night deposit bag, or in a big ol’ bag with other checks and monies, — and, even if it’s presented alone to a teller of his or its bank — the likelihood that it will be cashed is high.So. You can attempt to mitigate your personal liability for understanding beforehand that the check you are writing will not be cashable, in the future, immediate or otherwise, due to insufficient funds, by changing the way you sign the check.So long as you’re not an officer (or, perhaps, just a director) of the business or nonprofit. — Maybe.Let’s compare a few situations. We will assume that all people are signers on the bank accounts.Janet is the Chief Executive Officer and President of a corporation. She is also the office manager, but she’s not the bookkeeper. She writes a check without asking the bookkeeper if the check will be any good.You can forget the CEO title, here. That’s not the type of officer we care about. President is, though!Signing as the Office Manager doesn’t mean squat, here. You can’t reasonably expect to use a lesser title to get out of personal liability.The notion that there is a bookkeeper doesn’t mitigate anything. Prior to writing the check, Janet could’ve called the bookkeeper; called the bank and checked the account balance; or, waited to write and deliver the check until such things could be done to make her certain she would not be committing check fraud.Janet has a risk, here, of being personally liable, because the President of the company, in most situations, has the ultimate authority to view any financial statements of the company. The President usually signs tax returns for a corporation; or, at least, that’s a possibility. The IRS would accept it.That risk is less, but not theoretically impossible to realize, if she signs the check as Janet, President of XYZ 123, INC.Sam is the husband of the 100% shareholder/owner of XYZ 123, INC. His wife, Janet, is the President, and he holds the somewhat ceremonial title of Treasurer, because he has his own job and doesn’t really do much but bookkeeping for the business at night. He is the night bookkeeper and the titular office manager. — When he arrives to start his work, his wife, Janet, calls him and tells him to prepare a check for $10,000 made payable to one of her vendors.Is the amount of that check high, in his experience, for the corporation to make on the spur of the moment?The bank is closed and he has no access to online banking for this account.He will know the actual book balance of that account when he’s done with his night work, but he hasn’t even started.Sam has risk, here, of being personally liable. He is the Treasurer of the corporation. Despite being ordered to prepare a check and deliver it to a vendor on demand, he could choose to ignore that. — The President can’t fire the Treasurer. Only the Board of Directors can fire the Treasurer. — If the President, his wife, doesn’t want to wait for him to do his work, so that he is comfortable with writing the check himself, then she can come in and sign the check herself.Signing as Sam, Treasurer, XYZ 123, INC. may shield him, but this set of facts may not bear that out.Oscar started out at a corporation as the office manager. Over the years, he was promoted to hold the position, also, of Chief Financial Officer, but he was still the titular office manager. He no longer held a primary bookkeeping function at the company, but he did review all of the corporation’s financial statements. He had been elevated to CFO by a meeting of the BOD, but no change had been made to the corporate charter. If you checked with the Secretary of State (SOS), his name would not be found listed with the SOS. A Vice President of the corporation just called him and told him to authorize payment for all invoices currently owed to a particular vendor, because the VP was upset with it and intended to switch to a new vendor. Once he is off the phone, he calls down to an accounts payable clerk and orders him to prepare a check, to the vendor, for all outstanding invoices. While the A/P clerk was working, he checked the bank account balance and his cash flow data; and, determined that the check would likely be returned NSF. Pretty soon, the A/P clerk knocks on his office door and brings in the check for him to sign.Is the VP who called him listed on the corporate charter? — Oscar checks, and he is. Despite Oscar’s in-house title of CFO, the VP is his boss. (We’ll assume that the bylaws don’t say otherwise, but that is really an internal matter.)Oscar checks the authorized signers list for the bank account and sees that he is an authorized signer but the VP in question is not.In order to verify that the VP understood what he was asking Oscar to do, he called the VP back, but he didn’t answer. — What do the corporate bylaws and associated memoranda, if any, say should be done in this situation? — He looks, and the bylaws are nonspecific.He places a call to his boss, the President, who is also the boss of the VP. — The President, also, does not answer.Based on this, he signs the check and asks his assistant to make sure it got in the day’s outgoing mail.It is unlikely that Oscar will face any personal liability if this check bounces when the vendor deposits it.This is when, absolutely, the CFO should sign as Oscar, Chief Financial Officer, XYZ 123, INC.However, that doesn’t mean that the corporation won’t be held criminally liable. Oscar may avoid personal liability for this decision, but he may face it (i.e., the corporation may face it); and, it might be a criminal charge, not just a civil one.His job may be in jeopardy! Of course, it may have been in jeopardy if he refused to sign the check and send it on. — Without any help from bylaws or other corporate policies related to this event, he’s in a pickle.He may be screwed either way. — If anything, if he’s fired for his decision, either way, he has a good case for unemployment benefits.Finally, let’s run the simplest scenario.Sarah is the office manager for Johnny B. Goode dba Goode’s Goods. Johnny is the owner of the company, and he rules it with an iron fist. He’s in control of everything. She knows the company is a sole proprietorship; they’ve talked about it before. Johnny calls her up and says a subcontractor is expecting a $2,500 payment. He’d forgotten to tell her; she needed to write the check and go to the post office and overnight it to the subcontractor. She does as she’s told. She has no access to any financial information. On no check she’s ever written has she known whether it would clear or come back NSF. — That was above her pay grade.Sarah opens herself up, with each check she writes, to civil liability. → She can be sued.If she has the ability to sign checks, as an authorized signer on the account, she really should have the ability to make sure those checks will be good on arrival.However, there’s no way (seemingly) that she can form the intent to defraud requisite for criminal liability.She still should sign Sarah, Office Manager, Goode’s Goods.—As for the owner? → No luck for him. He is not operating in a corporate/fiduciary capacity. He has criminal and civil liability for this action and all others like it.This is why people incorporate their businesses.The last aspect to cover in this answer involves facsimile signature stamps.You can sign your name, which is the signature that is found on the business’s business bank account signature card, and turn it into an ink stamp.Your secretary or assistant or office manager or VP — anybody — can use that to stamp your signature onto a check.Some banks don’t allow facsimile signature stamps on bank account signature cards, but — for reasons similar to those I said before — they likely will be accepted at other banks, and even if your bank doesn’t accept such checks, they will likely process them if they come from another bank, because no one looks at them.I’ve never had any problems with them.A pretty big businessman I did business with had his mother law as his office manager. — She had a facsimile signature stamp which had her signature as the stamped signature!So, even though she could sign the checks, per the bank, she chose to stamp the checks with the ink stamp instead. Same signature! — Different ink.I believe she did that for liability reasons, not laziness. — By definition, the facsimile signature can be stamped by anyone, so you can never really pin down who did it.I know a bank that prints, on most checks, the facsimile signature of the bank President, and then whatever officer (or teller) has issued the check initials next to the computer printed facsimile of the President’s signature.This is a clever, de facto way of saying, “Jane Doe on behalf of Jack Dooley, Bank President”.When I’ve headed departments that use facsimile signature stamps, I have people, including myself, initial next to the signature stamps on the checks. — It’s more for a risk management/ease-of-verification purpose.Donald Trump always signs documents with a special pen. — That’s not unique to him. — I have a special pen I use to sign my signature.If you don’t have that marker or pen, respectively, then you can’t recreate the signature, no matter how talented you are.The same thing goes with that facsimile signature stamp, or printed signature. — Even if you’ve expertly copied how someone signs his or her name, you’ll never get it right because you lack the correct ink (and sometimes, paper).United States currency is signed by facsimile.If you are an office manager, and you don’t want to be responsible, use a facsimile signature stamp for whatever someone else has authorized you to be issuing checks.Maybe that person is the President of the company.If you have the authority to sign documents or checks (→ the facsimile signature stamp can be used on more than just checks!), then sign them if you feel comfortable with them.If you don’t know what you’re signing, or you’re not comfortable with it, pull out that stamp and use it!I would, and I do.When I worked at the retail bank, I could sign checks only up to a certain amount, even though I processed transactions that required me to produce checks in the millions of dollars. In order to make sure those checks would be honored by the bank, I had to make sure that I found someone else, with a higher signing limit, to co-sign with me.I had a friend who was one of the Executive Vice Presidents of the bank, and I tended to go to her. — Don’t think she signed things just because I asked!I brought her my supporting documentation and showed why I was sending so much money out of the bank. — Only once it made sense to her would she affix her signature.If you want to be the safest you can be, never sign anything you can’t confirm won’t come back as fraudulent.If you aren’t seeming to be able to achieve that, as the office manager of a business, then get your boss to sign on the order form for a facsimile signature stamp, and then, everything that comes out of the office, which he authorized you to produce when he hired you, will have his name on it.And, that will serve de facto to say: “Me OBO My Boss”.Given you have no choice in the matter, as these are orders you’re being given, you should be fine. But, to be safest — if you know (as President Trump’s White House attorney might have said) crazy shit is going on — you might just wait until someone else can sign the checks or documents, so that you have no record on them, legally; you just produced them on demand or order.If you get fired for being that careful, then you are likely to win your unemployment appeal, if everything else is satisfied, because requiring you to take on personal criminal or civil liability is not a valid power of a business manager, executive, or owner. — An order to break the law, including to be part of a conspiracy to defraud, is not a valid order.
