THE WAY WE WERE
//////////////////nsb=How much is a Nobel worth?
Posted: 01 Jan 2009 06:41 PM CST
Nobel laureates on the board bring in the bacon when it is time to capitalize a firm:
WHAT is a Nobel prize really worth? The market values it at $34m, according to a new NBER paper
///////////////Contumely (noun)
Pronunciation: [kên-'t(y)u-mê-lee or kên-'t(y)um-lee]
Definition: Rudeness whose roots are in arrogance; an arrogant remark or action.
Usage: 2. This is a noun that ends on a syllable [lee] that coincidentally happens to be an adverbial suffix in English. It is almost physically difficult to use as a noun but that is what it is! Questions of taste in aesthetic matters (music preferences, clothing favorites, and so on) often bring out contumely in people.
Suggested Usage: This word will require some struggle to restore but it is worth the effort. "Don't react with contumely to the answer after you asked me which fast food restaurant I like!" "She responded to my suggestion with such contumely that she was mistaken for the queen."
//////////////////////ns=Happiness is near
They also discovered that the effect is not the same with everyone you know. How susceptible you are to someone else's happiness depends on the nature of your relationship with them. For example, if a good friend who lives within a couple of kilometres of you suddenly becomes happy, that increases the chances of you becoming happy by more than 60 per cent. In contrast, for a next-door neighbour the figure drops to about half that, and for a nearby sibling about half again. Surprisingly, a cohabiting partner makes a difference of less than 10 per cent, which coincides with another peculiar observation about some social epidemics: that they spread far more effectively via friends of the same gender.
All this poses a key question: how can something like happiness be contagious? Some researchers think one of the most likely mechanisms is empathetic mimicry. Psychologists have shown that people unconsciously copy the facial expressions, manner of speech, posture, body language and other behaviours of those around them, often with remarkable speed and accuracy. This then causes them, through a kind of neural feedback, to actually experience the emotions associated with the particular behaviour they are mimicking.
////////////////////webscape-piclens-radiopaq-
////////////////
Friday, 2 January 2009
JBS CRNAGE GS ON
/////////////////piffe=
If The Earth was A Village!
If we could shrink the earth's population to village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratio remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be:
*
57 Asians
*
21 Europeans
*
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
*
8 Africans
*
52 would be female
*
48 would be male
*
70 would be non-white
*
30 would be white
*
70 would be non-Christian
*
30 would be Christian
*
89 would be heterosexual
*
11 would be homosexual
*
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
*
80 would live in substandard housing
*
70 would be unable to read
*
50 would suffer from malnutrition
*
1 would be near death
*
1 would be near birth
*
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
*
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The following is also something to ponder...
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than many others. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
Someone once said: What goes around comes around.
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
Author Unknown
/////////////////////There is something spiritual and magic about old book stores and libraries.
Maybe it is just the smell of old books bringing back forgotten childhood memories, or maybe there is a deeper spiritual connection I can’t explain, but every time I am in a library I feel connected to a higher wisdom and my creativity and inspiration take flight.
There was a public library by my apartment building where I would spend hours every day. I would take my stack of books, go outside in the park, lay down under a majestic eucalyptus tree and read until my back started hurting.
////////////////////////
Official 2012
Countdown
Get this 2012 countdown
timer only at the
Official2012Countdown
The Pole Shift / Reversal in 2012
source: www.howtosurvive2012.com by Patrick Geryl
Author Patrick Geryl came to the staggering conclusion that the Earth will soon be subjected to an immense disaster. The cause: upheavals in
the sun's magnetic fields will generate gigantic solar flares that will affect the polarity of the entire Earth. The result: our magnetic field will
reverse all at once, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.
Massive earthquakes will demolish all buildings on the planet, and instigate colossal tsunamis and intense volcanic activity. In fact, the Earth's
crust will shift, sweeping continents thousands of miles away from their present positions.
There is ample evidence in the literature of ancient civilizations that such disasters have occurred in the past and also clues that they knew
when another such calamity would occur. The Dresden Codex of the Maya for instance, contains the secrets of the sunspot cycle, about which
our modern astronomers know almost nothing!
