In children with pneumonia, serum CRP concentrations exceeding 40-60 mg/L weakly predict a bacterial etiology
//////////////Fears: Ranked from childhood through parenthood
(with thanks to Ray Federman)
1. Fear of the dark
Under the bed.Inside the closet.Between leap and landing (floor to bed).(Related) Long arm reaching out from under bed.
2. Fear of separation
Lost in a crowd (accidental).Lost in a crowd (on purpose).Lost in the woods (either).
3. Fear of abandonment
Parents dying.Parents divorcing.One parent moving.Parents remarrying.
4. Fear of wicked stepparent
5. Fear of pee accidents
In school.In bed.In friend’s bed.
6. Fear of bras
Needing one.Not needing one.Anyone looking closely enough to know.
7. Fear of menstrual period
Getting it.Not getting it. Surprise attack.
8. Fear of embarassment
Wrong clothes.Wrong hair.Wrong glasses.Wrong body.Wrong mother.
9. Fear of Getting Pregnant
10. Fear of rejection
By friends.By boyfriend.By colleges.
11. Fear of being found out
12. Fear of not getting work
Not paying student loans.Not paying bills.
13. Fear of selling out
Deserting dreams.Embracing capitalism.
14. Fear of the dark (continued)
Parking lots at night.Deserted streets at night.Apartments at night.Houses at night.Bedrooms at night.
15. Fear of rejection (continued)
By lovers.By bosses.By friends.
16. Fear of being unloved
17. Fear of being unlovable
18. Fear of having married the wrong person
19. Fear of not getting pregnant
20. Fear of mortality
Parents’ mortality.Spouse’s mortality.Signs of mortality.Cancer.
21. Fear of childbirth
22. Fear of losing a child
To crib death.To falling down stairs. To a head injury.To bathtub.To a bicycle accident.To a car accident.To a playground accident.To a freak accident.To pneumonia.To cancer.To a thousand kinds of cancer.To a pedophile.To a kidnapper.To a babysitter.To a stranger.To a tick bite.To a bad heart.To thin ice.To a swimming pool.To falling rocks.To drugs.To gun violence.To poor judgment.To sport.To a dare.To driving.To driving drunk.To heartbreak.To childbirth.
=—Jan Pettit
The Federman Collectionat Spineless Books
//////////////////////
Friday, 29 February 2008
CDS 290208
/////////////////////
Population adds pressure not only to the global environment, but also for societies and economies. Sustained growth in developing nations like China and India rapidly lifts people from poverty and the world must adjust, warns Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy. A growing middle class around the world is already increasing demand for meat, milk and other foods, thus increasing the prices of staple products. The middle class can afford more energy, precious metals and commodities per capita than the poor. In 2006, China added to its overall energy use as much as France consumes in one year. The larger middle class will increase demand for a lifestyle that many in developed nations now take for granted, along with increased urbanization and immigration, notes Naím. New technologies may cover some demand, but big changes, higher costs as well as some conflict are in store. Naím predicts that “unanticipated effects of the new global middle class will become part of our daily news.” – YaleGlobal
Can the World Afford a Middle Class?
Yes, but it will be awfully expensive
Moisés Naím
Foreign Policy, 28 February 2008
The middle class in poor countries is the fastest-growing segment of the world’s population. While the total population of the planet will increase by about 1 billion people in the next 12 years, the ranks of the middle class will swell by as many as 1.8 billion. Of these new members of the middle class, 600 million will be in China. Homi Kharas, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, estimates that by 2020 the world’s middle class will grow to include a staggering 52 percent of the global population, up from 30 percent now. The middle class will almost double in the poor countries where sustained economic growth is lifting people above the poverty line fast. For example, by 2025, China will have the world’s largest middle class, while India’s will be 10 times larger than it is today.
While this is, of course, good news, it also means humanity will have to adjust to unprecedented pressures. The rise of a new global middle class is already having repercussions. Last January, 10,000 people took to the streets in Jakarta to protest skyrocketing soybean prices. And Indonesians were not the only people angry about the rising cost of food. In 2007, higher pasta prices sparked street protests in Milan. Mexicans marched against the price of tortillas. Senegalese protested the price of rice, and Indians took up banners against the price of onions. Many governments, including those in Argentina, China, Egypt, and Russia, have imposed controls on food prices in an attempt to contain a public backlash.
These protesters are the most vociferous manifestations of a global trend: We are all paying more for bread, milk, and chocolate, to name just a few items. The new consumers of the emerging global middle class are driving up food prices everywhere. The food-price index compiled by The Economist since 1845 is now at an all-time high; it increased 30 percent in 2007 alone. Milk prices were up more than 29 percent last year, while wheat and soybeans increased by almost 80 and 90 percent, respectively. Many other grains, like rice and maize, reached record highs. Prices are soaring not because there is less food (in 2007, the world produced more grains than ever before), but because some grains are now being used as fuel and because more people can afford to eat more. The average consumption of meat in China, for example, has more than doubled since the mid-1980s.
The impact of a fast-growing middle class will soon be felt in the price of other resources. After all, members of the middle class not only consume more meat and grains, but they also buy more clothes, refrigerators, toys, medicines, and, eventually, cars and homes. China and India, with 40 percent of the world’s population, most of it still very poor, already consume more than half of the global supply of coal, iron ore, and steel. Thanks to their growing prosperity and that of other countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, and Vietnam, the demand for these products is booming. Not surprisingly, in the past two years, the world price of tin, nickel, and zinc have roughly doubled, while aluminum is up 39 percent and plywood is now 27 percent more expensive. Moreover, a middle-class lifestyle in these developing countries, even if more frugal than what is common in rich nations, is more energy intensive. In 2005, China added as much electricity generation as Britain produces in a year. In 2006, it added as much as France’s total supply. Yet, millions in China still lack reliable access to electricity; in India, more than 400 million don’t have power. The demand in India will grow fivefold in the next 25 years.
And you know what happened to oil prices. Again, oil reached its all-time high of $100 per barrel not because of supply constraints but because of unprecedented growth in consumption in poor countries with rising middle classes. China alone accounts for one third of the growth in the world’s oil consumption in recent years. The middle class also likes to travel: The World Tourism Organization estimates that outbound tourists will grow from today’s 846 million a year to 1.6 billion in 2020. Venice and Paris will be even more expensive—and crowded—to visit.
The public debate about the consequences of this global consumption boom has focused on what it means for the environment. Yet, its economic and political effects will be significant, too. The lifestyle of the existing middle class will probably have to change as the new middle class emerges. The consumption patterns that an American, French, or Swedish family took for granted will inevitably become more expensive. Some, like driving your car anywhere at any time, may even become prohibitively so. That may not be all bad. It may mean that the price of some resources, like water or oil, may more accurately reflect its true costs.
But other dislocations will be more painful and difficult to predict. Changes in migration, urbanization, and income distribution will be widespread. And expect growing demands for better housing, healthcare, education, and, inevitably, political participation. The unanticipated effects of the new global middle class will become part of our daily news.
The debate about the Earth’s “limits to growth” is as old as Thomas Malthus’s alarm about a world where the population outstrips its ability to feed itself. In the past, pessimists have been proven wrong. Higher prices and new technologies, like the green revolution, always came to the rescue, boosting supplies and allowing the world to continue to grow. That may happen again. But the adjustment to a middle class greater than what the world has ever known is just beginning. As the Indonesian and Mexican protesters can attest, it won’t be cheap. And it won’t be quiet.
Moisés Naím is editor in chief of Foreign Policy.
//////////////////////SEMI FINL ATTMPT TO HS PRE SEP08 SSNCT
//////////////////////AVG INDN EARN RS 30K PER YR,SPEND 17 K PER YR,SAVE 42%
////////////////////The CO2 StateTexas produces more carbon emissions than most countries, but the state government and business community don't seem too concerned.
//////////////////We become what we think about." -- Denis Waitley
////////////////////We learn to walk by stumbling.-- Bulgarian Proverb Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.-- Dan Stanford
/////////////////////Soy is good for you!Soy has long been viewed as a miracle food that protects your heart, fights against cancer and serves as a safe alternative to hormones. Studies show that eating large amounts of soy-based foods or taking soy supplements has a positive, measurable effect on your heart. Learn how adding soy to your daily meals can be beneficial to your health.
/////////////////////FVCK IT
//////////////////researchers indicate that shopping is a two-stage process.
First, a consumer deliberates over the need to purchase an initial item, weighing the pros and cons.
Once this initial “deliberation phase” has ended — once a consumer has decided to buy one thing — the consumer deliberates less about subsequent items.
Essentially, once a person decides to buy one thing, this creates “shopping momentum”, increasing the likelihood that he will buy additional items. If you pick up an impulse item (like a magazine or candy bar) as you enter a store, this can serve as a trigger to encourage you to buy more.
I’ve actually noticed this tendency in my own life. If I’m at the comic book store trying to decide whether to buy the latest Superman compilation, I can escape without spending anything if I stand my ground. But if I buy one book, it’s much easier for me to buy a second and a third. It’s almost as if I’m not making a decision on the Superman book I had planned to buy — it’s like I’m really deciding “will I buy stuff today or not?”
This study supports the notion that to avoid spending too much, it’s best not to lead yourself into temptation. I shouldn’t even enter the comic book store. If you like to shop for clothes, stay away from your favorite stores. It’s best to avoid temptation entirely.
////////////////////CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.[3] The LHC is a particle accelerator, which will be the world’s largest and most complex scientific instrument when it switches on in summer 2008.
/////////////////////ngc=
Photos: Africa's Spear-Carrying Chimps
On the savannas of Senegal, chimpanzees hunt other primates by using spearlike sticks—offering clues to our own evolution, experts say.
//////////////////intake of supplemental vitamin E was associated with a slightly increased risk of lung cancer
///////////////////......Rough Childhood Can “Jump-Start” Depression
February 27, 2008
Persons who become clinically depressed have generally experienced more severe difficulties in childhood than those who do not become depressed. Indicators include mild or severe childhood trauma,such as sexual or physical abuse, a turbulent upbringing, separation from a parent, or mental illness in a parent. Researchers are now saying that a problematic childhood may trigger an early-onset of depression (first episode occurs before age 20). The most significant event that seems to be related to clinical depression is separation from or death of a parent before the age of 11.
It is not clear just how a difficult childhood can result in adult depression, but there are a few theories. One theory suggests that children who experience great unhappiness growing up have a harder time adjusting to changes in their life such as adolescence and the new roles of adulthood. Another theory is that these children may either lack appropriate emotional development or they become emotionally damaged making them vulnerable to developing depression. Experiencing great difficulties as children, these individuals may be more likely to have low self-esteem, feel powerless, and become dependent on others to make them feel good about themselves. These kinds of traits may increase a person’s susceptibility to depression. Still another theory has to do with the developing brain of a young child. Early experiences may affect the development of the limbic system in the brain. If a child experiences great emotional distress, this could affect his or her ability to adapt to new environments and regulate emotions.
///////////////////////
Population adds pressure not only to the global environment, but also for societies and economies. Sustained growth in developing nations like China and India rapidly lifts people from poverty and the world must adjust, warns Moisés Naím, editor in chief of Foreign Policy. A growing middle class around the world is already increasing demand for meat, milk and other foods, thus increasing the prices of staple products. The middle class can afford more energy, precious metals and commodities per capita than the poor. In 2006, China added to its overall energy use as much as France consumes in one year. The larger middle class will increase demand for a lifestyle that many in developed nations now take for granted, along with increased urbanization and immigration, notes Naím. New technologies may cover some demand, but big changes, higher costs as well as some conflict are in store. Naím predicts that “unanticipated effects of the new global middle class will become part of our daily news.” – YaleGlobal
Can the World Afford a Middle Class?
Yes, but it will be awfully expensive
Moisés Naím
Foreign Policy, 28 February 2008
The middle class in poor countries is the fastest-growing segment of the world’s population. While the total population of the planet will increase by about 1 billion people in the next 12 years, the ranks of the middle class will swell by as many as 1.8 billion. Of these new members of the middle class, 600 million will be in China. Homi Kharas, a researcher at the Brookings Institution, estimates that by 2020 the world’s middle class will grow to include a staggering 52 percent of the global population, up from 30 percent now. The middle class will almost double in the poor countries where sustained economic growth is lifting people above the poverty line fast. For example, by 2025, China will have the world’s largest middle class, while India’s will be 10 times larger than it is today.
While this is, of course, good news, it also means humanity will have to adjust to unprecedented pressures. The rise of a new global middle class is already having repercussions. Last January, 10,000 people took to the streets in Jakarta to protest skyrocketing soybean prices. And Indonesians were not the only people angry about the rising cost of food. In 2007, higher pasta prices sparked street protests in Milan. Mexicans marched against the price of tortillas. Senegalese protested the price of rice, and Indians took up banners against the price of onions. Many governments, including those in Argentina, China, Egypt, and Russia, have imposed controls on food prices in an attempt to contain a public backlash.
These protesters are the most vociferous manifestations of a global trend: We are all paying more for bread, milk, and chocolate, to name just a few items. The new consumers of the emerging global middle class are driving up food prices everywhere. The food-price index compiled by The Economist since 1845 is now at an all-time high; it increased 30 percent in 2007 alone. Milk prices were up more than 29 percent last year, while wheat and soybeans increased by almost 80 and 90 percent, respectively. Many other grains, like rice and maize, reached record highs. Prices are soaring not because there is less food (in 2007, the world produced more grains than ever before), but because some grains are now being used as fuel and because more people can afford to eat more. The average consumption of meat in China, for example, has more than doubled since the mid-1980s.
The impact of a fast-growing middle class will soon be felt in the price of other resources. After all, members of the middle class not only consume more meat and grains, but they also buy more clothes, refrigerators, toys, medicines, and, eventually, cars and homes. China and India, with 40 percent of the world’s population, most of it still very poor, already consume more than half of the global supply of coal, iron ore, and steel. Thanks to their growing prosperity and that of other countries such as Brazil, Indonesia, Turkey, and Vietnam, the demand for these products is booming. Not surprisingly, in the past two years, the world price of tin, nickel, and zinc have roughly doubled, while aluminum is up 39 percent and plywood is now 27 percent more expensive. Moreover, a middle-class lifestyle in these developing countries, even if more frugal than what is common in rich nations, is more energy intensive. In 2005, China added as much electricity generation as Britain produces in a year. In 2006, it added as much as France’s total supply. Yet, millions in China still lack reliable access to electricity; in India, more than 400 million don’t have power. The demand in India will grow fivefold in the next 25 years.
And you know what happened to oil prices. Again, oil reached its all-time high of $100 per barrel not because of supply constraints but because of unprecedented growth in consumption in poor countries with rising middle classes. China alone accounts for one third of the growth in the world’s oil consumption in recent years. The middle class also likes to travel: The World Tourism Organization estimates that outbound tourists will grow from today’s 846 million a year to 1.6 billion in 2020. Venice and Paris will be even more expensive—and crowded—to visit.