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What was the most important lesson you learned from your father?
Oh my. Well, for my entire life from the age of 3-years-old until I was 46-years-old I carried a mixture of hatred, terror and anger towards my father. He wasn’t a very nice man when he was in our lives (viciously abusive - drugs/alcohol) and my parents finally divorced. I refused to see him whatsoever after that. I hated him and termed him the “Sperm Donor”. It is odd though that no matter where I went - even moved to Florida - he ALWAYS knew exactly where I was and would pop up from time-to-time where I was. It always startled and confused me when he did. I never really thought much about that fact until much later. I mention it because it’s important to the end.I grew up - he grew old - he was in jail, again, and this time he was going to be there for 7-years. I had to visit him just as he was arrested and tell him his older brother was in hospice and not expected to live for much longer. He had brain and lung cancer and I didn’t want him to find out his brother was dying/dead after the fact or from the newspaper. I bit the bullet and visited him in jail to tell him. Seeing him broken, bruised and old affected me in a way I did not expect - instead of feeling utter hatred and fear from him? I felt empathy for the first time and the old terror dissipated completely. I realized he no longer had the capability to hurt me in any way, shape or form and therefore I no longer had anything to be fearful of.I didn’t go see him after that one time, it really hit me hard and I needed time to sort through all the new things I was feeling. I did, however, monitor his sentence and jail time via my now ex-boyfriend who worked within that jail. I would make sure my father had money in his canteen and was getting the right medical care (he had a very bad heart and neck issues). But I didn’t want him knowing where the money was coming from and I didn’t want him knowing that I was looking out for him from the outside.Funny, the timing of this question. So, that went on for 6-years, one day I came home from work and I saw his handwriting on an envelope in my mailbox. I didn’t need to look at the return address because I instantly knew it was from him. I stood there with it in my hand and I just didn’t want to open it. I didn’t … I wanted to ignore it and go back to my life. But something inside of me wouldn’t allow that and I opened that letter on the Wednesday before Easter of 2014. I read his words and for the first time I felt something other than fear/anger; I felt sorrow and regret and I felt him signNowing out to me for forgiveness. He didn’t so much as ask for forgiveness as he did ask for a hand up. I felt compelled to go see him as he asked me to. He was now in a half-way house before he was to be released. Now, I knew he NEEDED me - I did - in the past I might have gotten a small thrill knowing/feeling he needed me and I could turn my back on him and not help. But? It wasn’t like that for me this time.I went to visit him on Easter morning … and I will never forget the look on his face when I appeared before him. It was one of shock, surprise and joy and it startled me. We didn’t hug or touch or anything - both were somewhat skeptical of each other I think. I will also NEVER forget the first real sentence he said to me once I went into his room and sat down, “Tammy, please tell me everything about your life from the time I left when you were 5-years-old until now. I want to know everything.”(I’m crying as I type this…this is a hard memory for me especially because today is Easter.)That sentence felt like a complete and utter donkey kick to my psyche and my heart. For a brief instant I felt anger starting and I wanted to lash out at him for how much I struggled through life and for all of the damage he had done to me as a child. But? I didn’t. I told him everything, absolutely everything and I let it all out. I tried not to focus too much on his abuse of me and just give the bare bone facts of what my life was like being left behind with my ‘crazy’ mother. How I had to take care of her and my brother from the time I have memory. How I couldn’t take the abuse anymore from my mother and fought back at 15-years-old and kicked her off of me across the floor. She threw me out of the house for that. How I had NO ONE from his side ever to help - how I was so scared of being abused in foster care that I decided I was going to live on my own as best as I could. AND? I did. I made my way, on my own and I did it unlike anyone else on either side of my wicked gene line. ON MY OWN … I worked like a dog, managed to get through High School and even managed to get into college, a great college at that (no one on either side of my immediate family had graduated HS never mind went to college and got a degree.) Yadda, yadda, yadda. I laid my entire life out before him and I will never forget the utter sorrow I saw on his face while I was telling him of all of this. Then? He said to me, “Tammy, I cannot believe you went through all of that and I cannot believe you’ve overcome so much. I am sorry. I am sorry!” I forgave him that Easter Sunday morning. For everything…I did it for myself but I did it for him because I felt and knew he wasn’t going to be around for much longer.I agreed to help him - at first I was going to allow him to come from jail to my home and live. I often offer things of myself I know are going to hurt me a lot - but this time I had a therapist who I was very fond of and respected a lot. I told him of what was going on and he said to me, “Tamara, I think you need to rethink allowing your father to move into your home. You do not know him and he is signNowing out to you because he needs something. The cost might be too much for you to handle.” I thought about it and I realized he was right. I told my father I would do everything possible to get him established on the outside again but I could not allow him to move in. I know that hurt him … I couldn’t say it to his face so I wrote him a long letter explaining why. I explained although I forgive him - I cannot forget the scars from the abuse of long ago and since I was struggling from other things at the same time (PTSD break - if that’s what you call it) - I needed my home to remain my ‘safe space’. I picked him up from jail and we immediately found housing. I got him medical coverage and we learned he had lung cancer as well as a heart that had already had multiple heart attacks. He was barely able to walk for long distances due to breathing issues too and a neck that was so fragile that if he had fallen he would have become a paraplegic. I took him to all of his doctor’s appointments, MAKING sure he went, even when I had to threaten him to get him to go.Sorry I am rambling, any way … during that final year of his life I learned so much about why my father was the way he was towards me and my mother. I learned things about my mother that made me want to vomit and I learned things about my family I really didn’t want to know. I didn’t think it could get any worse, oh but it did. I know he was NOT lying to make himself look better because he owned all he had done to me. But now I had a reason as to why he ‘hated’ me. He never hated me … he repeatedly told me I was very, very wanted and very, very loved but admitted he was just never meant to be a father or a husband. He also told me he tried over and over again to see us kids but my mother and her mother prevented him from it. My mother would tell my little brother, who idolized our absent father, that he was coming to take him for the weekend (I would refuse to go) and my brother would get excited, pack his little suitcase and sit on the front porch waiting for him. I would sit beside him waiting with him. It would KILL me every effing time when our father never showed and I had to see my little brother’s heartbreak in front of me. I learned that my mother would tell my father to come get him … then she’d go to the police station and take out another Restraining Order against him preventing him from coming near us. She never told us this … of course she wouldn’t … eventually my father explained he just gave up because it was easier.I am sorry this is running so long but I do have a point. My entire life I hated myself, I hated seeing myself in the mirror and I hated seeing myself period. Because I am a spitting image of my father, if I were a boy I’d literally be his doppelganger. Getting to know my father as a man, a man who was wounded himself, I began to see how much of him I carried and where my traits come from. My independence, my work ethic, my innate street smarts, my drive to better myself financially and overcome being born into poverty and growing up on welfare (him through crime - me through hard work and multiple jobs). I saw that I literally am my father’s daughter in so many ways that weren’t BAD or criminal or abusive. I got his sense of humor, his quick wit, his ability to go anywhere and immediately fit right in, his refusal to accept no as an answer when there is a yes somewhere to be found.I learned to love myself, forgive and love my father in his last year of life and I wouldn’t have had any of that if I had done what my first instinct was to do: ignore and keep moving away. But the ONE thing I learned from my father was: “never give up and never stop fighting!”
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Why has NASA not landed at the poles of Mars, or even sent the Curiosity rover there to sample the ice suspected to be there?