In his books, Patrick Geryl continues his scientific analysis of the millennia-old codes of the Maya and Egyptians that refer to the coming
super-disaster. He determines that both cultures arose from an antediluvian civilization which was able to calculate the previous polar shifts
and that we should take very seriously their calculations that place the next reversal in 2012!
////////////////////summarizes 2008 it probably is 'Humanity in Crisis'.
./////////////////////Certainly neurones, hormones and other brain chemicals
play a role in all of our experience, and the brain as a physical system
allows experience to take place at all. But there are several other
layers of things involved in our experiences, from the physical world
itself, through the cultural schemas, models and languages through which
we cognize the world, to the structure of the brain, and finally the way
that neuronal structures are able to re-organize and re-model the world
in their own medium.
Judy writes: "Those who meditate increase blood flow to certain areas of
the brain and (probably reflexively) decrease it to other areas, so
perhaps it is all a matter of oxygenation, and there are no
brain-produced biochemicals involved at all."
Judy, this is so wrong it is hard to know where to start. Meditation is
about learning to create a space between stimuli and our response. When
we create that space, we free ourself from the automatic responses and
give ourselves room for a creative response. Within the space itself,
one experiences one's being as being, which allows one to experience
consciousness in its fullness. Whatever the relationship between
consciousness and blood and other chemicals is, we don't know, but
meditation is about consciousness, not blood and hormones.
Judy writes: "I think there are people who do have some sort of
experience of an Other of which I may be incapable. I'm pretty sure that
the accompanying conceptualizations bear almost no resemblence to
whatever may actually be out there."
If its all blood neurons and hormones, what is a self? What else could
the self be but an illusion, and if the self is an illusion, than the
truth is that all is otherness relative to that illusion. But of course,
it is not all blood, neurons, and hormones, and the self, like culture,
is composed of narratives. But beyond the narratives, there is no
essence -- the narrative is generated out of the otherness of nature and
culture. Through meditayion one gets beyond the narrative to the
otherness. Otherness is the tree in which the narrative "I" has its
nest. Further, the other is not "out there." The other is within, it
is the life of our life.
T
////////////////////////A supervolcano is one that explodes in (natch) supereruptions. Definitions vary, but usually we're talking a magnitude-eight (M8) eruption: one trillion metric tons of ash and other debris filling at least 100 cubic miles, typically upchucked over the course of about a week. Picture 1,000 Mount Saint Helenses, or 8 Tamboras. Besides causing regional devastation, supereruptions affect global climate. An Indonesian super 74,000 years ago kicked off a thousand-year drought that some contend caused a human population crash. One shudders to think what a similar blow would do now.
Yellowstone is both a supervolcano and a hotspot; the two don't always go together. A hotspot is the business end of what's known as a mantle plume, a stream of magma that rises hundreds of miles through a channel in the earth’s crust like the blob in a lava lamp. The Yellowstone plume head, 50 miles underground, is several hundred miles wide. Over time, the hot head melts the overlying crust, forming a smaller magma chamber. Yellowstone's magma chamber is just a few miles down and contains partially melted granite viscous enough to trap gas, allowing pressure to build. Periodically the pressure cracks the surface, explosively ejecting gas and disintegrated rock into the surface world. After about a tenth of the chamber's contents have erupted, pressure falls and the show's over. Reheat and repeat.
For more, see:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2834/is-yellowstone-park-sitting-on-a-supervolcano-thats-about-to-blow
//////////////////What exactly causes ejaculation?
Perhaps surprisingly, that's a tough one -- the "exactly" part being the major sticking point. Scientists are pretty sure it has something to do with the spine and some muscles, but they're not sure how it all fits together. Part of the problem is a lack of careful research. Physiologist Roy Levin reviewed the literature in 2005 and discovered that, "of the four "e's" of male sexual function, excitation, erection, emission, and ejaculation, the mechanism that has been studied the least is the last." Standard Practice in Sexual Medicine (2006) says, "a detailed, non-disputed physio-anatomic description of the mechanism of human ejaculation has still to be produced." In other words, we don't know everything just yet -- we're still scratching our heads a bit. The fact that we don't know everything, of course, doesn't mean we know nothing.