The public debate about the consequences of this global consumption boom has focused on what it means for the environment. Yet, its economic and political effects will be significant, too. The lifestyle of the existing middle class will probably have to change as the new middle class emerges. The consumption patterns that an American, French, or Swedish family took for granted will inevitably become more expensive. Some, like driving your car anywhere at any time, may even become prohibitively so. That may not be all bad. It may mean that the price of some resources, like water or oil, may more accurately reflect its true costs.
But other dislocations will be more painful and difficult to predict. Changes in migration, urbanization, and income distribution will be widespread. And expect growing demands for better housing, healthcare, education, and, inevitably, political participation. The unanticipated effects of the new global middle class will become part of our daily news.
The debate about the Earth’s “limits to growth” is as old as Thomas Malthus’s alarm about a world where the population outstrips its ability to feed itself. In the past, pessimists have been proven wrong. Higher prices and new technologies, like the green revolution, always came to the rescue, boosting supplies and allowing the world to continue to grow. That may happen again. But the adjustment to a middle class greater than what the world has ever known is just beginning. As the Indonesian and Mexican protesters can attest, it won’t be cheap. And it won’t be quiet.
Moisés Naím is editor in chief of Foreign Policy.
//////////////////////SEMI FINL ATTMPT TO HS PRE SEP08 SSNCT
//////////////////////AVG INDN EARN RS 30K PER YR,SPEND 17 K PER YR,SAVE 42%
////////////////////The CO2 StateTexas produces more carbon emissions than most countries, but the state government and business community don't seem too concerned.
//////////////////We become what we think about." -- Denis Waitley
////////////////////We learn to walk by stumbling.-- Bulgarian Proverb Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.-- Dan Stanford
/////////////////////Soy is good for you!Soy has long been viewed as a miracle food that protects your heart, fights against cancer and serves as a safe alternative to hormones. Studies show that eating large amounts of soy-based foods or taking soy supplements has a positive, measurable effect on your heart. Learn how adding soy to your daily meals can be beneficial to your health.
/////////////////////FVCK IT
//////////////////researchers indicate that shopping is a two-stage process.
First, a consumer deliberates over the need to purchase an initial item, weighing the pros and cons.
Once this initial “deliberation phase” has ended — once a consumer has decided to buy one thing — the consumer deliberates less about subsequent items.
Essentially, once a person decides to buy one thing, this creates “shopping momentum”, increasing the likelihood that he will buy additional items. If you pick up an impulse item (like a magazine or candy bar) as you enter a store, this can serve as a trigger to encourage you to buy more.
I’ve actually noticed this tendency in my own life. If I’m at the comic book store trying to decide whether to buy the latest Superman compilation, I can escape without spending anything if I stand my ground. But if I buy one book, it’s much easier for me to buy a second and a third. It’s almost as if I’m not making a decision on the Superman book I had planned to buy — it’s like I’m really deciding “will I buy stuff today or not?”
This study supports the notion that to avoid spending too much, it’s best not to lead yourself into temptation. I shouldn’t even enter the comic book store. If you like to shop for clothes, stay away from your favorite stores. It’s best to avoid temptation entirely.
////////////////////CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, is the world's leading laboratory for particle physics. It has its headquarters in Geneva. At present, its Member States are Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. India, Israel, Japan, the Russian Federation, the United States of America, Turkey, the European Commission and UNESCO have Observer status.[3] The LHC is a particle accelerator, which will be the world’s largest and most complex scientific instrument when it switches on in summer 2008.
/////////////////////ngc=
Photos: Africa's Spear-Carrying Chimps
On the savannas of Senegal, chimpanzees hunt other primates by using spearlike sticks—offering clues to our own evolution, experts say.
//////////////////intake of supplemental vitamin E was associated with a slightly increased risk of lung cancer
///////////////////......Rough Childhood Can “Jump-Start” Depression
February 27, 2008
Persons who become clinically depressed have generally experienced more severe difficulties in childhood than those who do not become depressed. Indicators include mild or severe childhood trauma,such as sexual or physical abuse, a turbulent upbringing, separation from a parent, or mental illness in a parent. Researchers are now saying that a problematic childhood may trigger an early-onset of depression (first episode occurs before age 20). The most significant event that seems to be related to clinical depression is separation from or death of a parent before the age of 11.
It is not clear just how a difficult childhood can result in adult depression, but there are a few theories. One theory suggests that children who experience great unhappiness growing up have a harder time adjusting to changes in their life such as adolescence and the new roles of adulthood. Another theory is that these children may either lack appropriate emotional development or they become emotionally damaged making them vulnerable to developing depression. Experiencing great difficulties as children, these individuals may be more likely to have low self-esteem, feel powerless, and become dependent on others to make them feel good about themselves. These kinds of traits may increase a person’s susceptibility to depression. Still another theory has to do with the developing brain of a young child. Early experiences may affect the development of the limbic system in the brain. If a child experiences great emotional distress, this could affect his or her ability to adapt to new environments and regulate emotions.
///////////////////////
Thursday, 28 February 2008
LEAP DAY-CDS 290208
/////////////////////30% VK WKRS PD BY THE HR
///////////////////////Today is Feb 29, 2008.No one gets into trouble without his own help.~Proverb, (Danish)~
///////////////////////////Bhagavad Gita Selection Number 252, for Friday, February 29, 2008From Chapter XI: The Yoga of the Vision of the Cosmic FormXI.28. YATHAA NADEENAAM BAHAVO'MBUVEGAAH SAMUDRAMEVAABHIMUKHAAH DRAVANTI; TATHAA TAVAAMEE NARALOKAVEERAAH VISHANTI VAKTRAANYABHIVIJWALANTI. (Arjuna speaking to Krishna of his cosmic vision)Verily, just as many torrents of rivers flow towards the ocean, even so these heroes of the world of men enter Thy flaming mouths. COMMENTARY: Arjuna sees all the warriors, whom he did not wish to kill, rushing to death. He knows now that the Lord has already destroyed them, so why should he worry about the inevitable. XI.29. YATHAA PRADEEPTAM JWALANAM PATANGAA VISHANTI NAASHAAYA SAMRIDDHAVEGAAH; TATHAIVA NAASHAAYA VISHANTI LOKAAS TAVAAPI VAKTRAANI SAMRIDDHAVEGAAH. As moths hurriedly rush into a blazing fire for (their own) destruction, so also these creatures hurriedly rush into Thy mouths for (their own) destruction.
///////////////////LOSTNESS OF ABANDONMENT
//////////////////////EXISTENTIAL DEPRESSN
////////////////////////Ashleigh Morris, The Teenage Girl Who is Allergic to Water
Posted: 28 Feb 2008 04:32 PM CST
Ashleigh Morris, a teenage girl from Melbourne, Australia is allergic to water of any temperature that ever her sweat gives her painful rashes. Now 19-year-old, her condition, a skin disorder known as Aquagenic Urticaria, began when she was 14 after taking high dose of penicillin to treat her tonsillitis.
She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria - so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide. When Ashleigh gets wet her body explodes in sore, itchy red lumps that take about two hours to ease. She has to wash. But showering is a painful experience and she can only do it for a minute at a time.
=XOD
//////////////////////
///////////////////////Today is Feb 29, 2008.No one gets into trouble without his own help.~Proverb, (Danish)~
///////////////////////////Bhagavad Gita Selection Number 252, for Friday, February 29, 2008From Chapter XI: The Yoga of the Vision of the Cosmic FormXI.28. YATHAA NADEENAAM BAHAVO'MBUVEGAAH SAMUDRAMEVAABHIMUKHAAH DRAVANTI; TATHAA TAVAAMEE NARALOKAVEERAAH VISHANTI VAKTRAANYABHIVIJWALANTI. (Arjuna speaking to Krishna of his cosmic vision)Verily, just as many torrents of rivers flow towards the ocean, even so these heroes of the world of men enter Thy flaming mouths. COMMENTARY: Arjuna sees all the warriors, whom he did not wish to kill, rushing to death. He knows now that the Lord has already destroyed them, so why should he worry about the inevitable. XI.29. YATHAA PRADEEPTAM JWALANAM PATANGAA VISHANTI NAASHAAYA SAMRIDDHAVEGAAH; TATHAIVA NAASHAAYA VISHANTI LOKAAS TAVAAPI VAKTRAANI SAMRIDDHAVEGAAH. As moths hurriedly rush into a blazing fire for (their own) destruction, so also these creatures hurriedly rush into Thy mouths for (their own) destruction.
///////////////////LOSTNESS OF ABANDONMENT
//////////////////////EXISTENTIAL DEPRESSN
////////////////////////Ashleigh Morris, The Teenage Girl Who is Allergic to Water
Posted: 28 Feb 2008 04:32 PM CST
Ashleigh Morris, a teenage girl from Melbourne, Australia is allergic to water of any temperature that ever her sweat gives her painful rashes. Now 19-year-old, her condition, a skin disorder known as Aquagenic Urticaria, began when she was 14 after taking high dose of penicillin to treat her tonsillitis.
She suffers from an extremely rare skin disorder called Aquagenic Urticaria - so unusual that only a handful of cases are documented worldwide. When Ashleigh gets wet her body explodes in sore, itchy red lumps that take about two hours to ease. She has to wash. But showering is a painful experience and she can only do it for a minute at a time.
=XOD
//////////////////////
Wednesday, 20 February 2008
FI
F**k It is about moving from a position of being out of synch with the flow of life and our bodies into one where we let go into this flow and trust ourselves (and the flow of life) fully
////////////////////I listen to what my body is trying to tell me if I get a headache.
If something goes wrong, I listen to see what it’s got to tell me.
If one of my children is moody, I listen to try to work out what the real reason is.
If I have a big decision to make, I listen to the things that might not seem so obvious to point me in the right direction.
If my partner snaps at me over breakfast, I listen to find out why.
If I get a flat tyre I listen and wonder why (maybe I need to stay at home).
If I don’t feel in the mood for something, I listen, and usually don’t do it.
If an animal crosses my path, I listen and wonder what’s its meaning is.
I listen to the sounds outside when the light goes out at night.
I often sit completely still and listen to the feelings of my body, the sensation of my breath going in and out.
I listen to the seasons – and I will take it more easy in the winter than I do in the summer, just like nature does
//////////////////////////////But try opening this week. Opening to new possibilities. New ways of seeing. New ways of being. New interests. New people. New TV programmes.
Open to things (possibly) changing.
Open to hearing stuff; being told stuff; reading stuff – this week – that might make a big difference in your life.
Just opening like this can have a magical effect. Mark my words.
Say F**k It to the sleepwalking state that most of us live in… and commit to opening
/////////////////Power-Jacket Charges Laptops With Body Heat
12 Jan, 2008 Science
It takes a lot of energy to keep the human body warm. So why not harness that power? The Berkeley Lab at UC Berkeley plans to lace silicon nanowires into a power-jacket. The excess heat from the human body would be used to recharge portable electronic devices, such as cell-phones, PSP’s and laptops.
The process being developed is called “electroless etching,” where rough silicon nanowires are synthesized with silver ions on a flat wafer surface. These wafers would be woven into coats and the excess warmth given off by the body would be transformed into energy.
//////////////////////Chapter X: The Yoga of Divine ManifestationsX.26. ASHWATTHAH SARVAVRIKSHAANAAM DEVARSHEENAAM CHA NAARADAH; GANDHARVAANAAM CHITRARATHAH SIDDHAANAAM KAPILO MUNIH. Among the trees (I am) the peepul; among the divine sages I am Narada; among Gandharvas I am Chitraratha; among the perfected the sage Kapila. X.27. UCCHAIHSHRAVASAMASHWAANAAM VIDDHI MAAMAMRITODBHAVAM; AIRAAVATAM GAJENDRAANAAM NARAANAAM CHA NARAADHIPAM. Know Me as Ucchaisravas, born of nectar among horses; among lordly elephants (I am) the Airavata; and among men, the king.
///////////////////THE WIKI HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IN 200 WORDS OR LESS
By Eric Schulman
Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation?
- - -
(The non-wiki version of this piece was the inspiration for the book A Briefer History of Time and led to the Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project. Reprinted from the AIR, Volume III, Number 1, January/February 1997, page 27.)
///////////////////////Make A New Friend Day [Feb 11]
///////////////////Clean Out Your Computer Day [Feb 11]
//////////////////ATTITUDE=OUTCOME
//////////////////
////////////////////I listen to what my body is trying to tell me if I get a headache.
If something goes wrong, I listen to see what it’s got to tell me.
If one of my children is moody, I listen to try to work out what the real reason is.
If I have a big decision to make, I listen to the things that might not seem so obvious to point me in the right direction.
If my partner snaps at me over breakfast, I listen to find out why.
If I get a flat tyre I listen and wonder why (maybe I need to stay at home).
If I don’t feel in the mood for something, I listen, and usually don’t do it.
If an animal crosses my path, I listen and wonder what’s its meaning is.
I listen to the sounds outside when the light goes out at night.
I often sit completely still and listen to the feelings of my body, the sensation of my breath going in and out.
I listen to the seasons – and I will take it more easy in the winter than I do in the summer, just like nature does
//////////////////////////////But try opening this week. Opening to new possibilities. New ways of seeing. New ways of being. New interests. New people. New TV programmes.
Open to things (possibly) changing.
Open to hearing stuff; being told stuff; reading stuff – this week – that might make a big difference in your life.
Just opening like this can have a magical effect. Mark my words.
Say F**k It to the sleepwalking state that most of us live in… and commit to opening
/////////////////Power-Jacket Charges Laptops With Body Heat
12 Jan, 2008 Science
It takes a lot of energy to keep the human body warm. So why not harness that power? The Berkeley Lab at UC Berkeley plans to lace silicon nanowires into a power-jacket. The excess heat from the human body would be used to recharge portable electronic devices, such as cell-phones, PSP’s and laptops.
The process being developed is called “electroless etching,” where rough silicon nanowires are synthesized with silver ions on a flat wafer surface. These wafers would be woven into coats and the excess warmth given off by the body would be transformed into energy.
//////////////////////Chapter X: The Yoga of Divine ManifestationsX.26. ASHWATTHAH SARVAVRIKSHAANAAM DEVARSHEENAAM CHA NAARADAH; GANDHARVAANAAM CHITRARATHAH SIDDHAANAAM KAPILO MUNIH. Among the trees (I am) the peepul; among the divine sages I am Narada; among Gandharvas I am Chitraratha; among the perfected the sage Kapila. X.27. UCCHAIHSHRAVASAMASHWAANAAM VIDDHI MAAMAMRITODBHAVAM; AIRAAVATAM GAJENDRAANAAM NARAANAAM CHA NARAADHIPAM. Know Me as Ucchaisravas, born of nectar among horses; among lordly elephants (I am) the Airavata; and among men, the king.