It is not lack of interest. The polar regions are of great interest, for instance the Martian dry ice geysers in Richardson crater, one of the most interesting dynamic processes on Mars and the polar regions also have astrobiological interest too. There are potential habitats there that might even have fresh liquid water within 20 cms of the surface of the ice - of all things to find on Mars with its near vacuum atmosphere.As far as I know the only suggested habitats that might have fresh water on Mars are in polar regions, a layer of fresh water only a few cms thick, 10 to 20 cms below the surface in transparent ice. Thin though that layer may be by Earth standards, it is of extraordinary interest on Mars where any fresh water on the surface would evaporate almost immediately. It is a process that happens beneath clear ice in Antarctica and models show it should happen in the Martian ice sheets too, so long as there is similarly clear ice there.The main potential habitats, which I’ll look at in detail in this answer, are:Flow like features in Richardson Crater that form after the Martian dry ice geysers have erupted (not the same as the ones in the northern hemisphere or the ones in Russell’s crater - there are three different similar looking features that form in different conditions - only the ones in Richardson Crater are of special interest for astrobiology)Liquid water forming around sun warmed grains in snow or icePerchlorate salts lying on layers of ice forms liquid water droplets in tens of minutesLiquid water can exist permanently below 600 meters of ice (100 meters of rock) kept warm by the heat of Mars itself, if it once forms, e.g. after an impactIce fumaroles can mask the heat signature of venting of hot moist gas and make good habitatsAnywhere there is clear ice in polar regions, then fresh liquid water can form at a depth of around 6.5 cms by the solid state greenhouse effect.So it’s exciting for astrobiology, also for geology too, but they are also habitats the Earth microbes could contaminate and by the Outer Space Treaty we have an obligation to prevent “harmful contamination” in the words of the treaty. It also just makes sense. If you are searching for native life on Mars, and most people agree that is one of our top science objectives there, the last thing you want to do is to just find life you brought there yourself.So, before we developed this modern understanding of the potential vulnerability of the polar regions to Earth microbes, NASA made two attempts, the Mars Polar Lander which crashed, and Phoenix which succeeded. However it was as a result of unexpected observations by Phoenix that scientists were lead to the realization that actually there could be habitats there for modern native Mars life - and so since then any landers sent there have to be sterilized to a high standard.We could not send Curiosity there, or a second copy of Phoenix either, because it is now not thought to be sterilized sufficiently. Hopefully it has not contaminated the region of Mars around it with Earth life, but I think the Phoenix landing site might be a great site to visit to get ground truth on how effective our planetary protection measures have been on Mars - but with an appropriately sterilized lander of course.WHY IT IS HARD TO STERILIZE TO THE LEVELS OF THE VIKING MISSIONS IN THE 1970SThe current “gold standard” for Mars is set by the Viking landers.Viking Lander being prepared for dry heat sterilization – this remains the "Gold standard" of present-day planetary protection.After preliminary cleaning similarly to the levels used for Curiosity, they were then heat-treated for 30 hours at 125 °CFive hours at 125 °C would be enough to reduce the population of microbes by ten, so this was enough for a millionfold reduction - that’s including enclosed parts of the spacecraft. It would still have a maximum of 30 spores and so several thousand dormant microbes as the spore count used undercounts the number present by a factor of a hundred or so. But in addition the numbers are reduced by the journey out there, the harsh conditions on Mars, and then a microbe would have to be pre-adapted to the conditions there to have a chance of surviving once there.They didn’t achieve certainty but to a high chance no microbe from Viking was able to replicate and spread on Mars.According to modern planetary protection rules then you could send a spacecraft sterilized like this to the Phoenix landing site.But the problem is that modern equipment is much more miniaturized than for Viking, and made up of thin layers only a few atoms thick and delicate materials including epoxy attachments. Even when space hardened, it tends to be more sensitive and so would not stand being baked in an oven for days like Viking. The components would come unglued and instruments also would go out of alignment.WE HAVE ALSO MADE GREAT PROGRESS IN HIGH TEMPERATURE INSTRUMENTS SINCE VIKINGIt’s not all bad news however, for heat sterilization. Since Viking, while commercial equipment for most purposes have got more sensitive to high temperatures, we have also had many advances in high temperature technology too. The commercial equipment is not built to withstand high temperatures not because it can’t be, but because it doesn’t need to be.High temperature electronics and instruments are used where they are needed and are more capable than in the 1970s. We have them for oil wells as they drill deeper to regions where the temperatures go above 200 C. For planes where they can reduce weight by putting sensors closer to the engines, and for electric cars for similar reasons.NASA has also been working for some time to develop a rover able to withstand Venus surface conditions and drive around and study the surface. With high temperatures, high pressures and sulfuric acid too. Very sterilizing for Earth life.In 2007 they developed a silicon chip capable of 17,000 hours of continuous operation at 500 °C.For their Venus rover, we need cameras to operate at high temperatures, we need mechanisms, we need instruments such as a Raman spectroscopy, we need communications and so on. In their 2010 study they thought all of those were possible for the future. Though they couldn’t build it yet, they saw a way to it as a future roadmap.If the aim is to signNow a high temperature for sterilization, the job may be easier to some extent, as the instruments don’t have to actually function at those high temperatures. They have to withstand being heated to high temperatures for a considerable period of time - but will then operate at normal temperatures.So, if you choose the right components for your lander / rover, we actually have the capability to go beyond what they could in the 1970s and I do think that if we went all out with a major program, as for the Venus rover - that we could design a 100% sterile lander in the near future. It would probably need to use RTGs for the power source - and perhaps also as the heat source for sterilization during the journey to Mars, as these have no problem working at high temperatures. Heat your lander at 500 C for six months on the voyage out to Mars and there would be no life left on it at all. Nothing viable. You can also use techniques like CO2 snow which could be done on the surface of Mars to remove even the dead organics from the outside of the lander.There is one plan already for a sterile probe to descend into the Europan ocean by Brian Wilcox.I think myself that designing a 100% sterile rover / lander should be a top priority. It would be expensive to start with, but well worth it.Once we have built the first one and developed the understanding we would have a basic design there that could be used to explore regions such as the subsurface oceans of Europa and Enceladus and the senstiive sites on Mars even if they have cms thick liquid water or more, and yet not have any concerns about introducing Earth life.The long term pay off would be huge.It would obviously take a lot of ingenuity for the astrobiologists, to redesign instruments to be able to be heat sterilized. They did however succeed for Viking, at the temperatures used there. With the Viking sterilization, tenfold reduction every 5 hours, at a dry heat of 125 °C, in theory you wouldn’t need to continue for that long to have pretty much 100% certainty that there is no life left at all.If anyone knows of any work on this apart from Brian Wilcox’s proposed mission, do say!CURRENT PLANETARY PROTECTION RULESAnyway the current rules are not as strict as that. But they do require a lander to be sterilized to Viking levels or higher if they target regions where there is ice within 5 meters of the surface. The reasoning is that a crash could end up melting the ice.So first here is a map of special regions as updated in 2016, but they also decided that even outside of those regions you need to do case by case studies before landing there.There Are Regions On Mars That It's Forbidden To ExplorePOTENTIAL FOR LIQUID WATER HABITATS IN THE POLAR REGIONS - CALCIUM PERCHLORATE SALTS IN LAYERS ON TOP OF ICEDespite what other answers say here, polar regions do have the potential for liquid water. Even fresh, not salty, water.First the Phoenix lander actually spotted droplets forming on its legs.Unfortunately, it wasn't equipped to analyse them but the leading theory is that these were droplets of salty water. They were observed to grow, merge, and then disappear, presumably as a result of falling off the legs.Nilton Renno, who was on the team for Phoenix and also runs the REM “weather station on Mars” for Curiosity was one of several who investigated various ways for thse droplets to form.He found that liquid water can form very quickly on salt / ice interfaces when the salt is on top of the ice. By “salt” there he means calcium perchlorate salts similar to the salts they found in the Phoenix site.Within a few tens of minutes this salt on top of ice formed droplets of liquid brines in Mars simulation experiments. This is striking as it could open large areas of Mars up as potential sites for microhabitats that life could exploit. The professor says"If we have ice, and then the salt on top of the ice, in a few tens of minutes liquid water forms. Our measurements clearly indicate that. And it's really a proof that liquid water forms at the conditions of the Phoenix landing site when this salt is in contact with the ice. "Based on the results of our experiment, we expect this soft ice that can liquefy perhaps a few days per year, perhaps a few hours a day, almost anywhere on Mars. So going from mid latitudes all the way to the polar regions." This is a small amount of liquid water. But for a bacteria, that would be a huge swimming pool - a little droplet of water is a huge amount of water for a bacteria. So, a small amount of water is enough for you to be able to create conditions for Mars to be habitable today'. And we believe this is possible in the shallow subsurface, and even the surface of the Mars polar region for a few hours per day during the spring."