"Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear - not absence of fear."
~ Mark Twain
Image of the day:
BODY
~ The First Urine Test To Detect Insulin Doping In Athletes -- Good luck with that.
~ Studies Highlight Cocoa's Remarkable Health Properties -- "Two recent studies suggest compounds in natural cocoa have significant health-giving properties."
~ Dietary Copper May Ease Heart Disease -- "Including more copper in your everyday diet could be good for your heart, according to scientists at the University of Louisville Medical Center and the USDA Human Nutrition Research Center. Their studies show that giving copper supplements to mice eased the stress on their over-worked hearts by preventing heart enlargement."
~ 8 Sneaky Weight Loss Saboteurs -- "Find out what's keeping you from losing weight."
~ Why Aerobic Exercise Is Good For The Heart -- "Aerobic exercise is widely recognized to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease, but until now, researchers have not fully understood the biological mechanisms behind the effect of exercise on cardiovascular health. Findings of a new study show how exercise decreases inflammation, which reduces the risk of atherosclerosis fatty build-ups in the arteries that cause most cases of heart disease."
~ In Obesity, Brain Becomes 'Unaware' Of Fat -- "Critical portions of the brain in those who are obese don't really know they are overweight, researchers have reported in the March issue of the journal Cell Metabolism, published by Cell Press. These findings in obese mice show that a sensor in the brain that normally detects a critical fat hormone - causing a cascade of events that keeps energy balance in check - fails to engage. Meanwhile, the rest of the metabolic pathway remains ready to respond."
~ Study shows why exercise boosts brainpower -- "Exercise boosts brainpower by building new brain cells in a brain region linked with memory and memory loss, U.S. researchers reported on Monday."
PSYCHE
~ Can psychology help us be happier? [Cognitive Daily] -- A collection of links.
~ Hormonal Anomolies Bring on Adolescent Moodswings -- Isn't that what parents have been saying for years?
~ The Peter Pan-demic -- "Growing up is hard to do."
~ Brene Brown's Offering Studies Women And Shame -- "It has the power to oppress, silence and shape the way we live, love, work and parent. It's shame, and while it may be debilitating and isolating, one University of Houston professor and researcher contends in her new book, "I Thought It Was Just Me: Women Reclaiming Power and Courage in a Culture of Shame," the time is right to bring it out into the open."
~ Inception Of Perception In The Brain Explained By Brown Scientists -- "The taste of champagne, the sound of a train, the flash of a pop fly into left field - indeed all of human perception - begins in the brain's center. That's where sensory information passes from the thalamus to the neocortex for processing.That critical transfer is a bit of a brain science mystery: Instead of reacting to information from the thalamus with a burst of excitatory chatter, most cortical cells are quickly and strongly inhibited or silenced."
~ Five minutes with Gretchen Rubin -- "Gretchen Rubin is a lawyer-turned-author who's now pursuing happiness, by test-driving every principle, tip, theory, and scientific study she can find on the subject, and writing a book about her experiences as she goes."
~ How Anti-Depressants Create New Brain Cells -- "Antidepressants increase the presence of a growth factor in the brain, which then leads to a proliferation of new cells, according to a study by Yale School of Medicine researchers.... The study describes for the first time the molecular mechanisms and the identity of the protein, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), which underlie the actions of antidepressants on new cell growth and behavior."
~ Feverish -- "Last night I came down with a fever of 102 Fahrenheit and have been experiencing some strange things. While staying in bed shivering and sweating, in and out of sleep, I've been having what could be called fever dreams or hypnagogic hallucinations or maybe delirium."
~ Why Children Never Leave Home: Evolution -- "The long childhoods and delayed maturity common in modern humans might be a recent development that first emerged only a few thousand years ago in early members of our species living in Africa."
~ Sexy Strangers Sway How Men See Mates -- "Meeting attractive women can change how men view their current partners."
CULTURE
~ Senate Committee Debates Legislation That Would Establish Safeguards For Prescription Drug Reimportation -- As if Canadian drugs are unsafe in the first place.
~ Mental illness common in returning U.S. soldiers -- "High rates of mental health disorders are being diagnosed among US military personnel soon after being released from duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to investigators in San Francisco."
~ House Subcommittee Considers Bill That Would Prohibit Genetic Discrimination -- "The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on Thursday held a hearing on legislation (HR 493) to ban discrimination against U.S. residents based on the results of genetic tests, CQ HealthBeat reports."