///////////////////THE WIKI HISTORY OF THE UNIVERSE IN 200 WORDS OR LESS
By Eric Schulman
Quantum fluctuation. Inflation. Expansion. Strong nuclear interaction. Particle-antiparticle annihilation. Deuterium and helium production. Density perturbations. Recombination. Blackbody radiation. Local contraction. Cluster formation. Reionization? Violent relaxation. Virialization. Biased galaxy formation? Turbulent fragmentation. Contraction. Ionization. Compression. Opaque hydrogen. Massive star formation. Deuterium ignition. Hydrogen fusion. Hydrogen depletion. Core contraction. Envelope expansion. Helium fusion. Carbon, oxygen, and silicon fusion. Iron production. Implosion. Supernova explosion. Metals injection. Star formation. Supernova explosions. Star formation. Condensation. Planetesimal accretion. Planetary differentiation. Crust solidification. Volatile gas expulsion. Water condensation. Water dissociation. Ozone production. Ultraviolet absorption. Photosynthetic unicellular organisms. Oxidation. Mutation. Natural selection and evolution. Respiration. Cell differentiation. Sexual reproduction. Fossilization. Land exploration. Dinosaur extinction. Mammal expansion. Glaciation. Homo sapiens manifestation. Animal domestication. Food surplus production. Civilization! Innovation. Exploration. Religion. Warring nations. Empire creation and destruction. Exploration. Colonization. Taxation without representation. Revolution. Constitution. Election. Expansion. Industrialization. Rebellion. Emancipation Proclamation. Invention. Mass production. Urbanization. Immigration. World conflagration. League of Nations. Suffrage extension. Depression. World conflagration. Fission explosions. United Nations. Space exploration. Assassinations. Lunar excursions. Resignation. Computerization. World Trade Organization. Terrorism. Internet expansion. Reunification. Dissolution. World-Wide Web creation. Composition. Extrapolation?
- - -
(The non-wiki version of this piece was the inspiration for the book A Briefer History of Time and led to the Annals of Improbable Research Universal History Translation Project. Reprinted from the AIR, Volume III, Number 1, January/February 1997, page 27.)
///////////////////////Make A New Friend Day [Feb 11]
///////////////////Clean Out Your Computer Day [Feb 11]
//////////////////ATTITUDE=OUTCOME
//////////////////
ITKATHER MAYA-HSRNT CRSS
///////////////////////Neonatal Weight Benefit From Antenatal Vitamins Sustained Into Third Year of Life Offspring of mothers given multivitamin and mineral supplements during pregnancy weigh more at birth than their counterparts, and remain larger into their third year of life, according to a follow-up study conducted in Nepal.
///////////////////////JLSY CRSS-YANBG
///////////////////////////RETROSPECTACLE=Does the demographic transition have a biological cause?
Posted: 20 Feb 2008 09:25 AM CST
The demographic transition -- the tendency for richer societies to have fewer rather than more children -- is, I think, most often attributed to social causes. For a variety of reasons -- because each child costs more, because they are more likely to survive and take of parents in old age, because of social stigma associated with large families, because of birth control, etc. -- couples in richer countries often choose to have 2 children rather than 10. This demographic transition accounts for the increasing age of the population in Western countries, as I discussed in an earlier post.
///////////////////////////SAVING/INVESTING "Accumulating money and allowing it to grow at compound interest will make you rich." -- Brian Tracy"A penny saved is a penny earned." -- Benjamin Franklin "Businesses must invest in products and people in order to create new wealth." -- John Hoeven"It is better to be a lender than a spender." -- Jim Rohn
/////////////////////THOUGHTS ON AGINGOld age and the wear of time teach many things.Sophocles (c. 496-405 B.C.)Playwright I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious.Glenda JacksonActor and politician
/////////////////////ABT COM=Unexplained vs. Unexplainable: Theists Misunderstand ScienceMany theistic arguments in defense of the existence of a god involve arguing that certain events that have not yet been fully explained by naturalistic science are unexplainable in principle by naturalistic science. Thus, the only "explanation" available is the supernatural, which according to religious theists establishes a justification for believing in their god. This is a serious misunderstanding of science because something unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable.
///////////////////FI=
///////////////////////JLSY CRSS-YANBG
///////////////////////////RETROSPECTACLE=Does the demographic transition have a biological cause?
Posted: 20 Feb 2008 09:25 AM CST
The demographic transition -- the tendency for richer societies to have fewer rather than more children -- is, I think, most often attributed to social causes. For a variety of reasons -- because each child costs more, because they are more likely to survive and take of parents in old age, because of social stigma associated with large families, because of birth control, etc. -- couples in richer countries often choose to have 2 children rather than 10. This demographic transition accounts for the increasing age of the population in Western countries, as I discussed in an earlier post.
///////////////////////////SAVING/INVESTING "Accumulating money and allowing it to grow at compound interest will make you rich." -- Brian Tracy"A penny saved is a penny earned." -- Benjamin Franklin "Businesses must invest in products and people in order to create new wealth." -- John Hoeven"It is better to be a lender than a spender." -- Jim Rohn
/////////////////////THOUGHTS ON AGINGOld age and the wear of time teach many things.Sophocles (c. 496-405 B.C.)Playwright I look forward to growing old and wise and audacious.Glenda JacksonActor and politician
/////////////////////ABT COM=Unexplained vs. Unexplainable: Theists Misunderstand ScienceMany theistic arguments in defense of the existence of a god involve arguing that certain events that have not yet been fully explained by naturalistic science are unexplainable in principle by naturalistic science. Thus, the only "explanation" available is the supernatural, which according to religious theists establishes a justification for believing in their god. This is a serious misunderstanding of science because something unexplained is not necessarily unexplainable.
///////////////////FI=
HSRNT CRSS
"All I ask is for the chance to prove that money can't make me happy" Spike Milligan
///////////////////////Beet Juice Lowers BPBeet juice packs another healthy punch. See how this tasty treat may do wonders for your blood pressure.
//////////////////...........
I've been reading through this thread with great interest. I sold my previous property 5 months ago (small 2 bedroomed cottage) as I need more space for my growing family (1 daughter and one on the way).I had decided that the housing market had reached a peak and that property value could not rise any further as it was unsustainable.I've been reading press reports for years now about youngsters being priced out of the market, that becoming a home owner was becoming more and more difficult with less and less FTB getting their foot on the first 'rung'. Well not surprisingly, it's not just the FTB that are having difficulty with these displaced 'rungs'. As a second time buyer looking to move up the 'ladder' I am having great difficulty finding a suitable house despite having a fairly substantial sum from the sale of my first home to put down on the next.House sellers are being very greedy, they have been chancing their hand asking silly money for properties that are blatantly overpriced. Estate Agents haven't helped the issue by creaming greater profits from the increased sums paid and helpig to push the prices higher.The way I see it is that the whole situation is unsustainable. There are only so many people that can afford house prices these days, the vast majority of prospective buyers are priced out of the market. Yes, desirabel properties will always sell to those who can 'afford' them, but surely these aren't the buyers that make up the vast vast majority of all the prospective buyers out there??As I see it, credit/borrowing is at an all time high, cost of living is spiralling, wages are not increasing in line with these factors, banks are feeling the squeeze, interest rates are incredibly low which discourages/penalizes savers. Something has got to give.Surely there can only be one outcome?I've 'gambled' on a price crash by moving into rented accomodation. I have no idea when this might happen, or to what degree, but I am convinced that it will. As I say there's a huge market out there priced out, only by dropping prices are these people going to be able to afford to buy.
/////////////////////Went to look at a property today which was well out of my price range (would have put a cheeky offer in had I liked it) and I found it rather telling the the estate agent that was showing us round (a partner in the firm) had sold his house and had moved into rented accomodation. If those who are supposedly 'in the know' are seriously expecting a price carsh (and backing that up financially) then surely it's a matter of when and not if!!
///////////////////////FRM MSE=.............This is the classic first stage of a house price crash; the stand-off.Potential buyers aren't prepared to pay the asking price; vendors aren't prepared to drop the prices far enough.Eventually though, someone has to sell. It might be because of a divorce, a relocation, or imminent repossession, but they have to sell so they reduce the price dramatically.This one act then reduces the value of every other similar house in the surrounding area!The internet now makes it simple to see the Land Registry figures of all transactions in the locality; buyers are not going to pay more than the lowest price achieved recently.Remember as well, during this 'stand-off' period, estate agents are earning no commissions. Eventually, they will start putting pressure on vendors to reduce prices simply so they can earn some commission; albeit on a lower sale price. Estate agents prosper on turnover, not high prices.This 'stand-off' period may last a few months yet, but sooner or later the slide will begin, and continue for 4 or 5 years at least.#
/////////////////////////Surge In Gout Blamed On Sweet DrinksEliminating the number one source of calories for most Americans could radically improve all areas of health, including joint pains.
////////////////////FRM SCIAM=I had the pleasure of operating the airlock for two of my crewmates while they went on several space walks. Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces.
It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.
Whoah. OK. I mean, I guess he's right — he's a science officer, after all. And his impassioned and articulate description certainly won me over. Hopefully this isn't an elaborate prank pulled by Pettit's crewmates; I know if I'd been up in the ISS for weeks at a time with nothing to do but watch geothermal auroras, I'd start messing with people's minds.
The Smell of Space (NASA)
///////////////////////SCIDAILY=Warming Waters May Make Antarctica Hospitable To Sharks: Potentially Disastrous Consequences (February 19, 2008) -- It has been 40 million years since the waters around Antarctica have been warm enough to sustain populations of sharks and most fish, but they may return this century due to the effects of global warming. If they do, the impact on Antarctic ecology could be serious. Biologists analyzed the physiological adaptations and metabolism of sharks and other warm-water predators and concluded that an increase of just a few degrees Celsius could make Antarctic waters hospitable to some species. "There are few prey-crushing predators in Antarctic waters. As a result, the Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators." said one of the researchers. ... > full story
////////////////////Black Raspberries May Prevent Esophageal CancerEating black raspberries may protect against esophageal cancer among people at high-risk for developing the deadly disease, according to a new study at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.http://www.curingdeath.com/research/Black_Raspberries_May_Prevent_Esophageal_Cancer.asp
///////////////////
///////////////////////Beet Juice Lowers BPBeet juice packs another healthy punch. See how this tasty treat may do wonders for your blood pressure.
//////////////////...........
I've been reading through this thread with great interest. I sold my previous property 5 months ago (small 2 bedroomed cottage) as I need more space for my growing family (1 daughter and one on the way).I had decided that the housing market had reached a peak and that property value could not rise any further as it was unsustainable.I've been reading press reports for years now about youngsters being priced out of the market, that becoming a home owner was becoming more and more difficult with less and less FTB getting their foot on the first 'rung'. Well not surprisingly, it's not just the FTB that are having difficulty with these displaced 'rungs'. As a second time buyer looking to move up the 'ladder' I am having great difficulty finding a suitable house despite having a fairly substantial sum from the sale of my first home to put down on the next.House sellers are being very greedy, they have been chancing their hand asking silly money for properties that are blatantly overpriced. Estate Agents haven't helped the issue by creaming greater profits from the increased sums paid and helpig to push the prices higher.The way I see it is that the whole situation is unsustainable. There are only so many people that can afford house prices these days, the vast majority of prospective buyers are priced out of the market. Yes, desirabel properties will always sell to those who can 'afford' them, but surely these aren't the buyers that make up the vast vast majority of all the prospective buyers out there??As I see it, credit/borrowing is at an all time high, cost of living is spiralling, wages are not increasing in line with these factors, banks are feeling the squeeze, interest rates are incredibly low which discourages/penalizes savers. Something has got to give.Surely there can only be one outcome?I've 'gambled' on a price crash by moving into rented accomodation. I have no idea when this might happen, or to what degree, but I am convinced that it will. As I say there's a huge market out there priced out, only by dropping prices are these people going to be able to afford to buy.
/////////////////////Went to look at a property today which was well out of my price range (would have put a cheeky offer in had I liked it) and I found it rather telling the the estate agent that was showing us round (a partner in the firm) had sold his house and had moved into rented accomodation. If those who are supposedly 'in the know' are seriously expecting a price carsh (and backing that up financially) then surely it's a matter of when and not if!!
///////////////////////FRM MSE=.............This is the classic first stage of a house price crash; the stand-off.Potential buyers aren't prepared to pay the asking price; vendors aren't prepared to drop the prices far enough.Eventually though, someone has to sell. It might be because of a divorce, a relocation, or imminent repossession, but they have to sell so they reduce the price dramatically.This one act then reduces the value of every other similar house in the surrounding area!The internet now makes it simple to see the Land Registry figures of all transactions in the locality; buyers are not going to pay more than the lowest price achieved recently.Remember as well, during this 'stand-off' period, estate agents are earning no commissions. Eventually, they will start putting pressure on vendors to reduce prices simply so they can earn some commission; albeit on a lower sale price. Estate agents prosper on turnover, not high prices.This 'stand-off' period may last a few months yet, but sooner or later the slide will begin, and continue for 4 or 5 years at least.#
/////////////////////////Surge In Gout Blamed On Sweet DrinksEliminating the number one source of calories for most Americans could radically improve all areas of health, including joint pains.
////////////////////FRM SCIAM=I had the pleasure of operating the airlock for two of my crewmates while they went on several space walks. Each time, when I repressed the airlock, opened the hatch and welcomed two tired workers inside, a peculiar odor tickled my olfactory senses. At first I couldn't quite place it. It must have come from the air ducts that re-pressed the compartment. Then I noticed that this smell was on their suit, helmet, gloves, and tools. It was more pronounced on fabrics than on metal or plastic surfaces.
It is hard to describe this smell; it is definitely not the olfactory equivalent to describing the palette sensations of some new food as "tastes like chicken." The best description I can come up with is metallic; a rather pleasant sweet metallic sensation. It reminded me of my college summers where I labored for many hours with an arc welding torch repairing heavy equipment for a small logging outfit. It reminded me of pleasant sweet smelling welding fumes. That is the smell of space.
Whoah. OK. I mean, I guess he's right — he's a science officer, after all. And his impassioned and articulate description certainly won me over. Hopefully this isn't an elaborate prank pulled by Pettit's crewmates; I know if I'd been up in the ISS for weeks at a time with nothing to do but watch geothermal auroras, I'd start messing with people's minds.
The Smell of Space (NASA)
///////////////////////SCIDAILY=Warming Waters May Make Antarctica Hospitable To Sharks: Potentially Disastrous Consequences (February 19, 2008) -- It has been 40 million years since the waters around Antarctica have been warm enough to sustain populations of sharks and most fish, but they may return this century due to the effects of global warming. If they do, the impact on Antarctic ecology could be serious. Biologists analyzed the physiological adaptations and metabolism of sharks and other warm-water predators and concluded that an increase of just a few degrees Celsius could make Antarctic waters hospitable to some species. "There are few prey-crushing predators in Antarctic waters. As a result, the Antarctic seafloor has been dominated by relatively soft-bodied, slow-moving invertebrates, just as in ancient oceans prior to the evolution of shell-crushing predators." said one of the researchers. ... > full story
////////////////////Black Raspberries May Prevent Esophageal CancerEating black raspberries may protect against esophageal cancer among people at high-risk for developing the deadly disease, according to a new study at The Ohio State University Comprehensive Cancer Center.http://www.curingdeath.com/research/Black_Raspberries_May_Prevent_Esophageal_Cancer.asp
///////////////////
WG HS AS BB CRSS-CDS 200208
///////////////TEHOLAD-JLR CRSS
//////////////////SIB EQUIV CO FOR DTR
//////////////////ECO NICHE FIT-THINGS LIVE WHERE THEY FIT IN
////////////////////RCM=PAYBACK WTH FOOD
/////////////////////FRM SCI BLOG=Are Animals Autistic Savants:
Do animals have privileged access to lower level sensory information before it is packaged into concepts, as Temple Grandin has argued for autistic savants? Giorgio Vallortigara and colleagues critique this perspective, and Grandin responds.
see also.