For more, see:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2835/how-does-ejaculation-work
//////////////////////New Anti-cancer Components Of Extra-virgin Olive Oil Revealed (December 27, 2008) -- Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals, 'phytochemicals', that can trigger cancer cell death. New research sheds more light on the suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and reductions in breast cancer risk. ... > full story
///////////////////Women Double Fruit, Veggie Intake With Switch To Mediterranean Diet Plan (December 31, 2008) -- Women more than doubled their fruit and vegetable intakes and dramatically increased their consumption of 'good' fats when they were counseled by registered dietitians and provided with a list of guidelines on the amount of certain foods they should eat each day. ... > full story
//////////////////////Berry Compound Reduces Aging Effect (December 30, 2008) -- Aged laboratory animals that ate a diet rich in the berry and grape compound pterostilbene performed better than those in a group that did not eat the enriched diet, scientists with the Agricultural Research Service have reported. Pterostilbene reversed measurable negative effects of aging on brain function and behavioral performance. ... > full story
////////////////////////////
If The Earth was A Village!
If we could shrink the earth's population to village of precisely 100 people, with all the existing human ratio remaining the same, it would look something like the following:
There would be:
*
57 Asians
*
21 Europeans
*
14 from the Western Hemisphere, both north and south
*
8 Africans
*
52 would be female
*
48 would be male
*
70 would be non-white
*
30 would be white
*
70 would be non-Christian
*
30 would be Christian
*
89 would be heterosexual
*
11 would be homosexual
*
6 people would possess 59% of the entire world's wealth and all 6 would be from the United States.
*
80 would live in substandard housing
*
70 would be unable to read
*
50 would suffer from malnutrition
*
1 would be near death
*
1 would be near birth
*
1 (yes, only 1) would have a college education
*
1 would own a computer
When one considers our world from such a compressed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes glaringly apparent.
The following is also something to ponder...
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness...you are more blessed than many others. If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation...you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death...you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep...you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace ... you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If your parents are still alive and still married ... you are very rare, even in the United States and Canada.
If you can read this message, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world that cannot read at all.
Someone once said: What goes around comes around.
Work like you don't need the money.
Love like you've never been hurt.
Dance like nobody's watching.
Sing like nobody's listening.
Live like it's Heaven on Earth.
Author Unknown
/////////////////////There is something spiritual and magic about old book stores and libraries.
Maybe it is just the smell of old books bringing back forgotten childhood memories, or maybe there is a deeper spiritual connection I can’t explain, but every time I am in a library I feel connected to a higher wisdom and my creativity and inspiration take flight.
There was a public library by my apartment building where I would spend hours every day. I would take my stack of books, go outside in the park, lay down under a majestic eucalyptus tree and read until my back started hurting.
////////////////////////
Official 2012
Countdown
Get this 2012 countdown
timer only at the
Official2012Countdown
The Pole Shift / Reversal in 2012
source: www.howtosurvive2012.com by Patrick Geryl
Author Patrick Geryl came to the staggering conclusion that the Earth will soon be subjected to an immense disaster. The cause: upheavals in
the sun's magnetic fields will generate gigantic solar flares that will affect the polarity of the entire Earth. The result: our magnetic field will
reverse all at once, with catastrophic consequences for humanity.
Massive earthquakes will demolish all buildings on the planet, and instigate colossal tsunamis and intense volcanic activity. In fact, the Earth's
crust will shift, sweeping continents thousands of miles away from their present positions.
There is ample evidence in the literature of ancient civilizations that such disasters have occurred in the past and also clues that they knew
when another such calamity would occur. The Dresden Codex of the Maya for instance, contains the secrets of the sunspot cycle, about which
our modern astronomers know almost nothing!
In his books, Patrick Geryl continues his scientific analysis of the millennia-old codes of the Maya and Egyptians that refer to the coming
super-disaster. He determines that both cultures arose from an antediluvian civilization which was able to calculate the previous polar shifts
and that we should take very seriously their calculations that place the next reversal in 2012!
////////////////////summarizes 2008 it probably is 'Humanity in Crisis'.