(transcript from 1:48 onwards)That's Nilton Renno, who lead the team of researchers. See also Martian salts must touch ice to make liquid water, study shows . He is a mainstream researcher in the field - a distinguished professor of atmospheric, oceanic and space sciences at Michigan University. For instance, amongst many honours, he received the 2013 NASA Group Achievement Award as member of the Curiosity Rover " for exceptional achievement defining the REMS scientific goals and requirements, developing the instrument suite and investigation, and operating REMS successfully on Mars" and has written many papers on topics such as possible habitats on the present day Mars surface.MOHLMANN’S FRESH WATER FORMING AROUND DUST GRAINS IN SNOW OR ICEThis is another suggested habitat for life in the Mars higher latitudes based on processes that happen in the Antarctic ice. Dust grains in the ice often produce tiny melt ponds around them in the heat of the summer sunshine. The dust grains absorb the heat (preferentially over the ice), and so heat up and melt the surrounding ice. Then this heat gets trapped because of the insulating effect of the solid state greenhouse effect, because ice traps heat radiation, so forming tiny melt ponds of a few millimeters thickness or more. This could happen on Mars too, so is another possible habitat with fresh water.It's just a few millimeters of fresh water, but that could be signNow on Mars. Another example of this process, then meteorites in Antarctica are often found associated with gypsum and other evaporates - minerals that can only form in the presence of liquid water and must have formed after they fell in Antarctica. Sometimes the researchers find capillary water, or thin films of water, and sometimes they even find evidence of a rather large meltwater pond which formed around the meteorite, or find the meteorites in depressions filled with refrozen ice.A similar process could be at work in the Martian icecaps too. This process could melt the ice for a few hours per day in the warmest days of summer, and melt a few mms of ice around each grain. Indeed, if I can venture a speculation of my own, perhaps just as in Antarctica, there could be larger melt ponds around meteorites embedded in the ice too - as Mars must have many meteorites embedded in the polar ice sheets.This could explain another puzzle. Particles of gypsum (the same material that is used to make plaster of paris) have been detected, first in the Olympia Undae dune fields that circle the northern polar ice cap of Mars, See this paper for details. Later on, they were detected in all areas where hydrated minerals have been detected, including sedimentary veneers over the North polar cap, dune fields within the polar ice cap, and the entire Circumpolar Dune Field. There's strong evidence that the gypsum originates from the interior of the ice cap. See this paper for details. Gypsum is a soft mineral that must have been formed close to where it has been discovered (or it would get eroded away by the winds) and as an evaporite mineral, it needs liquid water to form. Opportunity later found veins of gypsum in the equatorial regions, in 2011, a clear sign of flowing water on ancient Mars. But these polar deposits are more of a mystery because they are found in the dust dunes on Mars, so must be produced locally, but where?.Losiak, et al, modeled tiny micron scale dust grains of basalt (2-2 microns in diameter) exposed to full sunlight on the surface of the ice on the warmest days in summer, on the Northern polar ice cap. They found that these tiny dust grains were large enough to provide for five hours of melting which could melt six millimeters of ice below the grain. They say that with pressures close to the triple point, on windless days, you should get a signNow amount of melting. They speculate that this might possibly explain the deposits of gypsum in the polar regions. Could it have formed in a similar way to the gypsum that sometimes forms around Antarctic meteorites?Möhlmann did a similar calculation. This time he was looking at the possibility of liquid water forming inside snow on Mars. The snow would be exposed to the vacuum, but as the ice melted it would plug all the pores in the snow and eventually form a solid crust of ice on the snow, and so protect it from further evaporation. It would trap the heat as well and so encourage melting. This could happen anywhere between a few centimeters depth down to ten meters below the surface.THIN FILMS OF UNDERCOOLED WATER WRAPPED AROUND INDIVIDUAL MICROBESThis is an interesting suggestion by Möhlmann in an article in Cryobiology magazine, that life may be able to make use of thin film monolayers of the " ULI water" (Undercooled Liquid Interfacial water) wrapped around a microbe, even in tiny nanometer scale layers of liquid water only two monolayers thick."In view of Mars it should be mentioned, that there is water ice in the permanent polar caps. At mid- and low-latitudes, ice can form, at least temporarily, via adsorption and freezing in the soil. There, the adsorbed and frozen water overtakes the role of ice, as described above. So, ULI-water can be expected to, at least temporarily, exist also in martian mid- and low-latitudinal subsurface soil. A similar environment can be expected to exist in isolation heated parts of icy bodies in the asteroidal belt, and analogously in the internally heated icy moons of Jupiter and Saturn. It is thus a current and challenging question if ULI-water can act as supporting life in environments with temperatures clearly below 0 °C by delivering that water, which is necessary for metabolic processes, and by permitting transport processes of nutrients and waste. It is the aim of this paper to demonstrate the potential importance of ULI water in view of the possible biological relevance of nanometric undercooled liquid interfacial water."He cites research suggesting life can remain active in the presence of just two monolayers of water wrapped around a microbe.If there is just a small thermal gradient in the ice, of one degree centigrade per meter, then enough liquid water will form to fill a micrometer sized microbe once a month. Enough will form to fill it once a day if there is a locally steeper gradient of one degree centigrade per 10 cm. This can lead to a constant transport of fresh water to bring fresh nutrients to the microbe, and to remove wastes. The main question is whether this is a sufficient flow of water to sustain life. For more details of this intriguing idea, see his article.SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE FLOW-LIKE FEATURES - MAY INVOLVE FRESH WATER CMS THICK!There are two main types of these flow-like features. For a technical overview of them, see the Dune Dark Spots section in Nilton Renno's survey paper. These ones in the southern hemisphere which form in Richardson crater are particularly promising because all the current models involve liquid water in some form and what's more, in the models, these features start off as fresh water trapped under ice.The more interesting ones, for habitability, are in the south. The southern ice cap consists mainly of dry ice. It is colder, and higher up (at a higher altitude). It stretches as far as forty degrees from the pole in winter (so spanning over 4,700 km), but it reduces to just 300 km across in summer, Richardson's crater is 17.4 degrees from the south pole (that's over 1,000 km).So though the features resemble each other in appearance, the conditions in which they form are very different and not directly comparable. The southern hemisphere features from at much higher surface temperatures than the northern hemisphere features, and they appear late in spring, after the rapid disappearance of a vast and thick layer of dry ice that covered the entire southern polar region, and beyond. In the summer then surface temperatures at Richardson crater can actually get above the melting point of ice at times in daytime, as measured by the Thermal Emission Spectrometer on Mars Global Surveyor. (See figure 3 of this paper)..This map shows where the crater is. It is close to the south pole - this is an elevation map showing the location of Richardson crater in Google Mars, and I’ve trimmed it down to the southern hemisphere. You can see Olympus Mons as the obvious large mountain just right of middle, and Hellas Basin as the big depression middle left. Richardson crater is about half way between them and much further south.Here is a close up - see all those ripples of sand dunes on the crater floor?Link to this location on Google MarsWell it’s not the ripples themselves that are of special interest, Mars is covered in many sand dune fields like that planet wide. What interests us are some tiny dark spots that form on them which you can see if you look really closely from orbit.And, would you ever guess? Although it's one of the colder places on Mars, there's a possible habitat for life there in late spring? It is due to the "solid state greenhouse effect" which causes fresh water at 0°C to form below clear ice in Antarctica at a depth of up to a meter, even when surface conditions are bitterly cold.The Warm Seasonal Flows often hit the news (probable salty brines on sun facing slopes). But for some reason, the flow-like features in Richardson crater are only ever mentioned in papers by researchers who specialize in the study of possible habitats for life on Mars.I first learnt about them in the survey of potential habitats on Mars by Nilton Renno, who is an expert in surface conditions on Mars (amongst other things, he now runs the Curiosity weather station on Mars). You can read his survey paper here, Water and Brines on Mars: Current Evidence and Implications for MSL. The models I want to summarize here are described in his section 3.1.2 Dune Dark Spots and Flow-like Features under the sub heading "South Polar Region". But it's in techy language so let's unpack it and explain what it means. I will also go back to the papers he cited, and some later papers on the topic.In the case of Richardson's crater, both models involve liquid water in some form, and also potentially habitable liquid water. One of the two main models involves relatively thick layers of fresh water below optically clear water ice, up to tens of centimeters thick, and so is very promising for microhabitats. The other model involves microscopically thin layers of fresh water that join together to make a larger stream and pick up salts on the way out. That's very promising too. So let's now look at these two ideas in detail.First, early in the year, you get dry ice geysers - which we can’t image directly, but see the dark patches that form as a result and are pretty sure this is what happens:Geysers which erupt through thick sheets of dry ice on Mars. Clear dry ice acts as a solid version of the greenhouse effect, to warm layers at the bottom of the sheet. It is also insulating so helps keep the layers warm overnight. Dry ice of course at those pressures can't form a liquid, so it turns to a gas and then explosively erupts as a geyser. At least that's the generally accepted model to explain why dark spots suddenly form on the surface of sheets of dry ice near the poles in early spring on Mars.So that would be cool enough, to be able to observe them, video them and study them close up. I hope the rover would be equipped with the capability to take real time video. These geysers are widely known and many scientists would tell you how great it would be to look at them up close, and see them actually erupt.But most exciting is what happens later in the year, when it is getting too warm for the thick layers of dry ice needed for geysers. These layers of dry ice vanish rather quickly in spring. You would think that the dark spots that you get in the aftermath of the geysers would just sit there on the surface and gradually fade away ready to repeat the cycle next year. But no. Something very strange happens. Dark fingers being to form and creep down the surface as in this animation. Very quickly too (for Mars). I haven't been able to find a video for this, as the papers just use a sequence of stills, so I combined together some of the images myself into an animation to show the idea:Flow-like features on Dunes in Richardson Crater, Mars. - detail. This flow moves approximately 39 meters in 26 days between the last two frames in the sequenceAll the likely models for these features, to date, involve some form of water. Alternatives that one might try to use to model them might include a second ejection of material by the dry ice geyser, or dust deposition, but researchers think these are unlikely to produce the observed effects.SIMILAR LOOKING FEATURES NOT TO BE CONFUSEDThe Richardson crater flow-like features should not be confused with two rather similar looking features, the dark streaks in Russell crater, 55 degrees from the south pole (compared to 17.4 degrees