Do animals have privileged access to lower level sensory information before it is packaged into concepts, as Temple Grandin has argued for autistic savants? Giorgio Vallortigara and colleagues critique this perspective, and Grandin responds.
see also.
////////////////////OML=ON MR LSS-SINKOS-NAF
////////////////////FRM FRONTAL CORTEX=A Neural Correlate for Social Class
Posted: 19 Feb 2008 08:59 AM CST
Exciting news! I'm the new curator of the Scientific American expert blog seminar Mind Matters. (Thanks, David!) For those of you who are unfamiliar with the site, it features commentary by real scientists on recent scientific papers. This week's blog is by Mauricio Delgado, a neuroscientist at Rutgers, discussing a paper that found a neural correlate for social class.
In recent years, neuroscientific investigations of social class have really expanded, for several reasons. First of all, scientists are increasingly able to detect the fine-grained anatomical differences caused by differences in social status. (The amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, and neurogenesis pathways are all likely targets.) Most studies pinpoint the stress of poverty as the driving factor behind these anatomical changes. The second reason is that society in general is becoming more aware of growing social inequality. Here, for instance, is the beginning of Paul Krugman's latest column:
"Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain." That was the opening of an article in Saturday's Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that "many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development." The effect is to impair language development and memory -- and hence the ability to escape poverty -- for the rest of the child's life.
Posted: 19 Feb 2008 08:59 AM CST
Exciting news! I'm the new curator of the Scientific American expert blog seminar Mind Matters. (Thanks, David!) For those of you who are unfamiliar with the site, it features commentary by real scientists on recent scientific papers. This week's blog is by Mauricio Delgado, a neuroscientist at Rutgers, discussing a paper that found a neural correlate for social class.
In recent years, neuroscientific investigations of social class have really expanded, for several reasons. First of all, scientists are increasingly able to detect the fine-grained anatomical differences caused by differences in social status. (The amygdala, hippocampus, anterior cingulate, and neurogenesis pathways are all likely targets.) Most studies pinpoint the stress of poverty as the driving factor behind these anatomical changes. The second reason is that society in general is becoming more aware of growing social inequality. Here, for instance, is the beginning of Paul Krugman's latest column:
"Poverty in early childhood poisons the brain." That was the opening of an article in Saturday's Financial Times, summarizing research presented last week at the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
As the article explained, neuroscientists have found that "many children growing up in very poor families with low social status experience unhealthy levels of stress hormones, which impair their neural development." The effect is to impair language development and memory -- and hence the ability to escape poverty -- for the rest of the child's life.
////////////////////Too Much Fast Food And Too Little Exercise Harm The Liver (February 18, 2008) -- Too much fast food and too little exercise can harm the liver, reveals a small study in the journal Gut. The findings are based on 18 slim, healthy people (12 men and six women) who took a "fast food challenge" for four weeks, and a comparison group, matched for age and sex, who ate a normal diet. The fast good group restricted their levels of physical activity to not more than 5000 daily steps and ate at least two fast food meals, preferably in well known outlets, every day. ... > full story
///////////////////////FRM SCI DAILY='Genetic Corridors' Are Next Step To Saving Tigers (February 18, 2008) -- The Wildlife Conservation Society and the Panthera Foundation announced plans to establish a 5,000 mile-long "genetic corridor" from Bhutan to Burma that would allow tiger populations to roam freely across landscapes. Rabinowitz said corridors did not have to be pristine parkland but could in fact include agricultural areas, ranches, and other multi-use landscapes -- just as long as tigers could use them to travel between wilderness areas. ... > full story
/////////////////////Metabolic Syndrome Linked To Cold Tolerance (February 17, 2008) -- Researchers have discovered that many of the genetic variations that have enabled human populations to tolerate colder climates may also affect their susceptibility to metabolic syndrome, a cluster of related abnormalities such as obesity, elevated cholesterol levels, heart disease, and diabetes. More than 100 years ago, scientists noted that humans inhabiting colder regions were bulkier and had relatively shorter arms and legs. In the 1950s, researchers found correlations between colder climates and increased body mass index (BMI), a measure of body fat, based on height and weight. Now, in a new study scientists have found a strong correlation between climate and several of the genetic variations that appear to influence the risk of metabolic syndrome, consistent with the idea that these variants played a crucial role in adaptations to the cold. ... > full story
//////////////////////Sleep Apnea Doubles Car Crash Risk, Study Shows (February 20, 2008) -- People with sleep apnea -- a breathing disorder that disrupts sleep -- are at double the risk of being in a car crash, a new study finds. The study also found that patients with sleep apnea are three to five times more likely to be in a serious car crash involving personal injury. ... > full story
/////////////////////Nature Of Consciousness: How Activity Of Single Neurons In Human Brain Reflect Conscious Perception (February 19, 2008) -- Scientists have made a significant step into the understanding of conscious perception, by showing how single neurons in the human brain reacted to certain images. This line of research could lay the foundation for developing a neural prostheses which could read commands directly from the brain and transmit them to bionic devices such as a robotic arm that a patient with limited mobility could control directly from the brain. ... > full story
/////////////////////EVENING AND NIGHT CRAVINGS
//////////////////////........if you are a secure tenant with rent below the mortgage level, you have nothing to lose by waiting. It's clear the massive property rises have 'paused' at the very least, and you have nothing to lose at all by waiting another 12 months or so,
//////////////////...........FRM MSE=negative equity in short is basically where the amount of mortgage you owe, is greater than the value of the property.for example, you buy a 100k property with a 90k mortgage, this gives you 10k of 'equity'a year later, you've paid off 5k on the mortgage, but the house value has dropped to 80kthis means you now have a house worth 80k with a mortgage of 85k and thus 5k of 'negative equity'
///////////////..........“What you are to do tomorrow, do today.What you are to do today, do now.None knows when death will overtake you.”
/////////////////SAMDHAN=CONST PRACTICE OF HOLDING MIND ON GON
///////////////////Increased Life Expectancy May Mean Lower FertilityOne of the benefits of postindustrial life is that it is largely free of the fear of early mortality. However, a curious side-effect of this confidence seems to be a dramatic reduction in birthrates. Writing in the journal Science, Professor Ruth Mace (UCL Anthropology) draws a clear correlation between increased life expectancy and lower fertility in cities.http://www.curingdeath.com/research/Increased_Life_Expectancy_May_Mean_Lower_Fertility.asp
////////////////////
Sunday, 17 February 2008
RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARC-1981
////////////////////PANGON=Chapter X: The Yoga of Divine ManifestationsX.38. DANDO DAMAYATAAMASMI NEETIRASMI JIGEESHATAAM; MAUNAM CHAIVAASMI GUHYAANAAM JNAANAM JNAANAVATAAMAHAM. (Krishna speaking to Arjuna)Among the punishers I am the sceptre; among those who seek victory I am statesmanship; and also among secrets I am silence; knowledge among knowers I am. X.39. YACHCHAAPI SARVABHOOTAANAAM BEEJAM TADAHAMARJUNA; NA TADASTI VINAA YATSYAANMAYAA BHOOTAM CHARAACHARAM. And whatever is the seed of all beings, that also am I, O Arjuna! There is no being, whether moving or unmoving, that can exist without Me. COMMENTARY: I am the primeval seed from which all creation has come into existence. I am the seed of everything. I am the Self of everything. Nothing can exist without Me. Everything is of My nature. I am the soul of everything. X.40. NAANTO'STI MAMA DIVYAANAAM VIBHOOTEENAAM PARANTAPA; ESHA TOODDESHATAH PROKTO VIBHOOTERVISTARO MAYAA. There is no end to My divine glories, O Arjuna, but this is a brief statement by Me of the particulars of My divine glories!
///////////////////TOTA PURI-RK-BKX-INDY JONES
//////////////////ABSOLUTE TRUTH=BBTBR=BRAHMA
////////////////SORROW MADE HIM CONTEMPLATIVE
/////////////////////Rebel against fast food and fast life. Our hectic, fast-paced, stressful, chaotic lives — the Fast Life — leads to eating Fast Food, and eating it quickly. This is a lifestyle that is dehumanizing us, making us unhealthy, stressed out, and unhappy. We rush through our day, doing one mindless task after another, without taking the time to live life, to enjoy life, to relate to each other, to be human. That’s not a good thing in my book. Instead, rebel against that entire lifestyle and philosophy … with the small act of eating slower. Don’t eat Fast Food. Eat at a good restaurant, or better yet, cook your own food and enjoy it fully. Taste life itself
///////////////////
///////////////////TOTA PURI-RK-BKX-INDY JONES
//////////////////ABSOLUTE TRUTH=BBTBR=BRAHMA
////////////////SORROW MADE HIM CONTEMPLATIVE
/////////////////////Rebel against fast food and fast life. Our hectic, fast-paced, stressful, chaotic lives — the Fast Life — leads to eating Fast Food, and eating it quickly. This is a lifestyle that is dehumanizing us, making us unhealthy, stressed out, and unhappy. We rush through our day, doing one mindless task after another, without taking the time to live life, to enjoy life, to relate to each other, to be human. That’s not a good thing in my book. Instead, rebel against that entire lifestyle and philosophy … with the small act of eating slower. Don’t eat Fast Food. Eat at a good restaurant, or better yet, cook your own food and enjoy it fully. Taste life itself
///////////////////
BRICK LANE
“I believe in equality for everyone, except reporters and photographers.” - Mahatma Gandhi
/////////////////////FRM REO=The Facts About Eating Animal Products...
by John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America" and founder of Earthsave International.
The Hunger Argument:Number of People worldwide who will die of starvation this year: 60 millionNumber of people who could be adequately fed with the grain saved if Americans reduced meat intake by 10%: 60 millionHuman beings in America: 296 millionNumber of people who could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by US livestock: 1.3 billionPercentage of corn grown in US eaten by people: 20%Percentage of corn grown in US eaten by livestock: 80%Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90%Percentage of oats grown in US eaten by livestock: 95%How frequently a child starves to death: every 2 secondsPounds of potatoes that can be grown on an acre: 20,000 lbsPounds of beef produced on an acre: 165 lbsPercentage of US farmland devoted to beef production: 56%Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce 1 pound of feedlot beef: 16 lbs.
The Environmental Argument:
Cause of global warming: greenhouse effectPrimary cause of greenhouse effect: Carbon Dioxide from fossil fuelsMore beneficial for global warming--Switching to a Prius vs. Switching to a Vegetarian Diet: Vegetarian DietFossil fuels needed to produce a meat-centered diet vs. a meat-free diet: 50 times morePercentage of US topsoil lost to date: 75%Percentage of US topsoil loss directly related to livestock raising: 85%Number of acres of US forest cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diet: 260 million acresAmount of meat US imports annually from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: 200,000,000 poundsAverage per capita meat consumption in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: Less than eaten by average US house catArea of tropical rainforest consumed in every quarter-pounder hamburger: 55 sq. ft.Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses: 1,000 species extinct per year
The Cancer Argument:
Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat four times a week vs. less than once a week: 4 timesIncreased risk of breast cancer for women who eat eggs daily vs less than once a week: 3 timesIncreased risk of breast cancer for women who eat cheese and butter 3 or more times a week vs less than once a week: 3 timesIncreased risk of ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs less than once a week: 3 timesIncreased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily vs sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times
The Natural Resources Argument:
User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the US: Livestock productionAmount of water to produce a pound of wheat: 25 gallonsAmount of water to produce a pound of meat: 2,500 gallonsCost of common hamburger if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by US taxpayer: $35/poundCurrent cost of pound of protein from beefsteak, if water was no longer subsidized: $89Years the world's known oil reserves will last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13 yearsYears the world's known oil reserves will last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260 yearsBarrels of oil imported into US daily: 6.8 millionPercentage of fossil fuel energy returned as food energy by most efficient factory farming of meat: 34.5 percentPercentage returned as food energy from least efficient plant food: 328%Percentage of raw materials consumed by US to produce present meat-centered diet: 33%
The Cholesterol Argument:
Number of US Medical Schools: 125Number requiring a course in nutrition: 30Nutrition training received by average US physician during four years in medical school: 2.5 hoursMost common cause of death in the US: Heart attackHow frequently a heart attack kills in the US: Every 45 secondsAverage US man's risk of death from heart attack: 50%Risk for average US man who avoids the meat-centered diet: 15%Risk for average US vegan man: 4%Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of animal products by 10 percent: 9%Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of animal products by 50 percent: 45%Amount you reduce risk by changing to a vegan diet: 90 percentMeat, dairy, and egg industries claim you should not be concerned about your blood cholesterol if it is: "normal"Your risk of dying of a disease caused by clogged arteries if your blood cholesterol is "normal": >50%
The Antibiotic Argument:
Percentage of US antibiotics fed to livestock: 55%Percentage of staph infections resistant to penicillin in 1960: 13%Percentage of staph infections resistant to penicillin in 1988: 91%Response of European Economic Community to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: BanResponse of US meat and pharmaceutical industries to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: Full and complete support
The Pesticide Argument:
Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by grains: 1%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by fruits: 4%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by vegetables: 6%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by dairy products: 23%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by meat: 55%Pesticide contamination of breast milk from meat eating mothers vs non-meat eating: 35 times higherWhat USDA tells us: Meat is inspectedPercentage of slaughtered animals inspected for residues of toxic chemicals such as dioxin and DDT: <0.00004%
The Ethical Argument:
Number of animals killed for meat per hour in US: 500,000Occupation with highest turnover rate in US: Slaughterhouse WorkerOccupation with the highest rate of on-the-job injury in US: Slaughterhouse WorkerCost to render animal unconscious with "captive bolt pistol": 1 centReason given by meat industry for not using "captive bolt pistol": Too expensive
//////////////////////////DONKEY SUICDS OF TUDAN
///////////////////////
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson
I. I walk down the street.
There's a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost.....I am helpless;
it isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place;
but it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in....it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V. I walk down a different street.
////////////////////
/////////////////////FRM REO=The Facts About Eating Animal Products...
by John Robbins, author of "Diet for a New America" and founder of Earthsave International.
The Hunger Argument:Number of People worldwide who will die of starvation this year: 60 millionNumber of people who could be adequately fed with the grain saved if Americans reduced meat intake by 10%: 60 millionHuman beings in America: 296 millionNumber of people who could be fed with grain and soybeans now eaten by US livestock: 1.3 billionPercentage of corn grown in US eaten by people: 20%Percentage of corn grown in US eaten by livestock: 80%Percentage of protein wasted by cycling grain through livestock: 90%Percentage of oats grown in US eaten by livestock: 95%How frequently a child starves to death: every 2 secondsPounds of potatoes that can be grown on an acre: 20,000 lbsPounds of beef produced on an acre: 165 lbsPercentage of US farmland devoted to beef production: 56%Pounds of grain and soybeans needed to produce 1 pound of feedlot beef: 16 lbs.