./////////////////////Certainly neurones, hormones and other brain chemicals
play a role in all of our experience, and the brain as a physical system
allows experience to take place at all. But there are several other
layers of things involved in our experiences, from the physical world
itself, through the cultural schemas, models and languages through which
we cognize the world, to the structure of the brain, and finally the way
that neuronal structures are able to re-organize and re-model the world
in their own medium.
Judy writes: "Those who meditate increase blood flow to certain areas of
the brain and (probably reflexively) decrease it to other areas, so
perhaps it is all a matter of oxygenation, and there are no
brain-produced biochemicals involved at all."
Judy, this is so wrong it is hard to know where to start. Meditation is
about learning to create a space between stimuli and our response. When
we create that space, we free ourself from the automatic responses and
give ourselves room for a creative response. Within the space itself,
one experiences one's being as being, which allows one to experience
consciousness in its fullness. Whatever the relationship between
consciousness and blood and other chemicals is, we don't know, but
meditation is about consciousness, not blood and hormones.
Judy writes: "I think there are people who do have some sort of
experience of an Other of which I may be incapable. I'm pretty sure that
the accompanying conceptualizations bear almost no resemblence to
whatever may actually be out there."
If its all blood neurons and hormones, what is a self? What else could
the self be but an illusion, and if the self is an illusion, than the
truth is that all is otherness relative to that illusion. But of course,
it is not all blood, neurons, and hormones, and the self, like culture,
is composed of narratives. But beyond the narratives, there is no
essence -- the narrative is generated out of the otherness of nature and
culture. Through meditayion one gets beyond the narrative to the
otherness. Otherness is the tree in which the narrative "I" has its
nest. Further, the other is not "out there." The other is within, it
is the life of our life.
T
////////////////////////A supervolcano is one that explodes in (natch) supereruptions. Definitions vary, but usually we're talking a magnitude-eight (M8) eruption: one trillion metric tons of ash and other debris filling at least 100 cubic miles, typically upchucked over the course of about a week. Picture 1,000 Mount Saint Helenses, or 8 Tamboras. Besides causing regional devastation, supereruptions affect global climate. An Indonesian super 74,000 years ago kicked off a thousand-year drought that some contend caused a human population crash. One shudders to think what a similar blow would do now.
Yellowstone is both a supervolcano and a hotspot; the two don't always go together. A hotspot is the business end of what's known as a mantle plume, a stream of magma that rises hundreds of miles through a channel in the earth’s crust like the blob in a lava lamp. The Yellowstone plume head, 50 miles underground, is several hundred miles wide. Over time, the hot head melts the overlying crust, forming a smaller magma chamber. Yellowstone's magma chamber is just a few miles down and contains partially melted granite viscous enough to trap gas, allowing pressure to build. Periodically the pressure cracks the surface, explosively ejecting gas and disintegrated rock into the surface world. After about a tenth of the chamber's contents have erupted, pressure falls and the show's over. Reheat and repeat.
For more, see:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2834/is-yellowstone-park-sitting-on-a-supervolcano-thats-about-to-blow
//////////////////What exactly causes ejaculation?
Perhaps surprisingly, that's a tough one -- the "exactly" part being the major sticking point. Scientists are pretty sure it has something to do with the spine and some muscles, but they're not sure how it all fits together. Part of the problem is a lack of careful research. Physiologist Roy Levin reviewed the literature in 2005 and discovered that, "of the four "e's" of male sexual function, excitation, erection, emission, and ejaculation, the mechanism that has been studied the least is the last." Standard Practice in Sexual Medicine (2006) says, "a detailed, non-disputed physio-anatomic description of the mechanism of human ejaculation has still to be produced." In other words, we don't know everything just yet -- we're still scratching our heads a bit. The fact that we don't know everything, of course, doesn't mean we know nothing.