for Richardson crater).These are braided, divide, recombine and cross each other's tracks. They flow down the slopes channeled by wind formed ridges in the dunes, and most distinctive of all, they are able to rush up over small features of up to two meters high and down the other side.These seem to be dry features associated with defrosting and small dust avalanches as they are episodic, moving rapidly at speeds of 2-4 meters per second like an avalanche. The authors call them "dark flows". For details see this paper.They also should not be confused with the Flow-like features in the Northern polar dunesThe two Martian ice caps are rather different. The northern cap is low lying, mainly ice, with a thin layer of dry ice that disappears in summer. The flow like features in the northern hemisphere form at 12.5 degrees from the pole at surface temperatures of about -90°C, which is low enough for dry ice to be stable on the surface. Their models involve either extremely cold salty brines or dry ice and sand. These features are far too cold to be habitable to Earth life and may not even involve liquid waterThey are easily confused because they are so similar in appearance, and because both are referred to as "flow like features".These are thought to form at much lower temperatures. Some of the models for these also involve liquid water but there are other hypotheses as well, some of them involving dust and ice slipping down the cliff faces.Perhaps one reason the Richardson crater flow-like features get so little attention is that it is easy to confuse them with these other features and assume they have been proved to be dust flows or to form at temperatures to low to be habitable.But they form in different conditions at different temperatures and the explanations used for these other features don’t work for them. Currently the only models for them involve fresh liquid water beneath the ice, either as layers cms thick, or as thin undercooled liquid water layers, then combining with salts to form the flows on the Martian surface.MORE ABOUT THESE FEATURES AND WHY THEY ARE SO INTERESTING FOR HABITABILITYSo, these southern hemisphere flow like features seem very promising. That’s not as surprising as you might think. The same thing happens in Antarctica - if you have clear ice, then you get a layer of pure water half a meter below the ice.The water is trapped by the ice so stays liquid. And what’s more, if they model it assuming clear ice like the ice in Antarctica they find that the ice there gets enough heat from the sun in the day to keep it liquid through the night to the next day so the layer can actually grow from one day to the next (ice is an excellent insulator). Also the Mars atmosphere is so thin that it doesn't matter at all that the air above the ice is very cold in these regions. The atmosphere is a near vacuum and works as a great insulator. Better in some ways than Antarctica.Inuit village, Ecoengineering, near Frobisher Bay on Baffin Island in the mid-19th century - ice and snow are very insulating on Earth or on Mars. Just as you can be snug and warm inside an igloo, a layer of fresh water can stay warm a few tens of cms below the surface, warmed by the sun every day beaming through th clear ice. The near vacuum of the Mars atmosphere helps if anything.Möhlmann's model is pretty clear (abstract here). If Mars has transparent ice like the ice in Antarctica, then it should have layers of liquid fresh water 5 - 10 cm below the surface and a couple of cm in vertical thickness in late spring to summer in this region. His model doesn't involve salt at all, so the water would be fresh water.The only question here is whether clear ice forms on Mars in Mars conditions and whether the ice is sufficiently insulating. We can’t tell that really from models, the only way is to go there and find out for ourselves.Blue wall of an Iceberg on Jökulsárlón, Iceland. On the Earth, Blue ice like this forms as a result of air bubbles squeezed out of glacier ice. This has the right optical and thermal properties to act as a solid state greenhouse, trapping a layer of liquid water that forms 0.1 to 1 meters below the surface. In Möhlmann's model, if ice with similar optical and thermal properties forms on Mars, it could form a layer of liquid water centimeters to decimeters thick, which would form 5 - 10 cm below the surface.In his model, first the ice forms a translucent layer - then as summer approaches, the solid state greenhouse effect raises the temperature of a layer below the surface to 0°C, so melting it.The melting layer is 5 to 10 cm below the surface. In the model, then the ice below the surface is first warmed up in the daytime sunshine, due to a greenhouse effect, the infrared radiation is trapped in the ice in much the same way that carbon dioxide traps heat to keep Earth warm. Then because the ice is so insulating, the heat is retained overnight, and the water remains liquid to the next day. To start with it would be only millimeters thick but over several days, gets to thicknesses of centimeters.He found that subsurface liquid water layers like this can form with surface temperatures as low as -56°C.CREATES POTENTIAL FOR FRESH LIQUID WATER FLOWING ON MARS!This should happen on Mars so long as it has ice with similar properties to Antarctic clear ice.If there is a layer of gravel or stone at just the right depth, the rock absorbs the infrared heat and that can speed up the process. In that case, a liquid layer can form within a single sol, and can evolve over several sols to be as much as several tens of centimeters in thickness. That is a huge amount of liquid water for the Mars surface.The fresh water of course can't flow across the surface of Mars in the near vacuum conditions, as it would either freeze back to ice, or evaporate into the atmosphere. But the idea is that as it spreads out, it then mixes with any salts also brought up by the geyser to produce salty brines which would then remain liquid at the much lower temperatures on the surface and flow beyond the edges to form the extending dark edges of the flow-like features.Later in the year, pressure can build up and cause formation of mini water geysers which may possibly explain the "white collars" that form around the flow-like features towards the end of the season - in their model this is the result of liquid water erupting in mini water geysers and then freezing as white pure water iceThis provides:A way for fresh water to be present on Mars at 0 °C, and to stay liquid under pressure, insulated from the surface conditions.5 to 10 cm below the surface, trapped by the ice above itDepending on conditions, the liquid layer is at least centimeters in thickness, and could be tens of centimeters in thickness.Initially of fresh water, at around 0°C.They mention a couple of caveats for their model, because the surface conditions on Mars at these locations is unknown. First it requires conditions for bare and optically transparent ice fields on Mars translucent to depths of several centimeters, and it's an open question whether this can happen, but there is nothing to rule it out either. Then, the other open question is whether their assumption of low thermal conductivity of the ice, preventing escape of the heat to the surface, is valid on Mars.The process works with blue ice on Earth - but we can't say yet what forms the ice actually takes in these Martian conditions. The authors don't go into any detail about this, but ordinary ice can take different forms even in near vacuum conditions. As an example of this, the ice at the poles of the Moon could be "fluffy ice""We do not know the physical characteristics of this ice—solid, dense ice, or “fairy castle”—snow-like ice would have similar radar properties. [then they give evidence that suggests fluffy ice is a possibility there] " (page 13 of Evidence for water ice on the moon: Results for anomalous polar)That's the main unknown in their model, whether the ice is blue ice like Antarctic ice, or takes some other form. The ice should at least be in the same hexagonal structure crystalline phase as ice is on Earth - Mars is close to the triple point in this ice phase diagramPhase diagram by Cmglee, wikipedia. Ice outside of Earth can be in many different phases. For instance in the outer solar system it is often so cold that it is in the very hard orthorhombic phase, where it behaves more like rock than what we think of as ice. However ice on Mars is likely to be in the Ih phase similar to Earth life. The Mars surface is close to the triple point of solid / liquid / vapour in this diagram. So, the ice is likely to be of the same type as the blue ice in Antarctica. Not likely to have bubbles of air in it. But it could still take a different forms. The model shows that Mars should have layers of liquid water ten to twenty centimeters below the surface if there are any areas of clear blue ice as in Antarctica.This solid state greenhouse effect process favours sun facing slopes (equator facing). Also, somewhat paradoxically, it favours higher latitudes, close to the poles, over lower latitudes, because it needs conditions where surface ice can form on Mars to thicknesses of tens of centimeters. (The examples at Richardson crater are at latitude -72°, longitude 179.4°, so only 18° from the south pole. There is no in situ data yet for these locations, of course, to test the hypothesis. Though some of the predictions for their model could be confirmed by satellite observations.ALTERNATIVE - THIN LAYERS OVER SURFACES MELTING AT WELL BELOW O CAnother model for these southern hemisphere features involves ULI water (Undercooled Liquid Interfacial water) which forms as a thin layer over surfaces and can melt at well below the usual melting point of ice. In Möhlmann's sandwich model, then the interfacial water layer forms on the surfaces of solar heated grains in the ice, which then flows together down the slope. Calculations of downward flow of water shows that several litres a day of water could be supplied to the seepage flows in this way.The idea then is that this ULI water would be the water source for liquid brines which then flow down the surface, mixing with dust, to form the features. That would still be interesting as you end up having flowing liquid water on Mars, several litres a day what’s more. Here is a paper from 2016 describing the idea.See also Möhlmann's paper The three types of liquid water in the surface of present MarsThose are the only two models so far. So it does seem very likely that there is liquid water here, and even with the interfacial liquid layers, the water starts off as fresh water beneath the ice, or possibly salty (in either model) if there are salt grains in the ice for the water to pick up. Either way the features start out as a flow of fresh water trapped beneath a layer of ice. This is one of the least publicized types of habitat on Mars, seldom mentioned outside the specialist literature. Yet in some ways it's one of the most interesting, if it exists, because of the potential for fresh water at 0 °C.This liquid water is hard to observe because the features are so small, beyond the resolution of CRISM. However, analysis of the larger spots, at around the spring equinox, produced a signal that just possibly could be liquid water, where the ice is in contact with the dark material of the dune spots." In the gray ring area the water ice 631 surrounds darker surface, where liquid interfacial water layer or brine (Möhlmann 2004, 632 2009, 2010) may form. We found no firm evidence for the presence of liquid water in near-IR 633 spectra, although linear unmixing results show that the data are not inconsistent with a 634 possible slight contribution (a few %) of liquid water in the dark core unit." page 26 of this paper.MORE WIDESPREAD LIQUID WATER AT DEPTH OF ABOUT 6.3 CM BELOW OPTICALLY CLEAR ICEMöhlmann has also suggested that his process could be a more widespread phenomenon in the Mars ice caps, not just