/////////////////NATURAL MEANS OF SELECTION
////////////////
Monday 29 June 2009
Sunday 28 June 2009
TRNNG 70
R.D.Burman remembered on his 70th birth anniversary in New Delhi
Posted: 27 Jun 2009 08:56 AM PDT
New Delhi, June 27 (ANI): A number of fans and music enthusiasts celebrated the 70th birth anniversary of legendary Bollywood music composer R.D.Burman on Saturday in the national capital. Various performers, on this occasions, sang late R.D. Burman’s compositions and children gave dance presentations during a function organised by a fan club devoted to his [...]
///////////////PRNTS AT LST >70
////////////////The last 2 million years of human evolution
Tuesday 20 October 2009 at 6:30pm
Event Type: Public Lecture
Location: The Royal Society
Address:
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
by Professor Christopher Stringer FRS
Human evolution can be divided into two main phases. A pre-human phase in Africa prior to 2 million years ago, where walking upright had evolved but many other characteristics were still essentially ape-like. And a human phase, with an increase in both brain size and behavioural complexity, and an expansion from Africa. Evidence points strongly to Africa as the major centre for the genetic, physical and behavioural origins of humans, but new discoveries are prompting a rethink of some aspects of our evolutionary origins.
/////////////////
June 28, 2009
No Smiting
By PAUL BLOOM
THE EVOLUTION OF GOD
By Robert Wright
567 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $25.99
God has mellowed. The God that most Americans worship occasionally gets upset about abortion and gay marriage, but he is a softy compared with the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. That was a warrior God, savagely tribal, deeply insecure about his status and willing to commit mass murder to show off his powers. But at least Yahweh had strong moral views, occasionally enlightened ones, about how the Israelites should behave. His hunter-gatherer ancestors, by contrast, were doofus gods. Morally clueless, they were often yelled at by their people and tended toward quirky obsessions. One thunder god would get mad if people combed their hair during a storm or watched dogs mate.
In his brilliant new book, “The Evolution of God,” Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up. He starts with the deities of hunter-gatherer tribes, moves to those of chiefdoms and nations, then on to the polytheism of the early Israelites and the monotheism that followed, and then to the New Testament and the Koran, before finishing off with the modern multinational Gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Wright’s tone is reasoned and careful, even hesitant, throughout, and it is nice to read about issues like the morality of Christ and the meaning of jihad without getting the feeling that you are being shouted at. His views, though, are provocative and controversial. There is something here to annoy almost everyone.
In sharp contrast to many contemporary secularists, Wright is bullish about monotheism. In “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny” (2000), he argued that there is a moral direction to human history, that technological growth and expanding global interconnectedness have moved us toward ever more positive and mutually beneficial relationships with others. In “The Evolution of God,” Wright tells a similar story from a religious standpoint, proposing that the increasing goodness of God reflects the increasing goodness of our species. “As the scope of social organization grows, God tends to eventually catch up, drawing a larger expanse of humanity under his protection, or at least a larger expanse of humanity under his toleration.” Wright argues that each of the major Abrahamic faiths has been forced toward moral growth as it found itself interacting with other faiths on a multinational level, and that this expansion of the moral imagination reflects “a higher purpose, a transcendent moral order.”
This sounds pro-religion, but don’t expect Pope Benedict XVI to be quoting from Wright’s book anytime soon. Wright makes it clear that he is tracking people’s conception of the divine, not the divine itself. He describes this as “a good news/bad news joke for traditionalist Christians, Muslims and Jews.” The bad news is that your God was born imperfect. The good news is that he doesn’t really exist.
Wright also denies the specialness of any faith. In his view, there is continuous positive change over time — religious history has a moral direction — but no movement of moral revelation associated with the emergence of Moses, Jesus or Mohammed. Similarly, he argues that it is a waste of time to search for the essence of any of these monotheistic religions — it’s silly, for instance, to ask whether Islam is a “religion of peace.” Like a judge who believes in a living constitution, Wright believes that what matters is the choices that the people make, how the texts are interpreted. Cultural sensibilities shift according to changes in human dynamics, and these shape the God that people worship. For Wright, it is not God who evolves. It is us — God just comes along for the ride.
It is a great ride, though. Wright gives the example of the God of Leviticus, who said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and he points out that this isn’t as enlightened as it may sound, since, at the time, “neighbors” meant actual neighbors, fellow Israelites, not the idol-worshipers in the next town. But still, he argues, this demand encompassed all the tribes of Israel, and was a “moral watershed” that “expanded the circle of brotherhood.” And the disapproval that we now feel when we learn the limited scope of this rule is itself another reason to cheer, since it shows how our moral sensibilities have expanded.
Or consider the modern Sunday School song “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” (“Red and yellow, black and white, / They are precious in his sight.”) Actually, there is no evidence that he loved all of them; if you went back and sang this to the Jesus of the Gospels, he would think you were mad. But in the minds of many of his followers today, this kind of global love is what Christianity means. That certainly looks like moral progress.
But God still has some growing up to do, as Wright makes clear in his careful discussion of contemporary religious hatred. As you would expect, he argues that much of the problem isn’t with the religious texts or teachings themselves, but with the social conditions — the “facts on the ground” — that shape the sort of God we choose to create. “When people see themselves in zero-sum relationship with other people — see their fortunes as inversely correlated with the fortunes of other people, see the dynamic as win-lose — they tend to find a scriptural basis for intolerance or belligerence.” The recipe for salvation, then, is to arrange the world so that its people find themselves (and think of themselves as) interconnected: “When they see the relationship as non-zero-sum — see their fortunes as positively correlated, see the potential for a win-win outcome — they’re more likely to find the tolerant and understanding side of their scriptures.” Change the world, and you change the God.
For Wright, the next evolutionary step is for practitioners of Abrahamic faiths to give up their claim to distinctiveness, and then renounce the specialness of monotheism altogether. In fact, when it comes to expanding the circle of moral consideration, he argues, religions like Buddhism have sometimes “outperformed the Abrahamics.” But this sounds like the death of God, not his evolution. And it clashes with Wright’s own proposal, drawn from work in evolutionary psychology, that we invented religion to satisfy certain intellectual and emotional needs, like the tendency to search for moral causes of natural events and the desire to conform with the people who surround us. These needs haven’t gone away, and the sort of depersonalized and disinterested God that Wright anticipates would satisfy none of them. He is betting that historical forces will trump our basic psychological makeup. I’m not so sure.
Wright tentatively explores another claim, that the history of religion actually affirms “the existence of something you can meaningfully call divinity.” He emphasizes that he is not arguing that you need divine intervention to account for moral improvement, which can be explained by a “mercilessly scientific account” involving the biological evolution of the human mind and the game-theoretic nature of social interaction. But he wonders why the universe is so constituted that moral progress takes place. “If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe — conceivably — the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”
It is not just moral progress that raises these sorts of issues. I don’t doubt that the explanation for consciousness will arise from the mercilessly scientific account of psychology and neuroscience, but, still, isn’t it neat that the universe is such that it gave rise to conscious beings like you and me? And that these minds — which evolved in a world of plants and birds and rocks and things — have the capacity to transcend this everyday world and generate philosophy, theology, art and science?
So I share Wright’s wonder at how nicely everything has turned out. But I don’t see how this constitutes an argument for a divine being. After all, even if we could somehow establish definitively that moral progress exists because the universe was jump-started by a God of Love, this just pushes the problem up one level. We are now stuck with the puzzle of why there exists such a caring God in the first place.
Also, it would be a terribly minimalist God. Wright himself describes it as “somewhere between illusion and imperfect conception.” It won’t answer your prayers, give you advice or smite your enemies. So even if it did exist, we would be left with another good news/bad news situation. The good news is that there would be a divine being. The bad news is that it’s not the one that anyone is looking for.
Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale, is the author of “Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human.” His book “How Pleasure Works” will be published next year.
NYT=
////////////////
Posted: 27 Jun 2009 08:56 AM PDT
New Delhi, June 27 (ANI): A number of fans and music enthusiasts celebrated the 70th birth anniversary of legendary Bollywood music composer R.D.Burman on Saturday in the national capital. Various performers, on this occasions, sang late R.D. Burman’s compositions and children gave dance presentations during a function organised by a fan club devoted to his [...]
///////////////PRNTS AT LST >70
////////////////The last 2 million years of human evolution
Tuesday 20 October 2009 at 6:30pm
Event Type: Public Lecture
Location: The Royal Society
Address:
The Royal Society
6-9 Carlton House Terrace
London SW1Y 5AG
by Professor Christopher Stringer FRS
Human evolution can be divided into two main phases. A pre-human phase in Africa prior to 2 million years ago, where walking upright had evolved but many other characteristics were still essentially ape-like. And a human phase, with an increase in both brain size and behavioural complexity, and an expansion from Africa. Evidence points strongly to Africa as the major centre for the genetic, physical and behavioural origins of humans, but new discoveries are prompting a rethink of some aspects of our evolutionary origins.
/////////////////
June 28, 2009
No Smiting
By PAUL BLOOM
THE EVOLUTION OF GOD
By Robert Wright
567 pp. Little, Brown & Company. $25.99
God has mellowed. The God that most Americans worship occasionally gets upset about abortion and gay marriage, but he is a softy compared with the Yahweh of the Hebrew Bible. That was a warrior God, savagely tribal, deeply insecure about his status and willing to commit mass murder to show off his powers. But at least Yahweh had strong moral views, occasionally enlightened ones, about how the Israelites should behave. His hunter-gatherer ancestors, by contrast, were doofus gods. Morally clueless, they were often yelled at by their people and tended toward quirky obsessions. One thunder god would get mad if people combed their hair during a storm or watched dogs mate.
In his brilliant new book, “The Evolution of God,” Robert Wright tells the story of how God grew up. He starts with the deities of hunter-gatherer tribes, moves to those of chiefdoms and nations, then on to the polytheism of the early Israelites and the monotheism that followed, and then to the New Testament and the Koran, before finishing off with the modern multinational Gods of Judaism, Christianity and Islam. Wright’s tone is reasoned and careful, even hesitant, throughout, and it is nice to read about issues like the morality of Christ and the meaning of jihad without getting the feeling that you are being shouted at. His views, though, are provocative and controversial. There is something here to annoy almost everyone.
In sharp contrast to many contemporary secularists, Wright is bullish about monotheism. In “Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny” (2000), he argued that there is a moral direction to human history, that technological growth and expanding global interconnectedness have moved us toward ever more positive and mutually beneficial relationships with others. In “The Evolution of God,” Wright tells a similar story from a religious standpoint, proposing that the increasing goodness of God reflects the increasing goodness of our species. “As the scope of social organization grows, God tends to eventually catch up, drawing a larger expanse of humanity under his protection, or at least a larger expanse of humanity under his toleration.” Wright argues that each of the major Abrahamic faiths has been forced toward moral growth as it found itself interacting with other faiths on a multinational level, and that this expansion of the moral imagination reflects “a higher purpose, a transcendent moral order.”
This sounds pro-religion, but don’t expect Pope Benedict XVI to be quoting from Wright’s book anytime soon. Wright makes it clear that he is tracking people’s conception of the divine, not the divine itself. He describes this as “a good news/bad news joke for traditionalist Christians, Muslims and Jews.” The bad news is that your God was born imperfect. The good news is that he doesn’t really exist.
Wright also denies the specialness of any faith. In his view, there is continuous positive change over time — religious history has a moral direction — but no movement of moral revelation associated with the emergence of Moses, Jesus or Mohammed. Similarly, he argues that it is a waste of time to search for the essence of any of these monotheistic religions — it’s silly, for instance, to ask whether Islam is a “religion of peace.” Like a judge who believes in a living constitution, Wright believes that what matters is the choices that the people make, how the texts are interpreted. Cultural sensibilities shift according to changes in human dynamics, and these shape the God that people worship. For Wright, it is not God who evolves. It is us — God just comes along for the ride.
It is a great ride, though. Wright gives the example of the God of Leviticus, who said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” and he points out that this isn’t as enlightened as it may sound, since, at the time, “neighbors” meant actual neighbors, fellow Israelites, not the idol-worshipers in the next town. But still, he argues, this demand encompassed all the tribes of Israel, and was a “moral watershed” that “expanded the circle of brotherhood.” And the disapproval that we now feel when we learn the limited scope of this rule is itself another reason to cheer, since it shows how our moral sensibilities have expanded.
Or consider the modern Sunday School song “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” (“Red and yellow, black and white, / They are precious in his sight.”) Actually, there is no evidence that he loved all of them; if you went back and sang this to the Jesus of the Gospels, he would think you were mad. But in the minds of many of his followers today, this kind of global love is what Christianity means. That certainly looks like moral progress.
But God still has some growing up to do, as Wright makes clear in his careful discussion of contemporary religious hatred. As you would expect, he argues that much of the problem isn’t with the religious texts or teachings themselves, but with the social conditions — the “facts on the ground” — that shape the sort of God we choose to create. “When people see themselves in zero-sum relationship with other people — see their fortunes as inversely correlated with the fortunes of other people, see the dynamic as win-lose — they tend to find a scriptural basis for intolerance or belligerence.” The recipe for salvation, then, is to arrange the world so that its people find themselves (and think of themselves as) interconnected: “When they see the relationship as non-zero-sum — see their fortunes as positively correlated, see the potential for a win-win outcome — they’re more likely to find the tolerant and understanding side of their scriptures.” Change the world, and you change the God.
For Wright, the next evolutionary step is for practitioners of Abrahamic faiths to give up their claim to distinctiveness, and then renounce the specialness of monotheism altogether. In fact, when it comes to expanding the circle of moral consideration, he argues, religions like Buddhism have sometimes “outperformed the Abrahamics.” But this sounds like the death of God, not his evolution. And it clashes with Wright’s own proposal, drawn from work in evolutionary psychology, that we invented religion to satisfy certain intellectual and emotional needs, like the tendency to search for moral causes of natural events and the desire to conform with the people who surround us. These needs haven’t gone away, and the sort of depersonalized and disinterested God that Wright anticipates would satisfy none of them. He is betting that historical forces will trump our basic psychological makeup. I’m not so sure.
Wright tentatively explores another claim, that the history of religion actually affirms “the existence of something you can meaningfully call divinity.” He emphasizes that he is not arguing that you need divine intervention to account for moral improvement, which can be explained by a “mercilessly scientific account” involving the biological evolution of the human mind and the game-theoretic nature of social interaction. But he wonders why the universe is so constituted that moral progress takes place. “If history naturally pushes people toward moral improvement, toward moral truth, and their God, as they conceive their God, grows accordingly, becoming morally richer, then maybe this growth is evidence of some higher purpose, and maybe — conceivably — the source of that purpose is worthy of the name divinity.”
It is not just moral progress that raises these sorts of issues. I don’t doubt that the explanation for consciousness will arise from the mercilessly scientific account of psychology and neuroscience, but, still, isn’t it neat that the universe is such that it gave rise to conscious beings like you and me? And that these minds — which evolved in a world of plants and birds and rocks and things — have the capacity to transcend this everyday world and generate philosophy, theology, art and science?
So I share Wright’s wonder at how nicely everything has turned out. But I don’t see how this constitutes an argument for a divine being. After all, even if we could somehow establish definitively that moral progress exists because the universe was jump-started by a God of Love, this just pushes the problem up one level. We are now stuck with the puzzle of why there exists such a caring God in the first place.
Also, it would be a terribly minimalist God. Wright himself describes it as “somewhere between illusion and imperfect conception.” It won’t answer your prayers, give you advice or smite your enemies. So even if it did exist, we would be left with another good news/bad news situation. The good news is that there would be a divine being. The bad news is that it’s not the one that anyone is looking for.
Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale, is the author of “Descartes’ Baby: How the Science of Child Development Explains What Makes Us Human.” His book “How Pleasure Works” will be published next year.
NYT=
////////////////
Friday 26 June 2009
SN MVIE LEAVING LAS VEGAS
////////////////DRINKING TO KILL OWN SELF -KILLING OWN SELF TO DRINK
//////////////HOLLYWOOD COPYING SARATCHANDRA-DEVDAS
////////////////RD BK CBTAR-THE KIWIS EGG=ANOTHER week, another book on Darwin - this time an easy read that makes the perfect primer to understanding the man. Picking up the narrative after HMS Beagle's epic voyage, Quammen unravels the protracted birth of On the Origin of Species, explaining how its radical ideas stewed for over 20 years before publication. Darwin emerges as neurotic but likeable, with a potent mix of courage and caution. There's nothing especially new here but the clear and sometimes moving prose will leave you wanting more.
DARWIN EXTRAPOLATED COPERNICAN REVOLN AGNST ANTHROPOCENTRICISM
//////////////////A LF DTHING INTO DECADENCE
//////////////////NS PURPOSELESS BUT EFFICACIOUS PROCESS,IMPERSONAL,BLIND TO THE FUTURE,NO GOALS,ONLY RESULTS
SOLE VALUE SURVIVAL AND REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS
SCATTERSHOT VARIATIONS>>>>CULLED>>>>ACCRETED>>>>PRAGMATIC FORMS OF ORDER
NS DRIVEN BY HYPERFECUNDITY AND MORTAL COMPETITN
NS>>>PRODUCTS/BYPRODUCTS=ADAPTATN/CMPLXTY/DVRSTY
DEEP CHANCINESS=ECO NICHE FITTEST
DARWIN CONVERTED TO EVOLN IN 1836
HE CALLED IT TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES THEN
EACH SPECIES CHANGES
THE CHANGES IN EACH SPECIES MUST BE VERY SLOW
THE FABRIC (OF THEOLOGY) FALLS !!!
//////////////HOLLYWOOD COPYING SARATCHANDRA-DEVDAS
////////////////RD BK CBTAR-THE KIWIS EGG=ANOTHER week, another book on Darwin - this time an easy read that makes the perfect primer to understanding the man. Picking up the narrative after HMS Beagle's epic voyage, Quammen unravels the protracted birth of On the Origin of Species, explaining how its radical ideas stewed for over 20 years before publication. Darwin emerges as neurotic but likeable, with a potent mix of courage and caution. There's nothing especially new here but the clear and sometimes moving prose will leave you wanting more.
DARWIN EXTRAPOLATED COPERNICAN REVOLN AGNST ANTHROPOCENTRICISM
//////////////////A LF DTHING INTO DECADENCE
//////////////////NS PURPOSELESS BUT EFFICACIOUS PROCESS,IMPERSONAL,BLIND TO THE FUTURE,NO GOALS,ONLY RESULTS
SOLE VALUE SURVIVAL AND REPRODUCTIVE SUCCESS
SCATTERSHOT VARIATIONS>>>>CULLED>>>>ACCRETED>>>>PRAGMATIC FORMS OF ORDER
NS DRIVEN BY HYPERFECUNDITY AND MORTAL COMPETITN
NS>>>PRODUCTS/BYPRODUCTS=ADAPTATN/CMPLXTY/DVRSTY
DEEP CHANCINESS=ECO NICHE FITTEST
DARWIN CONVERTED TO EVOLN IN 1836
HE CALLED IT TRANSMUTATION OF SPECIES THEN
EACH SPECIES CHANGES
THE CHANGES IN EACH SPECIES MUST BE VERY SLOW
THE FABRIC (OF THEOLOGY) FALLS !!!
Thursday 25 June 2009
REM CAT NAP IMPROVES COGN
//////////////Sweat Does Not Smell
Body odor does not come from sweat itself because sweat is odorless. Your body produces two types of sweat: the eccrine sweat and apocrine sweat. The eccrine sweat represents a clear sweat, consisting mostly of water that does not smell and plays an important role in regulating our body temperature. The apocrine sweat that is produced by the glands is thicker and is located mainly near hair follicles, on the groin area, in the armpits and on the scalp. When bacteria contacts with apocrine sweat on the surface of the skin, the release of chemicals produces your body odor.
///////////////////////Kids Do Not Stink
Smelly armpits are not a problem for kids. Normally children do not need to mask their body odor until puberty. The pungent body odor appears when a child enters adolescence between the ages 8 to 14 years. During puberty, the androgen hormones activate sweat glands, leading to production of body odor.