For more, see:
www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2835/how-does-ejaculation-work
//////////////////////New Anti-cancer Components Of Extra-virgin Olive Oil Revealed (December 27, 2008) -- Good quality extra-virgin olive oil contains health-relevant chemicals, 'phytochemicals', that can trigger cancer cell death. New research sheds more light on the suspected association between olive oil-rich Mediterranean diets and reductions in breast cancer risk. ... > full story
///////////////////Women Double Fruit, Veggie Intake With Switch To Mediterranean Diet Plan (December 31, 2008) -- Women more than doubled their fruit and vegetable intakes and dramatically increased their consumption of 'good' fats when they were counseled by registered dietitians and provided with a list of guidelines on the amount of certain foods they should eat each day. ... > full story
//////////////////////Berry Compound Reduces Aging Effect (December 30, 2008) -- Aged laboratory animals that ate a diet rich in the berry and grape compound pterostilbene performed better than those in a group that did not eat the enriched diet, scientists with the Agricultural Research Service have reported. Pterostilbene reversed measurable negative effects of aging on brain function and behavioral performance. ... > full story
////////////////////////////
Friday, 26 December 2008
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
CDS 231208-HbSC DISEASE
////////////////////Accelerated genetic drift on chromosome X during the human dispersal out of Africa
Alon Keinan1,2, James C Mullikin3, Nick Patterson2 & David Reich1,2
Top of page
Comparisons of chromosome X and the autosomes can illuminate differences in the histories of males and females as well as shed light on the forces of natural selection. We compared the patterns of variation in these parts of the genome using two datasets that we assembled for this study that are both genomic in scale. Three independent analyses show that around the time of the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, chromosome X experienced much more genetic drift than is expected from the pattern on the autosomes. This is not predicted by known episodes of demographic history, and we found no similar patterns associated with the dispersals into East Asia and Europe. We conclude that a sex-biased process that reduced the female effective population size, or an episode of natural selection unusually affecting chromosome X, was associated with the founding of non-African populations.
////////////////////////////////////Darwinian evolution provides a wonderful explanation for physical
pain: it has survival value, and that's pretty much the story. But
the full range of our suffering goes way beyond physical pain.
Buddhism meditation practice lets us witness the difference between
the pain that belongs to the body and the pain that is created by the
mind. And it provides a systematic, though certainly not easy,
technique for eliminating the later.
>
Even with purely physical pain, not all of it has survival value.
Examples: pain from childbirth, terminal cancer, shingles, the
various neuropathies in which irritated pain neurons fire in the
absence of any surrounding tissue damage. True, the suffering from
physical pain can be ameliorated by learning to overcome the
associated fear, to engage in various relaxation techniques and
physical therapy exercises, to persist in one's usual activities
despite pain, and probably to engage in various forms of meditation.
But people like to believe that their suffering serves some purpose.
(Giving birth is a fine purpose, but why should it be painful? And
death is not always so.)
My own general explanation of suffering is that in order for
organisms that can get around on their own to survive and evolve,
they must not only learn to avoid tissue damage; they must as well
have a biologic drive to survive. And yet in order for us to evolve,
we have to die and make way for new generations. So the biologic
drive to survive must be frustrated. This works better as an
explanation for psychic distress than it does for physical pain from
such things as childbirth, terminal cancer, shingles and
neuropathies. About the best that can be said for such conditions is
that they amount to collateral damage.
And then there is the suffering that involves neither physical pain
nor unhelpful attitudes: the punishing auditory hallucinations of a
schizophrenia, the hypervigilence, emotional numbing and flashbacks
of PTSD, the black hole of despair in severe depression. Cognitive
therapy can help in some such cases, as can medication, but these
things are not merely a matter of mistaken thinking: there is actual
tissue damage in the brain. Presumably the damage can also occur in
the part of the brain which enables us to experience insight, though
exactly where that part is located either has not been determined, or
has been and I have not yet heard about it. How does any of this
have survival value?
It was long ago discovered that the very painful, debilitating and
life-shortening disease of sicle cell anemia has survival value in
areas endemic to malaria, in that those heterozygous to the condition
are more resistant to malaria. If you are homozygous it is just
tough luck. Perhaps other diseases, whether they affect the brain or
other organ systems, will also turn out to be relics of the interplay
between genetics and environment. For example, the calorie-hoarding
propensity found in obesity has survival advantage in places like
Eastern Europe where for millenia there were frequent famines. Now
that food is more widely and consistently available, people get fat
and develop diabetes and other problems.
J
/////////////////////////////////// "Avoiding Temptation"
It is so difficult this time of the year for me to
follow my own advice with everyone bringing candy,
cakes, etc. (I have a sweet tooth.)