The Environmental Argument:
Cause of global warming: greenhouse effectPrimary cause of greenhouse effect: Carbon Dioxide from fossil fuelsMore beneficial for global warming--Switching to a Prius vs. Switching to a Vegetarian Diet: Vegetarian DietFossil fuels needed to produce a meat-centered diet vs. a meat-free diet: 50 times morePercentage of US topsoil lost to date: 75%Percentage of US topsoil loss directly related to livestock raising: 85%Number of acres of US forest cleared for cropland to produce meat-centered diet: 260 million acresAmount of meat US imports annually from Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: 200,000,000 poundsAverage per capita meat consumption in Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Panama: Less than eaten by average US house catArea of tropical rainforest consumed in every quarter-pounder hamburger: 55 sq. ft.Current rate of species extinction due to destruction of tropical rainforests for meat grazing and other uses: 1,000 species extinct per year
The Cancer Argument:
Increased risk of breast cancer for women who eat meat four times a week vs. less than once a week: 4 timesIncreased risk of breast cancer for women who eat eggs daily vs less than once a week: 3 timesIncreased risk of breast cancer for women who eat cheese and butter 3 or more times a week vs less than once a week: 3 timesIncreased risk of ovarian cancer for women who eat eggs 3 or more times a week vs less than once a week: 3 timesIncreased risk of fatal prostate cancer for men who consume meat, cheese, eggs and milk daily vs sparingly or not at all: 3.6 times
The Natural Resources Argument:
User of more than half of all water used for all purposes in the US: Livestock productionAmount of water to produce a pound of wheat: 25 gallonsAmount of water to produce a pound of meat: 2,500 gallonsCost of common hamburger if water used by meat industry was not subsidized by US taxpayer: $35/poundCurrent cost of pound of protein from beefsteak, if water was no longer subsidized: $89Years the world's known oil reserves will last if every human ate a meat-centered diet: 13 yearsYears the world's known oil reserves will last if human beings no longer ate meat: 260 yearsBarrels of oil imported into US daily: 6.8 millionPercentage of fossil fuel energy returned as food energy by most efficient factory farming of meat: 34.5 percentPercentage returned as food energy from least efficient plant food: 328%Percentage of raw materials consumed by US to produce present meat-centered diet: 33%
The Cholesterol Argument:
Number of US Medical Schools: 125Number requiring a course in nutrition: 30Nutrition training received by average US physician during four years in medical school: 2.5 hoursMost common cause of death in the US: Heart attackHow frequently a heart attack kills in the US: Every 45 secondsAverage US man's risk of death from heart attack: 50%Risk for average US man who avoids the meat-centered diet: 15%Risk for average US vegan man: 4%Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of animal products by 10 percent: 9%Amount you reduce risk of heart attack if you reduce consumption of animal products by 50 percent: 45%Amount you reduce risk by changing to a vegan diet: 90 percentMeat, dairy, and egg industries claim you should not be concerned about your blood cholesterol if it is: "normal"Your risk of dying of a disease caused by clogged arteries if your blood cholesterol is "normal": >50%
The Antibiotic Argument:
Percentage of US antibiotics fed to livestock: 55%Percentage of staph infections resistant to penicillin in 1960: 13%Percentage of staph infections resistant to penicillin in 1988: 91%Response of European Economic Community to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: BanResponse of US meat and pharmaceutical industries to routine feeding of antibiotics to livestock: Full and complete support
The Pesticide Argument:
Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by grains: 1%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by fruits: 4%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by vegetables: 6%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by dairy products: 23%Percentage of pesticide residues in the US diet supplied by meat: 55%Pesticide contamination of breast milk from meat eating mothers vs non-meat eating: 35 times higherWhat USDA tells us: Meat is inspectedPercentage of slaughtered animals inspected for residues of toxic chemicals such as dioxin and DDT: <0.00004%
The Ethical Argument:
Number of animals killed for meat per hour in US: 500,000Occupation with highest turnover rate in US: Slaughterhouse WorkerOccupation with the highest rate of on-the-job injury in US: Slaughterhouse WorkerCost to render animal unconscious with "captive bolt pistol": 1 centReason given by meat industry for not using "captive bolt pistol": Too expensive
//////////////////////////DONKEY SUICDS OF TUDAN
///////////////////////
Autobiography in Five Short Chapters
by Portia Nelson
I. I walk down the street.
There's a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost.....I am helpless;
it isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
II. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I am in the same place;
but it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
III. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in....it's a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
IV. I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
V. I walk down a different street.
////////////////////
COUNTRYFILE-CDS 170208
/////////////////////BAD NEWS COMES IN 3S?
//////////////////////
India facing smoking death crisisOne million people a year will die from tobacco smoking in India in the 2010s, research predicts.
India facing smoking death crisisOne million people a year will die from tobacco smoking in India in the 2010s, research predicts.
/////////////////////////Boy babies 'worse for depression'Giving birth to a boy can increase the likelihood of severe postnatal depression, a study suggests
///////////////////Missing link shows bats flew first, developed echolocation later (2/14/2008)
-United States
Tags:
mammals, bats, onychonycteris finneyi
Fossilized Missing Link Bat - Photo credit and copyright: American Museum of Natural HistoryThe discovery of a remarkably well-preserved fossil representing the most primitive bat species known to date demonstrates that the animals evolved the ability to fly before they could echolocate.
The new species, named Onychonycteris finneyi, was unearthed in 2003 in southwestern Wyoming and is described in a study in the Feb. 14 issue of the journal Nature, on which University of Michigan paleontologist Gregg Gunnell is a coauthor along with researchers from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany. A cast of one of the two known specimens is on permanent display in the U-M Exhibit Museum of Natural History's Hall of Evolution.
-United States
Tags:
mammals, bats, onychonycteris finneyi
Fossilized Missing Link Bat - Photo credit and copyright: American Museum of Natural HistoryThe discovery of a remarkably well-preserved fossil representing the most primitive bat species known to date demonstrates that the animals evolved the ability to fly before they could echolocate.
The new species, named Onychonycteris finneyi, was unearthed in 2003 in southwestern Wyoming and is described in a study in the Feb. 14 issue of the journal Nature, on which University of Michigan paleontologist Gregg Gunnell is a coauthor along with researchers from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York, the Royal Ontario Museum in Canada and the Senckenberg Research Institute in Germany. A cast of one of the two known specimens is on permanent display in the U-M Exhibit Museum of Natural History's Hall of Evolution.
/////////////////////Do not stand at my grave and weepFebruary 9th, 2008 by spicer
Do not stand at my grave and weep,I am not there, I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow.I am the diamond glint on snow.I am the sunlight on ripened grain.I am the gentle autumn rain.When you wake in the morning hush,I am the swift, uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circling flight.I am the soft starlight at night.Do not stand at my grave and weep.I am not there, I do not sleep.Do not stand at my grave and cry.I am not there, I did not die!
Mary Frye (1932)
Do not stand at my grave and weep,I am not there, I do not sleep.I am a thousand winds that blow.I am the diamond glint on snow.I am the sunlight on ripened grain.I am the gentle autumn rain.When you wake in the morning hush,I am the swift, uplifting rush Of quiet birds in circling flight.I am the soft starlight at night.Do not stand at my grave and weep.I am not there, I do not sleep.Do not stand at my grave and cry.I am not there, I did not die!
Mary Frye (1932)
/////////////////////GREEN CREMATION AND BLOW THE ASHES AWAY
/////////////////////I HESITATE TO CONTRADICT U
////////////////////////AOD=RAFOD=UFTOE-TAPCHIDUG
///////////////////CAMUS FACE AND A CREAKING BODY
////////////////////////ATGB
AS TIME GOES BY
//////////////////////////////////////////////
Wednesday, 13 February 2008
CBT PANTHEISM
Chapter X: The Yoga of Divine ManifestationsX.36. DYOOTAM CCHALAYATAAMASMI TEJASTEJASWINAAMAHAM; JAYO'SMI VYAVASAAYO'SMI SATTWAM SATTWAVATAAMAHAM. (Krishna speaking to Arjuna)I am the gambling of the fraudulent; I am the splendour of the splendid; I am victory; I am determination (of those who are determined); I am the goodness of the good. COMMENTARY: Of the various methods of defrauding others, I am gambling, such as dice-play. Gambling is My manifestation. I am power in the powerful. I am victory in the victorious. I am effort in those who make that effort. X.37. VRISHNEENAAM VAASUDEVO'SMI PAANDAVAANAAM DHANANJAYAH; MUNEENAAMAPYAHAM VYAASAH KAVEENAAMUSHANAA KAVIH. Among Vrishnis I am Vasudeva; among the Pandavas I am Arjuna; among sages I am Vyasa; among poets I am Usana, the poet.
/////////////////////TRENCH MOUTH=CHR BACTL INF OF GUMS
/////////////////////870 BLCK/CLRD LGL MGRNTS CM TO VK PER DAY
/////////////////TOYF=NECY SOFT SKILL
///////////////////YES-NO QS
///////////////PROBLEMS WITH YES-NO PATTERNS
////////////////COMMUNICN INVOLVES A CONTRACT
////////////////WLS GHNA CA STDNT DPRTN-2007 PRCDNT -IN VK
///////////////////CLOSED INFO Q
///////////////////OPEN INFO Q
///////////////////////BUYING/SELLINGEnd of the month is best time to buy a carThe last week of the month is truly the best time to purchase a new car. The car manufacturers will often start special incentive programs the last week to boost slow sales for that month and the dealerships are all working on volume bonuses to increase there sales and income.
/////////////////////
WELLNESS How to heal heart disease naturallyPurging pessimism can help your ticker. Men who scored high on an optimism test were 55 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those with defeatist dispositions, says a study in Archives of Internal Medicine.
////////////////////JLS PPL-KEEP AWAY FRM THM-NSD/LMP
///////////////////HP 450 GBP LAPTOPS-BEST?
///////////////////OPEN ENDED Q-FOR A COMFORT LEVEL
//////////////////GIVE A RESPONSE-THE ANS AND A BIT OF SUPPORT-BUILD IN A CLUE IF U WLD LIKE TO GIVE MORE DEPTH OF INFO-CONVERSNS FOR BTTR RELNS ,NOT JUST Q/A
///////////////////TREAT AS CUSTOMER/CLIENT
////////////////////PAUSE TO ORGANISE-TOYF
/////////////////RPT THE Q
/////////////////12000 CRRY HSES IN VK
/////////////////GV ANS,ADD SUPPORT THEN STOP
//////////////////DOPAMINE-ORGASM.....Abundant evidence points to dopamine as the key neurotransmitter involved in stimulating orgasm in humans. Thus, administration of the dopamine precursor L-dopa, dopaminergic agonists (e.g. apomorphine), dopamine releasers (e.g. amphetamine), or dopamine reuptake inhibitors (e.g. cocaine or bupropion) facilitate the expression of orgasm in men and women. Conversely, administration of antipsychotics impair orgasm, by blocking postsynaptic dopamine receptors (see Komisaruk et al., 2006).
Dopamine-synthesising neurons that originate in the lower brainstem (specifically the ventral tegmental area) are activated during ejaculation in men, as measured by PET imaging (Holstege et al., 2003).
//////////////////BUY TIME TO THINK
//////////////BUY TIME WITH A NOD
//////////////////ASK FOR A CLARIFICN
////////////////////I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened. -- Mark Twain
////////////////TO HEDGE,NOT TO COMMIT,BUT ANS
///////////////////RESPONDING WITH POSITIVE WORDS
///////////////DO UNTO OTHERS......
/////////////////EYE CONTACT COUNTS IN COMMUNICN
//////////////////I DONT KNOW BUT I CAN FIND IT OUT
///////////////////CAN I RING U BACK
//////////////////
/////////////////////TRENCH MOUTH=CHR BACTL INF OF GUMS
/////////////////////870 BLCK/CLRD LGL MGRNTS CM TO VK PER DAY
/////////////////TOYF=NECY SOFT SKILL
///////////////////YES-NO QS
///////////////PROBLEMS WITH YES-NO PATTERNS
////////////////COMMUNICN INVOLVES A CONTRACT
////////////////WLS GHNA CA STDNT DPRTN-2007 PRCDNT -IN VK
///////////////////CLOSED INFO Q
///////////////////OPEN INFO Q
///////////////////////BUYING/SELLINGEnd of the month is best time to buy a carThe last week of the month is truly the best time to purchase a new car. The car manufacturers will often start special incentive programs the last week to boost slow sales for that month and the dealerships are all working on volume bonuses to increase there sales and income.
/////////////////////
WELLNESS How to heal heart disease naturallyPurging pessimism can help your ticker. Men who scored high on an optimism test were 55 percent less likely to die of cardiovascular disease than those with defeatist dispositions, says a study in Archives of Internal Medicine.
////////////////////JLS PPL-KEEP AWAY FRM THM-NSD/LMP
///////////////////HP 450 GBP LAPTOPS-BEST?
///////////////////OPEN ENDED Q-FOR A COMFORT LEVEL
//////////////////GIVE A RESPONSE-THE ANS AND A BIT OF SUPPORT-BUILD IN A CLUE IF U WLD LIKE TO GIVE MORE DEPTH OF INFO-CONVERSNS FOR BTTR RELNS ,NOT JUST Q/A
///////////////////TREAT AS CUSTOMER/CLIENT
////////////////////PAUSE TO ORGANISE-TOYF
/////////////////RPT THE Q
/////////////////12000 CRRY HSES IN VK
/////////////////GV ANS,ADD SUPPORT THEN STOP
//////////////////DOPAMINE-ORGASM.....Abundant evidence points to dopamine as the key neurotransmitter involved in stimulating orgasm in humans. Thus, administration of the dopamine precursor L-dopa, dopaminergic agonists (e.g. apomorphine), dopamine releasers (e.g. amphetamine), or dopamine reuptake inhibitors (e.g. cocaine or bupropion) facilitate the expression of orgasm in men and women. Conversely, administration of antipsychotics impair orgasm, by blocking postsynaptic dopamine receptors (see Komisaruk et al., 2006).
Dopamine-synthesising neurons that originate in the lower brainstem (specifically the ventral tegmental area) are activated during ejaculation in men, as measured by PET imaging (Holstege et al., 2003).
//////////////////BUY TIME TO THINK
//////////////BUY TIME WITH A NOD
//////////////////ASK FOR A CLARIFICN
////////////////////I have been through some terrible things in my life, some of which actually happened. -- Mark Twain
////////////////TO HEDGE,NOT TO COMMIT,BUT ANS
///////////////////RESPONDING WITH POSITIVE WORDS
///////////////DO UNTO OTHERS......