/////////////////The Boxer Rebellion, more properly called the Boxer Uprising, or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement (義和團運動) in Chinese, was a violent anti-foreign, anti-Christian movement by the "Righteous Fists of Harmony,” Yihe tuan义和团 [1] or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China (known as "Boxers" in English), between 1898 and 1901. In response to imperialist expansion, growth of cosmopolitan influences, and missionary evangelism, and against the backdrop of state fiscal crisis and natural disasters, local organizations began to emerge in Shandong in 1898. At first, they were relentlessly suppressed by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty of China. Later, the Qing Dynasty tried to expel western influence from China. Under the slogan "Support the Qing, destroy the foreign", Boxers across North China attacked mission compounds. They killed missionaries and Chinese Christians.
//////////////
Body odor does not come from sweat itself because sweat is odorless. Your body produces two types of sweat: the eccrine sweat and apocrine sweat. The eccrine sweat represents a clear sweat, consisting mostly of water that does not smell and plays an important role in regulating our body temperature. The apocrine sweat that is produced by the glands is thicker and is located mainly near hair follicles, on the groin area, in the armpits and on the scalp. When bacteria contacts with apocrine sweat on the surface of the skin, the release of chemicals produces your body odor.
///////////////////////Kids Do Not Stink
Smelly armpits are not a problem for kids. Normally children do not need to mask their body odor until puberty. The pungent body odor appears when a child enters adolescence between the ages 8 to 14 years. During puberty, the androgen hormones activate sweat glands, leading to production of body odor.
/////////////////The Boxer Rebellion, more properly called the Boxer Uprising, or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement (義和團運動) in Chinese, was a violent anti-foreign, anti-Christian movement by the "Righteous Fists of Harmony,” Yihe tuan义和团 [1] or Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists in China (known as "Boxers" in English), between 1898 and 1901. In response to imperialist expansion, growth of cosmopolitan influences, and missionary evangelism, and against the backdrop of state fiscal crisis and natural disasters, local organizations began to emerge in Shandong in 1898. At first, they were relentlessly suppressed by the Manchu-led Qing Dynasty of China. Later, the Qing Dynasty tried to expel western influence from China. Under the slogan "Support the Qing, destroy the foreign", Boxers across North China attacked mission compounds. They killed missionaries and Chinese Christians.
//////////////
THE BAREFT INDN
///////////////Stoicism can be dangerous
Men's tendency to play down symptoms and adopt more unhealthy lifestyles makes them more than 40 percent more likely to die from cancer than women, researchers say.
/////////////////WHY ARE HUMAN GOALS NOT NECY REPRODUCTIVE
GOAL SEEKING CAPACITY,FLEXIBILITY ,REPROGRAMMABILITY OF HUMAN BRAIN IS ITS REPRODUCTIVE ADVANTAGE OF GENE SURVIVAL
/////////////////////SUBVERSION OF ARCHEOPURPOSE-PALEO DIET TO MAC DIET CAUSING OBESITY
//////////////////SUBVERSION OF SEX-EG PRN/CONTRACEPTIONMY SELFISH GENES CAN GO JUMP IN THE LAKE
/////////////////SUBVERSION OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE EG GD,GURU
///////////////SUBVERSION OF FICTIVE KIN EG TRIBE,MILITARY BROTHERHOOD
///////////////////IN GRP LOYALTY,OUT GRP HOSTILITY IS FICTIVE KINSHIP
////////////////////RELIGN USES FICTIVE KINSHIP ,ALSO MILITARY,GANGS,NATYION AT WAR,XENOPHOBIA
//////////////////////RDF
//////////////////MY COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG
///////////////////////////Today is rush to transparency day (kind of)
/////////////////SUBVERSION OF GOAL TO AN IMAGINED MRTYRS HVN
////////////////////////////SASIALIT=Of course the Persianate culture of India, especially in earlier periods,
is in our charter, with its strong links across Central Asia and Iran...
and the early Persians and Zoroastrians in India, love those Ismailis who
made their Aga Khan an incarnation of Vishnu, and Ali (the Prophet's
son-in-law) too...borders were not there/differently constituted then.
K
////////////////////
Blasé (adjective)
Pronunciation: [blah-'zey]
Definition: Sophisticatedly indifferent; superciliously casual in one's attitude, especially toward exciting things.
Usage: Since this word has retained all its "Frenchiness," there are no corresponding adverbs or nouns. It may be compared, though: "more blasé," "most blasé."
///////////////////BLANCHE-WHITE
//////////////////There is a huge controversy in linguistics [whether] learning another language will make you a different person. Each language makes you say something a different way and makes you think differently. You are obliged by the language. In Hindi, for example, you suddenly find yourself unable to say, ?I own anything.? You can't own anything in your mind. Little by little I was being altered by the language. I became less egocentric?you don't say ?I,? you say ?we??and I began to have a sense of being connected to the place.
//////////////////edge=BRAIN TIME
By David M. Eagleman
"Your brain, after all, is encased in darkness and silence in the vault of the skull. Its only contact with the outside world is via the electrical signals exiting and entering along the super-highways of nerve bundles. Because different types of sensory information (hearing, seeing, touch, and so on) are processed at different speeds by different neural architectures, your brain faces an enormous challenge: what is the best story that can be constructed about the outside world?"
/////////////////STREAMING CONSCIOUSNESS
/////////////////
/////////////////
Men's tendency to play down symptoms and adopt more unhealthy lifestyles makes them more than 40 percent more likely to die from cancer than women, researchers say.
/////////////////WHY ARE HUMAN GOALS NOT NECY REPRODUCTIVE
GOAL SEEKING CAPACITY,FLEXIBILITY ,REPROGRAMMABILITY OF HUMAN BRAIN IS ITS REPRODUCTIVE ADVANTAGE OF GENE SURVIVAL
/////////////////////SUBVERSION OF ARCHEOPURPOSE-PALEO DIET TO MAC DIET CAUSING OBESITY
//////////////////SUBVERSION OF SEX-EG PRN/CONTRACEPTIONMY SELFISH GENES CAN GO JUMP IN THE LAKE
/////////////////SUBVERSION OF FILIAL OBEDIENCE EG GD,GURU
///////////////SUBVERSION OF FICTIVE KIN EG TRIBE,MILITARY BROTHERHOOD
///////////////////IN GRP LOYALTY,OUT GRP HOSTILITY IS FICTIVE KINSHIP
////////////////////RELIGN USES FICTIVE KINSHIP ,ALSO MILITARY,GANGS,NATYION AT WAR,XENOPHOBIA
//////////////////////RDF
//////////////////MY COUNTRY RIGHT OR WRONG
///////////////////////////Today is rush to transparency day (kind of)
/////////////////SUBVERSION OF GOAL TO AN IMAGINED MRTYRS HVN
////////////////////////////SASIALIT=Of course the Persianate culture of India, especially in earlier periods,
is in our charter, with its strong links across Central Asia and Iran...
and the early Persians and Zoroastrians in India, love those Ismailis who
made their Aga Khan an incarnation of Vishnu, and Ali (the Prophet's
son-in-law) too...borders were not there/differently constituted then.
K
////////////////////
Blasé (adjective)
Pronunciation: [blah-'zey]
Definition: Sophisticatedly indifferent; superciliously casual in one's attitude, especially toward exciting things.
Usage: Since this word has retained all its "Frenchiness," there are no corresponding adverbs or nouns. It may be compared, though: "more blasé," "most blasé."
///////////////////BLANCHE-WHITE
//////////////////There is a huge controversy in linguistics [whether] learning another language will make you a different person. Each language makes you say something a different way and makes you think differently. You are obliged by the language. In Hindi, for example, you suddenly find yourself unable to say, ?I own anything.? You can't own anything in your mind. Little by little I was being altered by the language. I became less egocentric?you don't say ?I,? you say ?we??and I began to have a sense of being connected to the place.
//////////////////edge=BRAIN TIME
By David M. Eagleman
"Your brain, after all, is encased in darkness and silence in the vault of the skull. Its only contact with the outside world is via the electrical signals exiting and entering along the super-highways of nerve bundles. Because different types of sensory information (hearing, seeing, touch, and so on) are processed at different speeds by different neural architectures, your brain faces an enormous challenge: what is the best story that can be constructed about the outside world?"
/////////////////STREAMING CONSCIOUSNESS
/////////////////
/////////////////
Wednesday 24 June 2009
KICK ON NTS OR LABR -WHICH IS WORSE?
WILL NVR KNOW-CHANDLER BING
/////////////////Pavlov's Dogs And Schrodinger's Cat: Tales From The Living Laboratory
From the sheep, dog, and cockerel that were sent aloft in Montgolfier's balloon, to Galvani's frog's legs, Dolly the Sheep, the finches of the Galapagos, and even imaginary cats and simulated life forms, Pavlov's Dogs and Schrodinger's Cat explores the fascinating history of the role of living things in science.
The ways in which animals and plants have been used in science has always been a matter for considerable public debate, and this book provides an important and fascinating new perspective, setting aside moral reflection to simply examine the history of how and why living creatures have been used for the purposes of scientific discovery. Many extraordinary stories are uncovered throughout five centuries of science - tales of the people involved, curious incidents and episodes, and the occasional scientific fraud too, as clear reflections on the history and philosophy of science are combined with remarkable accounts from the living laboratory.
BK RD-CBTAR
/////////////////EINSTEIN
Imagination is more important than knowledge."
God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
//////////////////EVEN WE WLL DTH-BRTN RIP
/////////////////SRIMNTA RIP RUDRA RIP
///////////////////Painkillers may protect prostate health
Men who take painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen may be helping their prostate health, but doctors say men shouldn't take the drugs for just this reason.
/////////////////////NEPAL-DAL BHAAT
//////////////////FORMULISM
/////////////////COMMERCIAL VS LITERARY FICTION
///////////////COOL HARD ANGER-ALMOST ENJOYING IT
//////////////ASCETIC-ALMOST WANTS TO SUFFER-RENOUNCES BODILY COMFORTS
/////////////Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
////////////////////EACH FACING OWN LIFE OF HARDSHIPS
//////////////BUT MAYBE STILL THERE IS SOME TYPE OF JOY FOR EACH ONE
///////////////// A WALK IN THE CLOUDS
//////////////////CRUEL TWIST OF FATE IN EVERY LF STORY?
DVRCE/ NRCP FLR
//////////////////////LIFE LESSONS
//////////OPEN MINDED-AT LEAST KNOW WHERE THEY R COMINF FRM
//////////////////A man in search. A woman in need. A story of fate.
///////////////PURPOSE OF PURPOSE-DAWKINS
/////////////STONE AGE MORALS AND MYSTICISM
////////////////1BN PPL HUNGRY
//////////////WRONGFUL BIRTH LAWSUIT AGNST OBS FR CONG ANOMALIES
////////////////HANDLE WITH CARE-JODIE PICCOULT-BK CLUB
When Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated – she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow’s medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the monetary payouts might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she’d known about the disability in advance – words that her husband can’t abide, that Willow will hear, and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she’s suing isn’t just her physician – it’s her best friend.
Handle With Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is TOO disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love? Would you alienate the rest of your family? Would you be willing to lie to your friends, to your spouse, to a court? And perhaps most difficult of all – would you admit to yourself that you might not actually be lying?
/////////////////////GHAAS ,GRASS
//////////////////NO ONE IS JUST A SUM OF THEIR DISABILITIES
////////////////////SIR,THE WHY Q IS JUST A SILLY Q
////////////////////WE ARE OBSESSED THE PURPOSE
////////////////////WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ROCK,EARTH,UNIVERSE? NOTHING
///////////////////NO BENEFITS TO PPL
////////////////////HUMAN MIND IS OBSESSED WITH PURPOSE
///////////////////DOMESTCATION OF PLANTS/ANIMALS HAVE HUMANISED PURPOSE
/////////////////DOMESTICN(ARTIFICIAL SELECTN)IS A TRANSITION TO NATL SELECTN
/////////////////CRPSS POLLINATION IS TO PREVENT SELF-POLLINATION
////////////////MAGIC BULLET END-DARWIN HAWK MOTH-MADAGASCAR FLOWER
/////////////////Pavlov's Dogs And Schrodinger's Cat: Tales From The Living Laboratory
From the sheep, dog, and cockerel that were sent aloft in Montgolfier's balloon, to Galvani's frog's legs, Dolly the Sheep, the finches of the Galapagos, and even imaginary cats and simulated life forms, Pavlov's Dogs and Schrodinger's Cat explores the fascinating history of the role of living things in science.
The ways in which animals and plants have been used in science has always been a matter for considerable public debate, and this book provides an important and fascinating new perspective, setting aside moral reflection to simply examine the history of how and why living creatures have been used for the purposes of scientific discovery. Many extraordinary stories are uncovered throughout five centuries of science - tales of the people involved, curious incidents and episodes, and the occasional scientific fraud too, as clear reflections on the history and philosophy of science are combined with remarkable accounts from the living laboratory.
BK RD-CBTAR
/////////////////EINSTEIN
Imagination is more important than knowledge."
God does not care about our mathematical difficulties. He integrates empirically."
//////////////////EVEN WE WLL DTH-BRTN RIP
/////////////////SRIMNTA RIP RUDRA RIP
///////////////////Painkillers may protect prostate health
Men who take painkillers such as aspirin and ibuprofen may be helping their prostate health, but doctors say men shouldn't take the drugs for just this reason.
/////////////////////NEPAL-DAL BHAAT
//////////////////FORMULISM
/////////////////COMMERCIAL VS LITERARY FICTION
///////////////COOL HARD ANGER-ALMOST ENJOYING IT
//////////////ASCETIC-ALMOST WANTS TO SUFFER-RENOUNCES BODILY COMFORTS
/////////////Technological progress is like an axe in the hands of a pathological criminal."
////////////////////EACH FACING OWN LIFE OF HARDSHIPS
//////////////BUT MAYBE STILL THERE IS SOME TYPE OF JOY FOR EACH ONE
///////////////// A WALK IN THE CLOUDS
//////////////////CRUEL TWIST OF FATE IN EVERY LF STORY?
DVRCE/ NRCP FLR
//////////////////////LIFE LESSONS
//////////OPEN MINDED-AT LEAST KNOW WHERE THEY R COMINF FRM
//////////////////A man in search. A woman in need. A story of fate.
///////////////PURPOSE OF PURPOSE-DAWKINS
/////////////STONE AGE MORALS AND MYSTICISM
////////////////1BN PPL HUNGRY
//////////////WRONGFUL BIRTH LAWSUIT AGNST OBS FR CONG ANOMALIES
////////////////HANDLE WITH CARE-JODIE PICCOULT-BK CLUB
When Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s daughter, Willow, is born with severe osteogenesis imperfecta, they are devastated – she will suffer hundreds of broken bones as she grows, a lifetime of pain. As the family struggles to make ends meet to cover Willow’s medical expenses, Charlotte thinks she has found an answer. If she files a wrongful birth lawsuit against her ob/gyn for not telling her in advance that her child would be born severely disabled, the monetary payouts might ensure a lifetime of care for Willow. But it means that Charlotte has to get up in a court of law and say in public that she would have terminated the pregnancy if she’d known about the disability in advance – words that her husband can’t abide, that Willow will hear, and that Charlotte cannot reconcile. And the ob/gyn she’s suing isn’t just her physician – it’s her best friend.
Handle With Care explores the knotty tangle of medical ethics and personal morality. When faced with the reality of a fetus who will be disabled, at which point should an OB counsel termination? Should a parent have the right to make that choice? How disabled is TOO disabled? And as a parent, how far would you go to take care of someone you love? Would you alienate the rest of your family? Would you be willing to lie to your friends, to your spouse, to a court? And perhaps most difficult of all – would you admit to yourself that you might not actually be lying?
/////////////////////GHAAS ,GRASS
//////////////////NO ONE IS JUST A SUM OF THEIR DISABILITIES
////////////////////SIR,THE WHY Q IS JUST A SILLY Q
////////////////////WE ARE OBSESSED THE PURPOSE
////////////////////WHAT IS THE PURPOSE OF ROCK,EARTH,UNIVERSE? NOTHING
///////////////////NO BENEFITS TO PPL
////////////////////HUMAN MIND IS OBSESSED WITH PURPOSE
///////////////////DOMESTCATION OF PLANTS/ANIMALS HAVE HUMANISED PURPOSE
/////////////////DOMESTICN(ARTIFICIAL SELECTN)IS A TRANSITION TO NATL SELECTN
/////////////////CRPSS POLLINATION IS TO PREVENT SELF-POLLINATION
////////////////MAGIC BULLET END-DARWIN HAWK MOTH-MADAGASCAR FLOWER
INNCNT VCTMS
///////////////////RIGHTS ANGR
//////////////////NADO DTH/DISABY-ADAM
////////////////////Music, heart can keep the same rhythm
A new study in Italy has found that people's cardiovascular rhythms can "sync" with musical ones.
///////////////////COGNITION-THE TOOL BCOMES HIM
///////////////////BACK IT OFF FONZY
////////////////
//////////////////NADO DTH/DISABY-ADAM
////////////////////Music, heart can keep the same rhythm
A new study in Italy has found that people's cardiovascular rhythms can "sync" with musical ones.
///////////////////COGNITION-THE TOOL BCOMES HIM
///////////////////BACK IT OFF FONZY
////////////////
Monday 22 June 2009
DARWINIAN EXPLANATN OF FICTION
In short, humanity itself is an element, like the weather or seasons, that each of us needs to negotiate in order to survive. We're innately skilled at reading each other's intentions, judging a person's position in the current social hierarchy, checking the emotional temperature in a room, detecting when our companion isn't paying attention to us, and so on. Those who are especially adept at this are said to have good "social skills," but the average human being is a pretty impressive social navigator even when not conscious of what she's doing. It's only the rare exceptions -- people along the autistic spectrum, for example, whose social instincts and perceptions are impaired -- who make us aware of just how essential these abilities are when it comes to getting by in this world.
Boyd acknowledges that factual stories give us pertinent information about our world and the people in it -- that my neighbor is a serial killer, for example. However, fictional stories encourage and permit us to hypothesize, to speculate about potential situations we've yet to encounter and to anticipate how to respond appropriately. Were I to discover tomorrow that my neighbor had a wall entirely covered with photographs, newspaper clippings and charts with pushpinned strands of yarn connecting the items, I might conclude, thanks to my years of watching cop shows on TV, that my neighbor was either a serial killer or a law enforcement professional obsessed with catching a serial killer. I'd know better than to accept his offer of a nightcap because even if he were the detective rather than the killer, if I got too involved with him, sooner or later the serial killer would kidnap me and hold me captive in a deserted warehouse as part of a deadly game of cat and mouse.
/////////////////MODEL OF REVERSE DM1
/////////////////FATHER OF NEUROSX=Harvey Cushing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harvey Williams Cushing
Harvey Cushing (c.1900)
Born April 8, 1869
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Died October 7, 1939 (aged 70)
New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Profession Surgeon
Institutions Massachusetts General Hospital
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Peter Bent Brigham Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Yale University School of Medicine
Specialism Neurosurgery
Known for Pioneering brain surgery
Years active 1895-1935
Education Yale University
Harvard Medical School
Harvey Williams Cushing (April 8, 1869 - October 7, 1939) was an American neurosurgeon and a pioneer of brain surgery. He is widely regarded as the greatest neurosurgeon of the 20th century and often called the "father of modern neurosurgery".
Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Achievements
3 Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
4 Notes
5 See also
6 Sources and External links
[edit]Life
Cushing was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Kirke Cushing, a physician, and Bessie Williams. He was the youngest of ten children. Cushing graduated from Yale, where he was a member of Scroll and Key and Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter), studied medicine at Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1895. He completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and then studied surgery under the guidance of a famous surgeon, William Stewart Halsted, at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore. During his medical career he was a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and as professor of surgery at the Harvard Medical School. From 1933, until his death, he worked at Yale University School of Medicine. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a surgeon with the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I.
He married Katharine Stone Crowell on June 10, 1902. They had five children: William Harvey Cushing; Mary Benedict Cushing (who married Vincent Astor and painter James Whitney Fosburgh); Betsey Cushing, wife successively of James Roosevelt and John Hay Whitney; Henry Kirke Cushing; and Barbara Cushing, socialite wife of Stanley Grafton Mortimer and William S. Paley. Cushing died in 1939 in New Haven, Connecticut, due to complications from a myocardial infarction, and he was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Interestingly, an autopsy performed following Cushing's death revealed that he harboured a colloid cyst of the third ventricle.
//////////////////Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important."