It is too tempting for me to leave the "goodies"
alone, so I am trying to get most of them out of
the house immediately.
As I was unbuttoning my belt after having much
too much to eat yesterday, I asked myself why I
was dealing myself such misery. I know in my heart
of hearts that I feel sooooooooo much better
when I don't eat those sweets at all.
Years ago I had a boss who had a stroke and
recovered with only a slight limp. He lost a lot
of weight and was very thin. When offered
some goodies at a party, he refused. He said that
if he ever took the first bite he would be in trouble.
He would want to eat the whole platter of goodies.
This is good advice for me and for you. Don't
get started eating the goodies in the first place!
They are so hard to leave alone after that first bite.
As with many other things, they are like that old
commercial, "Bet you can't eat just one!"
Avoiding them altogether may be the best thing
you can do for yourself this season.
////////////////////////////////////Set in Our Ways: Why Change Is So Hard
Millions of us dream of transforming our lives, but few of us are able to make major changes after our 20s. Here's why
By Nikolas Westerhoff
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Exclusive to iStockphoto
Key Concepts
* Studies of personality development often focus on traits such as extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to new experiences. In most people, these traits change more during young adulthood than any other period of life, including adolescence. Openness typically increases during a person’s 20s and goes into a gradual decline after that.
* This pattern of personality development seems to hold true across cultures. Although some see that as evidence that genes determine our personality, many researchers theorize that personality traits change during young adulthood because this is a time of life when people assume new roles: finding a partner, starting a family and beginning a career.
* Personality can continue to change somewhat in middle and old age, but openness to new experiences tends to decline gradually until about age 60. After that, some people become more open again, perhaps because their responsibilities for raising a family and earning a living have been lifted.
///////////////////////////////////DARK MATTER/ENERGY
By studying far-flung galaxy clusters, astronomers are able to look back in time at the state of those objects millions or even billions of years ago, when the light just now reaching us was emitted. By comparing relatively close clusters with those more distant, the physical evolution of these gargantuan structures can be traced over time. Their observed development is "exactly what's expected for a universe with a low density of matter and a high density of dark energy," Vikhlinin said. (By current estimates, dark energy makes up nearly three quarters of the universe, dark matter comprises another 20 to 25 percent, and ordinary matter—all that we can see and touch—constitutes a mere 4 percent.)
What Vikhlinin and his co-authors observed is also what was expected for a universe described by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, the reigning theory of gravity. At the news conference, Princeton University astrophysicist David Spergel, who did not contribute to the research, called this further confirmation of dark energy "a triumph of general relativity."
Study co-author William Forman, a CfA astrophysicist, noted that although general relativity fit well with his team's observations, Einstein's vision may still require future adjustments. Livio agrees, but believes that the galaxy-cluster result nonetheless provides an important test for relativity. "There was the potential here, with this method," he says, "to tell us whether we had to modify our theory of gravity."
/////////////////////////////The fossil record tells us that the oldest member of our own species lived 195,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia. From there it spread out across the globe. By 10,000 years ago modern humans had successfully colonized each of the continents save Antarctica, and adaptations to these many locales (among other evolutionary forces) led to what we loosely call races. Groups living in different places evidently retained just enough connections with one another to avoid evolving into separate species. With the globe fairly well covered, one might expect that the time for evolving was pretty much finished.
But that turns out not to be the case. In a study published a year ago Henry C. Harpending of the University of Utah, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their colleagues analyzed data from the international haplotype map of the human genome [see “Traces of a Distant Past,” by Gary Stix; Scientific American, July 2008]. They focused on genetic markers in 270 people from four groups: Han Chinese, Japanese, Yoruba and northern Europeans. They found that at least 7 percent of human genes underwent evolution as recently as 5,000 years ago. Much of the change involved adaptations to particular environments, both natural and human-shaped. For example, few people in China and Africa can digest fresh milk into adulthood, whereas almost everyone in Sweden and Denmark can. This ability presumably arose as an adaptation to dairy farming.