/////////////////EYE CONTACT COUNTS IN COMMUNICN
//////////////////I DONT KNOW BUT I CAN FIND IT OUT
///////////////////CAN I RING U BACK
//////////////////
Monday, 11 February 2008
QNTM THRY CAT HRT U-M CHOWN
////////////////NUCLEAR PARTICLES HELD BY STRONG NUCLR FORCE
ELECTRONS HELD BY WEAK NUCLR FORCE
/////////////////////LIGHT AND MATTER CAN EXIST IN ONLY CERTAIN CHUNKS CALLED QUANTA
//////////////////////////STAR=GIANT BALL OF HELD TGTHR BY OWN GRAVITY
////////////////////////NUCL FUSN PREVENTS GRAVITY FROM COLLAPSING THE STAR TILL IT RUNS OUT OF FUEL
//////////////////////CHANDRASEKHAR LT=IF STAR HEAVIER THAN THIS,ELECTRON PRESSURE IS POWERLESS AND IT JUST GOES ON SHRINKING
///////////////////////////////////NEUTRON STAR=HUGE ATOMIC NUCLEUS WITH ALL EMPTY SPACE SQUEEZED OUT-FOLLOWING SUPERNOVA EXPLOSNS
//////////////////////////////////SUGARCUBE= WT OF HUMANITY WITH EMPTY SPACES SQUEEZED OUT
//////////////////////////////////MASS IS A FORM OF ENERGY
///////////////////////////////////LON USUALLY PREVENTS STONT ,UNLESS THE EVENT HAPPENS QUICKLY
////////////////////////////THUS QFOV IN QNTM SCALE IS ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE
//////////////////////////////////SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE
/////////////////////ON OPP SIDES OF UNIV ATOMS CAN INFLUENCE EACH OTHER
/////////////////////////////QNTUM TELEPATHY=NONLOCALITY
///////////////////////////////There already existed well-established, quite revolutionary and controversial ideas about population growth and decline, survival and strength, ancestry and heredity. Darwin brilliantly drew upon the best, most plausible of them and established the first supportable, empirically verifiable theory of Malthusian ideas ‘applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms’. The theory, laid out with incredible attention to detail and considerable evidence in the Origin, establishes three fundamental premises:
All organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive.
There is significant variation amongst off-spring; they are not all carbon-copies of one immutable type.
At least some of the variation found in the offspring gets passed on to the next generation and to generations beyond.
Darwin combined these ideas and observations to put forward a startling hypothesis: if many offspring die out, and if there is significant variation amongst offspring, then those offspring most advantageously suited to their changing local environment will tend to survive.
//////////////////////SPIN IS UNIQUE TO THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD
/////////////////////////////2 ELECTRONS-ONE WITH CLOCKWISE SPIN-OTHER MUST BE WITH ANTICLOCKWISE SPIN=TOTAL SPIN=0
////////////////////////ONE e WILL INSTANTLY RESPOND TO ANOTHER e=THAT INSTANT ACTION IS EXPTALLY 4X SPEED OF LIGHT TO EFFECT !
//////////////////////////GLBLOG=
Mammals and the KT Event
Posted: 10 Feb 2008 10:33 AM CST
A very important and truly wonderful paper in Nature described a tour-de-force analysis of the Mammalian Evolutionary Record, and draws the following two important conclusions:
The diversification of the major groups of mammals occurred millions of years prior to the KT boundary event; and
The further diversification of these groups into the modern pattern of mammalian diversity occurred millions of years later than the KT boundary event.
//////////////////////////////SPIN OF e CANNOT BE PREDICTED,WHEN OBSERVED 50% CHANCE OF IT BEING CLOCWISE/ANTICLOCKWISE-ONCE OBSEVED INSTANTLY THE OTHER e WILL TAKE THE OPP SPIN
//////////////////////NONLOCALITY=ENTANGLEMENT OF 2 PARTICLES
/////////////////////////ENTAGLEMENT=INSTANT COMMUNICATION SYSTEM ,EVEN TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE=NO SPEED OF LIGHT BARRIER
/////////////////////////TAO QUIETISM=Quietism
At first view, the philosophy of these precursors would be characterized by distant attitude towards social value, by accent on quieting - quietism - by retreat from outer world and total isolation. In this respect, many of them may seem to point to an ascetic life the way the Christians have followed in the monastic era.
Unfortunately, it was not noticed that the promotion of this way of life does not represent for the Taoists of the Philosophical School a code of behavior applicable for any circumstance. The Taoist quietism is rather an attitude imposed by social circumstances, transformations and radical changes of the social life dictated by Tao. Thus, everybody might decide when to activate on social stage or to abandon, and even to withdraw in isolation.
////////////////////ENTAGLEMENT=?TELEPORTATN
///////////////ALL PARTICLES IN UNIVERSE ENTANGLED TO EACH OTHER FROM TIME OF BIG BANG!
////////////////////COPENHAGEN INTERPRETN=QNTUM WORLD AND CLASSICAL WORLD
///////////////////
///////////////////////////
//////////////////////
/////////////////////////////////
ELECTRONS HELD BY WEAK NUCLR FORCE
/////////////////////LIGHT AND MATTER CAN EXIST IN ONLY CERTAIN CHUNKS CALLED QUANTA
//////////////////////////STAR=GIANT BALL OF HELD TGTHR BY OWN GRAVITY
////////////////////////NUCL FUSN PREVENTS GRAVITY FROM COLLAPSING THE STAR TILL IT RUNS OUT OF FUEL
//////////////////////CHANDRASEKHAR LT=IF STAR HEAVIER THAN THIS,ELECTRON PRESSURE IS POWERLESS AND IT JUST GOES ON SHRINKING
///////////////////////////////////NEUTRON STAR=HUGE ATOMIC NUCLEUS WITH ALL EMPTY SPACE SQUEEZED OUT-FOLLOWING SUPERNOVA EXPLOSNS
//////////////////////////////////SUGARCUBE= WT OF HUMANITY WITH EMPTY SPACES SQUEEZED OUT
//////////////////////////////////MASS IS A FORM OF ENERGY
///////////////////////////////////LON USUALLY PREVENTS STONT ,UNLESS THE EVENT HAPPENS QUICKLY
////////////////////////////THUS QFOV IN QNTM SCALE IS ORIGIN OF UNIVERSE
//////////////////////////////////SPOOKY ACTION AT A DISTANCE
/////////////////////ON OPP SIDES OF UNIV ATOMS CAN INFLUENCE EACH OTHER
/////////////////////////////QNTUM TELEPATHY=NONLOCALITY
///////////////////////////////There already existed well-established, quite revolutionary and controversial ideas about population growth and decline, survival and strength, ancestry and heredity. Darwin brilliantly drew upon the best, most plausible of them and established the first supportable, empirically verifiable theory of Malthusian ideas ‘applied to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms’. The theory, laid out with incredible attention to detail and considerable evidence in the Origin, establishes three fundamental premises:
All organisms produce more offspring than can possibly survive.
There is significant variation amongst off-spring; they are not all carbon-copies of one immutable type.
At least some of the variation found in the offspring gets passed on to the next generation and to generations beyond.
Darwin combined these ideas and observations to put forward a startling hypothesis: if many offspring die out, and if there is significant variation amongst offspring, then those offspring most advantageously suited to their changing local environment will tend to survive.
//////////////////////SPIN IS UNIQUE TO THE MICROSCOPIC WORLD
/////////////////////////////2 ELECTRONS-ONE WITH CLOCKWISE SPIN-OTHER MUST BE WITH ANTICLOCKWISE SPIN=TOTAL SPIN=0
////////////////////////ONE e WILL INSTANTLY RESPOND TO ANOTHER e=THAT INSTANT ACTION IS EXPTALLY 4X SPEED OF LIGHT TO EFFECT !
//////////////////////////GLBLOG=
Mammals and the KT Event
Posted: 10 Feb 2008 10:33 AM CST
A very important and truly wonderful paper in Nature described a tour-de-force analysis of the Mammalian Evolutionary Record, and draws the following two important conclusions:
The diversification of the major groups of mammals occurred millions of years prior to the KT boundary event; and
The further diversification of these groups into the modern pattern of mammalian diversity occurred millions of years later than the KT boundary event.
//////////////////////////////SPIN OF e CANNOT BE PREDICTED,WHEN OBSERVED 50% CHANCE OF IT BEING CLOCWISE/ANTICLOCKWISE-ONCE OBSEVED INSTANTLY THE OTHER e WILL TAKE THE OPP SPIN
//////////////////////NONLOCALITY=ENTANGLEMENT OF 2 PARTICLES
/////////////////////////ENTAGLEMENT=INSTANT COMMUNICATION SYSTEM ,EVEN TO THE OTHER SIDE OF THE UNIVERSE=NO SPEED OF LIGHT BARRIER
/////////////////////////TAO QUIETISM=Quietism
At first view, the philosophy of these precursors would be characterized by distant attitude towards social value, by accent on quieting - quietism - by retreat from outer world and total isolation. In this respect, many of them may seem to point to an ascetic life the way the Christians have followed in the monastic era.
Unfortunately, it was not noticed that the promotion of this way of life does not represent for the Taoists of the Philosophical School a code of behavior applicable for any circumstance. The Taoist quietism is rather an attitude imposed by social circumstances, transformations and radical changes of the social life dictated by Tao. Thus, everybody might decide when to activate on social stage or to abandon, and even to withdraw in isolation.
////////////////////ENTAGLEMENT=?TELEPORTATN
///////////////ALL PARTICLES IN UNIVERSE ENTANGLED TO EACH OTHER FROM TIME OF BIG BANG!
////////////////////COPENHAGEN INTERPRETN=QNTUM WORLD AND CLASSICAL WORLD
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CDS 110208-MAY BE OWN DTH DAY
////////////////////////A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose your job."
//////////////////////At the Industrial Revolution, agricultural workers all moved to towns - the rich moved out to the countryside.
/////////////////////////ART-BTKAT-145+
///////////////////edge=When the world's great scientific thinkers change their mindsOne hundred and sixty-five eminent thinkers, researchers, and communicators, at the annual request of the edge.org website, answered the following question: "What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?"Ana Gerschenfeld
Click here for PDF of Portugese Original
From particle physics to evolutionary theory, to the atomic bomb, to global warming, to the battle of the sexes, to the equality of human beings, to God and the paranormal, and to the dogmatism of scientists themselves, dozens of the big thinkers in the world explained online, at the start of 2008, what the most important things that they’ve change their minds about during their lives are.
The project takes place on the website www.edge.org, a kind of informal think tank, a forum for ideas and scientific debates (see adjoining article), which asks such questions annually online and later publishes the result in book form.
Many of the names here are well known to the interested public—the physicist Freeman Dyson, the "genome decoder" Craig Venter, the biologist Richard Dawkins (author of the controversial book The God Delusion), the Nobel laureate physicist Leon Lederman. Other participants, such as actor Alan Alda or the musician Brian Eno, may be surprising departures, but are just as interesting. And there are a number of science journalists, as well, including Steve Connor of the Independent, Roger Highfield of the Telegraph, and Philip Campbell, editor of Nature. The following are some examples of the ideas that they are re-evaluating.
1The atomic bomb won the war
Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and mathematician, Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study
I changed my mind about an important historical question: did the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring World War Two to an end? Until this year I used to say, perhaps. Now, because of new facts, I say no.2We have stopped evolving
Steven Pinker, experimental psychologist, Harvard University
Ten years ago I wrote, "Are we still evolving? Biologically, probably not much." The completion of the Human Genome Project was several years away. But new results have suggested that thousands of genes, perhaps as much as ten percent of the human genome, have been under strong recent selection, and the selection may even have accelerated during the past several thousand years. Currently, evolutionary psychology assumes that any adaptation to post-agricultural ways of life are 100% cultural. If these results hold up, and apply to psychologically relevant brain function, then that simplifying assumption might have to be reconsidered.3The paranormal existsSusan Blackmore, psychologist, consultant to the journal Skeptical Inquirer
When I was a student at Oxford in 1970, I became became fascinated with occultism, mediumship and the paranormal. I did the experiments. I tested telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance; I got only chance results. I trained fellow students in imagery techniques and tested them again; chance results. I tested twins in pairs; chance results. I worked in play groups and nursery schools with very young children (their naturally telepathic minds are not yet warped by education, you see); chance results. I trained as a Tarot reader and tested the readings; chance results. I was lying in the bath trying to fit my latest null results into paranormal theory, when it occurred to me for the very first time that I might have been completely wrong, and my tutors right. Perhaps there were no paranormal phenomena at all. I had hunted ghosts and poltergeists, trained as a witch, attended spiritualist churches, and stared into crystal balls. But all of that had to go. Once the decision was made it was actually quite easy.4We are all equalSimon Baron-Cohen, psychologist, Autism Research Center, Cambridge University
When I was young I believed in equality as a guiding principle in life. My mind has been changed. I still believe in some aspects of the idea of equality, but I can no longer accept the whole package. Striving to give people equality of social opportunity is still a value system worth defending, but we have to accept that equality has no place in the realm of biology.5The obligation of a scientist to do science
Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate in Physics (author of The God Particle)
I have always believed that the scientist’s most sacred obligation is to continue to do science. Now I know that I was dead wrong. I am driven to the ultimately wise advice of my Columbia mentor, I.I. Rabi, who, in our many corridor bull sessions, urged his students to run for public office and get elected. He insisted that to be an advisor (he was an advisor to Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, later to Eisenhower and to the AEC) was ultimately an exercise in futility and that the power belonged to those who are elected. Then, we thought the old man was bonkers. But today... A Congress which is overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers and MBAs makes no sense in this 21st century in which almost all issues have a science and technology aspect.6Men are at the top because they are smarter
Helena Cronin, philosopher, London School of Economics
I used to think that these patterns of sex differences resulted mainly from average differences between men and women in innate talents, tastes and temperaments. After all, in talents men are on average more mathematical, more technically minded, women more verbal; in tastes, men are more interested in things, women in people; in temperaments, men are more competitive, risk-taking, single-minded, status-conscious, women far less so. But I have now changed my mind. It is not a matter of averages, but of extremes. Females are much of a muchness, clustering round the mean. But, among males, the variance—the difference between the most and the least, the best and the worst—can be vast. So males are almost bound to be over-represented both at the bottom and at the top. I think of this as 'more dumbbells but more Nobels'.7It is possible to unify the forces of physics
Marcelo Gleiser, Brazilian physicist and astronomer, Dartmouth College
I was always fascinated by the idea of unification of the forces of nature. I wrote dozens of papers related to the subject of unification, even my Ph.D. dissertation was on the topic. I was fascinated by the modern approaches to the idea, supersymmetry, superstrings, a space with extra, hidden dimensions. A part of me still is. But then, a few years ago, I started to doubt unification, finding it to be the scientific equivalent of a monotheistic formulation of reality, a search for God revealed in equations. Of course, had we the slightest experimental evidence in favor of unification, of supersymmetry and superstrings, I'd be the first popping the champagne open. But it's been over twenty years, and all attempts so far have failed.8Global warming is not an urgent problem
Craig Venter, human genome decoder, J. Craig Venter Institute
Like many or perhaps most I wanted to believe that our oceans and atmosphere were basically unlimited sinks with an endless capacity to absorb the waste products of human existence. I wanted to believe that solving the carbon fuel problem was for future generations and that the big concern was the limited supply of oil not the rate of adding carbon to the atmosphere. The data is irrefutable. We are conducting a dangerous experiment with our planet. One we need to stop. Now.9Humans emerged because they began to eat meat
Richard Wrangham, British anthropologist, student of Jane Goodall, Harvard University
I used to think that human origins were explained by meat-eating. But I now think that cooking was the major advance that made us human. Cooked food allows our guts, teeth and mouths to be small, while giving us abundant food energy and freeing our time. Cooked food, of course, requires the control of fire; and a fire at night explains how Homo erectus dared sleep on the ground. So, in a roast potato and a hunk of beef we have a new theory of what made us human.10Races do not exist
Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist, Reading University
There is an overbearing censorship to the way we are allowed to think and talk about the diversity of people on Earth. Officially we are all the same: there are no races. Flawed as the old ideas about race are, modern genomic studies reveal a surprising, compelling and different picture of human genetic diversity. What this all means is that, like it or not, there may be many genetic differences among human populations—including differences that may even correspond to old categories of 'race'—that are real differences in the sense of making one group better than another at responding to some particular environmental problem. This in no way says one group is in general 'superior' to another, or that one group should be preferred over another. But it warns us that we must be prepared to discuss genetic differences among human populations.