—Janet Lane
//////////////////I AM HUMBLED BY THE AWE
///////////////if the BB created spacetime, then there was no before.
///////////////////One could suppose most anything about what, if anything, existed before the Big Bang. The problem is there is no way to know what exists before the creation of space, time, and the universe we inhabit.
L
////////////////Plenty of people make something from nothing. Alan Stanford, Bernie Madoff.
Brane Cosmology, Hartle-Hawkings and other theories (chaotic Inflation) attempt to get round the ridiculous concept of the singular origin of the universe. Some but not all of these have a concept of "before" the universe was created.
//////////////////BTKAT=PLAN B
////////////////Dinosaurs May Have Been Smaller Than Previously Thought
/////////////////I AM HUMBLED AND PRIVILEGED TO BE HERE
/////////////////JST GRDN ,NO FLSH
/////////////////
Energy bills could reach up to £4,733 a year by 2020 [1], as market trends and investment into the UK’s energy infrastructure could add thousands onto household bills.
Ann Robinson, our Director of Consumer Policy says:” The fact is we are entering a new era of high cost energy and households will have to adapt their behaviour accordingly.”
500 monthly-O FCK
/////////////
Human beings live about 4,000 weeks.
NAMT-25K DAYS
/////////////////HATARI -BABY ELEPHANT WALK SONG-MY IRST CHILDHOOD TUNE-COMMUNITY CENTRE DURGAPUR-BEFORE WEEKEND MOVIES
///////////////////Jun 13, 2009 9:09 PM
Inspired by Darwin: Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
//////////////////
Boyd acknowledges that factual stories give us pertinent information about our world and the people in it -- that my neighbor is a serial killer, for example. However, fictional stories encourage and permit us to hypothesize, to speculate about potential situations we've yet to encounter and to anticipate how to respond appropriately. Were I to discover tomorrow that my neighbor had a wall entirely covered with photographs, newspaper clippings and charts with pushpinned strands of yarn connecting the items, I might conclude, thanks to my years of watching cop shows on TV, that my neighbor was either a serial killer or a law enforcement professional obsessed with catching a serial killer. I'd know better than to accept his offer of a nightcap because even if he were the detective rather than the killer, if I got too involved with him, sooner or later the serial killer would kidnap me and hold me captive in a deserted warehouse as part of a deadly game of cat and mouse.
/////////////////MODEL OF REVERSE DM1
/////////////////FATHER OF NEUROSX=Harvey Cushing
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Harvey Williams Cushing
Harvey Cushing (c.1900)
Born April 8, 1869
Cleveland, Ohio, United States
Died October 7, 1939 (aged 70)
New Haven, Connecticut, United States
Profession Surgeon
Institutions Massachusetts General Hospital
Johns Hopkins Hospital
Johns Hopkins School of Medicine
Peter Bent Brigham Hospital
Harvard Medical School
Yale University School of Medicine
Specialism Neurosurgery
Known for Pioneering brain surgery
Years active 1895-1935
Education Yale University
Harvard Medical School
Harvey Williams Cushing (April 8, 1869 - October 7, 1939) was an American neurosurgeon and a pioneer of brain surgery. He is widely regarded as the greatest neurosurgeon of the 20th century and often called the "father of modern neurosurgery".
Contents [hide]
1 Life
2 Achievements
3 Harvey Cushing/John Hay Whitney Medical Library
4 Notes
5 See also
6 Sources and External links
[edit]Life
Cushing was born in Cleveland, Ohio, the son of Kirke Cushing, a physician, and Bessie Williams. He was the youngest of ten children. Cushing graduated from Yale, where he was a member of Scroll and Key and Delta Kappa Epsilon (Phi chapter), studied medicine at Harvard Medical School and graduated in 1895. He completed his internship at Massachusetts General Hospital and then studied surgery under the guidance of a famous surgeon, William Stewart Halsted, at the Johns Hopkins Hospital, in Baltimore. During his medical career he was a surgeon at Johns Hopkins Hospital, at the Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston and as professor of surgery at the Harvard Medical School. From 1933, until his death, he worked at Yale University School of Medicine. He served in the U.S. Army Medical Corps as a surgeon with the American Expeditionary Forces in Europe during World War I.
He married Katharine Stone Crowell on June 10, 1902. They had five children: William Harvey Cushing; Mary Benedict Cushing (who married Vincent Astor and painter James Whitney Fosburgh); Betsey Cushing, wife successively of James Roosevelt and John Hay Whitney; Henry Kirke Cushing; and Barbara Cushing, socialite wife of Stanley Grafton Mortimer and William S. Paley. Cushing died in 1939 in New Haven, Connecticut, due to complications from a myocardial infarction, and he was interred at Lake View Cemetery in Cleveland. Interestingly, an autopsy performed following Cushing's death revealed that he harboured a colloid cyst of the third ventricle.
//////////////////Of all the things you wear, your expression is the most important."
—Janet Lane
//////////////////I AM HUMBLED BY THE AWE
///////////////if the BB created spacetime, then there was no before.
///////////////////One could suppose most anything about what, if anything, existed before the Big Bang. The problem is there is no way to know what exists before the creation of space, time, and the universe we inhabit.
L
////////////////Plenty of people make something from nothing. Alan Stanford, Bernie Madoff.
Brane Cosmology, Hartle-Hawkings and other theories (chaotic Inflation) attempt to get round the ridiculous concept of the singular origin of the universe. Some but not all of these have a concept of "before" the universe was created.
//////////////////BTKAT=PLAN B
////////////////Dinosaurs May Have Been Smaller Than Previously Thought
/////////////////I AM HUMBLED AND PRIVILEGED TO BE HERE
/////////////////JST GRDN ,NO FLSH
/////////////////
Energy bills could reach up to £4,733 a year by 2020 [1], as market trends and investment into the UK’s energy infrastructure could add thousands onto household bills.
Ann Robinson, our Director of Consumer Policy says:” The fact is we are entering a new era of high cost energy and households will have to adapt their behaviour accordingly.”
500 monthly-O FCK
/////////////
Human beings live about 4,000 weeks.
NAMT-25K DAYS
/////////////////HATARI -BABY ELEPHANT WALK SONG-MY IRST CHILDHOOD TUNE-COMMUNITY CENTRE DURGAPUR-BEFORE WEEKEND MOVIES
///////////////////Jun 13, 2009 9:09 PM
Inspired by Darwin: Endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful
//////////////////
Sunday 21 June 2009
RDF SUNDAY
RD's point is the same as Dr Manhattan's ephiphany in Watchmen, that any given individual is extremely unlikely. But then, every week someone does win the lottery.
////////////////there are no unlucky people who didn't get conceived. (Can a sperm be unlucky?)
But such concerns seem pedantic against the inspiring writing. :)
/////////////////......as a eulogy. However, this thought process is quite strange, and implies we might be around to witness the reaction or that it might have some intrinsic value for those who remain. Perhaps it is just a psychological mechanism that somehow keeps us from facing the nothingness we rationally know must be so? Perhaps it is our last gasp effort to pass along a meme of our essence or prior existence?
//////////////////THE LAST LECTURE-RANDY PAUNCH
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Be good at something, it makes you valuable.
Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.
PMO
///////////////////DAWKINS-PURPOSE OF PURPOSE
.....I think at a certain point Archeapurpose and neopurpose collapse into one, but it is none the less useful in keeping Darwinian and conscious goals separate. I remember one creationist asking questions about the first cell. Why would it want to reproduce? That would only create competition for resources. The question was so profoundly wrong I had difficulty wording my opposition. I was a Christian at the time, but not the science-hating 6000 year old earth type. I knew that bacteria didn't choose to do anything. They reproduce because under suitable conditions it is impossible for them not to reproduce. At the same time it is impossible for our brains not to process information, hence why I would say that archea/neo-purpose are at their base the same thing.
.........hat the problem of goal tenacity v. innovative thinking may impose a limit to raw intelligence as we see it now. As a system becomes more and more powerful, and thus able to simulate more and more possible futures, the fascination with imaginary worlds may overcome any previous goal.
/////////////////would like to see how stupid we look in say, 500 years time. ok most of us now reliese that animals are not here so that humans have something to eat. but how many of us still eat animal products? selfishness seems more idiotic to me.
..............Why do we like flowers? Do we really like them because insects have been selecting them for millions of years? There are some flowers that have been selected by flies, but that does not mean we enjoy the resulting stink produced by those blooms. I think this is a really interesting question.
Do wild animals work continuously for their reproduction? I would consider dolphins playing in warm waters, and occasionally having sex just for fun, delightfully hedonistic.
What is the purpose humans can have? Is it neopurpose? I am not sure. Isn't there yet another level of purpose - a purpose that we come up with by thinking about what we want to achieve? The purpose present in a human brain is not the purpose present in a guided missile, because the missile has no awareness.
When a bat is described as having both neo- and archeo- purpose, I admit to finding myself confused as to the difference.
When we look at a sheepdog in a hunting posture, I think we should ask Who is doing the subverting of behaviour? Perhaps humans have been subverted by the hunting behaviour of wolves to tame them for the purpose of herding sheep?
There is only one point I would directly disagree with Richard about: is contraception a subversion of Darwinism? No, I think not. The chances of survival of children may well be improved by the parents not having any more. Contraception can directly assist the passing on of genes.
............UPLOC=There appears to be purpose for most things. Our lives are filled with activities that have a clear purpose, we go to work to earn money, we eat to alleviate hunger etc. So it not unreasonable to assume that there is a purpose for our very existence as well. The distinction surely is between the purpose that drives our personal behaviour and a purpose that exists independently of it? I cross a road because I want to visit a shop or talk to a friend but no one would claim that there is a universal concept of crossingness that is applied to all roads.
Like most children who are shown a globe for the first time and told that their country is near the top, I couldn’t understand how the people who lived on the bottom didn’t fall off! It was not until I understood that there was no top or bottom but it was gravity that fooled me into that assumption that I came to terms with it.
So it is with purpose, when you understand that purpose is something that you construct for yourself (or others impose on you) and that life the universe and everything exists happily without purpose, it is easy to accept.
............
Purpose is a hard thing to think about. Much of what we think is purposeful about our actions is a retrospective labelling of what our unconscious has already decided.
Do we really need the language of 'purpose'. I don't know. Sometimes I think that 'purpose', like 'meaning' is nothing more than a feeling we experience when we look at a situation. It is easy to mistake such feelings for things that are real.
................RETROSPECTIVE LABELLING OF PURPOSE
...............Gay' penguins 'adopt' chick: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8096453.stm
Male penguins raise adopted chick: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8081829.stm
...............Language is a funny thing isn't it? When I listened to Richard talk of purpose I heard 'fitness for a use' not 'intent'. Your mention of the word 'meaning' make me wonder.
...........t's in our (genes') interest to prefer environments with flourishing vegetation, as likely sources of plant and animal food. Also, flowers may play upon our pre-existing predilections for the colours and smells of fruit?
,,,,,,,,,,,,When a bat is described as having both neo- and archeo- purpose, I admit to finding myself confused as to the difference.
How about, neo-purpose is a goal sought by an individual organism that it has set for itself? Thus, the wing is 'for' flying, the sonar is 'for' finding insects, but these 'purposes' are Dennettian free-floating rationales, outside the creature's control. Whereas choosing when to fly and choosing which insect to pursue is setting new purposes 'dynamically' - in a brain.
We might then argue that our brains go a step further by permitting us to choose what kind of goals to pursue, whereas the bat is stuck with choosing between this or that insect. But it's getting into philosophical territory...
///////////////Scientists need to speak up for the freedom principle more than they do if they want to defend their enterprise.
...............Prof. Dawkins' newly minted terms "archaeo-purpose" and "neo-purpose," which he introduces in the above video to distinguish between purposeless adaptive complexity in nature and the purposeful kind of complexity found in human invention.
A simpler way of distinguishing between these two kinds of complexity would be to use the term "value" to explain the former, and the term "purpose" to explain the latter. To use the example Prof. Dawkins gives in the video: "The value (rather than archaeo-purpose, as he would have it) of the bird's tail feathers is to stablize the bird in flight." And "the purpose (rather than neo-purpose) of an airliner's tail wings is to stabilize the plane in flight." This is a simpler, not to mention a more precise, way of distinguishing between the complexity found in nature that results from random mutation and natural selection, and the artful complexity found in human invention. After all, the goal here is really to communicate that there is no purpose in nature, therefore it's best to keep this term completely out of the vocabulary for teaching evolution rather than to modify it with prefixes like "archaeo" (or even "pseudo," which makes more sense than "archaeo") and continue to use it.
.................a bit of tribalism in his constant attacks on the VS and most political thought to the Right of socialism? It seems to be proof that none of us can escape our tribal instincts. He is part of an "in group" and dearly loves to show contempt for the "out group".
............... The purpose of Reason
The book itself is not the writer but it is writtem
The computer itself is not the designer but it is designed
The table itself is not the maker but it is made
The baby with all different body parts each of which require different chemistry and structure, eyes, feet, brain, kidney, and and have diffrent duties cannot bbe maker but it is made. Just think about numberless of kidney's duties!
The world itself is not the maker but it is made
The universe is not maker but it is made.
The purpose of Dawkins is to prove that evolution has one purpose only to entartin the Reason.
...............
///////////////////ANIMAL RIGHTS AND OPPOSITION TO SPECIEISM
//////////////////t's nothing to do with the act of actually EATING the organism, it's how they are treated in our care and should be judged on the capacity for pain.
Dawkins points out repeatedly that there is a continuum in the biological world of neurological complexity.
And you clearly haven't studied biology because fungi and plants don't even posess nervous systems; this can only be a discussion about the morality of farming ANIMALS.
..............IT MATTERS TO THAT STARFISH
..............AVOID AT RISK SITUATN
...............So buying a chunk of meat in the butcher's is colluding with the mass slaughter of other sentient beings and therefore morally much worse than assenting to the destruction of a human fetus
/////////////////////POWER CORRUPTS-30 YR HX REPEATS ITSELF -JRAN
//////////////////FARm animals are never given anesthetics when they are mutulated (castration, dehorning, branding, mulesing, debeaking, etc...). The most likely reason is that there is no financial insensitive to the CAFO. On the contrary, these humane efforts would put a CAFO at a competitive disadvantage to it's competition if it (for some reason) decided to buy anesthetics for it's animals.
..............
Artificial meat should solve most of the problems, so let's hope it comes soon.
.................he criterion for KILLING (if done sans horrible prior pain, e.g. by a bullet to the head) should be capaicty to 'plan for the future'.
Should be? Says who?
A bird making a nest can plan for the future better than an infant. I wonder if the bird considers its future as important as an elephant does its own, despite it seeming that the elephant's future-planning ability is more sophisticated. Should that matter?
Anyway I find it a rather arbitrary metric to determine "level of suffering," which is objectively hard to pin down.
................inger's point is necessarily an accurate one. He says that having an abortion is typically something a mother will think long and hard about and have very good reasons for but that buying meat in a store is not something that people pause for a second to think about.
His point, to my mind, is that meat eaters have a moral responsibility to consider their actions carefully. He doesn't make s statement about which is morally worse; just that both should be given due consideration.
................Anyway I find it a rather arbitrary metric to determine "level of suffering," which is objectively hard to pin down."
True; but are you saying that therefore, because it's hard to pin down how much suffering something undergoes that you just ignore it completely and eat all meat anyway?! (if not, apologies).
.............///////////FTHR-BRDRLINE DELUSN OF PERSECUTION
..RECIPROCAL COURTSEY OR INDIFFERENCE
...DRY AND WET SHIT DIFFERENCE
////////////////MINIMISE NON-VEG HABITS THEN GIVE UP
///////////////////CANT GO ON EATING SUFFERING SENTIENT BEINGS
///////////////////......go overboard to try to trivialize the suffering of animals it's usually them just playing devil's advocate out of insecurity or just advertising their lack of compassion and I try to ignore them.
..............here does the physiological reality of predator/prey relations come into this discussion? Not to be facetious, but surely, no one would call a Lion immoral for eating a Gazelle, because that is how Lions survive. I agree that humans can survive without meat (and perhaps this alone provides the moral impetus to do so), but I still think the fact that we are biologic omnivores needs to factor in here somewhere. If a carnivore is justified in his infliction of suffering, at what point is an omnivore? Or if Lion's developed the intelligence necessary to adapt their biology to a vegetarian diet, would we say they are morally bound to do so?
BUT CONSCIOUSLY OVERRIDE NON VEG URGES IS WHERE WE CAN START
.................Although there might be some environmental advantages to humans becoming vegetarians, I'm still a happy omnivore. I think for the near future, it's enough to try to limit the amount of animal suffering while there being raised for food. Slowly moving towards a diet with less animal flesh seems to me to also be a good general concept. If humans ever become all or mostly vegetarians, that's something that will take hundreds of years in not thousands. And if religion doesn't diminish enough before then, we might become extinct by then anyhow!
...............I do not ignore suffering entirely, and I don't want to. But I don't have a problem with eating meat, so I don't place animal suffering as high on my list of important values as others do.
I wonder how many shark attack survivors are vegetarian, btw. Would be curious to see if the proportion was higher or lower than that of the general beach-going population.
................Now cry me a river of bitter little tears.
Y'know, do something productive for a change.
................HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN
"One may regret living at a period when it's impossible to form an idea of the shape the world of the future will assume. But there's one thing I can predict to eaters of meat: the world of the future will be vegetarian."
- Adolf Hitler. November 11, 1941. Section 66, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"If I offer a child the choice between a pear and a piece of meat, he'll quickly choose the pear. That's his atavistic instinct speaking."
- Adolf Hitler. December 28, 1941. Section 81, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"The only thing of which I shall be incapable is to share the sheiks' mutton with them. I'm a vegetarian, and they must spare me from their meat."
- Adolf Hitler. January 12, 1942. Section 105, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"At the time when I ate meat, I used to sweat a lot. I used to drink four pots of beer and six bottles of water during a meeting. … When I became a vegetarian, a mouthful of water was enough."
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"When you offer a child the choice of a piece of meat, an apple, or a cake, it's never the meat that he chooses. There's an ancestral instinct there."
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"One has only to keep one's eyes open to notice what an extraordinary antipathy young children have to meat."
- Adolf Hitler. April 25, 1942. Section 198, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"When I later gave up eating meat, I immediately began to perspire much less, and within a fortnight to perspire hardly at all. My thirst, too, decreased considerably, and an occasional sip of water was all I required. Vegetarian diet, therefore, has some obvious advantages."
- Adolf Hitler. July 8, 1942. Section 256, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"I am no admirer of the poacher, particularly as I am a vegetarian."
- Adolf Hitler. August 20, 1942. Section 293, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
//////////////////HTLRS MUM REFUSED MTP-HTLR WAS VEGETRN
ENIGMAS OF HX
/////////////////
////////////////there are no unlucky people who didn't get conceived. (Can a sperm be unlucky?)
But such concerns seem pedantic against the inspiring writing. :)
/////////////////......as a eulogy. However, this thought process is quite strange, and implies we might be around to witness the reaction or that it might have some intrinsic value for those who remain. Perhaps it is just a psychological mechanism that somehow keeps us from facing the nothingness we rationally know must be so? Perhaps it is our last gasp effort to pass along a meme of our essence or prior existence?
//////////////////THE LAST LECTURE-RANDY PAUNCH
We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.
Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted.
Be good at something, it makes you valuable.
Be prepared. Luck is truly where preparation meets opportunity.
PMO
///////////////////DAWKINS-PURPOSE OF PURPOSE
.....I think at a certain point Archeapurpose and neopurpose collapse into one, but it is none the less useful in keeping Darwinian and conscious goals separate. I remember one creationist asking questions about the first cell. Why would it want to reproduce? That would only create competition for resources. The question was so profoundly wrong I had difficulty wording my opposition. I was a Christian at the time, but not the science-hating 6000 year old earth type. I knew that bacteria didn't choose to do anything. They reproduce because under suitable conditions it is impossible for them not to reproduce. At the same time it is impossible for our brains not to process information, hence why I would say that archea/neo-purpose are at their base the same thing.
.........hat the problem of goal tenacity v. innovative thinking may impose a limit to raw intelligence as we see it now. As a system becomes more and more powerful, and thus able to simulate more and more possible futures, the fascination with imaginary worlds may overcome any previous goal.