associated with the geysers, as for Antarctica. Just more noticeable for the flow-like features because of the conditions in which it forms there.Liquid water could form at a depth of around 6.3 cm wherever there is optically clear ice on Mars in snow / ice packs, just as it does in Antarctica. In summer, it could form layers from centimeters to tens of centimeters in thickness.Results of Mohmann's modeling of the solid state greenhouse effect in clear ice on Mars. The plateaus show temperatures that get above the melting point of water regularly every Martian sol, at depths of about 6.3 cms. L here is 11.4 cm. Ice at this level will melt periodically, and especially in summer can stay liquid overnight, leading to subsurface liquid water in layers of from cms to tens of cms in thickness. This should happen on Mars not just in the flow-like Features of Richardson crater, but also, anywhere where there is optically clear ice.In another paper he writes "This liquid water can form in sufficient amounts to be relevant for macroscopic physical (rheology, erosion), for chemical, and eventually also for biological processes. "His models seem clear enough. The air temperature hardly matters, because the Mars air is so thin it's a near vacuum, insulating the ice, like a thermos flask. The only unknown here is whether Mars does have optically clear ice like this, which is common on Earth in cold conditions like this in Antarctica.Before I go on to the last couple of examples of possible habitats in the polar regions, let’s just revisit the Phoenix lander site. I think it would be a great place for a mission that’s both interesting for astrobiology and also for ground truth for planetary protection.LIFE IN ICE TOWERS HIDING VOLCANIC VENTSSo, this is another suggestion, that we could find habitats on Mars inside ice fumaroles. It's a nice idea, and perhaps ice fumaroles do form on Mars from time to time. So far we haven't found any on present day Mars. But it may well be worth keeping a look out for them, as it would be a very interesting habitat if we find one, or one of them starts to form, around a volcanic vent on Mars. If Mars does have any volcanic vents which vent water rich gases through a fumarole, they are likely to form ice towers like this, as happens in Antarctica.Let's look at the idea in some more detail. This photo shows an ice fumarole - an ice tower that forms around a vent of volcanic gases in the extremely cold conditions right near the top of Mount Erebus in Antarctica.+ One of the numerous Ice Fumaroles near the summit of Mount Erebus in Antarctica. If these also occur on Mars, they could provide a habitat for life, and would be extremely hard to spot from orbit due to the low external temperatures. Image credit Mount Erebus Volcano ObservatoryFor more photos of ice fumaroles see "Ice Towers and Caves of Mount Erebus",They were originally discovered by the Antarctic explorer Shackleton during his 1908 Nimrod expedition, when he and a few others set out to climb Mount Erebus.Photograph from Shackleton's Mount Erebus expedition with a fumarole in the backgroundHe described them like this."The ice fumaroles are specially remarkable. About fifty of these were visible to us on the track which we followed to and from the crater, and doubtless there were numbers that we did not see. These unique ice-mounds have resulted from the condensation of vapour around the orifices of the fumaroles. It is only under conditions of very low temperature that such structures could exist. No structures like them are known in any other part of the world."Ice caves form below the fumaroles, and these are especially interesting as a habitat for life.Entrance to Warren Cave on Mount Erebus. Credit Brian Hasebe. Volcanically heated, the temperatures inside their three study sites were 32, 52 and 64 degrees Fahrenheit (2,11 and 18 degrees Celsius), far warmer than the surroundings.These ice caves on Erebus are of especial interest for astrobiology, as analogues for habitats outside of Earth, because they are so biologically isolated. Most surface caves are influenced by human activities, or by organics from the surface brought in by animals (e.g. bats) or ground water. These caves at Erebus. are high altitude, yet accessible for study. There is almost no chance of them being affected by photosynthetic based organics, or of animals in a food chain based on photosynthetic life. Also there is no overlying soil to wash down into them.As described in this paper, these ice towers eventually collapse and then rebuild themselves, but though temporary features, they persist for decades. The air inside has 80% to 100% humidity, and up to 3% CO2, and some CO and H2, but almost no CH4 or H2S. Many of the caves are completely dark, so can't support photosynthesis. Organics can only come from the atmosphere, or from ice algae that grow on the surface in summer, which may eventually find their way into the caves through burial and melting. As a result most micro-organisms there are chemolithoautotrophic i.e. microbes that get all of their energy from chemical reactions with the rocks. They don't depend on any other lifeforms to survive. They survive using CO2 fixation and some may use CO oxidization for their metabolism. The main types of microbe found there are Chloroflexi and Acidobacteria.This makes them very interesting as an analogue for Mars habitats. If Mars is currently geologically active, then in such cold conditions, it may well have ice fumaroles around its vents, and if so they would be only a few degrees higher in temperature than the surrounding landscape and hard to spot from orbit. We haven't found these yet. The closest we have got so far is that the silica deposits in Home Plate which Spirit found, might have been formed by ancient fumaroles on Mars, (not necessarily ice fumaroles) though they could also have been formed by hot springs or geysers.This article Martian Hot Spots in NASA's Astrobiology magazine presents Hoffman's ideas. He explains that ice fumaroles on Mars could be up to 30 meters tall in its lower gravity and 10 to 30 meters in diameter, circular or oval in shape. So, potentially these things could grow to be huge on Mars, as high as a nine story high skyscraper, and potentially some of them could be as wide as they are high.He suggests searching for them on Mars from orbit, and he wondered if some temperature anomalies in Hellas Basin could be ice fumaroles. They wouldn't need to be in polar regions because the fumaroles themselves would bring large quantities of water vapour to the surface to keep replenishing the ice towers as they sublime away in the thing Mars atmosphere. They might be quite easy to spot as white circles or ovals, probably in permanently shadowed regions, and they would be slightly warmer than their surroundings. This shows one of his candidates.Daytime infrared from Odyssey IRAnomalous warmth in infrared at night as well on all nine infrared bands, so not a chemical signature.That candidate is in Hellas Planitia and is from 2003. Despite a search of high resolution visual images they were unable to find anything visual corresponding to them, they were only visible in infrared. But it shows the sort of thing they would be looking for. Lots of small dots around 10-30 meters in diameter each, clustered around a potential fracture. For details see their paper.The idea is that just as on Earth, volcanic action could bring water vapour and other gases from below. The water vapour, as in Antarctica, would freeze out to form these ice towers. If these environments do occur on Mars, they would provide a warm environment, high water vapor saturation, and some UV shielding. The ones we have on Earth don't have signNow amounts of liquid water. However, as they have close to 100% humidity inside, that doesn't matter. They sustain microbial communities of oligotrophs, i.e. micro-organisms that survive in environments that are very poor in nutrients. The same could be true of Mars.Though we haven't found ice fumaroles on Mars yet, we have found recently formed rootless cones, which are the results of explosive contact of lava with water or ice. This shows that ice (or water) and lava were in close proximity as recently as around ten million years ago.This shows rootless cones on Mars (to the left) and in Iceland. They are the locations of small explosions of steam, when lava surges over the surface over water or ice. These rootless cones on Mars formed around ten million years ago which shows that Mars has had ice and lava in close proximity very recently. They range in diameter from 20 meters to 300 meters.So, could there be other ways that volcanic processes on Mars produce habitats by interacting with ice, such as the ice fumaroles? From this 2007 paper:Hoffman and Kyle suggested the ice towers of Mt. Erebus as analogues of biological refuges on Mars. They combined the idea of still existing near surface ice deposits with the assumption that there is still some localized volcanic activity on Mars today.There are several examples from Mars that show a direct interaction between lava and ice in the geological history of Mars. The most obvious cases are the rootless cones seen in the northern lowlands. HRSC images show direct and violent interaction in the relatively recent geological history, for example at the scarps of Olympus Mons. Mars today is in relatively dormant phase, and any interactions which might be occurring today are presumably on a much less dynamic scale. Nevertheless, they may be driving local hydrothermal systems. Studying the geothermal processes in the first few tens to hundreds of meters below the surface of Mars today might thus uncover a wide variety of new habitats where biological activity may survive on this cold and dry planet.For more about this topic see Volcano-Ice Interaction as a Microbial Habitat on Earth and Mars. These ice fumaroles would be of great interest, but of course, being open to the surface, would easily be contaminated by Earth life from surface explorers or brought in to them through dust from the Martian storms.So far we've been looking at habitats deep below the surface of Mars, though perhaps connected to the surface. But what about habitats on the surface itself? They would make planetary protection even more of an issue, so it's important to look at the possibility. First we need to look at the question, is surface life possible there at all. Just a decade ago, most scientists (with the exception of Gilbert Levin) would have answered with a resounding "No". But that's all changed.There might also be habitats for native Mars life below the surface similar to lake Vostok in Antarctica - well within signNow of drilling. Searches so far have turned up a blank but they could still be there if the lakes are small up ot a few kilometers in size. They could be as close to the surface as only 100 meters deep below rock, or 600 meters deep below ice and remain liquid indefinitelyICE COVERED LAKES HABITABLE FOR THOUSANDS OF YEARS AFTER LARGE IMPACTS - OR INDEFINITELYWhen comet Siding Spring was discovered in 2013, before they knew its trajectory well, there was a small chance that it could hit Mars. Calculations showed it could create a crater of many kilometers in diameter and perhaps a couple of kilometers deep. If a comet like that hit the martian polar regions or higher latitudes, away from the equator, it would create a temporary lake, which life could survive in.Artist's impression of Mars as seen from comet Siding Spring approaching the planet on 9th October 2014. It missed, by less than half the distance to our Moon. But sometimes comets will hit the Mars ice caps or higher latitudes. If that happens, it will create lakes and hydrothermal systems that last for thousands of years.These lakes can last for a surprisingly long time, insulated by the ice and heated from below by the rock. The models suggest that large craters of 100 - 200 km in diameter in the early solar system would