Thursday, February 08, 2007

Speedlinking 2/8/07

Quote of the day:

"Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule."
~ Friedrich Nietzsche

Image of the day:

BODY
~ BONUS ARTICLE: The Rest-Pause Technique -- By Charles Staley at T-Nation.
~ Conquering Enemies of the Spine -- Are you 30 years old but feel like you've got the spine of a 90-year-old well digger? Michael and Cassandra can cure what ails ya'. Practice their deloading drills regularly and your spine will soon be as straight and springy as a young poodle dog's tail."
~ 6 Dumb Training Mistakes: Want to be Stupid? Do One of These things! -- By Christian Thibaudeau. "Thibs is on a mission. The angry Canadian wants to see the incidence of training stupidity decrease. Are you a "kitchen sink" trainer or coach? Have you misinterpreted the concept of overtraining? If so, duck!"
~ Garlic Hope In Cystic Fibrosis Infection Fight -- "Garlic has been hailed a wonder drug for centuries and has been used to prevent gangrene, treat high blood pressure, ward off common colds and is even believed by some to have cancer-fighting properties. Now, scientists at The University of Nottingham are leading a new pilot study to see if the pungent bulb could also hold the key to preventing cystic fibrosis patients from falling foul of a potentially-fatal infection." Mmmm . . . garlic.
~ First nonprescription diet drug wins approval -- "The first over-the-counter weight-loss pill won approval from U.S. health officials on Wednesday, giving the two-thirds of Americans who are obese or overweight another option to help them shed pounds." This is crap -- don't buy it.
~ Human Proteins Evolving Slowly Thanks To Multi-Tasking Genes -- "Many human proteins are not as good as they might be because the gene sequences that code for them have a double role which slows down the rate at which they evolve, according to new research published in PLoS Biology."
~ Breast-feeding enhances kids' eyesight -- "Breast-fed children are significantly more likely to do well in measures of stereoscopic vision than are those who received formula during infancy, according to UK researchers."
~ Drug combo improves Parkinson's -- "Manipulating chemicals in the brain that produce similar effects to marijuana could pave the way for a new treatment for Parkinson’s disease, scientists said on Wednesday."
~ Study: Male sweat causes female hormones to rise -- "Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley have conducted a study that concluded a few whiffs of androstadienone--a pheromone found in male sweat and perfumes--can raise levels of the hormone cortisol in women. Cortisol is associated with stress, but also arousal and brain activation."


PSYCHE
~ Antidepressant, counseling may help hypochondriacs -- "Cognitive behavior therapy and treatment with the antidepressant paroxetine, better known as Paxil or Seroxat, may both be effective short-term treatments for people with an excessive concern about illness, according to Dutch researchers."
~ Doctors’ personal beliefs can hinder care -- "A disturbing number of doctors do not feel obligated to tell patients about medical options they oppose morally, such as abortion and teen birth control, and believe they have no duty to refer people elsewhere for such treatments, researchers say."
~ Born to be bad? Genetic research says maybe -- "If some children seem like they were born to be bad, new research suggests it may be true." Well, that explains a lot.
~ Neuroanatomical basis for Psychic EEG fMRI psychical parasomething ability.
~ Beauty Is In the Eye of the Beer-Holder -- "A research project commissioned by Bausch and Lomb, and headed by Nathan Efron, Professor of Clinical Optometry at the University of Manchester, tried to reduce the "beer goggles effect" down to an equation. No college student is unfamiliar with beer-goggling: that regrettable effect that alcohol and dark rooms have on our ability to judge attractiveness."
~ Survey Identifies Teen Online Behaviors Associated With Online Interpersonal Victimization -- "Teens who talk to strangers online are more likely to become victims of online harassment than those who share their personal information on the Internet."
~ Therapy: The Loneliest Profession -- "The life of a therapist can be socially isolating."
~ Understanding Meditation -- "Exploring some of the mystique and misunderstandings of meditation and finding a method that suits your personality."
~ Learning to Fly -- From Life 2.0.


CULTURE
~ The First Global Think Tank? -- "In a move that portends potentially far-reaching changes in the Washington think-tank scene, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a venerable institution founded in 1910 with money from industrialist Andrew Carnegie, has formally relaunched itself as the 'first multinational and ultimately global – think tank.'"
~ Is Edwards the Howard Dean of 2008? -- "With his anti-war stance and universal health plan, the 2004 VP nominee wants to establish himself as the progressive candidate - forcing Clinton and Obama farther left."
~ Ex-NBA Player Comes Out -- "John Amaechi is gay, and now the first NBA player to come out publicly is ready to talk about it." There are undoubtedly a lot of gay athletes afraid to come out -- maybe this will help.
~ Music: A Sorrowful Lucinda Williams -- "The songs on her new album deal with the death of her mother and the breakup of a love affair--and that’s the good news."
~ Amanda Marcotte Incident Proves The John Edwards Campaign is Run by Troglodytes (and Mitt Romney Likes Balls) -- A liberal blogger gets blind-sided by wingnuts, and The Zero Boss has an opinion. This is another BIG ISSUE in the liberal blogosphere, so The New Republic, among many others, has weighed in: THE LATEST EDWARDS PSEUDO-SCANDAL.
~ If Chris Rock Says It, It's Funny; If Sarah Silverman Says It, It's Tasteless -- Sexism in comedy.
~ Bush DOJ Has Orders to Sic Dems -- "Not only has the Bush administration been purging out-of-favor U.S. attorneys across the nation, it has also been using its DOJ to investigate Democrats far more frequently than Republicans, according to TPMmuckraker. From 2001 to 2006, when Democrats made up just half of all elected officials (local and national) in the country, 79 percent of the DOJ's investigations targeted Dems."
~ Students Use Chat Lingo in Class -- "Middle school teacher Julia Austin is noticing a new generation of errors creeping into her pupils' essays."


HABITATS
~ Wal-Mart, union call for universal health care -- "Wal-Mart and one of its most vocal labor foes joined forces on Wednesday to call for universal health-care coverage for all Americans by 2012, but offered no specific proposals."
~ Orangutans Losing Their Forests Faster Than Expected, Extinction Draws Near, & How You Can Avoid Making Their Prognosis Worse.
~ New data shakes accepted models of collisions of the Earth's crust -- "New research findings may help refine the accepted models used by earth scientists over the past 30 years to describe the ways in which continents clash to form the Earth's landscape."
~ "Global Cooling" Wiped Out North America's Reptiles, Amphibians, Study Finds -- "Fossils suggest a worldwide cold spell millions of years ago caused the extinction of many cold-blooded animals in North America, thanks to a reverse greenhouse effect."
~ Bush’s Budget: Hello Petroleum, Goodbye Endangered Species, Clean Water, Amtrak...
~ In tiny supercooled clouds, physicists exchange light and matter -- "Physicists have for the first time stopped and extinguished a light pulse in one part of space and then revived it in a completely separate location. They accomplished this feat by completely converting the light pulse into matter that travels between the two locations and is subsequently changed back to light."
~ From Burning Silo: close encounters with Dolomedes spiders -- I like spiders, as long as they are in photographs and not in my house.


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Meditation sandwich with a side order of impermanence. Nice post.
~ From Ryan at Buddhist Geeks: What Do We Know About Buddhism?!
~ Integrating Rational Distinctions with Expansive Spirituality -- A discussion in the Zaadz I-I pod.
~ From Julian at Zaadz: Z-Bate! #1 {Exchange Two} Faith, Reason & The Four Quadrants.


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