////////////////////////////1. He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
2. He´s got the wind and the rain in His hands,
|: He´s got the wind and the rain in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
3. He´s got the the tiny little baby in His hands,
|: He´s got the the tiny little baby in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
4. He´s got you and me, brother, in His hands,
|: He´s got you and me, brother, in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
5. He's got ev'rybody here in His hands.
|: He's got ev'rybody here in His hands. :|
He's got the whole world in His hands.
/////////////////////////////////////
Alon Keinan1,2, James C Mullikin3, Nick Patterson2 & David Reich1,2
Top of page
Comparisons of chromosome X and the autosomes can illuminate differences in the histories of males and females as well as shed light on the forces of natural selection. We compared the patterns of variation in these parts of the genome using two datasets that we assembled for this study that are both genomic in scale. Three independent analyses show that around the time of the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa, chromosome X experienced much more genetic drift than is expected from the pattern on the autosomes. This is not predicted by known episodes of demographic history, and we found no similar patterns associated with the dispersals into East Asia and Europe. We conclude that a sex-biased process that reduced the female effective population size, or an episode of natural selection unusually affecting chromosome X, was associated with the founding of non-African populations.
////////////////////////////////////Darwinian evolution provides a wonderful explanation for physical
pain: it has survival value, and that's pretty much the story. But
the full range of our suffering goes way beyond physical pain.
Buddhism meditation practice lets us witness the difference between
the pain that belongs to the body and the pain that is created by the
mind. And it provides a systematic, though certainly not easy,
technique for eliminating the later.
>
Even with purely physical pain, not all of it has survival value.
Examples: pain from childbirth, terminal cancer, shingles, the
various neuropathies in which irritated pain neurons fire in the
absence of any surrounding tissue damage. True, the suffering from
physical pain can be ameliorated by learning to overcome the
associated fear, to engage in various relaxation techniques and
physical therapy exercises, to persist in one's usual activities
despite pain, and probably to engage in various forms of meditation.
But people like to believe that their suffering serves some purpose.
(Giving birth is a fine purpose, but why should it be painful? And
death is not always so.)
My own general explanation of suffering is that in order for
organisms that can get around on their own to survive and evolve,
they must not only learn to avoid tissue damage; they must as well
have a biologic drive to survive. And yet in order for us to evolve,
we have to die and make way for new generations. So the biologic
drive to survive must be frustrated. This works better as an
explanation for psychic distress than it does for physical pain from
such things as childbirth, terminal cancer, shingles and
neuropathies. About the best that can be said for such conditions is
that they amount to collateral damage.
And then there is the suffering that involves neither physical pain
nor unhelpful attitudes: the punishing auditory hallucinations of a
schizophrenia, the hypervigilence, emotional numbing and flashbacks
of PTSD, the black hole of despair in severe depression. Cognitive
therapy can help in some such cases, as can medication, but these
things are not merely a matter of mistaken thinking: there is actual
tissue damage in the brain. Presumably the damage can also occur in
the part of the brain which enables us to experience insight, though
exactly where that part is located either has not been determined, or
has been and I have not yet heard about it. How does any of this
have survival value?
It was long ago discovered that the very painful, debilitating and
life-shortening disease of sicle cell anemia has survival value in
areas endemic to malaria, in that those heterozygous to the condition
are more resistant to malaria. If you are homozygous it is just
tough luck. Perhaps other diseases, whether they affect the brain or
other organ systems, will also turn out to be relics of the interplay
between genetics and environment. For example, the calorie-hoarding
propensity found in obesity has survival advantage in places like
Eastern Europe where for millenia there were frequent famines. Now
that food is more widely and consistently available, people get fat
and develop diabetes and other problems.
J
/////////////////////////////////// "Avoiding Temptation"
It is so difficult this time of the year for me to
follow my own advice with everyone bringing candy,
cakes, etc. (I have a sweet tooth.)
It is too tempting for me to leave the "goodies"
alone, so I am trying to get most of them out of
the house immediately.
As I was unbuttoning my belt after having much
too much to eat yesterday, I asked myself why I
was dealing myself such misery. I know in my heart
of hearts that I feel sooooooooo much better
when I don't eat those sweets at all.
Years ago I had a boss who had a stroke and
recovered with only a slight limp. He lost a lot
of weight and was very thin. When offered
some goodies at a party, he refused. He said that
if he ever took the first bite he would be in trouble.