have made lakes that stayed liquid for as long as one to ten million years. This happens even in cold conditions, so it is not limited to early Mars. A present day comet a few kilometers in diameter could form a crater 30 - 50 km in diameter and an underground hydrothermal system that remains liquid for thousands of years. The lake is kept heated by the melted rock from the initial impact in hydrothermal systems fed by water from deep underground.Also, there's another way to keep water liquid. Any ice deep enough below the surface, only 100 meters deep, can actually stay liquid indefinitely if covered by an insulating layer of gravel. There'd be enough heat from below, just from the heat of Mars itself and enough insulation above from the gravel, to keep the water permanently liquid. See section 2.2.3 of Niton Renno's article. This is also one theory for the Martian "dry gullies" that they formed through liquid water suddenly flowing out of a subsurface aquifer like this. This was the most popular theory for them at one point, though there are other explanations for them now.It's much harder to keep water liquid below ice, since rock is much more insulating than ice. It's especially hard for water to form below an ice sheet. If the ice cap was four to six kilometers deep, then you'd expect the base of it to be liquid water, melted from below just through the heat of Mars itself. Though Mars does have ice at both poles, its ice sheets aren't quite as deep as that. But it could still have liquid water at the base of its ice sheets, if there's localized geothermal heating from below.Also, if a lake formed, originally by geothermal melting or a meteorite impact, it's much easier to keep the lake liquid than it was to melt the water in the first place. In one model, then if a lake forms at a depth of over 600 meters below the ice (originally open to the surface) then it can remain liquid indefinitely from the heat flux from below, even without local geothermal heating.We'd be able to detect this water using ground penetrating radar because of the high radar contrast between water and ice or rock. MARSIS, the ground penetrating radar on ESA's Mars Express is our best instrument for the job. After several searches, it hasn't found anything yet. See page 191 of this paper. Their resolution isn't that great, however, around a kilometer.From the searches done to date, we can say with reasonable certainty that Mars doesn't seem to have an equivalent of our Lake Vostok (250 km by 50 km by 0.43 km deep) beneath its ice caps at present. It could however still have small subglacial lakes of up to a kilometer or so in diameter. They were looking for water liquid through geothermal heating, but their search would surely have found impact lakes too.So, Mars doesn't seem to have any large lakes created from impacts just now. Nor does it have any major lakes formed through geothermal activity below glaciers or ice caps, though it could have smaller lakes.So in short there are lots of exciting prospects to explore in the polar regions for astrobiologySo far we haven’t even made a start at looking for life there. Or anywhere on Mars except briefly in the 1970s with the Viking landers which produced ambiguous results and have never been followed up.See also myIs This Why We Haven't Found Life On Mars Yet? Value Of Actually LookingLet's Make Sure Astronauts Won't Extinguish Native Mars Life - To Jupiter's Callisto, Saturn's Titan And Beyond - Op EdModern Mars habitability - WikipediaTouch Mars? (book, around 2,000 pages, in a single web page, give it time to load) - this article is based mainly on sections of this bookRemoved section of this answer about the idea of using the Phoenix lander site to test planetary protection ideas - it was long enough anyway and that made it rather long :)
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How do you build stamina for working long hours?
Before I answer this question, I want to start by pointing one thing out…You’re not supposed to work long hours!According to all of the best research, after 35 hours of work, your weekly productivity will begin to declineThis means that if you were working at a level 8–10 for the first 35 hours of the week, you’ll be working at a level 5 or below for hours 35+.While there are many people like Gary Vaynerchuk who seem to be able to bend reality to their will and work insane hours for extended periods of time, the simple fact of the matter is this:You only have so much mental energy to expend in a week.You cannot be operating at 100% for 60, 70, or 80 hours a week. It’s just not possible.And if you try… Then you are going to wear yourself out and lower the quality of the other hours that you work.It’s far better to work 35 or fewer hours per week where you are hyper focused and productive than it is to work 60 where you are burnt out and frustrated.But I digress…If you’re anything like I was 2–3 years ago, you’re going to read this and completely ignore it, and that’s fine. Most people have to experience things firsthand before they will really believe them.So with that disclaimer out of the way, here are a few tips and tricks for increasing your energy, focus, and productivity so that you can work long hours effectively.(Note: Some of this content is pulled from my Ultimate Guide to Limitless Productivity where I share the most scientifically validated ways to increase your productivity and get more done in less time)1. Sleep at Least 7.5 Hours Each NightIf you want to have the stamina to work long hours, then you need to make sure that your body and mind are fully rested and equipped to handle an arduous work load.According to Medical Daily, 40.6 million Americans, more than 30% of the workforce, are chronically sleep deprived.Now, at first glance, you might think, “C’mon Andrew, who gives a crap? You can sleep when you’re dead, these people just need to work more!”But when you consider that sleep deprivation has been linked to:DepressionDeliriumHallucinationsImpaired Cognition and an Increased Risk of Preventable AccidentsNot to mention, an increased risk of infections, cancer, and overall mortality.You begin to realize that sleep deprivation is a big deal.Like a really big deal.I know that most young people love the #hustle mentality and believe that there is something noble or productive in sleep deprivation.But nothing could be further from the truth.Unless you have the rare genetic mutation, DEC2, (present in less than 5% of the population) sleeping less than 6 hours a night is literally killing you.And the worst part?You aren’t even aware that it’s happening.Now, let’s consider the positive effects that studies have shown to be present when an individual gets sufficient sleep.Improved memoryLower systemic inflammationImproved immune functionElevated moodLearning and problem-solving abilities improvedI don’t know about you, but I personally believe that having a better memory, experiencing less illness, feeling happier, learning faster, and solving problems more rapidly all strongly correlate to being more productive.This isn’t just my opinion either. In fact, some of the world’s top performers report sleeping more than 8.5 hours a night.Podcast Guest, Neil Patel sleeps 9.25 hours a night while running three multi-million dollar businesses.Arianna Huffington, Co-founder of the Huffington Post and multimillionaire claims that sleeping 8 hours a night was partially responsible for her success.James Altucher, multi-millionaire investor, and hedge fund manager includes “Sleeping 8 Hours” as one of the keys to his financial successAt this point, it should be clear that getting more sleep is, indeed, one of the quickest ways to boost your productivity.But the question still remains, “How much sleep do I need, and how can I get better quality sleep?”According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults need 7-9 hours in order to prevent the effects of sleep deprivation from affecting your life and productivity. (slightly more if you’re an avid athlete)As for increasing the quality of your sleep, it’s actually pretty simple.Go to bed before 11 p.m.Wake up at the same time each daySleep in a completely dark and cold room (research shows that 65-67 F is ideal for sleep)Exercise dailyTurn off all electronics 60 minutes before bed.I know that this particular section was a little bit long-winded, but this point is so important that I couldn’t simply breeze through it.If you want to be more productive, you need to sleep. Period.Until you are getting 7.5-9 hours of sleep on a consistent basis, the other tactics included in this guide will simply fan the flames of burnout until, eventually, you collapse in a stressed out, sleep deprived panic attack.Take it from me (and thousands of scholarly studies), quit trying to join the sleepless elite and get your 7 hours. M’kay?2. Sweat for At Least 20 Minutes a DayStudy after study after study has illustrated the tremendous importance of daily exercise.From:Decreased depressionElevated mood, reduced stress, and less anxietyImproved blood flow to the brainThe production of new brain cellsImproves memoryImproved discipline, impulse control, and decision makingIn fact, there are SO many benefits to exercise, that the Harvard Business Review has stated that regular exercise should be a mandatory part of any job description.Luckily, studies have shown that you don’t have to exercise for hours every day to reap these benefits.In fact, just 150 minutes of weekly exercise (that’s 30 minutes every weekday) is more than sufficient to improve your productivity, mood, and general well being.If you are exercising exclusively for increased productivity, studies have shown that 2-3 moderately intense sessions of aerobic exercise each week will have the most dramatic impact on your ability to focus and concentrate.However, this does not mean that you should exclusively train your aerobic capacity.Further research has indicated that combining regular aerobic conditioning with an intelligent weightlifting regimen (I recommend this one) and regular yoga will have the greatest impact on your ability to be more productive and stay focused throughout the day.3. Eat Clean Burning Foods and Reduce Your Carb Load Early in the DayMost people underestimate the effect that your diet has on cognitive performance and general productivity.Think about it this way…Your brain is the center of all productivity.Although that tiny little supercomputer takes up only 2-3% of the total mass of your body, it burns more than 20% of the calories that you consume!In and of itself, this should clearly illustrate the link between food and productivity.Studies from the Harvard Business Review have shown an inextricable link between the calories that you consume and the ability for your brain to focus and achieve long-lasting concentration.I won’t bore you with all of the science, but I will suffice it to say that what you eat matters… A lot.If you want to be as productive as possible, you will want to clean up your diet.Here are a few guidelines to get you started.Eliminate as many processed foods as possibleConsume slow burning foods such as raw vegetables and fibrous carbohydrates throughout the day to properly regulate glucose levels in the brainConsume your biggest and highest carb meal after your workout or at dinnerSkip breakfast and opt for coconut oil coffee or eat a very protein and fat rich breakfast (no carbs!)Although you can dive much much deeper into the world of productivity and focus through dieting, simply eliminating processed foods, increasing the number of vegetables you eat, and waiting until later in the day to consume carbs will dramatically improve your productivity almost overnight.If you are interested in learning more about how your dietary choices and productivity are related, check out this awesome infographic from Hubspot.4. Bring the JoyAlthough it might seem like common sense, happy and excited people are more productive.How much more