/////////////////would like to see how stupid we look in say, 500 years time. ok most of us now reliese that animals are not here so that humans have something to eat. but how many of us still eat animal products? selfishness seems more idiotic to me.
..............Why do we like flowers? Do we really like them because insects have been selecting them for millions of years? There are some flowers that have been selected by flies, but that does not mean we enjoy the resulting stink produced by those blooms. I think this is a really interesting question.
Do wild animals work continuously for their reproduction? I would consider dolphins playing in warm waters, and occasionally having sex just for fun, delightfully hedonistic.
What is the purpose humans can have? Is it neopurpose? I am not sure. Isn't there yet another level of purpose - a purpose that we come up with by thinking about what we want to achieve? The purpose present in a human brain is not the purpose present in a guided missile, because the missile has no awareness.
When a bat is described as having both neo- and archeo- purpose, I admit to finding myself confused as to the difference.
When we look at a sheepdog in a hunting posture, I think we should ask Who is doing the subverting of behaviour? Perhaps humans have been subverted by the hunting behaviour of wolves to tame them for the purpose of herding sheep?
There is only one point I would directly disagree with Richard about: is contraception a subversion of Darwinism? No, I think not. The chances of survival of children may well be improved by the parents not having any more. Contraception can directly assist the passing on of genes.
............UPLOC=There appears to be purpose for most things. Our lives are filled with activities that have a clear purpose, we go to work to earn money, we eat to alleviate hunger etc. So it not unreasonable to assume that there is a purpose for our very existence as well. The distinction surely is between the purpose that drives our personal behaviour and a purpose that exists independently of it? I cross a road because I want to visit a shop or talk to a friend but no one would claim that there is a universal concept of crossingness that is applied to all roads.
Like most children who are shown a globe for the first time and told that their country is near the top, I couldn’t understand how the people who lived on the bottom didn’t fall off! It was not until I understood that there was no top or bottom but it was gravity that fooled me into that assumption that I came to terms with it.
So it is with purpose, when you understand that purpose is something that you construct for yourself (or others impose on you) and that life the universe and everything exists happily without purpose, it is easy to accept.
............
Purpose is a hard thing to think about. Much of what we think is purposeful about our actions is a retrospective labelling of what our unconscious has already decided.
Do we really need the language of 'purpose'. I don't know. Sometimes I think that 'purpose', like 'meaning' is nothing more than a feeling we experience when we look at a situation. It is easy to mistake such feelings for things that are real.
................RETROSPECTIVE LABELLING OF PURPOSE
...............Gay' penguins 'adopt' chick: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/8096453.stm
Male penguins raise adopted chick: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8081829.stm
...............Language is a funny thing isn't it? When I listened to Richard talk of purpose I heard 'fitness for a use' not 'intent'. Your mention of the word 'meaning' make me wonder.
...........t's in our (genes') interest to prefer environments with flourishing vegetation, as likely sources of plant and animal food. Also, flowers may play upon our pre-existing predilections for the colours and smells of fruit?
,,,,,,,,,,,,When a bat is described as having both neo- and archeo- purpose, I admit to finding myself confused as to the difference.
How about, neo-purpose is a goal sought by an individual organism that it has set for itself? Thus, the wing is 'for' flying, the sonar is 'for' finding insects, but these 'purposes' are Dennettian free-floating rationales, outside the creature's control. Whereas choosing when to fly and choosing which insect to pursue is setting new purposes 'dynamically' - in a brain.
We might then argue that our brains go a step further by permitting us to choose what kind of goals to pursue, whereas the bat is stuck with choosing between this or that insect. But it's getting into philosophical territory...
///////////////Scientists need to speak up for the freedom principle more than they do if they want to defend their enterprise.
...............Prof. Dawkins' newly minted terms "archaeo-purpose" and "neo-purpose," which he introduces in the above video to distinguish between purposeless adaptive complexity in nature and the purposeful kind of complexity found in human invention.
A simpler way of distinguishing between these two kinds of complexity would be to use the term "value" to explain the former, and the term "purpose" to explain the latter. To use the example Prof. Dawkins gives in the video: "The value (rather than archaeo-purpose, as he would have it) of the bird's tail feathers is to stablize the bird in flight." And "the purpose (rather than neo-purpose) of an airliner's tail wings is to stabilize the plane in flight." This is a simpler, not to mention a more precise, way of distinguishing between the complexity found in nature that results from random mutation and natural selection, and the artful complexity found in human invention. After all, the goal here is really to communicate that there is no purpose in nature, therefore it's best to keep this term completely out of the vocabulary for teaching evolution rather than to modify it with prefixes like "archaeo" (or even "pseudo," which makes more sense than "archaeo") and continue to use it.
.................a bit of tribalism in his constant attacks on the VS and most political thought to the Right of socialism? It seems to be proof that none of us can escape our tribal instincts. He is part of an "in group" and dearly loves to show contempt for the "out group".
............... The purpose of Reason
The book itself is not the writer but it is writtem
The computer itself is not the designer but it is designed
The table itself is not the maker but it is made
The baby with all different body parts each of which require different chemistry and structure, eyes, feet, brain, kidney, and and have diffrent duties cannot bbe maker but it is made. Just think about numberless of kidney's duties!
The world itself is not the maker but it is made
The universe is not maker but it is made.
The purpose of Dawkins is to prove that evolution has one purpose only to entartin the Reason.
...............
///////////////////ANIMAL RIGHTS AND OPPOSITION TO SPECIEISM
//////////////////t's nothing to do with the act of actually EATING the organism, it's how they are treated in our care and should be judged on the capacity for pain.
Dawkins points out repeatedly that there is a continuum in the biological world of neurological complexity.
And you clearly haven't studied biology because fungi and plants don't even posess nervous systems; this can only be a discussion about the morality of farming ANIMALS.
..............IT MATTERS TO THAT STARFISH
..............AVOID AT RISK SITUATN
...............So buying a chunk of meat in the butcher's is colluding with the mass slaughter of other sentient beings and therefore morally much worse than assenting to the destruction of a human fetus
/////////////////////POWER CORRUPTS-30 YR HX REPEATS ITSELF -JRAN
//////////////////FARm animals are never given anesthetics when they are mutulated (castration, dehorning, branding, mulesing, debeaking, etc...). The most likely reason is that there is no financial insensitive to the CAFO. On the contrary, these humane efforts would put a CAFO at a competitive disadvantage to it's competition if it (for some reason) decided to buy anesthetics for it's animals.
..............
Artificial meat should solve most of the problems, so let's hope it comes soon.
.................he criterion for KILLING (if done sans horrible prior pain, e.g. by a bullet to the head) should be capaicty to 'plan for the future'.
Should be? Says who?
A bird making a nest can plan for the future better than an infant. I wonder if the bird considers its future as important as an elephant does its own, despite it seeming that the elephant's future-planning ability is more sophisticated. Should that matter?
Anyway I find it a rather arbitrary metric to determine "level of suffering," which is objectively hard to pin down.
................inger's point is necessarily an accurate one. He says that having an abortion is typically something a mother will think long and hard about and have very good reasons for but that buying meat in a store is not something that people pause for a second to think about.
His point, to my mind, is that meat eaters have a moral responsibility to consider their actions carefully. He doesn't make s statement about which is morally worse; just that both should be given due consideration.
................Anyway I find it a rather arbitrary metric to determine "level of suffering," which is objectively hard to pin down."
True; but are you saying that therefore, because it's hard to pin down how much suffering something undergoes that you just ignore it completely and eat all meat anyway?! (if not, apologies).
.............///////////FTHR-BRDRLINE DELUSN OF PERSECUTION
..RECIPROCAL COURTSEY OR INDIFFERENCE
...DRY AND WET SHIT DIFFERENCE
////////////////MINIMISE NON-VEG HABITS THEN GIVE UP
///////////////////CANT GO ON EATING SUFFERING SENTIENT BEINGS
///////////////////......go overboard to try to trivialize the suffering of animals it's usually them just playing devil's advocate out of insecurity or just advertising their lack of compassion and I try to ignore them.
..............here does the physiological reality of predator/prey relations come into this discussion? Not to be facetious, but surely, no one would call a Lion immoral for eating a Gazelle, because that is how Lions survive. I agree that humans can survive without meat (and perhaps this alone provides the moral impetus to do so), but I still think the fact that we are biologic omnivores needs to factor in here somewhere. If a carnivore is justified in his infliction of suffering, at what point is an omnivore? Or if Lion's developed the intelligence necessary to adapt their biology to a vegetarian diet, would we say they are morally bound to do so?
BUT CONSCIOUSLY OVERRIDE NON VEG URGES IS WHERE WE CAN START
.................Although there might be some environmental advantages to humans becoming vegetarians, I'm still a happy omnivore. I think for the near future, it's enough to try to limit the amount of animal suffering while there being raised for food. Slowly moving towards a diet with less animal flesh seems to me to also be a good general concept. If humans ever become all or mostly vegetarians, that's something that will take hundreds of years in not thousands. And if religion doesn't diminish enough before then, we might become extinct by then anyhow!
...............I do not ignore suffering entirely, and I don't want to. But I don't have a problem with eating meat, so I don't place animal suffering as high on my list of important values as others do.
I wonder how many shark attack survivors are vegetarian, btw. Would be curious to see if the proportion was higher or lower than that of the general beach-going population.
................Now cry me a river of bitter little tears.
Y'know, do something productive for a change.
................HITLER WAS A VEGETARIAN
"One may regret living at a period when it's impossible to form an idea of the shape the world of the future will assume. But there's one thing I can predict to eaters of meat: the world of the future will be vegetarian."
- Adolf Hitler. November 11, 1941. Section 66, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"If I offer a child the choice between a pear and a piece of meat, he'll quickly choose the pear. That's his atavistic instinct speaking."
- Adolf Hitler. December 28, 1941. Section 81, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"The only thing of which I shall be incapable is to share the sheiks' mutton with them. I'm a vegetarian, and they must spare me from their meat."
- Adolf Hitler. January 12, 1942. Section 105, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"At the time when I ate meat, I used to sweat a lot. I used to drink four pots of beer and six bottles of water during a meeting. … When I became a vegetarian, a mouthful of water was enough."
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"When you offer a child the choice of a piece of meat, an apple, or a cake, it's never the meat that he chooses. There's an ancestral instinct there."
- Adolf Hitler. January 22, 1942. Section 117, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"One has only to keep one's eyes open to notice what an extraordinary antipathy young children have to meat."
- Adolf Hitler. April 25, 1942. Section 198, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"When I later gave up eating meat, I immediately began to perspire much less, and within a fortnight to perspire hardly at all. My thirst, too, decreased considerably, and an occasional sip of water was all I required. Vegetarian diet, therefore, has some obvious advantages."
- Adolf Hitler. July 8, 1942. Section 256, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
"I am no admirer of the poacher, particularly as I am a vegetarian."
- Adolf Hitler. August 20, 1942. Section 293, HITLER'S TABLE TALK
//////////////////HTLRS MUM REFUSED MTP-HTLR WAS VEGETRN
ENIGMAS OF HX
/////////////////
Saturday 20 June 2009
DAWKINS-PINKER IVIEW
BYPRODUCT THEORY
///////////////MORAL EMOTIONS
///////////////MUSIC AS BYPRODUCT OF SPEECH RECOGN SOFTWARE EVLN IN BRAIN
///////////////////
///////////////MORAL EMOTIONS
///////////////MUSIC AS BYPRODUCT OF SPEECH RECOGN SOFTWARE EVLN IN BRAIN
///////////////////
CDS 200609
////////////FLU RISK STILL LOW AFTER DTH
///////////1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before (June 20, 2009) -- World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. ... > full story
/////////////birthday of the CIA? In 1949, the
Central Intelligence Agency was formed from the remains of the
previous intelligence agencies.
~~~
Today's Inspirational Quote:
"If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the
worst kind of heart trouble."
-- Bob Hope
~~~
///////////////////THOMAS PAYNE-ENGLISH RADICAL REPUBLICAN WHO INSPIRED US,FRENCH REVOLN
////////////////////THE RIGHTS OF MAN-EGALITARIANISM
////////////////////
///////////1.02 Billion People Hungry: One Sixth Of Humanity Undernourished, More Than Ever Before (June 20, 2009) -- World hunger is projected to reach a historic high in 2009 with 1,020 million people going hungry every day, according to new estimates published by the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. ... > full story
/////////////birthday of the CIA? In 1949, the
Central Intelligence Agency was formed from the remains of the
previous intelligence agencies.
~~~
Today's Inspirational Quote:
"If you haven't any charity in your heart, you have the
worst kind of heart trouble."
-- Bob Hope
~~~
///////////////////THOMAS PAYNE-ENGLISH RADICAL REPUBLICAN WHO INSPIRED US,FRENCH REVOLN
////////////////////THE RIGHTS OF MAN-EGALITARIANISM
////////////////////
Friday 19 June 2009
GUNS AND SPOONS
Scientists discover key element causing asthma
London (PTI): In a discovery which might lead to better drugs for severe asthmatic patients, British scientists have found the key element which remodells the lung's airways causing the disease.
Scientists from King's College London and Imperial College London have discovered during their research that the structure and function of asthmatic lung airways are changed or "remodelled" gradually due to irritants such as dust, pollen, mould, viruses and bacteria in the air they breathe leading to chronic asthma.
The researchers studied muscle cells from the airways of people with asthma and found that a lack of SERCA, an element which controls calcium intake in cells of lung airway muscles caused them to multiply and become larger, increasing their ability to squeeze the airways causing asthma symptoms.
"The function of the muscle surrounding the airways (airway smooth muscle) is very dependent on the amount of calcium that is freely available inside the cell.
///////////////////
London (PTI): In a discovery which might lead to better drugs for severe asthmatic patients, British scientists have found the key element which remodells the lung's airways causing the disease.
Scientists from King's College London and Imperial College London have discovered during their research that the structure and function of asthmatic lung airways are changed or "remodelled" gradually due to irritants such as dust, pollen, mould, viruses and bacteria in the air they breathe leading to chronic asthma.
The researchers studied muscle cells from the airways of people with asthma and found that a lack of SERCA, an element which controls calcium intake in cells of lung airway muscles caused them to multiply and become larger, increasing their ability to squeeze the airways causing asthma symptoms.
"The function of the muscle surrounding the airways (airway smooth muscle) is very dependent on the amount of calcium that is freely available inside the cell.
///////////////////
FTHRS DAY/PRNTS
Shifting the Sun
When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.
~ Diana Der-Hovanessian ~
(Selected Poems)
////////////////////////////////////////
When your father dies, say the Irish,
you lose your umbrella against bad weather.
May his sun be your light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Welsh,
you sink a foot deeper into the earth.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Canadians,
you run out of excuses.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the French,
you become your own father.
May you stand up in his light, say the Armenians.
When you father dies, say the Indians,
he comes back as the thunder.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Russians,
he takes your childhood with him.
May you inherit his light, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the English,
you join his club you vowed you wouldn't.
May you inherit his sun, say the Armenians.
When your father dies, say the Armenians,
your sun shifts forever.
And you walk in his light.
~ Diana Der-Hovanessian ~
(Selected Poems)
////////////////////////////////////////
Thursday 18 June 2009
SCHELLING SGREGN MODEL
Schelling's segregation model
Thomas Schelling, in 1971, showed that a small preference for one's neighbors to be of the same color could lead to total segregation. He used coins on graph paper to demonstrate his theory by placing pennies and nickels in different patterns on the "board" and then moving them one by one if they were in an "unhappy" situation. Here's the high-tech equivalent. The rule this ALife model operates on is that for every colored cell, if greater than 33% of the adjacent cells are of a different color, the cell moves to another randomly selected cell.
///////////////////The World Is Spiky
Two writers that I admire greatly – Tom Friedman and Richard Florida – appear to clash with each other. Tom in his best-selling new book says “The World Is Flat” and Richard in a new article in the October 2005 issue of Atlantic Monthly asserts “The World Is Spiky".Richard’s article is a great read (supported by highly visual maps) and I highly recommend it. Tom and Richard are both right, but they both risk missing the real point.
Richard focuses on one particular quote from Tom’s book: “In a flat world you can innovate without having to emigrate.” Richard responds that location still matters and that, by a variety of measures, the world is extremely spiky – meaning that activity is very concentrated in a relatively few locations. Richard looks at
population concentration in urban areas
light emissions (as an interesting proxy for economic activity)
patent filings
citations to scientists in leading fields to demonstrate this spikiness.
Using topographical metaphors, Richard divides the world into
peaks - the cities that generate innovations
hills - “the industrial and service centers that produce mature products and support innovation centers”
valleys - “places with little connection to the global economy and few immediate prospects”
Focusing on the peaks definitely highlights the spikiness of the world. For example,
When it comes to actual economic output, the ten largest US metropolitan areas combined are behind only the United States as a whole and Japan. New York’s economy alone is about the size of Russia’s or Brazil’s . . . Together New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston have a bigger economy than all of China. If US metropolitan areas were countries, they’d make up forty-seven of the biggest 100 economies in the world.
//////////////////The Location of Innovation
John Hagel brings together two opposing viewpoints today regarding the location of innovation. These are flat and spiky earth concepts. The first, Tom Friedman's flat earth, proposes that due to the egalitarian and open nature of the Internet, modern communications and travel, innovation need not be concentrated in historic urban centers. The second, Richard Florida's Spiky Earth, suggests that these same forces actually increase the gravitation toward acknowledged centers of innovation.
RDING TIM HARFORD-THE LOGIC OF LIFE
////////////////HIGH CITY RENTS WITH MORE ACCESS TO CULTURAL AMENITIES
/////////////////FEW AREEXPLOITING THE MANY
////////////////
Thomas Schelling, in 1971, showed that a small preference for one's neighbors to be of the same color could lead to total segregation. He used coins on graph paper to demonstrate his theory by placing pennies and nickels in different patterns on the "board" and then moving them one by one if they were in an "unhappy" situation. Here's the high-tech equivalent. The rule this ALife model operates on is that for every colored cell, if greater than 33% of the adjacent cells are of a different color, the cell moves to another randomly selected cell.
///////////////////The World Is Spiky
Two writers that I admire greatly – Tom Friedman and Richard Florida – appear to clash with each other. Tom in his best-selling new book says “The World Is Flat” and Richard in a new article in the October 2005 issue of Atlantic Monthly asserts “The World Is Spiky".Richard’s article is a great read (supported by highly visual maps) and I highly recommend it. Tom and Richard are both right, but they both risk missing the real point.
Richard focuses on one particular quote from Tom’s book: “In a flat world you can innovate without having to emigrate.” Richard responds that location still matters and that, by a variety of measures, the world is extremely spiky – meaning that activity is very concentrated in a relatively few locations. Richard looks at
population concentration in urban areas
light emissions (as an interesting proxy for economic activity)
patent filings
citations to scientists in leading fields to demonstrate this spikiness.
Using topographical metaphors, Richard divides the world into
peaks - the cities that generate innovations
hills - “the industrial and service centers that produce mature products and support innovation centers”
valleys - “places with little connection to the global economy and few immediate prospects”
Focusing on the peaks definitely highlights the spikiness of the world. For example,
When it comes to actual economic output, the ten largest US metropolitan areas combined are behind only the United States as a whole and Japan. New York’s economy alone is about the size of Russia’s or Brazil’s . . . Together New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Boston have a bigger economy than all of China. If US metropolitan areas were countries, they’d make up forty-seven of the biggest 100 economies in the world.
//////////////////The Location of Innovation
John Hagel brings together two opposing viewpoints today regarding the location of innovation. These are flat and spiky earth concepts. The first, Tom Friedman's flat earth, proposes that due to the egalitarian and open nature of the Internet, modern communications and travel, innovation need not be concentrated in historic urban centers. The second, Richard Florida's Spiky Earth, suggests that these same forces actually increase the gravitation toward acknowledged centers of innovation.
RDING TIM HARFORD-THE LOGIC OF LIFE
////////////////HIGH CITY RENTS WITH MORE ACCESS TO CULTURAL AMENITIES
/////////////////FEW AREEXPLOITING THE MANY
////////////////
44/70-MV ON
//////////AVOID TRIGGER FOODS
Most everyone has at least one, and for some of us, they're the biggest obstacles when it comes to weight loss. I'm talking about trigger foods — the things you just can't resist, and tend to overeat when they're available. Cookies are one of my trigger foods. They're a particularly bad trigger because they usually come in a pack, and the ones that don't are often the size of a hockey puck and contain 500 calories or more.