He would want to eat the whole platter of goodies.
This is good advice for me and for you. Don't
get started eating the goodies in the first place!
They are so hard to leave alone after that first bite.
As with many other things, they are like that old
commercial, "Bet you can't eat just one!"
Avoiding them altogether may be the best thing
you can do for yourself this season.
////////////////////////////////////Set in Our Ways: Why Change Is So Hard
Millions of us dream of transforming our lives, but few of us are able to make major changes after our 20s. Here's why
By Nikolas Westerhoff
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Key Concepts
* Studies of personality development often focus on traits such as extroversion, conscientiousness, agreeableness, neuroticism and openness to new experiences. In most people, these traits change more during young adulthood than any other period of life, including adolescence. Openness typically increases during a person’s 20s and goes into a gradual decline after that.
* This pattern of personality development seems to hold true across cultures. Although some see that as evidence that genes determine our personality, many researchers theorize that personality traits change during young adulthood because this is a time of life when people assume new roles: finding a partner, starting a family and beginning a career.
* Personality can continue to change somewhat in middle and old age, but openness to new experiences tends to decline gradually until about age 60. After that, some people become more open again, perhaps because their responsibilities for raising a family and earning a living have been lifted.
///////////////////////////////////DARK MATTER/ENERGY
By studying far-flung galaxy clusters, astronomers are able to look back in time at the state of those objects millions or even billions of years ago, when the light just now reaching us was emitted. By comparing relatively close clusters with those more distant, the physical evolution of these gargantuan structures can be traced over time. Their observed development is "exactly what's expected for a universe with a low density of matter and a high density of dark energy," Vikhlinin said. (By current estimates, dark energy makes up nearly three quarters of the universe, dark matter comprises another 20 to 25 percent, and ordinary matter—all that we can see and touch—constitutes a mere 4 percent.)
What Vikhlinin and his co-authors observed is also what was expected for a universe described by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity, the reigning theory of gravity. At the news conference, Princeton University astrophysicist David Spergel, who did not contribute to the research, called this further confirmation of dark energy "a triumph of general relativity."
Study co-author William Forman, a CfA astrophysicist, noted that although general relativity fit well with his team's observations, Einstein's vision may still require future adjustments. Livio agrees, but believes that the galaxy-cluster result nonetheless provides an important test for relativity. "There was the potential here, with this method," he says, "to tell us whether we had to modify our theory of gravity."
/////////////////////////////The fossil record tells us that the oldest member of our own species lived 195,000 years ago in what is now Ethiopia. From there it spread out across the globe. By 10,000 years ago modern humans had successfully colonized each of the continents save Antarctica, and adaptations to these many locales (among other evolutionary forces) led to what we loosely call races. Groups living in different places evidently retained just enough connections with one another to avoid evolving into separate species. With the globe fairly well covered, one might expect that the time for evolving was pretty much finished.
But that turns out not to be the case. In a study published a year ago Henry C. Harpending of the University of Utah, John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin–Madison and their colleagues analyzed data from the international haplotype map of the human genome [see “Traces of a Distant Past,” by Gary Stix; Scientific American, July 2008]. They focused on genetic markers in 270 people from four groups: Han Chinese, Japanese, Yoruba and northern Europeans. They found that at least 7 percent of human genes underwent evolution as recently as 5,000 years ago. Much of the change involved adaptations to particular environments, both natural and human-shaped. For example, few people in China and Africa can digest fresh milk into adulthood, whereas almost everyone in Sweden and Denmark can. This ability presumably arose as an adaptation to dairy farming.
////////////////////////////1. He´s got the whole world in His hands,
|: He´s got the whole world in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
2. He´s got the wind and the rain in His hands,
|: He´s got the wind and the rain in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
3. He´s got the the tiny little baby in His hands,
|: He´s got the the tiny little baby in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
4. He´s got you and me, brother, in His hands,
|: He´s got you and me, brother, in His hands, :|
He´s got the whole world in His hands.
5. He's got ev'rybody here in His hands.
|: He's got ev'rybody here in His hands. :|
He's got the whole world in His hands.
/////////////////////////////////////
Saturday, 20 December 2008
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