John Brockman intersects the culturesEdge: brilliant, essential and addictive
Edge is a bimonthly newsletter and a website. It is a single publication, run by North American John Brockman, a literary agent with a constellation of world-famous scientists (most, but not all, are from the Anglo-Saxon world). Brockman, born in Boston in 1941, now resides in New York. He is the author and editor of 19 books, including The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.
Brockman writes in his presentation of the site that the "traditional intellectual", i.e. one with a 1950s education "in Freud, Marx, and modernism" no longer has sufficient qualifications to be a thinking person in the world today. One cannot be just a "literary intellectual"—that self-defined term used in the 1930s by "men of letters" to the exclusion of scientists such as Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg. "The traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time", he says.
"The third culture" is defined by Brockman as consisting of "those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." The mandate of the Edge Foundation is "to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society."
The online world of Edge clearly benefits from a suspension of the fear of not being politically correct or addressing issues that are not the specialty of the participant. All the invited participants play the game, presenting controversial ideas, confessing doubts, casting proposals for the future. "There is no canon of acceptable ideas" notes Brockman. "The strength of the Third Culture is precisely that it can tolerate those disagreements." The result of this ambitious venture, for those who have already experienced navigating the web pages of edge.org, is not only brilliant, but addictive. It interprets, it interrogates, it provokes. Each text can be a world in itself.
Although little known to the greater European public—just looking at the list of periodical articles referenced on the website’s press page is enough to see that Edge has become an indispensable point of passage essential for all—specialists and fans—who like to perceive and reflect on the great scientific, social, cultural, and policy questions that are shaped by the arguments of these "new intellectuals", who work and think "at the edge of the world's knowledge" (Brockman's words, of course). Ana Gerschenfeld
///////////////////////Today is Feb 11, 2008.Better go about than fall into the ditch.~Proverb, (Spanish)~
//////////////////
//////////////////////At the Industrial Revolution, agricultural workers all moved to towns - the rich moved out to the countryside.
/////////////////////////ART-BTKAT-145+
///////////////////edge=When the world's great scientific thinkers change their mindsOne hundred and sixty-five eminent thinkers, researchers, and communicators, at the annual request of the edge.org website, answered the following question: "What Have You Changed Your Mind About? Why?"Ana Gerschenfeld
Click here for PDF of Portugese Original
From particle physics to evolutionary theory, to the atomic bomb, to global warming, to the battle of the sexes, to the equality of human beings, to God and the paranormal, and to the dogmatism of scientists themselves, dozens of the big thinkers in the world explained online, at the start of 2008, what the most important things that they’ve change their minds about during their lives are.
The project takes place on the website www.edge.org, a kind of informal think tank, a forum for ideas and scientific debates (see adjoining article), which asks such questions annually online and later publishes the result in book form.
Many of the names here are well known to the interested public—the physicist Freeman Dyson, the "genome decoder" Craig Venter, the biologist Richard Dawkins (author of the controversial book The God Delusion), the Nobel laureate physicist Leon Lederman. Other participants, such as actor Alan Alda or the musician Brian Eno, may be surprising departures, but are just as interesting. And there are a number of science journalists, as well, including Steve Connor of the Independent, Roger Highfield of the Telegraph, and Philip Campbell, editor of Nature. The following are some examples of the ideas that they are re-evaluating.
1The atomic bomb won the war
Freeman Dyson, renowned physicist and mathematician, Princeton's Institute of Advanced Study
I changed my mind about an important historical question: did the nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki bring World War Two to an end? Until this year I used to say, perhaps. Now, because of new facts, I say no.2We have stopped evolving
Steven Pinker, experimental psychologist, Harvard University
Ten years ago I wrote, "Are we still evolving? Biologically, probably not much." The completion of the Human Genome Project was several years away. But new results have suggested that thousands of genes, perhaps as much as ten percent of the human genome, have been under strong recent selection, and the selection may even have accelerated during the past several thousand years. Currently, evolutionary psychology assumes that any adaptation to post-agricultural ways of life are 100% cultural. If these results hold up, and apply to psychologically relevant brain function, then that simplifying assumption might have to be reconsidered.3The paranormal existsSusan Blackmore, psychologist, consultant to the journal Skeptical Inquirer
When I was a student at Oxford in 1970, I became became fascinated with occultism, mediumship and the paranormal. I did the experiments. I tested telepathy, precognition, and clairvoyance; I got only chance results. I trained fellow students in imagery techniques and tested them again; chance results. I tested twins in pairs; chance results. I worked in play groups and nursery schools with very young children (their naturally telepathic minds are not yet warped by education, you see); chance results. I trained as a Tarot reader and tested the readings; chance results. I was lying in the bath trying to fit my latest null results into paranormal theory, when it occurred to me for the very first time that I might have been completely wrong, and my tutors right. Perhaps there were no paranormal phenomena at all. I had hunted ghosts and poltergeists, trained as a witch, attended spiritualist churches, and stared into crystal balls. But all of that had to go. Once the decision was made it was actually quite easy.4We are all equalSimon Baron-Cohen, psychologist, Autism Research Center, Cambridge University
When I was young I believed in equality as a guiding principle in life. My mind has been changed. I still believe in some aspects of the idea of equality, but I can no longer accept the whole package. Striving to give people equality of social opportunity is still a value system worth defending, but we have to accept that equality has no place in the realm of biology.5The obligation of a scientist to do science
Leon Lederman, Nobel Laureate in Physics (author of The God Particle)
I have always believed that the scientist’s most sacred obligation is to continue to do science. Now I know that I was dead wrong. I am driven to the ultimately wise advice of my Columbia mentor, I.I. Rabi, who, in our many corridor bull sessions, urged his students to run for public office and get elected. He insisted that to be an advisor (he was an advisor to Oppenheimer at Los Alamos, later to Eisenhower and to the AEC) was ultimately an exercise in futility and that the power belonged to those who are elected. Then, we thought the old man was bonkers. But today... A Congress which is overwhelmingly dominated by lawyers and MBAs makes no sense in this 21st century in which almost all issues have a science and technology aspect.6Men are at the top because they are smarter
Helena Cronin, philosopher, London School of Economics
I used to think that these patterns of sex differences resulted mainly from average differences between men and women in innate talents, tastes and temperaments. After all, in talents men are on average more mathematical, more technically minded, women more verbal; in tastes, men are more interested in things, women in people; in temperaments, men are more competitive, risk-taking, single-minded, status-conscious, women far less so. But I have now changed my mind. It is not a matter of averages, but of extremes. Females are much of a muchness, clustering round the mean. But, among males, the variance—the difference between the most and the least, the best and the worst—can be vast. So males are almost bound to be over-represented both at the bottom and at the top. I think of this as 'more dumbbells but more Nobels'.7It is possible to unify the forces of physics
Marcelo Gleiser, Brazilian physicist and astronomer, Dartmouth College
I was always fascinated by the idea of unification of the forces of nature. I wrote dozens of papers related to the subject of unification, even my Ph.D. dissertation was on the topic. I was fascinated by the modern approaches to the idea, supersymmetry, superstrings, a space with extra, hidden dimensions. A part of me still is. But then, a few years ago, I started to doubt unification, finding it to be the scientific equivalent of a monotheistic formulation of reality, a search for God revealed in equations. Of course, had we the slightest experimental evidence in favor of unification, of supersymmetry and superstrings, I'd be the first popping the champagne open. But it's been over twenty years, and all attempts so far have failed.8Global warming is not an urgent problem
Craig Venter, human genome decoder, J. Craig Venter Institute
Like many or perhaps most I wanted to believe that our oceans and atmosphere were basically unlimited sinks with an endless capacity to absorb the waste products of human existence. I wanted to believe that solving the carbon fuel problem was for future generations and that the big concern was the limited supply of oil not the rate of adding carbon to the atmosphere. The data is irrefutable. We are conducting a dangerous experiment with our planet. One we need to stop. Now.9Humans emerged because they began to eat meat
Richard Wrangham, British anthropologist, student of Jane Goodall, Harvard University
I used to think that human origins were explained by meat-eating. But I now think that cooking was the major advance that made us human. Cooked food allows our guts, teeth and mouths to be small, while giving us abundant food energy and freeing our time. Cooked food, of course, requires the control of fire; and a fire at night explains how Homo erectus dared sleep on the ground. So, in a roast potato and a hunk of beef we have a new theory of what made us human.10Races do not exist
Mark Pagel, evolutionary biologist, Reading University
There is an overbearing censorship to the way we are allowed to think and talk about the diversity of people on Earth. Officially we are all the same: there are no races. Flawed as the old ideas about race are, modern genomic studies reveal a surprising, compelling and different picture of human genetic diversity. What this all means is that, like it or not, there may be many genetic differences among human populations—including differences that may even correspond to old categories of 'race'—that are real differences in the sense of making one group better than another at responding to some particular environmental problem. This in no way says one group is in general 'superior' to another, or that one group should be preferred over another. But it warns us that we must be prepared to discuss genetic differences among human populations.
John Brockman intersects the culturesEdge: brilliant, essential and addictive
Edge is a bimonthly newsletter and a website. It is a single publication, run by North American John Brockman, a literary agent with a constellation of world-famous scientists (most, but not all, are from the Anglo-Saxon world). Brockman, born in Boston in 1941, now resides in New York. He is the author and editor of 19 books, including The Third Culture: Beyond the Scientific Revolution.
Brockman writes in his presentation of the site that the "traditional intellectual", i.e. one with a 1950s education "in Freud, Marx, and modernism" no longer has sufficient qualifications to be a thinking person in the world today. One cannot be just a "literary intellectual"—that self-defined term used in the 1930s by "men of letters" to the exclusion of scientists such as Einstein, Bohr, and Heisenberg. "The traditional American intellectuals are, in a sense, increasingly reactionary, and quite often proudly (and perversely) ignorant of many of the truly significant intellectual accomplishments of our time", he says.
"The third culture" is defined by Brockman as consisting of "those scientists and other thinkers in the empirical world who, through their work and expository writing, are taking the place of the traditional intellectual in rendering visible the deeper meanings of our lives, redefining who and what we are." The mandate of the Edge Foundation is "to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society."
The online world of Edge clearly benefits from a suspension of the fear of not being politically correct or addressing issues that are not the specialty of the participant. All the invited participants play the game, presenting controversial ideas, confessing doubts, casting proposals for the future. "There is no canon of acceptable ideas" notes Brockman. "The strength of the Third Culture is precisely that it can tolerate those disagreements." The result of this ambitious venture, for those who have already experienced navigating the web pages of edge.org, is not only brilliant, but addictive. It interprets, it interrogates, it provokes. Each text can be a world in itself.
Although little known to the greater European public—just looking at the list of periodical articles referenced on the website’s press page is enough to see that Edge has become an indispensable point of passage essential for all—specialists and fans—who like to perceive and reflect on the great scientific, social, cultural, and policy questions that are shaped by the arguments of these "new intellectuals", who work and think "at the edge of the world's knowledge" (Brockman's words, of course). Ana Gerschenfeld
///////////////////////Today is Feb 11, 2008.Better go about than fall into the ditch.~Proverb, (Spanish)~
//////////////////
Friday, 8 February 2008
CDS 080208
//////////////////Umbilical Cord Milking Reduces Transfusion Requirement in Very Preterm Infants
Umbilical cord milking reduces the need for red blood cell transfusion and for circulatory and respiratory support in very preterm infants, according to a report in the January Archives of Disease in Childhood--Fetal and Neonatal Edition.
//////////////////////Infant HIV Infection Possible Even With Negative Antenatal Test
Infants can be born with HIV infection even if the mother tests negative during pregnancy, the results of a brief report show.
////////////////////////Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men
///////////////////////////////Add bananas, berries or raisins to your morning cereal to get an extra serving of fruit today. You need five to nine servings of fruit and vegetables each day.
///////////////////////////////ABout Tangerines:
Tangerines are a great source of vitamin A and beta cryptoxanthin, which may help reduce the inflammation of arthritis. Tangerines also contain a healthy amount of lutein, which is good for your vision.
///////////////////A study by an epidemiologist at Michigan State University found that most Americans do not do everything they can to lead a healthy lifestyle. The study which was published in journal Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at four basic characteristics that are part of a healthy lifestyle:
Being a non-smoker.
Exercising 30 minutes or more five days per week.
Eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
Maintaining a healthy weight with a BMI under 25.
//////////////////////The KFC Double Crunch Sandwich has 1200 mg sodium. That amount is about half of what you should consume for one day. It also has 510 calories.
The McDonald's Filet-O-Fish has 660 mg sodium and 380 calories.
////////////////////////
Umbilical cord milking reduces the need for red blood cell transfusion and for circulatory and respiratory support in very preterm infants, according to a report in the January Archives of Disease in Childhood--Fetal and Neonatal Edition.
//////////////////////Infant HIV Infection Possible Even With Negative Antenatal Test
Infants can be born with HIV infection even if the mother tests negative during pregnancy, the results of a brief report show.
////////////////////////Some studies suggest women need up to an hour’s extra sleep a night compared to men, and not getting it may be one reason women are much more susceptible to depression than men
///////////////////////////////Add bananas, berries or raisins to your morning cereal to get an extra serving of fruit today. You need five to nine servings of fruit and vegetables each day.
///////////////////////////////ABout Tangerines:
Tangerines are a great source of vitamin A and beta cryptoxanthin, which may help reduce the inflammation of arthritis. Tangerines also contain a healthy amount of lutein, which is good for your vision.
///////////////////A study by an epidemiologist at Michigan State University found that most Americans do not do everything they can to lead a healthy lifestyle. The study which was published in journal Archives of Internal Medicine, looked at four basic characteristics that are part of a healthy lifestyle:
Being a non-smoker.
Exercising 30 minutes or more five days per week.
Eating five or more servings of fruits and vegetables every day.
Maintaining a healthy weight with a BMI under 25.
//////////////////////The KFC Double Crunch Sandwich has 1200 mg sodium. That amount is about half of what you should consume for one day. It also has 510 calories.
The McDonald's Filet-O-Fish has 660 mg sodium and 380 calories.