What's the best way to deal with trigger foods? Acknowledge them, and then avoid them. Not even a bite, or you'll be a goner. Keep them out of your house and out of your line of sight when you shop. Most trigger foods contain unhealthy ingredients like butter, sugar, and white flour (so it's not like your nutritional status will suffer if you cut them out completely!). In fact, in addition to losing weight, you may even get healthier overall when you toss the triggers. Once you hit your weight-loss goal, you can try experimenting with trigger foods, but if you find yourself slipping into old patterns, it's back to cold turkey
////////////////////
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5550488/Homosexual-behaviour-widespread-in-animals-according-to-new-study.html
Homosexual behaviour is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom
////////////////wiki=
The Decameron (subtitle: Prencipe Galeotto) is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. Some believe many parts of the tales are indebted to the influence of The Book of Good Love. Many notable writers such as Chaucer are said to have drawn inspiration from The Decameron (See Literary sources and influence of the Decameron below).
//////////////////Recipe for Life: Water and a Little Lava
By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
15 June 2009
Astronomers scanning the skies for another Earth might need to narrow their search. New research suggests that even if a world lies within the Habitable Zone, in which water is liquid, too much or too little volcanic activity can render it lifeless.
When assessing a distant planet's habitability, astronomers currently focus on one main criterion: Could the planet have liquid water on its surface? Too close to its sun, and that water evaporates away; too far, and it's locked in ice.
But the equation isn't quite that simple, says planetary scientist Rory Barnes of the University of Washington, Seattle. In an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, he and colleagues argue that E.T. seekers also need to throw volcanoes into the mix.
We wouldn't be here without volcanoes. Early in Earth's history, volcanic eruptions spewed carbon dioxide and water vapor from deep beneath the surface, creating conditions that would eventually support photosynthesis. Mars, with an inactive core and hence little volcanism, wasn't so lucky. But too much volcanic activity can also be bad: Jupiter's moon Io is jostled so much by the gravitational pull, or tidal force, of its gigantic parent and neighboring moons that its volcanoes erupt almost continuously--enough to coat the moon's surface with fresh lava about every million years. These eruptions presumably would snuff out any incipient life.
BIOLF-WHAT A VOLCANIC AXDENT
////////////////////Home > Technology & Science
Get a Grip: Truth about Fingerprints Revealed
Mystery Surrounding the Reason for Fingerprints Remains
By EWEN CALL
The long-held notion that fingerprints marks help us grip more firmly appears to be wrong. Instead, a new study finds that the marks actually reduce the friction between skin and surfaces.
Scientists say long-held notion that fingerprints help us grip more firmly may not be true.
(/ABC News)
"Because there are all the gaps between the fingerprints, what they do is reduce the contact area with the surface,
///////////////////lrb=A Car of One’s Own
Andrew O’Hagan
This was the day General Motors came to the end of the road. I once asked a Sudanese politician to name the thing that in his eyes proved a nation was a nation. He didn’t hesitate: ‘The ability to make cars.’ Britain was a nation because it made Jaguars. Germany was a nation because of Volkswagen. America ran the world because of General Motors. Italy made Fiats and France made Peugeots, Japan made Toyotas, and even the Russians, struggling along the highway towards modernity, had the easily underestimated Lada. Was making cars once an indicator of national self-sufficiency? Is it still? Rover, Morris, Austin, Triumph, Vauxhall, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Mini, Land Rover: when we hear the names of these firms, we think of the cars they made, and of cars driven by parents or grandparents, sisters or old boyfriends. But we also think of the places in Britain where the cars were built, places that map out a productive nation. Say ‘Rover’ and people will, depending on their age, think of Coventry, Solihull, Cowley or Longbridge. Say ‘Vauxhall’ and they will think of Luton; say ‘Hillman Imp’ and they think of Linwood. When people consider their own lives and how well they have done, or are doing, they may well think of the cars they have owned, the notion of aspiration having a lot to do with what you drive; and if that is the case, then the almost permanent decline of the car industry in Britain must be fairly closely entangled with our sense of who we are. The cars that are built here now are mainly built by foreign companies – Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by Tata Motors of India, BMW owns Mini and Rolls-Royce, Volkswagen owns Bentley, while the MG is owned by Nanjing Automobile Group of China – which might be one of the things that explains a degree of loose wiring in the English nationalist brain.
/////////////////SLATE=Periodic Discussions
Element 112 was discovered more than a decade ago. Why wasn't it given a place on the periodic table until now?
By Sam Kean
Posted Friday, June 12, 2009, at 3:59 PM ET
Ununbium in the extended periodic table
The periodic table added its 112th official element Wednesday, when scientists in Darmstadt, Germany, announced they had received official approval for ununbium from an international body of chemists. But the discovery of the new element wasn't news to anyone—it was first announced back in 1996, when the Darmstadt scientists claimed to have created two atoms of the stuff in a 400-foot particle accelerator. It's just taken 13 years of formal reviews and appeals for their colleagues around the world to believe them. How did the most basic question of science—what are the fundamental materials that make up our universe?—turn into the science equivalent of a Supreme Court decision?
It seems as if the makeup of the periodic table would be as rudimentary as apples falling down, not up. There's evidence for elements like oxygen, iron, and silicon all around. Heck, you're made of evidence. But that's not true for the dimmer corridors of the table that run along its very bottom, where elements like ununbium sit. No one has ever seen element 112 with their own eyes—we've only assumed its existence based on a smattering of computer blips stored on a couple of hard drives around the world. How to interpret those blips has become a matter for endless committee meetings and debates over whether it's OK to add a new square to the most precious real estate in science.
//////////////////KING OF QUEENS
////////////////////
Most everyone has at least one, and for some of us, they're the biggest obstacles when it comes to weight loss. I'm talking about trigger foods — the things you just can't resist, and tend to overeat when they're available. Cookies are one of my trigger foods. They're a particularly bad trigger because they usually come in a pack, and the ones that don't are often the size of a hockey puck and contain 500 calories or more.
What's the best way to deal with trigger foods? Acknowledge them, and then avoid them. Not even a bite, or you'll be a goner. Keep them out of your house and out of your line of sight when you shop. Most trigger foods contain unhealthy ingredients like butter, sugar, and white flour (so it's not like your nutritional status will suffer if you cut them out completely!). In fact, in addition to losing weight, you may even get healthier overall when you toss the triggers. Once you hit your weight-loss goal, you can try experimenting with trigger foods, but if you find yourself slipping into old patterns, it's back to cold turkey
////////////////////
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/scienceandtechnology/science/sciencenews/5550488/Homosexual-behaviour-widespread-in-animals-according-to-new-study.html
Homosexual behaviour is a nearly universal phenomenon in the animal kingdom
////////////////wiki=
The Decameron (subtitle: Prencipe Galeotto) is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. Some believe many parts of the tales are indebted to the influence of The Book of Good Love. Many notable writers such as Chaucer are said to have drawn inspiration from The Decameron (See Literary sources and influence of the Decameron below).
//////////////////Recipe for Life: Water and a Little Lava
By Phil Berardelli
ScienceNOW Daily News
15 June 2009
Astronomers scanning the skies for another Earth might need to narrow their search. New research suggests that even if a world lies within the Habitable Zone, in which water is liquid, too much or too little volcanic activity can render it lifeless.
When assessing a distant planet's habitability, astronomers currently focus on one main criterion: Could the planet have liquid water on its surface? Too close to its sun, and that water evaporates away; too far, and it's locked in ice.
But the equation isn't quite that simple, says planetary scientist Rory Barnes of the University of Washington, Seattle. In an upcoming issue of The Astrophysical Journal Letters, he and colleagues argue that E.T. seekers also need to throw volcanoes into the mix.
We wouldn't be here without volcanoes. Early in Earth's history, volcanic eruptions spewed carbon dioxide and water vapor from deep beneath the surface, creating conditions that would eventually support photosynthesis. Mars, with an inactive core and hence little volcanism, wasn't so lucky. But too much volcanic activity can also be bad: Jupiter's moon Io is jostled so much by the gravitational pull, or tidal force, of its gigantic parent and neighboring moons that its volcanoes erupt almost continuously--enough to coat the moon's surface with fresh lava about every million years. These eruptions presumably would snuff out any incipient life.
BIOLF-WHAT A VOLCANIC AXDENT
////////////////////Home > Technology & Science
Get a Grip: Truth about Fingerprints Revealed
Mystery Surrounding the Reason for Fingerprints Remains
By EWEN CALL
The long-held notion that fingerprints marks help us grip more firmly appears to be wrong. Instead, a new study finds that the marks actually reduce the friction between skin and surfaces.
Scientists say long-held notion that fingerprints help us grip more firmly may not be true.
(/ABC News)
"Because there are all the gaps between the fingerprints, what they do is reduce the contact area with the surface,
///////////////////lrb=A Car of One’s Own
Andrew O’Hagan
This was the day General Motors came to the end of the road. I once asked a Sudanese politician to name the thing that in his eyes proved a nation was a nation. He didn’t hesitate: ‘The ability to make cars.’ Britain was a nation because it made Jaguars. Germany was a nation because of Volkswagen. America ran the world because of General Motors. Italy made Fiats and France made Peugeots, Japan made Toyotas, and even the Russians, struggling along the highway towards modernity, had the easily underestimated Lada. Was making cars once an indicator of national self-sufficiency? Is it still? Rover, Morris, Austin, Triumph, Vauxhall, Aston Martin, Rolls-Royce, Mini, Land Rover: when we hear the names of these firms, we think of the cars they made, and of cars driven by parents or grandparents, sisters or old boyfriends. But we also think of the places in Britain where the cars were built, places that map out a productive nation. Say ‘Rover’ and people will, depending on their age, think of Coventry, Solihull, Cowley or Longbridge. Say ‘Vauxhall’ and they will think of Luton; say ‘Hillman Imp’ and they think of Linwood. When people consider their own lives and how well they have done, or are doing, they may well think of the cars they have owned, the notion of aspiration having a lot to do with what you drive; and if that is the case, then the almost permanent decline of the car industry in Britain must be fairly closely entangled with our sense of who we are. The cars that are built here now are mainly built by foreign companies – Jaguar and Land Rover are owned by Tata Motors of India, BMW owns Mini and Rolls-Royce, Volkswagen owns Bentley, while the MG is owned by Nanjing Automobile Group of China – which might be one of the things that explains a degree of loose wiring in the English nationalist brain.
/////////////////SLATE=Periodic Discussions
Element 112 was discovered more than a decade ago. Why wasn't it given a place on the periodic table until now?
By Sam Kean
Posted Friday, June 12, 2009, at 3:59 PM ET
Ununbium in the extended periodic table
The periodic table added its 112th official element Wednesday, when scientists in Darmstadt, Germany, announced they had received official approval for ununbium from an international body of chemists. But the discovery of the new element wasn't news to anyone—it was first announced back in 1996, when the Darmstadt scientists claimed to have created two atoms of the stuff in a 400-foot particle accelerator. It's just taken 13 years of formal reviews and appeals for their colleagues around the world to believe them. How did the most basic question of science—what are the fundamental materials that make up our universe?—turn into the science equivalent of a Supreme Court decision?
It seems as if the makeup of the periodic table would be as rudimentary as apples falling down, not up. There's evidence for elements like oxygen, iron, and silicon all around. Heck, you're made of evidence. But that's not true for the dimmer corridors of the table that run along its very bottom, where elements like ununbium sit. No one has ever seen element 112 with their own eyes—we've only assumed its existence based on a smattering of computer blips stored on a couple of hard drives around the world. How to interpret those blips has become a matter for endless committee meetings and debates over whether it's OK to add a new square to the most precious real estate in science.
//////////////////KING OF QUEENS
////////////////////
Wednesday 17 June 2009
AUTISM GENE
New Gene Variant Linked to Autism
US researchers have identified a variant in the CACNA1G gene that confers susceptibility to autism, especially in boys.
Reuters Health Information 2009
///////////////////SLEEP 2009: Melatonin May Counter Sleep Disorders in Autistic Children
A small pilot study suggests that low-dose melatonin may be effective in children with autism spectrum disorders, and the researchers say larger randomized trials are "well warranted."
Medscape Medical News 2009
////////////////COMA-1978-TAKING THE LONG VIEW
////////////////Children With Intermittent Exotropia Face Higher Risk of Mental Illness
Pauline Anderson
Authors and Disclosures
Physician Rating: ( 2 Votes ) Rate This Article:
Print This Email this
INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY
Learn more about a treatment for ADHD
View an animated chart showing the design of this ADHD treatment.
Medication Guide
Important Safety Information
Full Prescribing Information
Read more
June 10, 2009 — Children diagnosed with intermittent exotropia (IXT), a form of strabismus where the eyes drift outward, are almost 3 times more likely to develop a psychiatric disorder later in life than youngsters without this diagnosis, according to new research.
The study, published in the June issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, showed that while a diagnosis of IXT is more common in females, males with this disorder are much more likely to develop mental illness.
///////////////////International Violin Day? On the birthday of
violinist and composer Igor Stravinsky, listen to some
classical music today. Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882,
in Russia.
~~~
Today's Inspirational Quote:
"Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it
will also deprive me of the possibility of being right."
-- Igor Stravinsky
///////////////////
US researchers have identified a variant in the CACNA1G gene that confers susceptibility to autism, especially in boys.
Reuters Health Information 2009
///////////////////SLEEP 2009: Melatonin May Counter Sleep Disorders in Autistic Children
A small pilot study suggests that low-dose melatonin may be effective in children with autism spectrum disorders, and the researchers say larger randomized trials are "well warranted."
Medscape Medical News 2009
////////////////COMA-1978-TAKING THE LONG VIEW
////////////////Children With Intermittent Exotropia Face Higher Risk of Mental Illness
Pauline Anderson
Authors and Disclosures
Physician Rating: ( 2 Votes ) Rate This Article:
Print This Email this
INFORMATION FROM INDUSTRY
Learn more about a treatment for ADHD
View an animated chart showing the design of this ADHD treatment.
Medication Guide
Important Safety Information
Full Prescribing Information
Read more
June 10, 2009 — Children diagnosed with intermittent exotropia (IXT), a form of strabismus where the eyes drift outward, are almost 3 times more likely to develop a psychiatric disorder later in life than youngsters without this diagnosis, according to new research.
The study, published in the June issue of Archives of Ophthalmology, showed that while a diagnosis of IXT is more common in females, males with this disorder are much more likely to develop mental illness.
///////////////////International Violin Day? On the birthday of
violinist and composer Igor Stravinsky, listen to some
classical music today. Stravinsky was born on June 17, 1882,
in Russia.
~~~
Today's Inspirational Quote:
"Silence will save me from being wrong (and foolish), but it
will also deprive me of the possibility of being right."
-- Igor Stravinsky
///////////////////
Tuesday 16 June 2009
CDS 170609-GTTR CRSS CONTINUES
//////////////////Can Exercise Lower Your Cholesterol?
There is a definite link between exercising and improved cholesterol levels. In fact, exercise appears to affect all aspects of your lipid profile - LDL (bad cholesterol), HDL (good cholesterol), and triglycerides. Exercise can impact all aspects of your heart health - this article will tell you how.
////////////////////Red Yeast Rice: A Substitute for Statins?
New research indicates that taking red yeast rice capsules may help prevent heart attack as well as stroke — particularly for patients who can't take statins because of severe side effects, such as muscle wasting and weakness.
/////////////////EVOLN=Coyne spends the first four chapters of the book reinforcing the claim that evolution occurs. He reminds us that the evidence is everywhere. A stunning archive of fossil forms has been unearthed over the past several decades. Scientists have been astonished at the diversity and variety of fossils that date to the boundary between the Precambrian and Cambrian eras (some 570 million years ago)—the point at which complex multicellular life really began its romp. In much younger deposits, the hominin fossils from the past 5 million years of the record have led to a far more complex picture of our own evolution. And throughout the record we have uncovered many of the transitional forms that evolutionary logic predicted. What is surprising, of course, is not that the predicted transitional forms exist, but that through a combination of skill, effort and luck we have recovered them—from Tiktaalik roseae (which embodies the transition from lobe-finned fish to land-dwelling tetrapods 375 million years ago) to Rodhocetus balochistanensis (one of the transitional forms that, 330 million years later, mark the return trip to the ocean of a branch of land mammals—the branch that gave rise to whales).
The evidence for evolution from other facets of the modern life sciences is no less compelling. Biologists sequencing their way through the genomes of creatures large and small have found that organisms separated by vast evolutionary gulfs have many of the same genes, which were apparently bequeathed to their divergent lineages by a shared common ancestor. In some cases, the genes perform similar tasks in every lineage in which they are found. In others, the same genes are put to different uses. And sometimes, genes are mothballed by evolution; freed from the constant scrutiny of selection, these pseudogenes decay into frayed versions of their former selves.
////////////////////////////////HOME PHOTRX FOR PSORIASIS
////////////////////////HIGH ANXIETY-CALM DOWN
////////////////////////
"My thoughts can be weakening or strengthening. I get to choose."
//////////////////SOAKAGE DIGGING CRSS-AMIDOS
///////////////////
There is a definite link between exercising and improved cholesterol levels. In fact, exercise appears to affect all aspects of your lipid profile - LDL (bad cholesterol), HDL (good cholesterol), and triglycerides. Exercise can impact all aspects of your heart health - this article will tell you how.
////////////////////Red Yeast Rice: A Substitute for Statins?
New research indicates that taking red yeast rice capsules may help prevent heart attack as well as stroke — particularly for patients who can't take statins because of severe side effects, such as muscle wasting and weakness.
/////////////////EVOLN=Coyne spends the first four chapters of the book reinforcing the claim that evolution occurs. He reminds us that the evidence is everywhere. A stunning archive of fossil forms has been unearthed over the past several decades. Scientists have been astonished at the diversity and variety of fossils that date to the boundary between the Precambrian and Cambrian eras (some 570 million years ago)—the point at which complex multicellular life really began its romp. In much younger deposits, the hominin fossils from the past 5 million years of the record have led to a far more complex picture of our own evolution. And throughout the record we have uncovered many of the transitional forms that evolutionary logic predicted. What is surprising, of course, is not that the predicted transitional forms exist, but that through a combination of skill, effort and luck we have recovered them—from Tiktaalik roseae (which embodies the transition from lobe-finned fish to land-dwelling tetrapods 375 million years ago) to Rodhocetus balochistanensis (one of the transitional forms that, 330 million years later, mark the return trip to the ocean of a branch of land mammals—the branch that gave rise to whales).
The evidence for evolution from other facets of the modern life sciences is no less compelling. Biologists sequencing their way through the genomes of creatures large and small have found that organisms separated by vast evolutionary gulfs have many of the same genes, which were apparently bequeathed to their divergent lineages by a shared common ancestor. In some cases, the genes perform similar tasks in every lineage in which they are found. In others, the same genes are put to different uses. And sometimes, genes are mothballed by evolution; freed from the constant scrutiny of selection, these pseudogenes decay into frayed versions of their former selves.
////////////////////////////////HOME PHOTRX FOR PSORIASIS
////////////////////////HIGH ANXIETY-CALM DOWN
////////////////////////
"My thoughts can be weakening or strengthening. I get to choose."
//////////////////SOAKAGE DIGGING CRSS-AMIDOS
///////////////////
MONEY-CHILD-GRAVITY
Money isn't everything but it sure keeps you in touch with your children."
—J. Paul Getty
///////////////////The Deepest Place on Earth
The Marianas Trench is the deepest place on earth, deeper than Mt. Everest is high. The trench is where the ocean floor disappears into the center of the earth. The pressures at this depth are 17 times greater than what it takes to crush a nuclear submarine. Only two men have ever been down the Trench, fewer than have set foot on the moon. Follow the daring missions into the abyss and explore the extraordinary geology that has created this deep scar along the ocean floor.
///////////////// Salt
It's the only rock we eat, and we need it to live. History has shown that those who have salt rule the world--and today, this versatile substance has 14,000 known uses.
//////////////////1506=National Electricity Day? In 1752, during a
thunderstorm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin
flew a kite to prove that lightning is electricity (an iron
key suspended from the kite attracted a lightning bolt
///////////////////
"There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish
our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is
the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to
do that which happens to be easier."
