The study was based on observations taken over six years. Stephen Kane of NASA’s Exoplanet Science Institute at the California Institute of Technology stated that ‘this is encouraging news for investigations into habitable planets.’

What a great opportunity for writers of science fiction/fantasy – and investigations into life in other planets!!

Keeping with the science theme – it has also been reported this week that Russian scientists have resurrected an entire plant!

The Ice Age Flower (the Silene Stenophylla) was regenerated from from fruit tissues in an Ice Age squirrels chamber.

For viewers of Ice Age the movie – good ole Scrat!

With daylight temperatures struggling to get above freezing, hiding under the duvet has been a very tempting proposition, however I have been shoe-horning myself out of bed to hit my daily word count for my new book on self confidence and self esteem (for www.selfconfidenceworkshops.co.uk). I’ve also taken the opportunity provided by the cold weather to stay indoors and devour lots of kindle books – all related to marketing, kindle and Amazon.

It’s easy to let the weather affect our moods and motivation, but if we want to do something badly enough – we cannot afford to let the weather interfere with our plans. Adapting work patterns to suit is a much better plan – and this is exactly what I have done this past week.

We went to see our in-laws this week and, as they were on their way back from Reading, decided to wait for them to come home and put the kettle on! I took the opportunity to top up both my ‘knowledge and solar panels’ by reading my latest kindle book whilst standing on their patio, soaking up the suns rays – and, surprisingly, it was rather pleasant!

I’ve also made contact with the local writers group (http://www.wordwatchers.net/). I had a lovely evening at their informal get together and am looking forward to meeting up with them all next month. My advice to anyone looking for their local writers groups – visit them to get a ‘feel’ for them and how they work – I did, and I think I’ve found an absolute gem of a group!

As mentioned on MSN news, the remnants of a supernova have been spotted – and it happened 400 years ago!! (http://news.uk.msn.com/blog/clicksnapwhirr-blogpost.aspx?post=7ddb8469-657f-4b76-9868-1a297e99ed1d) The picture below (via NASA and Reuters) shows the resulting bubble-shaped gas shroud  looks amazing – and somewhat akin to a jelly fish! The universe never ceases to amaze me – this gas shroud is 23 light years across and travelling at more than 11 million miles per hour – figures of this magnitude always make my head hurt!

Solar Flare Erupting From The Sun

The writer in me loves it when these events are recorded in the media, as it gives rise to that age old question of ‘what if?’ You could spend days dreaming up all sorts of scenarios related to that one question. What if these solar flares got bigger? What if the geomagnetic storming affected plane routes and power grids? What if the Northern lights were pulled further south?

According to the MSN news report (http://news.uk.msn.com/world/solar-radiation-storm-hits-earth) the sun has cycles of storm activity, with an average cycle lasing 11 years.

Each cycle has two extremes – known as solar maximum and solar minimum. The solar minimum has less activity, with fewer solar flares and CMEs (coronel mass ejections – which cause high levels of radiation). The solar maximum has much more solar activity, more radiation and more solar solar weather - and we are heading towards a solar maximum in 2013.

Solar weather can cause blackouts that last for weeks – months even – and a severe solar storm can cause a global hurricane Katrina, according to Sir John Beddington, the government’s chief scientific advisor.

Many leading scientists have stated that we as a planet are totally ill-prepared for a severe solar storm. And as we are now so reliant on using electricity – with satellites, GPS and power grids – my question of the day is ‘what if…?’

I read an inspiring, eye-opening couple of books this week, using kindle for android phones. Yep, that’s right – the person who loves the feel of pages beneath her fingers, read a book on a screen! Both books were written by Kristen Lamb (at http://warriorwriters.wordpress.com/)  and, not only did she get me hooked on the convenience of reading a couple of virtual pages whenever I get a spare second, she opened my eyes to a couple of things.

Although both of the books I have written are aimed at writers (We Are Not Alone - The Writers Guide to Social Media, and Are You There Blog? It’s Me, Writer) she points out things that can also be adopted by everyone trying to build a platform – you need to have a plan and you need to understand why you want to achieve your goal. Kristen also refers to the fact that she can be a ‘highly organised’ person and, like me, sometimes we can forget that if we leave no room for movement in our plans, we don’t give ourselves room to breath; room for changes outside our control.

I guess that is the biggest lessons I have learnt from these two books, and this was highlighted to me this week (and the reason for this post). I’ve planned the whole of January out in my Filofax already. However, this week creative inspiration struck and I ended up working on planning and writing an ebook for Self Confidence Workshops (http://www.selfconfidenceworkshops.co.uk) . Normally I would be kicking myself for not sticking to my writing plan – however this time, as I’ve already planned the overview and written 3,000 words in two days - I’ve congratulated myself on my word count and reorganised next week so I can finish the book.

And I, for one, consider that a job well done!