productive?Well, according to a study compiled by Professor Andrew Oswald, Dr. Eugenio Proto and Dr. Daniel Sgroi from the Department of Economics at the University of Warwick, happy employees are 12% more productive than their unhappy peers!I don’t have time to dive into all of the amazing research that has been compiled in recent years that details what determines human happiness, (you should check out the Happiness Advantage by Shawn Achor if you’re interested in this), I want to share a quick tactic I picked up from Brendon Burchard.The tactic, called “Bring the Joy” is simple enough, but the results you will experience are profound.All I want you to do is to set 3 alarm on your phone titled Bring the Joy.Set them to go off at different times throughout the day and, when you see the notification pop up on your screen, I want you to ask yourself three questions.What level of joy and presence am I bringing to this present moment?What am I grateful for today?How can I bring more joy and excitement into my current interactions and activities?Like I said, simple right?I challenge you to try this tactic for the next 30 days and genuinely pause and become aware of your state every time your alarm goes off.You will be amazed at how much more productive and joyful your life will become.5. Meditate for at Least 10 Minutes a DayAlthough the scientific community needs to further evaluated the direct link between meditation and productivity, several studies like this one, conducted at a Fortune 100 company, show a very clear link between a regular meditation practice and increased productivity at work.The reason for this is simple.Meditation is proven to help: (source)Lower blood pressureAlleviate symptoms of insomniaReduce depression and anxietyReduce painReduce symptoms of IBSAid in smoking cessationOh, did I mention that it has also been shown to rebuild grey matter?As I’ve already discussed, happiness and productivity are inextricably linked and it should be pretty clear that any practice which decreases depression, anxiety, and sleeplessness will, by default, improve your productive output.I challenge you to take up a meditation practice for the next 30 days and record how you feel.Arnold Schwarzenegger, the infamous bodybuilder, real estate tycoon, and “Governator” of California stated that his one year of intense TM (Transcendental Meditation) practice has created results that6. Take Strategic Breaks Throughout the Day to Maintain Your Energy and EnthusiasmOne of the most surprising ways to increase your energy and boost productivity is actually to work less and take breaks more frequently.Study after study has shown that the human brain cannot focus (effectively) for more than 90 minutes.Eventually, your brain needs a break from any given task to consolidate and process information, renew our focus, and ensure that our tasks are ultimately congruent with our goals.Later in this article, I’ll discuss the Pomodoro method which helps cement these findings into your daily workflow.But for now, I simply want to encourage you to start taking a 45-60 minute break in the middle of every workday.During these breaks, I recommend that you:Practice meditationWalk outsideEat a light snackDo some calisthenicsReadTalk with friendsTest out different methods of recharging yourself and renewing your focus throughout the day and it will pay dividends in the long run.7. Eliminate Email as Much as PossibleNothing will drain your focus and stamina more than wasting nearly 30% of your work week responding to emails!In the United States alone, the average employee spends more than 28% of their time or 13 hours a week responding to emails.That’s more than 650 hours a year wasted on largely unproductive, reactive, and unnecessary correspondence!Over the average employee’s lifespan (45 working years) that equates to more than 29250 hours wasted on email.For those of you who are quick with a calculator, this means that the average employee will spend 3 years of their life responding to and clearing out emails!That’s a jaw-dropping amount of time to spend on such an insignNow and largely unimportant task as email.So what in the hell are we going to do about it?Although entire books have been written on the topic of reducing email overload and reclaiming your inbox (and your life) I will keep things simple.I recommend that you:Check email only twice a day (I do it at 10 a.m. and 4 p.m.)“Touch it once”. Either respond to, archive or delete an email. Never leave it in your inboxStop using email folders and simply search for emails when you need themKeep your emails to 5 sentences or less and inform people of this policy in your signature (shoutout to Chris Bailey for this one)Go on an email vacation and let co-workers know you won’t be responding to email until you are done with your biggest project (they will survive I promise)If you do nothing other than implementing these five tips your productivity will skyrocket.Imagine if you could reduce the amount of time you spend on email to only one hour a week.How much more could you accomplish with 12 extra hours in your work week?How much income could you create? How many promotions could you secure?The more you think about it, the more you will realize that email is the scourge of productivity and, although it is a necessary evil, it is an evil nonetheless.8. Embrace the Power of “No”The most powerful word in the entire English language is composed of only two letters.“No”The word “No” has started wars, ended wars, overthrown oppressive governments, and, as it pertains to our conversation, revolutionized personal productivity and fulfillment for people all over the world.Just think about it for a moment.How much pain, discomfort, and genuine wasted time have you experienced in your life because you said “Yes” when you should have said “No”?How many times have you spent an afternoon with people that you didn’t like, in a setting that made you uncomfortable, for a purpose you couldn’t ascertain simply because you didn’t have the courage to say “No”?If you are anything like me, the answer is probably “A lot”.I know from first-hand experience that implementing the power of “No” into your life can be very challenging.For years, I was a chronic people pleaser.I would go to parties I didn’t want to attend, stay late at work, go on dates with people I didn’t care for, and generally lived my life for the approval of others instead of my own personal satisfaction.Until one day, I had enough.I was burnt out, stressed out, wallowing in unfinished projects, unmet personal expectations, and general angst about my existence.So I decided to say “No” more often.I said no:When family members wanted to hang out during my workdaysWhen audience members asked to take me to lunch (I love you guys but I literally cannot meet with 30,000+ men 1-on-1)When friends wanted to go out and I didn’tWhen people made unfair requests of me and my timeWhen people asked for unwarranted favors because they were “My friend”I said “No” to the bad and even the good so that I could say “Yes” to the great.And if you want to be as productive as possible and create a truly prolific life, then you must learn to do the same.9. Use the Pomodoro TechniqueRemember how we talked about the importance of taking breaks way back in Path #1 (yeah, I know this is a long ass article)?Well, it turns out that taking breaks every 50-90 minutes can be just as effective at increasing your productivity and focus throughout the day as the 45-minute renewal exercise we already discussed.The reason for this lies in something called the Ultradian Rhythm.Effectively our brain waves are cyclical and go through peaks and troughs roughly every 90 minutes.In the same way that your brain cycles through different wavelengths during a 90-minute sleep cycle, so too does your brain cycle through wavelengths in a “basic rest-activity cycle”.If you are interested in learning more about the science, you can check out this article from Tony Schwartz.Knowing that cognitive output is cyclical, meaning that you physically cannot sustain high levels of concentration without intermittent periods of rest, changes the entire approach to productivity and focus.This is where the Pomodoro technique comes in handy.Instead of fighting against your Ultradian Rhythm, the Pomodoro technique works with it.Here’s what you do.Instead of simply sitting down at your desk to work, you are going to pick one of your most important tasks of the day (which I will talk about in the next point) and focus on it for a definite length of time between 25 and 90 minutes.Then, you are going to set a timer, eliminate all distractions, and get to work on that project with single-focus until the timer goes off.When the timer buzzes, you are going to take a break anywhere from 5-22 minutes (depending on the length of your work session) before sitting back down to begin the process all over again.All you need to complete the Pomodoro Technique is:A physical or online timerSomething to work onYour brainIt really is that simple.I’ve tested this tactic out for myself and have noticed that I am consistently more productive, more efficient, and more happy with my output when I use the Pomodoro technique on a regular basis.10. Create Locational Anchors to Build Productive StatesAn underground tactic that I’ve found to be immensely effective in recent months is the use of locational anchors.This concept was first introduced to me when I listened to an excellent podcast with Jairek Robbins.Jairek discussed the concept of locational anchors by explaining that the brain works through the power of association and that, the more associations we can build for a specific task, the easier it will be to accomplish it.This is why doctors tell you to only use your bed for sleep and sex.You want to make sure that when it’s time to unwind or *ahem* perform, that your body and brain associate your bed with those activities.This is also why it’s so much easier to have an awesome workout at your local gym than it is with an Iron Gym in your living room.However, Jairek took things a step further and recommended that you actually develop locational anchors for ALL major tasks that you must complete throughout the day.For example:Check email at the kitchen tableTake conference calls at your local cafeWrite at your desk while looking out the windowDesign sales funnels at your desk with your back to the windowComplete all administrative work at a specific nook in your houseThe list goes on and on.Unfortunately, I couldn’t find any direct research to back up this particular hack, however, after experiencing its effectiveness first hand, I couldn’t leave it off this list.Give it a go for 90 days and I promise you will get more done than you ever believed possible.Final Thoughts: Take it Easy on Yourself!Before I leave you to take on the big bad world of getting sh*t done and becoming a productivity machine, I wanted to leave you with one final tip.Take it easy on yourself.The most unproductive thing you can do is to berate and belittle yourself because you haven’t been as successful or productive as you want.Yes, it’s important that you are honest with yourself and your clients and don’t sugarcoat the reality of your current capacity.However, you must remember that you were never taught this in school. You weren’t born with the knowledge of how to be massively productive.You’ve simply been operating on whatever systems you picked up from the people around you and, hopefully, you now have better systems to test and implement.Productivity and focus are both acquired skillsets.You aren’t born productive and it’s not something that is determined by your genetics. It’s a matter of principles and systems, testing, failing, and figuring out what works for you.So take it easy on yourself as you strive to get more done.The journey will take time, but it will be worth it.Good luck!Closeout this article and go get some shit done!
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