-- Benjamin Franklin
/////////////////Singulair, Other Asthma Drugs to Bear Caution on Psychiatric Problems
Date Published: Monday, June 15th, 2009
Singulair (montelukast ) and other asthma medications known as leukotriene modifiers will carry a new precaution about their association with neuropsychiatric events, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has announced. According to the agency, it has received reports of agitation, aggression, suicidal thinking, suicide, depression, insomnia and irritability in patients taking leukotriene modifiers like Singulair.
Leukotrienes are chemicals the body releases in response to an inflammatory stimulus, such as when a person breathes in an allergen. In addition to Singulair, other leukotriene modifiers include Accolate (zafirlukast) and Zyflo and Zyflo CR (zileuton).
/////////////////
—J. Paul Getty
///////////////////The Deepest Place on Earth
The Marianas Trench is the deepest place on earth, deeper than Mt. Everest is high. The trench is where the ocean floor disappears into the center of the earth. The pressures at this depth are 17 times greater than what it takes to crush a nuclear submarine. Only two men have ever been down the Trench, fewer than have set foot on the moon. Follow the daring missions into the abyss and explore the extraordinary geology that has created this deep scar along the ocean floor.
///////////////// Salt
It's the only rock we eat, and we need it to live. History has shown that those who have salt rule the world--and today, this versatile substance has 14,000 known uses.
//////////////////1506=National Electricity Day? In 1752, during a
thunderstorm in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Benjamin Franklin
flew a kite to prove that lightning is electricity (an iron
key suspended from the kite attracted a lightning bolt
///////////////////
"There are two ways of being happy: We must either diminish
our wants or augment our means - either may do - the result is
the same and it is for each man to decide for himself and to
do that which happens to be easier."
-- Benjamin Franklin
/////////////////Singulair, Other Asthma Drugs to Bear Caution on Psychiatric Problems
Date Published: Monday, June 15th, 2009
Singulair (montelukast ) and other asthma medications known as leukotriene modifiers will carry a new precaution about their association with neuropsychiatric events, the Food & Drug Administration (FDA) has announced. According to the agency, it has received reports of agitation, aggression, suicidal thinking, suicide, depression, insomnia and irritability in patients taking leukotriene modifiers like Singulair.
Leukotrienes are chemicals the body releases in response to an inflammatory stimulus, such as when a person breathes in an allergen. In addition to Singulair, other leukotriene modifiers include Accolate (zafirlukast) and Zyflo and Zyflo CR (zileuton).
/////////////////
Sunday 14 June 2009
SVN POUNDS
///////////////////BRAIN IN A VAT
/////////////////BECOMING NOBODY=
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.” ~ Lau Tzu
///////////////////
/////////////////BECOMING NOBODY=
Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Confidence is the greatest friend. Non-being is the greatest joy.” ~ Lau Tzu
///////////////////
WHT FCKD UP NBRS
/////////////////Campbell wrote: “All final spiritual reference is to
the silence….” The knowing of scholarship is always a perpetuation of
the stream of symbols; the fullest and deepest engagement with life is in a
silence beyond symbols.
/////////////////BOOK OR BOOSTER SEAT-BECKER
/////////////
Truth exists; only lies are invented.
~Horatius Bonar, D.D., Hymns of Faith and Hope (p. 113), (ed. 1813)~
////////////////NP=Where do you think you are? A brain scan can tell
Posted: 12 Mar 2009 06:49 PM PDT
Spatial navigation is a complex mental task which is strongly dependent upon memory. As we make our way around a new environment, we look for easily recognisable landmarks and try to remember how their locations are related in space, so that when we return to it we can negotiate our path.
We know that spatial representations are encoded in the medial temporal lobe, and numerous studies implicate the hippocampus in particular as being crucial for the formation of spatial memories. Information about the environment is believed to be encoded by large populations of neurons distributed throughout this part of the brain, but little is known about this information is encoded.
Now researchers from UCL have made a significant advance in our understanding of how spatial memories are encoded. In a paper published online today in the journal Current Biology, they report that they can decode the activity of the hippocampus to accurately predict an individual's exact location within a simple virtual reality environment.
/////////////////Chapter XVIII: The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation
XVIII.36. SUKHAM TWIDAANEEM TRIVIDHAM SHRINU ME BHARATARSHABHA;
ABHYAASAADRAMATE YATRA DUHKHAANTAM CHA NIGACCHATI.
(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
Now hear from Me, O Arjuna, of the threefold pleasure, in which
one rejoices by practice and surely comes to the end of pain!
XVIII.37. YATTADAGRE VISHAMIVA PARINAAME'MRITOPAMAM;
TATSUKHAM SAATTWIKAM PROKTAM AATMABUDDHIPRASAADAJAM.
That which is like poison at first but in the end like nectar-that
pleasure is declared to be Sattwic, born of the purity of one's
own mind due to Self-realisation.
XVIII.38. VISHAYENDRIYA SAMYOGAAD YATTADAGRE'MRITOPAMAM;
PARINAAME VISHAMIVA TATSUKHAM RAAJASAM SMRITAM.
That pleasure which arises from the contact of the sense-organs
with the objects, which is at first like nectar and in the end
like poison-that is declared to be Rajasic.
XVIII.39. YADAGRE CHAANUBANDHE CHA SUKHAM MOHANAMAATMANAH;
NIDRAALASYAPRAMAADOTTHAM TATTAAMASAMUDAAHRITAM.
That pleasure which at first and in the sequel is delusive of the
self, arising from sleep, indolence and heedlessness-such a
pleasure is declared to be Tamasic.
//////////////////REACHED APEX OF YOUR CAPABILITIES
/////////////////A red-wine polyphenol called resveratrol demonstrates significant health benefits
Resveratrol shows therapeutic potential for cancer chemoprevention as well as cardioprotection. Resveratrol may aid in the prevention of age-related disorders, such as neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.Low doses of resveratrol improve cell survival as a component of cardio- and neuro-protection, while high doses increase cell death.
http://www.curingdeath.com/research/A_red-wine_polyphenol_called_resveratrol_demonstrates_significant_health_benefits.asp
//////////////////Pronunciation: [pe-rê-gri-'ney-shên]
Definition: A long, meandering journey or walk; a course of travel.
Usage: Because it implies travel over a long period of time to various places, today's word is often used in the plural: "His European peregrinations left Dirk physically exhausted and speaking with an undeterminable accent." This noun is derived from the verb "peregrinate" which is based on the adjective peregrine "foreign; migratory, traveling."
//////////////////////
the silence….” The knowing of scholarship is always a perpetuation of
the stream of symbols; the fullest and deepest engagement with life is in a
silence beyond symbols.
/////////////////BOOK OR BOOSTER SEAT-BECKER
/////////////
Truth exists; only lies are invented.
~Horatius Bonar, D.D., Hymns of Faith and Hope (p. 113), (ed. 1813)~
////////////////NP=Where do you think you are? A brain scan can tell
Posted: 12 Mar 2009 06:49 PM PDT
Spatial navigation is a complex mental task which is strongly dependent upon memory. As we make our way around a new environment, we look for easily recognisable landmarks and try to remember how their locations are related in space, so that when we return to it we can negotiate our path.
We know that spatial representations are encoded in the medial temporal lobe, and numerous studies implicate the hippocampus in particular as being crucial for the formation of spatial memories. Information about the environment is believed to be encoded by large populations of neurons distributed throughout this part of the brain, but little is known about this information is encoded.
Now researchers from UCL have made a significant advance in our understanding of how spatial memories are encoded. In a paper published online today in the journal Current Biology, they report that they can decode the activity of the hippocampus to accurately predict an individual's exact location within a simple virtual reality environment.
/////////////////Chapter XVIII: The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation
XVIII.36. SUKHAM TWIDAANEEM TRIVIDHAM SHRINU ME BHARATARSHABHA;
ABHYAASAADRAMATE YATRA DUHKHAANTAM CHA NIGACCHATI.
(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
Now hear from Me, O Arjuna, of the threefold pleasure, in which
one rejoices by practice and surely comes to the end of pain!
XVIII.37. YATTADAGRE VISHAMIVA PARINAAME'MRITOPAMAM;
TATSUKHAM SAATTWIKAM PROKTAM AATMABUDDHIPRASAADAJAM.
That which is like poison at first but in the end like nectar-that
pleasure is declared to be Sattwic, born of the purity of one's
own mind due to Self-realisation.
XVIII.38. VISHAYENDRIYA SAMYOGAAD YATTADAGRE'MRITOPAMAM;
PARINAAME VISHAMIVA TATSUKHAM RAAJASAM SMRITAM.
That pleasure which arises from the contact of the sense-organs
with the objects, which is at first like nectar and in the end
like poison-that is declared to be Rajasic.
XVIII.39. YADAGRE CHAANUBANDHE CHA SUKHAM MOHANAMAATMANAH;
NIDRAALASYAPRAMAADOTTHAM TATTAAMASAMUDAAHRITAM.
That pleasure which at first and in the sequel is delusive of the
self, arising from sleep, indolence and heedlessness-such a
pleasure is declared to be Tamasic.
//////////////////REACHED APEX OF YOUR CAPABILITIES
/////////////////A red-wine polyphenol called resveratrol demonstrates significant health benefits
Resveratrol shows therapeutic potential for cancer chemoprevention as well as cardioprotection. Resveratrol may aid in the prevention of age-related disorders, such as neurodegenerative diseases, inflammation, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.Low doses of resveratrol improve cell survival as a component of cardio- and neuro-protection, while high doses increase cell death.
http://www.curingdeath.com/research/A_red-wine_polyphenol_called_resveratrol_demonstrates_significant_health_benefits.asp
//////////////////Pronunciation: [pe-rê-gri-'ney-shên]
Definition: A long, meandering journey or walk; a course of travel.
Usage: Because it implies travel over a long period of time to various places, today's word is often used in the plural: "His European peregrinations left Dirk physically exhausted and speaking with an undeterminable accent." This noun is derived from the verb "peregrinate" which is based on the adjective peregrine "foreign; migratory, traveling."
//////////////////////
CDS 140609-ANNDBZR GLPO-2 HR GFT
//////////////LMC PATHOS-POORLY PAID JB-FTHR DTHING OF CA-MTHR EXHAUTED-OLDR SSTR NOT MRRIED-YNGR SSTR EXAMS-YEARN TO FREEDOM-2 HR GFT GRL ARRIVES FRM BSCT CO-BUT WILD PEAFOWL-NOT DOMESTICATED PEAFOWL
////////////AJANTRIK SITUATION-ALSO IN IN LAWS HOUSE
////////////"I am not a has-been. I am a will be."
-- Lauren Bacall
///////////////////birthday of the Bunsen Burner? In 1847,
Robert von Bunsen invented the Bunsen burner. His simple gas
store allows a chemist to control a flame efficiently.
///////////////////EMAIL IMMORTALITY
///////////////////GUTTER CRSS GOES ON-TATA
/////////////////
////////////AJANTRIK SITUATION-ALSO IN IN LAWS HOUSE
////////////"I am not a has-been. I am a will be."
-- Lauren Bacall
///////////////////birthday of the Bunsen Burner? In 1847,
Robert von Bunsen invented the Bunsen burner. His simple gas
store allows a chemist to control a flame efficiently.
///////////////////EMAIL IMMORTALITY
///////////////////GUTTER CRSS GOES ON-TATA
/////////////////
Saturday 13 June 2009
RD TO HPPYNSS
Avoiding unhappiness is easy: We generally know and understand the things in our lives making us unhappy.
(Conversely, we rarely seem to know what might make us happy. For instance, we believe a relationship with a certain person will make us happy only to find out later to the contrary, or to find ourselves crushed by rejection.)
Avoiding unhappiness is humble: We don’t create any false expectations or place unrealistic demands upon ourselves. We stay within our means.
////////////////////The first thing to do is decide how you will divide your budget. The easiest way is to use something like the 60% rule. This means that 60% of your income goes to monthly expenses such as rent, utilities, phone and internet. The rest is broken up into 10% increments:
• 10% for your retirement fund
• 10% for long term savings or debt reduction
• 10% for short term savings
• 10% for fun money
//////////////////////OPTIMIS-STMBLNG BLOCKS OR STEPPING STNS
///////////////////////Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. — Bertrand Russell in ‘Why I am not a C
////////////////////////Staying Sharp: New Study Uncovers How People Maintain Cognitive Function In Old Age (June 12, 2009) -- Not everyone declines in cognitive function with age. Elderly people who exercise at least once a week, have at least a high school education and a ninth grade literacy level, are not smokers and are more socially active are more likely to maintain their cognitive skills through their 70s and 80s, according to new research. ... > full story
/////////////////Taphonomy[note 1] is the study of decaying organisms over time and how they become fossilized (if they do). The term taphonomy, (from the Greek taphos - τάφος meaning burial, and nomos - νόμος meaning law), was introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Russian scientist, Ivan Efremov, to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts, or products of organisms, from the biosphere, to the lithosphere, i.e. the creation of fossil assemblages.[1][2]
Taphonomists study such phenomena as biostratinomy, decomposition, diagenesis, and encrustation and bioerosion by sclerobionts.[3] (Sclerobionts are organisms which dwell on hard substrates such as shells or rocks.)
//////////////////////SAME PLANET-DIFFERENT WORLD
/////////////////////
(Conversely, we rarely seem to know what might make us happy. For instance, we believe a relationship with a certain person will make us happy only to find out later to the contrary, or to find ourselves crushed by rejection.)
Avoiding unhappiness is humble: We don’t create any false expectations or place unrealistic demands upon ourselves. We stay within our means.
////////////////////The first thing to do is decide how you will divide your budget. The easiest way is to use something like the 60% rule. This means that 60% of your income goes to monthly expenses such as rent, utilities, phone and internet. The rest is broken up into 10% increments:
• 10% for your retirement fund
• 10% for long term savings or debt reduction
• 10% for short term savings
• 10% for fun money
//////////////////////OPTIMIS-STMBLNG BLOCKS OR STEPPING STNS
///////////////////////Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing — fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death. Fear is the parent of cruelty, and therefore it is no wonder if cruelty and religion have gone hand in hand. — Bertrand Russell in ‘Why I am not a C
////////////////////////Staying Sharp: New Study Uncovers How People Maintain Cognitive Function In Old Age (June 12, 2009) -- Not everyone declines in cognitive function with age. Elderly people who exercise at least once a week, have at least a high school education and a ninth grade literacy level, are not smokers and are more socially active are more likely to maintain their cognitive skills through their 70s and 80s, according to new research. ... > full story
/////////////////Taphonomy[note 1] is the study of decaying organisms over time and how they become fossilized (if they do). The term taphonomy, (from the Greek taphos - τάφος meaning burial, and nomos - νόμος meaning law), was introduced to paleontology in 1940 by Russian scientist, Ivan Efremov, to describe the study of the transition of remains, parts, or products of organisms, from the biosphere, to the lithosphere, i.e. the creation of fossil assemblages.[1][2]
Taphonomists study such phenomena as biostratinomy, decomposition, diagenesis, and encrustation and bioerosion by sclerobionts.[3] (Sclerobionts are organisms which dwell on hard substrates such as shells or rocks.)
//////////////////////SAME PLANET-DIFFERENT WORLD
/////////////////////
A JB IS A JB
////////////////////MRRSN BETTER FR PASTA LUNCH,RNBW TROUT
////////////////BCKR- I LIKE MY RUT
///////////////////sasialit=Seriously though, I haven't made much headway with In Hanuman's Hand--life
intervened but I was also waylaid by a little gem called "Tilled Earth," a
collection of short stories, and 'micro-stories' by Nepali writer Manjushree
Thapa. If you're the type of person who sits in airports or on park
benches people-watching, thinking, "I wonder what her story is..." or "I
wonder why he looks so serious....", Thapa takes you inside the head of
those strangers, or lets you walk (invisibly) along side of her on a hike so
you can eavesdrop, or gives you a seat next to him on a bus. It's a quiet
collection...nothing dramatic or melodramatic but intense nonetheless. The
stories are grounded [no pun intended] in contemporary Nepal but tell of
European flings and the 'US immigrant experience' (but not in an angst-y
way). The micro-stories are amazing...less than 200 words, sometimes, or
even 100. In a couple of instances I was left holding my breath (e.g, The
Newly Appointed Chemistry Professor"). Other stories are just poignant
(e.g., The Eldest Son Thinks of Home).
Nothing mythical, inaccurate or inauthentic about Tilled Earth.
r
//////////////////mrcla=The results of this study -- that men who regularly work out with weights and have high muscle strength can reduce their risk of cancer by 30-40 percent -- should provide major motivation for any of you still on the fence about adding strength training to your exercise routine.
One of the primary reasons exercise works to lower your cancer risk is because it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
It’s also been suggested that apoptosis (programmed cell death) is triggered by exercise, causing cancer cells to die.
It is becoming increasingly clear that a well-rounded exercise program is an important component of staying healthy. When I say “well rounded” I mean a program that includes the four primary types of exercise, as explained in my Principles of Exercise video:
1. Aerobic
2. Interval
3. Strength
4. Core
Unfortunately, many public health guidelines are still focusing only on the aerobic component, and merely focusing on aerobic activity will most definitely lead to imbalances that will cause other parts of your body to not be healthy. You really need a well balanced exercise regimen.
It’s important to vary your exercise routine as otherwise your muscles simply get used to the same activity. They require a level of muscle confusion if they are to continue to improve and grow stronger. Further, each type of exercise has very different and very specific impacts on your body, and you’ll want to take advantage of all of them.
This topic is truly very near and dear to my heart, as I went to medical school in large part because I wanted to use exercise as a therapeutic tool to help people get healthier. I strongly believe that without fitness, it is virtually impossible to achieve optimal health.
///////////////////////Human zoo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ad for a "Peoples Show" (Völkerschau) in Stuttgart (Germany), 1928
For other uses, see Human zoo (disambiguation).
Human zoos (also called "ethnological expositions" or "Negro Villages") were 19th and 20th century public exhibits of human beings, usually in a "natural" or "primitive" state. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western Civilization and non-European peoples. Ethnographic zoos were often predicated on unilinealism, scientific racism, and a version of Social Darwinism. A number of them placed indigenous people (particularly Africans) in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and human beings of European descent. For this reason, ethnographic zoos have since been criticized as highly degrading and racist.
///////////////////HOTTENTOT VENUS
//////////////////Fifty years ago nearly one in ten people belonged to a party, now numbers have declined to 1 in 88, yet political parties still have a huge role in administering power in our democracy. It is that anomaly which constitutional exper
///////////////////Slumming' was the name given to the thousands of white middle class voyeurs crossing boundaries of race, class and sexual orientation to trip into the worlds of the poor on their doorstep.
///////////////////ANTHROPOZOOLOGICAL EXHIBITION
//////////////////IMPLIED INFERIORITY
/////////////////COLONIAL EXHIBITNS
/////////////////UK’s largest hospital for children opens in Manchester
Zosia Kmietowicz
1 London
The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.
The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital opened this week to become the United Kingdom’s largest hospital for children on a single site. The development, which took five years to complete, is part of a £500m (590m; $820m) private finance initiative scheme commissioned by Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It will take over the work of five hospitals in the area, delivering care to an expected 35 000 patients a year. The hospital specialises in renal transplants, metabolic care, and complex spinal care and will offer transfer from hospitals throughout the UK.
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2401
//////////////////rrors in clinical reasoning: causes and remedial strategies
Ian A Scott, associate professor of medicine
1 Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Road, Brisbane, Australia 4102
Correspondence to: I A Scott ian_scott@health.qld.gov.au
Everyone makes mistakes, but greater awareness of the causes would help clinicians to avoid many of them, as Ian Scott explains
The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.
Most errors in clinical reasoning are not due to incompetence or inadequate knowledge but to frailty of human thinking under conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and pressure of time. To minimise such cognitive error we need to understand its prevalence and causes. In this article I discuss why errors occur and describe strategies that may help avoid them.