////////////////////////
Wednesday, 6 February 2008
MOBILES
Mobiles 'not brain cancer risk'
BBC News - 10 hours ago
Mobile phone use does not raise the risk of brain tumours, a Japanese study suggests. The research is the first to look at the effects of hand set radiation levels on different parts of the brain.
/////////////////////////////////CELLULAR AUTOMATA AND FRACTALS EXAMPLES OF UNDESIGNED COMPLEXITY
////////////////////////////Women opting for caesarean sections are scared of labour pain
Earthtimes - 1 hour ago
Most women who opt to undergo a caesarean section are scared of labour pains and are not too snooty as assumed previously, a new study by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has suggested.
///////////////////////////////////Celiac disease is linked to increased risk of pancreatitis
doi:10.1038/ncpgasthep1023 | Full Text | PDF
///////////////////////////////////SCI DLY=Supernova Surprise: Black Holes May Pull Apart, Reignite White Dwarf Stars (January 31, 2008) -- A strange and violent fate awaits a white dwarf star that wanders too close to a moderately massive black hole. According to a new study, the black hole's gravitational pull on the white dwarf would cause tidal forces sufficient to disrupt the stellar remnant and reignite nuclear burning in it, giving rise to a supernova explosion with an unusual appearance. ... > full story
////////////////////////////////Ancient bones suggest cavemen wore boots
27 January 2008
Erik Trinkaus, Washington University in St Louis
Footwear , it seems, has been fashionable for rather a long time. Toe bones from a cave in China suggest people were wearing shoes at least 40,000 years ago.
Erik Trinkaus and Hong Shang, from Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, measured the shape and density of toe bones from a 40,000-year-old skeleton found in Tianyuan cave near Beijing. They compared these bones with those from 20th century urban Americans, late-prehistoric Inuits and other late-prehistoric Native Americans.
//////////////////////////////////////EXTRA TERRESTRIAL IMPACTS IN HUMAN HX-
N AM-11000 BC
ARGENTINA-2000BC
SIVENTE-ITALY-300 AD
TUNGUSAKA-1908
SIKHOTE,SIBERIA-1947
///////////////////////////////////BBC=Three-parent embryo formed in lab
The scientists have created the embryo in the lab
Scientists believe they have made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of serious disease by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.
The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.
The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.
It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.
It is human beings they are experimenting with
Josephine Quintavalle
Comment on Reproductive Ethics
'Our aim is to help children'
The technique is intended to help women with diseases of the mitochondria - mini organelles that are found within individual cells.
They are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's energy.
Faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases, some of which lead to disability and death.
About one in every 6,500 people is affected by such conditions, which include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness.
At present, no treatment for mitochondrial diseases exists.
Genetic transplant
The Newcastle team have effectively given the embryos a mitochondria transplant.
We believe we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children
Professor Patrick Chinnery
University of Newcastle
They experimented on 10 severely abnormal embryos left over from traditional fertility treatment.
Within hours of their creation, the nucleus, containing DNA from the mother and father, was removed from the embryo, and implanted into a donor egg whose DNA had been largely removed.
The only genetic information remaining from the donor egg was the tiny bit that controls production of mitochondria - around 16,000 of the 3billion component parts that make up the human genome.
The embryos then began to develop normally, but were destroyed within six days.
Appearance
Experiments using mice have shown that the offspring with the new mitochondria carry no information that defines any human attributes.
So while any baby born through this method would have genetic elements from three people, the nuclear DNA that influences appearance and other characteristics would not come from the woman providing the donor egg.
However, the team only have permission to carry out the lab experiments and as yet this would not be allowed to be offered as a treatment.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said: "We believe that from this work, and work we have done on other animals that in principle we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children."
Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, which has funded the Newcastle research, was confident it would lead to a badly needed breakthrough in treatment.
"Mitochondrial myopathies are a group of complex and severe diseases," she said.
"This can make it very difficult for clinicians to provide genetic counselling and give patients an accurate prognosis."
However, but the Newcastle work has attracted opposition.
Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said it was "risky, dangerous" and a step towards "designer babies".
"It is human beings they are experimenting with," she said.
"We should not be messing around with the building blocks of life."
Mrs Quintavalle said embryo research in the US using DNA from one man and two women was discontinued because of the "huge abnormalities" in some cases.
Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert, expressed concern about a "drift towards GM babies".
///////////////////////////////ANIMAL ABUSERS ALSO INCR RISK TO BE PPL ABUSERS
/////////////////////////////WORMHOLES-PASSAGE TO PARLL UNIVERSE
///////////////////////////////
BBC News - 10 hours ago
Mobile phone use does not raise the risk of brain tumours, a Japanese study suggests. The research is the first to look at the effects of hand set radiation levels on different parts of the brain.
/////////////////////////////////CELLULAR AUTOMATA AND FRACTALS EXAMPLES OF UNDESIGNED COMPLEXITY
////////////////////////////Women opting for caesarean sections are scared of labour pain
Earthtimes - 1 hour ago
Most women who opt to undergo a caesarean section are scared of labour pains and are not too snooty as assumed previously, a new study by researchers at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden has suggested.
///////////////////////////////////Celiac disease is linked to increased risk of pancreatitis
doi:10.1038/ncpgasthep1023 | Full Text | PDF
///////////////////////////////////SCI DLY=Supernova Surprise: Black Holes May Pull Apart, Reignite White Dwarf Stars (January 31, 2008) -- A strange and violent fate awaits a white dwarf star that wanders too close to a moderately massive black hole. According to a new study, the black hole's gravitational pull on the white dwarf would cause tidal forces sufficient to disrupt the stellar remnant and reignite nuclear burning in it, giving rise to a supernova explosion with an unusual appearance. ... > full story
////////////////////////////////Ancient bones suggest cavemen wore boots
27 January 2008
Erik Trinkaus, Washington University in St Louis
Footwear , it seems, has been fashionable for rather a long time. Toe bones from a cave in China suggest people were wearing shoes at least 40,000 years ago.
Erik Trinkaus and Hong Shang, from Washington University in St Louis, Missouri, measured the shape and density of toe bones from a 40,000-year-old skeleton found in Tianyuan cave near Beijing. They compared these bones with those from 20th century urban Americans, late-prehistoric Inuits and other late-prehistoric Native Americans.
//////////////////////////////////////EXTRA TERRESTRIAL IMPACTS IN HUMAN HX-
N AM-11000 BC
ARGENTINA-2000BC
SIVENTE-ITALY-300 AD
TUNGUSAKA-1908
SIKHOTE,SIBERIA-1947
///////////////////////////////////BBC=Three-parent embryo formed in lab
The scientists have created the embryo in the lab
Scientists believe they have made a potential breakthrough in the treatment of serious disease by creating a human embryo with three separate parents.
The Newcastle University team believe the technique could help to eradicate a whole class of hereditary diseases, including some forms of epilepsy.
The embryos have been created using DNA from a man and two women in lab tests.
It could ensure women with genetic defects do not pass the diseases on to their children.
It is human beings they are experimenting with
Josephine Quintavalle
Comment on Reproductive Ethics
'Our aim is to help children'
The technique is intended to help women with diseases of the mitochondria - mini organelles that are found within individual cells.
They are sometimes described as "cellular power plants" because they generate most of the cell's energy.
Faults in the mitochondrial DNA can cause around 50 known diseases, some of which lead to disability and death.
About one in every 6,500 people is affected by such conditions, which include fatal liver failure, stroke-like episodes, blindness, muscular dystrophy, diabetes and deafness.
At present, no treatment for mitochondrial diseases exists.
Genetic transplant
The Newcastle team have effectively given the embryos a mitochondria transplant.
We believe we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children
Professor Patrick Chinnery
University of Newcastle
They experimented on 10 severely abnormal embryos left over from traditional fertility treatment.
Within hours of their creation, the nucleus, containing DNA from the mother and father, was removed from the embryo, and implanted into a donor egg whose DNA had been largely removed.
The only genetic information remaining from the donor egg was the tiny bit that controls production of mitochondria - around 16,000 of the 3billion component parts that make up the human genome.
The embryos then began to develop normally, but were destroyed within six days.
Appearance
Experiments using mice have shown that the offspring with the new mitochondria carry no information that defines any human attributes.
So while any baby born through this method would have genetic elements from three people, the nuclear DNA that influences appearance and other characteristics would not come from the woman providing the donor egg.
However, the team only have permission to carry out the lab experiments and as yet this would not be allowed to be offered as a treatment.
Professor Patrick Chinnery, a member of the Newcastle team, said: "We believe that from this work, and work we have done on other animals that in principle we could develop this technique and offer treatment in the forseeable future that will give families some hope of avoiding passing these diseases to their children."
Dr Marita Pohlschmidt, of the Muscular Dystrophy Campaign, which has funded the Newcastle research, was confident it would lead to a badly needed breakthrough in treatment.
"Mitochondrial myopathies are a group of complex and severe diseases," she said.
"This can make it very difficult for clinicians to provide genetic counselling and give patients an accurate prognosis."
However, but the Newcastle work has attracted opposition.
Josephine Quintavalle, of the pro-life group Comment on Reproductive Ethics, said it was "risky, dangerous" and a step towards "designer babies".
"It is human beings they are experimenting with," she said.
"We should not be messing around with the building blocks of life."
Mrs Quintavalle said embryo research in the US using DNA from one man and two women was discontinued because of the "huge abnormalities" in some cases.
Dr David King, of Human Genetics Alert, expressed concern about a "drift towards GM babies".
///////////////////////////////ANIMAL ABUSERS ALSO INCR RISK TO BE PPL ABUSERS
/////////////////////////////WORMHOLES-PASSAGE TO PARLL UNIVERSE
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Monday, 4 February 2008
BRAINMIND
///////////////////Facts and Fictions in Mental Health; February/March 2008; Scientific American Mind; by Scott O. Lilienfeld And Hal Arkowitz; 2 Page(s)
Most of us take our brain for granted. As poet Robert Frost wrote, "The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." Weighing in at a mere three pounds and possessing the consistency of a lump of Jell-O, our brain looks surprisingly unimpressive in the flesh. Yet it is capable of soaring intellectual feats.
Although our brain underpins virtually every aspect of our thinking, personality and identity, it is the focus of a host of misconceptions. Without question, the world's expert on "neuromythology"--the study of myths regarding brain structure and function--was Simon Fraser University psychology professor Barry L. Beyerstein, who died last June at the age of 60. Barry coined the term "brainscams" in a 1990 article to draw attention to popular efforts to capitalize on the public's misunderstanding of the brain.
/////////////////////////////////////Mind Reviews; February/March 2008; Scientific American Mind; by Diana Deutsch, Rachel Dvoskin, Nikhil Swaminathan, Richard Lipkin; 2 Page(s)
Music provides a fascinating window into the mind. In my research at the University of California, San Diego, I have found that music and language are deeply intertwined and that listening to music can involve striking illusions and perceptual disagreements. Now Oliver Sacks, world-renowned neurologist and author, has combined his lifelong passions for neurology and music to produce a masterly overview of music and the brain. In Musicophilia, Sacks focuses on individual case studies, which he presents vividly and with care. In so doing, he convinces readers that these cases illustrate--albeit in extreme fashion--aspects of musical processing that relate to everyone's brain.
Sacks describes people who are so plagued with tunes stuck in their head that they urgently seek medical advice. He writes about patients who hallucinate music--sometimes unrelenting, loud music that interferes with their sleep and ability to function in everyday life. Many musical hallucinations are remarkably detailed, demonstrating that we must possess extraordinarily accurate and precise musical memories that are normally inaccessible to us.
/////////////////////Ask the Brains; February/March 2008; Scientific American Mind; by Antonio Oliviero, Mark A. W. Andrews; 1 Page(s)
Sleep disorders such as sleepwalking arise when normal physiological systems are active at inappropriate times. We do not yet understand why the brain issues commands to the muscles during certain phases of sleep, but we do know that these commands are usually suppressed by other neurological mechanisms. At times this suppression can be incomplete--because of genetic or environmental factors or physical immaturity--and actions that normally occur during wakefulness emerge in sleep.
People can perform a variety of activities while asleep, from simply sitting up in bed to more complex behavior such as housecleaning or driving a car. Individuals in this trancelike state are difficult to rouse, and if awoken they are often confused and unaware of the events that have taken place. Sleepwalking most often occurs during childhood, perhaps because children spend more time in the "deep sleep" phase of slumber. Physical activity only happens during the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) cycle of deep sleep, which precedes the dreaming state of REM sleep.
//////////////////////
Most of us take our brain for granted. As poet Robert Frost wrote, "The brain is a wonderful organ. It starts working the moment you get up in the morning and does not stop until you get into the office." Weighing in at a mere three pounds and possessing the consistency of a lump of Jell-O, our brain looks surprisingly unimpressive in the flesh. Yet it is capable of soaring intellectual feats.
Although our brain underpins virtually every aspect of our thinking, personality and identity, it is the focus of a host of misconceptions. Without question, the world's expert on "neuromythology"--the study of myths regarding brain structure and function--was Simon Fraser University psychology professor Barry L. Beyerstein, who died last June at the age of 60. Barry coined the term "brainscams" in a 1990 article to draw attention to popular efforts to capitalize on the public's misunderstanding of the brain.
/////////////////////////////////////Mind Reviews; February/March 2008; Scientific American Mind; by Diana Deutsch, Rachel Dvoskin, Nikhil Swaminathan, Richard Lipkin; 2 Page(s)
Music provides a fascinating window into the mind. In my research at the University of California, San Diego, I have found that music and language are deeply intertwined and that listening to music can involve striking illusions and perceptual disagreements. Now Oliver Sacks, world-renowned neurologist and author, has combined his lifelong passions for neurology and music to produce a masterly overview of music and the brain. In Musicophilia, Sacks focuses on individual case studies, which he presents vividly and with care. In so doing, he convinces readers that these cases illustrate--albeit in extreme fashion--aspects of musical processing that relate to everyone's brain.
Sacks describes people who are so plagued with tunes stuck in their head that they urgently seek medical advice. He writes about patients who hallucinate music--sometimes unrelenting, loud music that interferes with their sleep and ability to function in everyday life. Many musical hallucinations are remarkably detailed, demonstrating that we must possess extraordinarily accurate and precise musical memories that are normally inaccessible to us.
/////////////////////Ask the Brains; February/March 2008; Scientific American Mind; by Antonio Oliviero, Mark A. W. Andrews; 1 Page(s)
Sleep disorders such as sleepwalking arise when normal physiological systems are active at inappropriate times. We do not yet understand why the brain issues commands to the muscles during certain phases of sleep, but we do know that these commands are usually suppressed by other neurological mechanisms. At times this suppression can be incomplete--because of genetic or environmental factors or physical immaturity--and actions that normally occur during wakefulness emerge in sleep.
People can perform a variety of activities while asleep, from simply sitting up in bed to more complex behavior such as housecleaning or driving a car. Individuals in this trancelike state are difficult to rouse, and if awoken they are often confused and unaware of the events that have taken place. Sleepwalking most often occurs during childhood, perhaps because children spend more time in the "deep sleep" phase of slumber. Physical activity only happens during the non-rapid eye movement (NREM) cycle of deep sleep, which precedes the dreaming state of REM sleep.
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