~ War Is Peace, Freedom Is Slavery, The Earth Is Flat, "Most People" Think Libby Should Be Pardoned -- "CNN reports that the definition of "most people" is 18%. Just 18 percent said they would support a pardon for Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, while 69 percent said they opposed the idea.…"
~ Van Halen, R.E.M. Enter Rock Hall -- "Grandmaster Flash brings the turntables as hip-hop's first entrant into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on Monday. Patti Smith and the dysfunctional Van Halen — some of the band, anyway — as well as R.E.M. and the Ronettes were slated for induction in the annual ceremony, too."
~ The death of the Bracketmaster -- Once upon a time, you needed to plan ahead to watch the start of the NCAA Tournament. A fake coughing fit on Wednesday afternoon, an artificially raspy voice on Thursday morning, and by Thursday afternoon you'd be on your couch watching CBS. These days, every opening-round game is available via streaming video, and the tournament is the biggest sporting event in the country—a three-week mega-event that mashes up pride for our alma maters, our love of underdogs, and a collective affinity for low-stakes gambling." Go Oregon!
~ Republican Senator Jon Kyl to Block U.S. Attorney Legislation -- Bush and Gonzales have already caved in, but Kyl, as always doing Bush's dirty work, will try to block the bill [again].
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Office Workers More Prone to Blood Clots -- Which is why it's a good idea to get up from your chair once every hour.
~ 2-Step Process Filters Evolution Of Genes Of Human And Chimpanzee -- "Although the human and chimpanzee genomes are distinguished by 35 million differences in individual DNA "letters," only about 50,000 of those differences alter the sequences of proteins."
~ Virtual Reality for Virtual Eternity -- "Imagine having a discussion with Isaac Newton or Albert Einstein on the nature of the universe, where their 3-D, life-sized representations looked you in the eye, examined your body language, considered voice nuances and phraseology of your questions, then answered you in a way that is so real you would swear the images were alive."
~ Physicists Modify Double-Slit Experiment to Confirm Einstein's Belief -- "Work completed by physics professors at Rowan University shows that light is made of particles and waves, a finding that refutes a common belief held for about 80 years."
~ Spider WebWatch -- Cool picture and cool project.
~ African Dust Cooled 2006 Hurricane Season -- "Right-coasters and south-coasters can thank African dust for a quiet hurricane season in 2006. A little puff from just the right place in the Sahara cooled the pyrotechnics of storm formation."
~ Giant Galaxy Just a Dwarf, After All -- "Astronomers discover the true, small size of a galaxy, once thought to be giant."
~ New Panorama Reveals More Than a Thousand Black Holes -- "By casting a wide net, astronomers have captured an image of more than a thousand supermassive black holes. These results give astronomers a snapshot of a crucial period when these monster black holes are growing, and provide insight into the environments in which they occur."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ The Secret: The Spirituality of Narcissism -- Stuart Davis rocks this post with an excellent integral look at The Secret -- good and bad.
~ Thinking on Integral Relationship: A thought Experiment on Narcissism - A Relationship Post! -- ebuddha looks at integral relationship through the lens of my breakup with Kira. Nice post, but it feels weird to be a test case.
~ My Latest Hero… -- Andrew Cohen likes Jack Bauer.
~ Nobody But Yourself from How to Save the World -- "Let me put it in simpler terms. Religions and other subcultures are all forms of groupthink. Groupthink is easy, it is comforting. It enables more people to live in crowded, unpleasant and unnatural conditions, because we have the group, 'our' beliefs to fall back on. They explain away everything. They promise a better future in return for suffering, obedience and worship today. They keep us in line and in thrall."
~ The Clinging Mind -- "True freedom, as the dharma teaches it, is the mind's freedom from both clinging and aversion. It's about separating the mind from "me" and what is "mine", and recognizing the delusion of being attached to material well-being."
~ Buddhist Geeks 10: Where the Rubber Meets the Road - Fleet Maull on Plunge Experiences -- "In this episode, Gwen Bell interviews Buddhist teacher Sensei Fleet Maull. Fleet recently spent a month on retreat with Roshi Bernie Glassman and the Zen Peacemakers in Massuchusetts, where he became a fully empowered Zen teacher."
~ A Spiritual Niche from Frozen Truth.
Tags:
No comments:
Post a Comment