The first step to optimal care is making the correct diagnosis, which is missed or delayed in between 5% and 14% of acute hospital admissions.1 2 Autopsy studies confirm diagnostic error rates of 10-20%,3 4 with autopsy disclosing previously undiagnosed problems in up to 25% of cases.3 Even if the diagnosis is correct, up to 45% of patients with acute or chronic medical conditions do not receive recommended evidence based care,5 while between 20% and 30% of administered investigations and drugs are potentially unnecessary.6 Clinicians are sometimes less willing to adopt new beneficial interventions than . . . [Full text of this article]
///////////////////
////////////////BCKR- I LIKE MY RUT
///////////////////sasialit=Seriously though, I haven't made much headway with In Hanuman's Hand--life
intervened but I was also waylaid by a little gem called "Tilled Earth," a
collection of short stories, and 'micro-stories' by Nepali writer Manjushree
Thapa. If you're the type of person who sits in airports or on park
benches people-watching, thinking, "I wonder what her story is..." or "I
wonder why he looks so serious....", Thapa takes you inside the head of
those strangers, or lets you walk (invisibly) along side of her on a hike so
you can eavesdrop, or gives you a seat next to him on a bus. It's a quiet
collection...nothing dramatic or melodramatic but intense nonetheless. The
stories are grounded [no pun intended] in contemporary Nepal but tell of
European flings and the 'US immigrant experience' (but not in an angst-y
way). The micro-stories are amazing...less than 200 words, sometimes, or
even 100. In a couple of instances I was left holding my breath (e.g, The
Newly Appointed Chemistry Professor"). Other stories are just poignant
(e.g., The Eldest Son Thinks of Home).
Nothing mythical, inaccurate or inauthentic about Tilled Earth.
r
//////////////////mrcla=The results of this study -- that men who regularly work out with weights and have high muscle strength can reduce their risk of cancer by 30-40 percent -- should provide major motivation for any of you still on the fence about adding strength training to your exercise routine.
One of the primary reasons exercise works to lower your cancer risk is because it drives your insulin levels down. Controlling insulin levels is one of the most powerful ways to reduce your cancer risks.
It’s also been suggested that apoptosis (programmed cell death) is triggered by exercise, causing cancer cells to die.
It is becoming increasingly clear that a well-rounded exercise program is an important component of staying healthy. When I say “well rounded” I mean a program that includes the four primary types of exercise, as explained in my Principles of Exercise video:
1. Aerobic
2. Interval
3. Strength
4. Core
Unfortunately, many public health guidelines are still focusing only on the aerobic component, and merely focusing on aerobic activity will most definitely lead to imbalances that will cause other parts of your body to not be healthy. You really need a well balanced exercise regimen.
It’s important to vary your exercise routine as otherwise your muscles simply get used to the same activity. They require a level of muscle confusion if they are to continue to improve and grow stronger. Further, each type of exercise has very different and very specific impacts on your body, and you’ll want to take advantage of all of them.
This topic is truly very near and dear to my heart, as I went to medical school in large part because I wanted to use exercise as a therapeutic tool to help people get healthier. I strongly believe that without fitness, it is virtually impossible to achieve optimal health.
///////////////////////Human zoo
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
An ad for a "Peoples Show" (Völkerschau) in Stuttgart (Germany), 1928
For other uses, see Human zoo (disambiguation).
Human zoos (also called "ethnological expositions" or "Negro Villages") were 19th and 20th century public exhibits of human beings, usually in a "natural" or "primitive" state. The displays often emphasized the cultural differences between Europeans of Western Civilization and non-European peoples. Ethnographic zoos were often predicated on unilinealism, scientific racism, and a version of Social Darwinism. A number of them placed indigenous people (particularly Africans) in a continuum somewhere between the great apes and human beings of European descent. For this reason, ethnographic zoos have since been criticized as highly degrading and racist.
///////////////////HOTTENTOT VENUS
//////////////////Fifty years ago nearly one in ten people belonged to a party, now numbers have declined to 1 in 88, yet political parties still have a huge role in administering power in our democracy. It is that anomaly which constitutional exper
///////////////////Slumming' was the name given to the thousands of white middle class voyeurs crossing boundaries of race, class and sexual orientation to trip into the worlds of the poor on their doorstep.
///////////////////ANTHROPOZOOLOGICAL EXHIBITION
//////////////////IMPLIED INFERIORITY
/////////////////COLONIAL EXHIBITNS
/////////////////UK’s largest hospital for children opens in Manchester
Zosia Kmietowicz
1 London
The first 100% of the full text of this article appears below.
The Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital opened this week to become the United Kingdom’s largest hospital for children on a single site. The development, which took five years to complete, is part of a £500m (590m; $820m) private finance initiative scheme commissioned by Central Manchester University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust. It will take over the work of five hospitals in the area, delivering care to an expected 35 000 patients a year. The hospital specialises in renal transplants, metabolic care, and complex spinal care and will offer transfer from hospitals throughout the UK.
Cite this as: BMJ 2009;338:b2401
//////////////////rrors in clinical reasoning: causes and remedial strategies
Ian A Scott, associate professor of medicine
1 Department of Internal Medicine and Clinical Epidemiology, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Ipswich Road, Brisbane, Australia 4102
Correspondence to: I A Scott ian_scott@health.qld.gov.au
Everyone makes mistakes, but greater awareness of the causes would help clinicians to avoid many of them, as Ian Scott explains
The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.
Most errors in clinical reasoning are not due to incompetence or inadequate knowledge but to frailty of human thinking under conditions of complexity, uncertainty, and pressure of time. To minimise such cognitive error we need to understand its prevalence and causes. In this article I discuss why errors occur and describe strategies that may help avoid them.
The first step to optimal care is making the correct diagnosis, which is missed or delayed in between 5% and 14% of acute hospital admissions.1 2 Autopsy studies confirm diagnostic error rates of 10-20%,3 4 with autopsy disclosing previously undiagnosed problems in up to 25% of cases.3 Even if the diagnosis is correct, up to 45% of patients with acute or chronic medical conditions do not receive recommended evidence based care,5 while between 20% and 30% of administered investigations and drugs are potentially unnecessary.6 Clinicians are sometimes less willing to adopt new beneficial interventions than . . . [Full text of this article]
///////////////////
Friday 12 June 2009
COUP THT NVR WAS
Periodic table gets a new element
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
The table will be one element longer
The ubiquitous periodic table will soon have a new addition - the "super-heavy" element 112.
More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of the element, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery.
The team, led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research, must propose a name for their find, before it can be formally added to the table.
Scientists continue the race to discover more super-heavy elements.
Professor Hofmann began his quest to add to the periodic table in 1976.
/////////////////////////
By Victoria Gill
Science reporter, BBC News
The table will be one element longer
The ubiquitous periodic table will soon have a new addition - the "super-heavy" element 112.
More than a decade after experiments first produced a single atom of the element, a team of German scientists has been credited with its discovery.
The team, led by Sigurd Hofmann at the Centre for Heavy Ion Research, must propose a name for their find, before it can be formally added to the table.
Scientists continue the race to discover more super-heavy elements.
Professor Hofmann began his quest to add to the periodic table in 1976.
/////////////////////////
Thursday 11 June 2009
U CLD DO BTTR THN ME
///////////////////POTUS-ROTUS
/////////////////ZOMBIE=Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, or ANSD
/////////////////Cancer: The cost of being smarter than chimps?
posted on: june 10, 2009 - 12:30pm
Are the cognitively superior brains of humans, in part, responsible for our higher rates of cancer? That's a question that has nagged at John McDonald, chair of Georgia Tech's School of Biology and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, for a while. Now, after an initial study, it seems that McDonald is on to something. The new study is available online in the journal Medical Hypothesis and will appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal.
"I was always intrigued by the fact that chimpanzees appear to have lower rates of cancer than humans," said McDonald. "So we went back and reanalyzed some previously reported gene expression studies including data that were not used in the original analyses."
McDonald and his graduate students, Gaurav Arora and Nalini Polivarapu, compared chimp-human gene expression patterns in five tissues: brain, testes, liver, kidneys and heart. They found distinct differences in the way apoptosis — or programmed cell death — operates, suggesting that humans do not "self-destroy" cells as effectively as chimpanzees do. Apoptosis is one of the primary mechanisms by which our bodies destroy cancer cells.
John McDonald, chair of the School of Biology and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, is testing whether the cognitive superiority of human's brains over chimps has lead to an increased propensity for cancer.
(Photo Credit: Nicole Cappello/Georgia Tech)
"The results from our analysis suggest that humans aren't as efficient as chimpanzees in carrying out programmed cell death. We believe this difference may have evolved as a way to increase brain size and associated cognitive ability in humans, but the cost could be an increased propensity for cancer," said McDonald.
Like all evolutionary hypotheses, this can't be proven absolutely, according to McDonald. However, his lab has recently obtained additional direct experimental evidence consistent with the hypothesis that apoptotic function is more efficient in chimps than in humans.
Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
/////////////////////MASOOR DAL=Lentil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the species Lens culinaris. For the meaning of "lentil" in Indian English, see pulse (legume).
Lentil (Masoor dal)
Lentils
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Subfamily: Faboideae
Tribe: Vicieae
Genus: Lens
Species: L. culinaris
Binomial name
Lens culinaris
Medikus
The lentil or daal or Masoor dal (Lens culinaris), considered a type of pulse, is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about 15 inches (38 cm) tall and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each.
Contents [hide]
1 Background
2 Types
3 Preparation
4 Nutritional value and health benefits
4.1 Iron content
5 Production
6 Diseases
7 Lentils in culture
8 Lentils and lenses
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
[edit]Background
The plant originated in the Near EastMEDIT SEA TO IRAN, and has been part of the human diet since the aceramic (non-pottery producing) Neolithic times, being one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. With 26% protein, lentils have the third-highest level of protein, by weight, of any plant-based food after soybeans and hemp, and is an important part of the diet in many parts of the world, especially in the Indian subcontinent which has large vegetarian populations.
A variety of lentils exists with colors that range from yellow to red-orange to green, brown and black. Red, white and yellow lentils are decorticated, i.e., they have their skins removed. There are large and small varieties of many lentils (e.g., Masoor Lentils). Lentils are sold in many forms, with or without the skins, whole or split.
Culturally, other pulses are sometimes called lentils but are actually beans or peas, e.g. "black lentils" (urad beans)
/////////////////ZOMBIE=Ataxic Neurodegenerative Satiety Deficiency Syndrome, or ANSD
/////////////////Cancer: The cost of being smarter than chimps?
posted on: june 10, 2009 - 12:30pm
Are the cognitively superior brains of humans, in part, responsible for our higher rates of cancer? That's a question that has nagged at John McDonald, chair of Georgia Tech's School of Biology and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, for a while. Now, after an initial study, it seems that McDonald is on to something. The new study is available online in the journal Medical Hypothesis and will appear in the forthcoming issue of the journal.
"I was always intrigued by the fact that chimpanzees appear to have lower rates of cancer than humans," said McDonald. "So we went back and reanalyzed some previously reported gene expression studies including data that were not used in the original analyses."
McDonald and his graduate students, Gaurav Arora and Nalini Polivarapu, compared chimp-human gene expression patterns in five tissues: brain, testes, liver, kidneys and heart. They found distinct differences in the way apoptosis — or programmed cell death — operates, suggesting that humans do not "self-destroy" cells as effectively as chimpanzees do. Apoptosis is one of the primary mechanisms by which our bodies destroy cancer cells.
John McDonald, chair of the School of Biology and chief research scientist at the Ovarian Cancer Institute, is testing whether the cognitive superiority of human's brains over chimps has lead to an increased propensity for cancer.
(Photo Credit: Nicole Cappello/Georgia Tech)
"The results from our analysis suggest that humans aren't as efficient as chimpanzees in carrying out programmed cell death. We believe this difference may have evolved as a way to increase brain size and associated cognitive ability in humans, but the cost could be an increased propensity for cancer," said McDonald.
Like all evolutionary hypotheses, this can't be proven absolutely, according to McDonald. However, his lab has recently obtained additional direct experimental evidence consistent with the hypothesis that apoptotic function is more efficient in chimps than in humans.
Source: Georgia Institute of Technology
/////////////////////MASOOR DAL=Lentil
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
This article is about the species Lens culinaris. For the meaning of "lentil" in Indian English, see pulse (legume).
Lentil (Masoor dal)
Lentils
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Plantae
Division: Magnoliophyta
Class: Magnoliopsida
Order: Fabales
Family: Fabaceae
Subfamily: Faboideae
Tribe: Vicieae
Genus: Lens
Species: L. culinaris
Binomial name
Lens culinaris
Medikus
The lentil or daal or Masoor dal (Lens culinaris), considered a type of pulse, is a bushy annual plant of the legume family, grown for its lens-shaped seeds. It is about 15 inches (38 cm) tall and the seeds grow in pods, usually with two seeds in each.
Contents [hide]
1 Background
2 Types
3 Preparation
4 Nutritional value and health benefits
4.1 Iron content
5 Production
6 Diseases
7 Lentils in culture
8 Lentils and lenses
9 See also
10 References
11 Further reading
12 External links
[edit]Background
The plant originated in the Near EastMEDIT SEA TO IRAN, and has been part of the human diet since the aceramic (non-pottery producing) Neolithic times, being one of the first crops domesticated in the Near East. With 26% protein, lentils have the third-highest level of protein, by weight, of any plant-based food after soybeans and hemp, and is an important part of the diet in many parts of the world, especially in the Indian subcontinent which has large vegetarian populations.
A variety of lentils exists with colors that range from yellow to red-orange to green, brown and black. Red, white and yellow lentils are decorticated, i.e., they have their skins removed. There are large and small varieties of many lentils (e.g., Masoor Lentils). Lentils are sold in many forms, with or without the skins, whole or split.
Culturally, other pulses are sometimes called lentils but are actually beans or peas, e.g. "black lentils" (urad beans)
Ns Shrn grndniece nchls grdn tt
/////////////If you can’t annoy somebody, there is little point in writing.
~ Kingsley Amis
//////////////////The secret of good writing is to say an old thin in new way or to say a new thing an old way.
~ Richard Harding Davis
/////////////////////Writing is a struggle against silence.
~ Carlos Fuentes
////////////////MUSIC BREAKS TYRANNY OF STREAMING CONSCIOUSNESS
WRITING OR READING BREAKS TYRANNY OF SILENCE
//////////////AUTOPEOTOMY
But not from the two old ladies. They remained quite impassive, thinking. I could see the lexicographical gears grinding in their minds. Then suddenly, and in unison I swear, they spoke: "Autopeotomy!" they cried. Then one to the other: "Yes, Mildred - peotomy is the amputation of the penis. But doing it yourself - that must be autopeotomy. A neologism, I am sure. And Mr Winchester, if you can include this new word in an illustrative sentence in the book you are writing, then we will include it in the next edition of the OED, and you'll be a small part of history."
And so I did, and it duly was and I duly am, and there autopeotomy lies for ever, part of the glittering marvels that make up the English language and which, on Wednesday, is set to celebrate the creation of its one millionth word, according to the Global Language Monitor, a Texas-based association of academics that tracks the use of new words.
//////////////////The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
////////////////// Depending on the problem, media may be an escape or a way to cope
The last thing most people in a bad love affair want to do is to read informational articles about romance. But people facing financial difficulties often choose to read articles which may help them cope with their money problems. Those are some of the findings of a new study that aimed to discover whether people use the news media to escape from their problems or find information on how to cope with them.
////////////////// Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
HEMIGWAY
////////////////////1963:
Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to
death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.
//////////////////Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well,
are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
--Ben Jonson
////////////////////productive stupidity=Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.
/////////////////POETIC LICENCE
///////////////////NMRLGY=3
Positive Traits: adaptable, resilient, charismatic,
communicative, persuasive
Negative Traits: cynicism, irresponsibility, superficiality,
overbearing, promiscuity
///////////////////
~ Kingsley Amis
//////////////////The secret of good writing is to say an old thin in new way or to say a new thing an old way.
~ Richard Harding Davis
/////////////////////Writing is a struggle against silence.
~ Carlos Fuentes
////////////////MUSIC BREAKS TYRANNY OF STREAMING CONSCIOUSNESS
WRITING OR READING BREAKS TYRANNY OF SILENCE
//////////////AUTOPEOTOMY
But not from the two old ladies. They remained quite impassive, thinking. I could see the lexicographical gears grinding in their minds. Then suddenly, and in unison I swear, they spoke: "Autopeotomy!" they cried. Then one to the other: "Yes, Mildred - peotomy is the amputation of the penis. But doing it yourself - that must be autopeotomy. A neologism, I am sure. And Mr Winchester, if you can include this new word in an illustrative sentence in the book you are writing, then we will include it in the next edition of the OED, and you'll be a small part of history."
And so I did, and it duly was and I duly am, and there autopeotomy lies for ever, part of the glittering marvels that make up the English language and which, on Wednesday, is set to celebrate the creation of its one millionth word, according to the Global Language Monitor, a Texas-based association of academics that tracks the use of new words.
//////////////////The Road Not Taken
by Robert Frost
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
////////////////// Depending on the problem, media may be an escape or a way to cope
The last thing most people in a bad love affair want to do is to read informational articles about romance. But people facing financial difficulties often choose to read articles which may help them cope with their money problems. Those are some of the findings of a new study that aimed to discover whether people use the news media to escape from their problems or find information on how to cope with them.
////////////////// Happiness in intelligent people is the rarest thing I know.
HEMIGWAY
////////////////////1963:
Vietnamese Mahayana Buddhist monk Thích Quảng Đức burned himself to
death in Saigon to protest the persecution of Buddhists by South
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's administration.
//////////////////Talking and eloquence are not the same: to speak, and to speak well,
are two things. A fool may talk, but a wise man speaks.
--Ben Jonson
////////////////////productive stupidity=Productive stupidity means being ignorant by choice. Focusing on important questions puts us in the awkward position of being ignorant. One of the beautiful things about science is that it allows us to bumble along, getting it wrong time after time, and feel perfectly fine as long as we learn something each time. No doubt, this can be difficult for students who are accustomed to getting the answers right. No doubt, reasonable levels of confidence and emotional resilience help, but I think scientific education might do more to ease what is a very big transition: from learning what other people once discovered to making your own discoveries. The more comfortable we become with being stupid, the deeper we will wade into the unknown and the more likely we are to make big discoveries.
/////////////////POETIC LICENCE
///////////////////NMRLGY=3
Positive Traits: adaptable, resilient, charismatic,
communicative, persuasive
Negative Traits: cynicism, irresponsibility, superficiality,
overbearing, promiscuity
///////////////////
CDS 110609-SWN FLU PNDMC-PYRMD PT GUCK
/////////////JOY OF LESS
/////////////In the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.
///////////////STV LNS-PRNTS 75-BTH DYING OF CA-ANT DD
SMLR AGE TO OWN PRNTS
//////////////////right-size” my lifestyle.
///////////////////If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies.
/////////////////PICO IYER=ut none of that has anything to do with the fact underneath all this: that I — and most readers of this paper — are among the lucky few able to see the global neighborhood, and try to make sense of it, to meet our planetary neighbors, as my grandparents could barely have dreamed of doing. The unfriendliest skies in the world are better than no skies at all.
/////////////FEMINISM-BITTER OR HAPPY
//////////////Walking Off Extra Pounds
Everyday Health member dbldee47 recently started walking for exercise. She writes, "Because it is convenient, I am consistent with my exercise and after only a week, I feel so good that I've begun challenging myself to walk more difficult routes (steeper hills, increasing distance)."
/////////////////1/2 OF A YELLOW SUN-WBC
/////////////Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun takes place in Nigeria during the Nigerian-Biafran War in 1967-1970. The effect of the war is shown through the dynamic relationships of five people’s lives ranging from high ranking political figures, a professor, a British citizen, and a houseboy. After the British left Nigeria and stopped ruling, conflicts arose over what government would rule over the land. The land split and the Nigeria-Biafra war started. The lives of the main characters drastically changed and were torn apart by the war and decisions in their personal life.
#'''''//////////////DTWLK=So is less really best when it comes to how many calories we eat? One might think that reducing calories is the most direct way to manage weight. However, this can backfire, especially with eating less than 1200 calories per day (or higher in some individuals). When one cuts their calories down too low the body's metabolism (the rate at which we burn calories) can become compromised and slow down. This happens as the body senses starvation and switches into conservation mode, burning fewer calories so that the available calories go to vital body organs. As a result of a slower metabolism the body can't burn calories as efficiently which can slow down and/or prevent weight loss. Does this sound familiar? Many diets actually result in deprivation gone-too-far and slow the metabolism.
The solution in this case is to eat more (and ditch the diet)! By gradually increasing your calorie level with healthful food choices and eating at regular intervals you will be optimizing your metabolism.
/////////////// today is Great Barrier Reef Discovery Day? In 1770,
Captain James Cook discovered the Great Barrier Reef off the
coast of Australia when his ship, the Endeavour, ran aground
upon it. Trivia buffs: The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from
outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made
by living organisms.
//////////////////SD=The Black Swan and Your Emergency Fund
The basic premise of The Black Swan seems like common sense: life is full of unexpected events. Big ones (like, say, 9/11), medium sized ones (like, say, a career shift), and small ones (like, say, your daughter wetting her pants just before you’re about to leave on an errand).
The Black Swan argues that our minds use a lot of tricks to hide these so-called “black swans” (his term for largely unpredictable and rare events) from us. We need to see the future as at least somewhat predictable, or else we wouldn’t bother making many plans at all. So, when we reflect on our past, it seems much more orderly than it actually was. Also, when we think about the future, we imagine something much more orderly than what will happen.
This idea makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. I know that quite often, when I think about the past, it does seem like an orderly progression of things. However, when I look at old diary entries and old videos, I see that there were actually a lot of “black swans” floating around. I didn’t see The Simple Dollar’s success coming at all, for one. When I went to college, I didn’t see myself working for a slightly eccentric German fellow who would basically set up my first career for me and also taught me how to pack effectively for business travel - he was a black swan.
Given that, I think there are a lot of things one can do in their own life that will prepare oneself for the arrivals of black swans of all magnitude.
Learn a wide variety of skills. I don’t just mean transferable skills, either. Know how to make things. Know how to build things. These skills will come in handy over and over again, often in unexpected ways.
Live frugally. I believe that’s one of the underlying messages here - frugality is a great economic and personal advantage. Knowing how to always maximize one’s resources makes one much more able to survive great changes in life - and also gives the person the ability to build up resources (as mentioned below).
Minimize your future costs. If you can use your money now to invest in things that will reduce your costs in the future, do it. The fewer resources required in the future to maintain your way of life means that fewer “black swans” can disrupt you.
Have a large, stable emergency fund. Having a large amount of cash reserves makes it possible for you to ride right through any small and medium-sized “black swans.” Your car unexpectedly dies? Not a problem. A career opportunity comes up? You can jump at it. You lose your job? Not the end of the world.
Have a good “opportunity” fund, too. Sometimes the unexpected comes along and it requires you to have resources. For example, there’s a large chunk of land near our house for sale. If it suddenly makes a nice drop in price, I’ll jump on it. If I happen to see the owner sometime soon, I may negotiate. It’s been up for sale for quite a while, so something nice may happen soon - not quite a black swan, but a good example. A real “black swan” might be that a neighbor is in a pinch and puts a sign on his car that says “$5,000 or best offer” and you can walk over there with $3,000 in cash, snipe it, then resell it for $5,000 with some footwork.
In short, keep some resources at hand, make yourself more useful, and minimize what you’ll need in the future.
/////////////////MKK-WNTNG TO CRY-WTC
//////////////////JUPITER COULD CAUSE PLANETARY CHAOS
The gravity of Jupiter could one day pull Mercury off course triggering a chain reaction of collisions in the Solar System, say experts.
/////////////////
The common curse of mankind,—folly and ignorance. -Troilus and Cressida. Act ii. Sc. 3.
~William Shakespeare~
//////////////////Conditioned Hypereater?
Dr. David Kessler suggests that millions of people worldwide are afflicted by “conditioned hypereating,” an intrinsic drive to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods that’s been exploited by the corporate food industry.
//////////////////DTWLK=Naturally thin people, on the other hand, recognize slight to moderate hunger for what it is — an uncomfortable sensation that will neither last nor do any permanent damage. They intuitively understand that we're not in a famine and that food is generally a quick walk or car ride away. They know they won't die of hunger, because they learned in high school biology that people can live for days without food. Because of their non-alarmist attitude, they're often able to ignore their hunger till food is available.
My advice to overweight people who are never hungry is to actually let yourself experience hunger once in a while. Doing so will help you to deal with it the way naturally thin people do.
///////////////////SRT TRIAGE=Chapter XVIII: The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation
XVIII.26. MUKTASANGO'NAHAMVAADI DHRITYUTSAAHASAMANVITAH;
SIDDHYASIDDHYOR NIRVIKAARAH KARTAA SAATTWIKA UCHYATE.
(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
He who is free from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with
firmness and enthusiasm and unaffected by success or failure, is
called Sattwic.
XVIII.27. RAAGEE KARMAPHALAPREPSUR LUBDHO HIMSAATMAKO'SHUCHIH;
HARSHASHOKAANVITAH KARTAA RAAJASAH PARIKEERTITAH.
Passionate, desiring to obtain the rewards of actions, cruel,
greedy, impure, moved by joy and sorrow, such an agent is said to
be Rajasic.
XVIII.28. AYUKTAH PRAAKRITAH STABDHAH SHATHO NAISHKRITIKO'LASAH;
VISHAADEE DEERGHASOOTREE CHA KARTAA TAAMASA UCHYATE.
Unsteady, dejected, unbending, cheating, malicious, vulgar, lazy
and proscrastinating-such an agent is called Tamasic.
/////////////////Did population density create modern humans?
by Kate Melville
A controversial new study in the journal Science argues that increasing population density, rather than growth in the power of the human brain, is what catalyzed the emergence of modern human behavior. The University College London (UCL) scientists behind the study say that high population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and prevents the loss of new innovations. It is this skill maintenance, they contend, combined with a greater probability of useful innovations, which led to modern human behavior appearing at different times in different parts of the world.
In the study, the UCL team found that complex skills learnt across generations can only be maintained when there is a critical level of interaction between people. Using computer simulations of social learning, they showed that high and low-skilled groups could coexist over long periods of time and that the degree of skill they maintained depended on local population density or the degree of migration between them.
//////////////////The day pain died
What really happened during the most famous moment in Boston medicine
The great moment in the Ether Dome when William Morton administered anesthesia to patient Gilbert Abbott on Oct. 16, 1846.
By Mike Jay
June 7, 2009
Email|Print|Reprints|Yahoo! Buzz|ShareThis Text size – +
The date of the first operation under anesthetic, Oct. 16, 1846, ranks among the most iconic in the history of medicine. It was the moment when Boston, and indeed the United States, first emerged as a world-class center of medical innovation. The room at the heart of Massachusetts General Hospital where the operation took place has been known ever since as the Ether Dome, and the word "anesthesia" itself was coined by the Boston physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes to denote the strange new state of suspended consciousness that the city's physicians had witnessed. The news from Boston swept around the world, and it was recognized within weeks as a moment that had changed medicine forever.
Discuss
COMMENTS (4)
But what precisely was invented that day? Not a chemical - the mysterious substance used by William Morton, the local dentist who performed the procedure, turned out to be simply ether, a volatile solvent that had been in common use for decades. And not the idea of anesthesia - ether, and the anesthetic gas nitrous oxide, had both been thoroughly inhaled and explored. As far back as 1525, the Renaissance physician Paracelsus had recorded that it made chickens "fall asleep, but wake up again after some time without any bad effect," and that it "extinguishes pain" for the duration.
What the great moment in the Ether Dome really marked was something less tangible but far more significant: a huge cultural shift in the idea of pain. Operating under anesthetic would transform medicine, dramatically expanding the scope of what doctors were able to accomplish. What needed to change first wasn't the technology - that was long since established - but medicine's readiness to use it.
Before 1846, the vast majority of religious and medical opinion held that pain was inseparable from sensation in general, and thus from life itself. Though the idea of pain as necessary may seem primitive and brutal to us today, it lingers in certain corners of healthcare, such as obstetrics and childbirth, where epidurals and caesarean sections still carry the taint of moral opprobrium. In the early 19th century, doctors interested in the pain-relieving properties of ether and nitrous oxide were characterized as cranks and profiteers. The case against them was not merely practical, but moral: They were seen as seeking to exploit their patients' base and cowardly instincts. Furthermore, by whipping up the fear of operations, they were frightening others away from surgery and damaging public health.
The "eureka moment" of anesthesia, like the seemingly sudden arrival of many new technologies, was not so much a moment of discovery as a moment of recognition: a tipping point when society decided that old attitudes needed to be overthrown. It was a social revolution as much as a medical one: a crucial breakthrough not only for modern medicine, but for modernity itself. It required not simply new science, but a radical change in how we saw ourselves.Continued...
/////////////////
/////////////////////peak oil=ut our markets might save the day, or something better might come along. One pithy maxim (“the Stone Age ended before we ran out of stone”) captures this sentiment by reminding us that rocks were replaced with something better: metals. And the same story was true with whale oil: Despite concerns in the late 1800s that whaling would cause the extinction of these marvelous marine mammals (“peak whale,” if you will), we ran out of whale oil customers before we ran out of whales because a competitive product — namely, petroleum-derived kerosene — came along that was better than whale oil for illumination.
/////////////In the corporate world, I always knew there was some higher position I could attain, which meant that, like Zeno’s arrow, I was guaranteed never to arrive and always to remain dissatisfied.
///////////////STV LNS-PRNTS 75-BTH DYING OF CA-ANT DD
SMLR AGE TO OWN PRNTS
//////////////////right-size” my lifestyle.
///////////////////If you’re the kind of person who prefers freedom to security, who feels more comfortable in a small room than a large one and who finds that happiness comes from matching your wants to your needs, then running to stand still isn’t where your joy lies.
/////////////////PICO IYER=ut none of that has anything to do with the fact underneath all this: that I — and most readers of this paper — are among the lucky few able to see the global neighborhood, and try to make sense of it, to meet our planetary neighbors, as my grandparents could barely have dreamed of doing. The unfriendliest skies in the world are better than no skies at all.
/////////////FEMINISM-BITTER OR HAPPY
//////////////Walking Off Extra Pounds
Everyday Health member dbldee47 recently started walking for exercise. She writes, "Because it is convenient, I am consistent with my exercise and after only a week, I feel so good that I've begun challenging myself to walk more difficult routes (steeper hills, increasing distance)."
/////////////////1/2 OF A YELLOW SUN-WBC
/////////////Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's novel Half of a Yellow Sun takes place in Nigeria during the Nigerian-Biafran War in 1967-1970. The effect of the war is shown through the dynamic relationships of five people’s lives ranging from high ranking political figures, a professor, a British citizen, and a houseboy. After the British left Nigeria and stopped ruling, conflicts arose over what government would rule over the land. The land split and the Nigeria-Biafra war started. The lives of the main characters drastically changed and were torn apart by the war and decisions in their personal life.
#'''''//////////////DTWLK=So is less really best when it comes to how many calories we eat? One might think that reducing calories is the most direct way to manage weight. However, this can backfire, especially with eating less than 1200 calories per day (or higher in some individuals). When one cuts their calories down too low the body's metabolism (the rate at which we burn calories) can become compromised and slow down. This happens as the body senses starvation and switches into conservation mode, burning fewer calories so that the available calories go to vital body organs. As a result of a slower metabolism the body can't burn calories as efficiently which can slow down and/or prevent weight loss. Does this sound familiar? Many diets actually result in deprivation gone-too-far and slow the metabolism.
The solution in this case is to eat more (and ditch the diet)! By gradually increasing your calorie level with healthful food choices and eating at regular intervals you will be optimizing your metabolism.
/////////////// today is Great Barrier Reef Discovery Day? In 1770,
Captain James Cook discovered the Great Barrier Reef off the
coast of Australia when his ship, the Endeavour, ran aground
upon it. Trivia buffs: The Great Barrier Reef can be seen from
outer space and is the world's biggest single structure made
by living organisms.
//////////////////SD=The Black Swan and Your Emergency Fund
The basic premise of The Black Swan seems like common sense: life is full of unexpected events. Big ones (like, say, 9/11), medium sized ones (like, say, a career shift), and small ones (like, say, your daughter wetting her pants just before you’re about to leave on an errand).
The Black Swan argues that our minds use a lot of tricks to hide these so-called “black swans” (his term for largely unpredictable and rare events) from us. We need to see the future as at least somewhat predictable, or else we wouldn’t bother making many plans at all. So, when we reflect on our past, it seems much more orderly than it actually was. Also, when we think about the future, we imagine something much more orderly than what will happen.
This idea makes a lot of intuitive sense to me. I know that quite often, when I think about the past, it does seem like an orderly progression of things. However, when I look at old diary entries and old videos, I see that there were actually a lot of “black swans” floating around. I didn’t see The Simple Dollar’s success coming at all, for one. When I went to college, I didn’t see myself working for a slightly eccentric German fellow who would basically set up my first career for me and also taught me how to pack effectively for business travel - he was a black swan.
Given that, I think there are a lot of things one can do in their own life that will prepare oneself for the arrivals of black swans of all magnitude.
Learn a wide variety of skills. I don’t just mean transferable skills, either. Know how to make things. Know how to build things. These skills will come in handy over and over again, often in unexpected ways.
Live frugally. I believe that’s one of the underlying messages here - frugality is a great economic and personal advantage. Knowing how to always maximize one’s resources makes one much more able to survive great changes in life - and also gives the person the ability to build up resources (as mentioned below).
Minimize your future costs. If you can use your money now to invest in things that will reduce your costs in the future, do it. The fewer resources required in the future to maintain your way of life means that fewer “black swans” can disrupt you.
Have a large, stable emergency fund. Having a large amount of cash reserves makes it possible for you to ride right through any small and medium-sized “black swans.” Your car unexpectedly dies? Not a problem. A career opportunity comes up? You can jump at it. You lose your job? Not the end of the world.
Have a good “opportunity” fund, too. Sometimes the unexpected comes along and it requires you to have resources. For example, there’s a large chunk of land near our house for sale. If it suddenly makes a nice drop in price, I’ll jump on it. If I happen to see the owner sometime soon, I may negotiate. It’s been up for sale for quite a while, so something nice may happen soon - not quite a black swan, but a good example. A real “black swan” might be that a neighbor is in a pinch and puts a sign on his car that says “$5,000 or best offer” and you can walk over there with $3,000 in cash, snipe it, then resell it for $5,000 with some footwork.
In short, keep some resources at hand, make yourself more useful, and minimize what you’ll need in the future.
/////////////////MKK-WNTNG TO CRY-WTC
//////////////////JUPITER COULD CAUSE PLANETARY CHAOS
The gravity of Jupiter could one day pull Mercury off course triggering a chain reaction of collisions in the Solar System, say experts.
/////////////////
The common curse of mankind,—folly and ignorance. -Troilus and Cressida. Act ii. Sc. 3.
~William Shakespeare~
//////////////////Conditioned Hypereater?
Dr. David Kessler suggests that millions of people worldwide are afflicted by “conditioned hypereating,” an intrinsic drive to eat high-fat, high-sugar foods that’s been exploited by the corporate food industry.
//////////////////DTWLK=Naturally thin people, on the other hand, recognize slight to moderate hunger for what it is — an uncomfortable sensation that will neither last nor do any permanent damage. They intuitively understand that we're not in a famine and that food is generally a quick walk or car ride away. They know they won't die of hunger, because they learned in high school biology that people can live for days without food. Because of their non-alarmist attitude, they're often able to ignore their hunger till food is available.
My advice to overweight people who are never hungry is to actually let yourself experience hunger once in a while. Doing so will help you to deal with it the way naturally thin people do.
///////////////////SRT TRIAGE=Chapter XVIII: The Yoga of Liberation by Renunciation
XVIII.26. MUKTASANGO'NAHAMVAADI DHRITYUTSAAHASAMANVITAH;
SIDDHYASIDDHYOR NIRVIKAARAH KARTAA SAATTWIKA UCHYATE.
(Krishna speaking to Arjuna)
He who is free from attachment, non-egoistic, endowed with
firmness and enthusiasm and unaffected by success or failure, is
called Sattwic.
XVIII.27. RAAGEE KARMAPHALAPREPSUR LUBDHO HIMSAATMAKO'SHUCHIH;
HARSHASHOKAANVITAH KARTAA RAAJASAH PARIKEERTITAH.
Passionate, desiring to obtain the rewards of actions, cruel,
greedy, impure, moved by joy and sorrow, such an agent is said to
be Rajasic.
XVIII.28. AYUKTAH PRAAKRITAH STABDHAH SHATHO NAISHKRITIKO'LASAH;
VISHAADEE DEERGHASOOTREE CHA KARTAA TAAMASA UCHYATE.
Unsteady, dejected, unbending, cheating, malicious, vulgar, lazy
and proscrastinating-such an agent is called Tamasic.
/////////////////Did population density create modern humans?
by Kate Melville
A controversial new study in the journal Science argues that increasing population density, rather than growth in the power of the human brain, is what catalyzed the emergence of modern human behavior. The University College London (UCL) scientists behind the study say that high population density leads to greater exchange of ideas and skills and prevents the loss of new innovations. It is this skill maintenance, they contend, combined with a greater probability of useful innovations, which led to modern human behavior appearing at different times in different parts of the world.
In the study, the UCL team found that complex skills learnt across generations can only be maintained when there is a critical level of interaction between people. Using computer simulations of social learning, they showed that high and low-skilled groups could coexist over long periods of time and that the degree of skill they maintained depended on local population density or the degree of migration between them.
//////////////////The day pain died
What really happened during the most famous moment in Boston medicine
The great moment in the Ether Dome when William Morton administered anesthesia to patient Gilbert Abbott on Oct. 16, 1846.
By Mike Jay
June 7, 2009
Email|Print|Reprints|Yahoo! Buzz|ShareThis Text size – +
The date of the first operation under anesthetic, Oct. 16, 1846, ranks among the most iconic in the history of medicine. It was the moment when Boston, and indeed the United States, first emerged as a world-class center of medical innovation. The room at the heart of Massachusetts General Hospital where the operation took place has been known ever since as the Ether Dome, and the word "anesthesia" itself was coined by the Boston physician and poet Oliver Wendell Holmes to denote the strange new state of suspended consciousness that the city's physicians had witnessed. The news from Boston swept around the world, and it was recognized within weeks as a moment that had changed medicine forever.
Discuss
COMMENTS (4)
But what precisely was invented that day? Not a chemical - the mysterious substance used by William Morton, the local dentist who performed the procedure, turned out to be simply ether, a volatile solvent that had been in common use for decades. And not the idea of anesthesia - ether, and the anesthetic gas nitrous oxide, had both been thoroughly inhaled and explored. As far back as 1525, the Renaissance physician Paracelsus had recorded that it made chickens "fall asleep, but wake up again after some time without any bad effect," and that it "extinguishes pain" for the duration.
What the great moment in the Ether Dome really marked was something less tangible but far more significant: a huge cultural shift in the idea of pain. Operating under anesthetic would transform medicine, dramatically expanding the scope of what doctors were able to accomplish. What needed to change first wasn't the technology - that was long since established - but medicine's readiness to use it.
Before 1846, the vast majority of religious and medical opinion held that pain was inseparable from sensation in general, and thus from life itself. Though the idea of pain as necessary may seem primitive and brutal to us today, it lingers in certain corners of healthcare, such as obstetrics and childbirth, where epidurals and caesarean sections still carry the taint of moral opprobrium. In the early 19th century, doctors interested in the pain-relieving properties of ether and nitrous oxide were characterized as cranks and profiteers. The case against them was not merely practical, but moral: They were seen as seeking to exploit their patients' base and cowardly instincts. Furthermore, by whipping up the fear of operations, they were frightening others away from surgery and damaging public health.
The "eureka moment" of anesthesia, like the seemingly sudden arrival of many new technologies, was not so much a moment of discovery as a moment of recognition: a tipping point when society decided that old attitudes needed to be overthrown. It was a social revolution as much as a medical one: a crucial breakthrough not only for modern medicine, but for modernity itself. It required not simply new science, but a radical change in how we saw ourselves.Continued...
/////////////////
/////////////////////peak oil=ut our markets might save the day, or something better might come along. One pithy maxim (“the Stone Age ended before we ran out of stone”) captures this sentiment by reminding us that rocks were replaced with something better: metals. And the same story was true with whale oil: Despite concerns in the late 1800s that whaling would cause the extinction of these marvelous marine mammals (“peak whale,” if you will), we ran out of whale oil customers before we ran out of whales because a competitive product — namely, petroleum-derived kerosene — came along that was better than whale oil for illumination.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)