"Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know."
~ Marvin Minsky
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Dark Chocolate May Lower Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease -- "If you eat some dark chocolate now-and-again you could well be lowering your chances of developing cardiovascular disease, say researchers at Yale Prevention Research Center, Connecticut, USA. It seems dark chocolate contains flavonoids which boost the function of endothelial cells in the lining of blood vessels."
~ 5 Simple Steps to Keep Off Rebound Pounds -- "Find out how to keep off weight for good."
~ Exercising With Peers Has Added Appeal -- "A new study in the April issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine has found if given a choice of exercising alone, with people younger or older or with people their same age, most adults would rather exercise with others in their own age group."
~ 10 Keys to the Lean & Sexy Look, Part II -- "If you read the first part of Jen's article, you're only half Lean and Sexy! Here's part 2 so you can complete the transformation."
~ Make it Harder: How to Make Easy Exercises More Difficult and More Effective -- An excellent article on making standard lifts more challenging, from TC at T-Nation.
~ Exercise makes cells more efficient; increases overall health & life expectancy -- "Why does risk for heart attacks, strokes or diabetes increase with age? A team from Yale University showed that as you age, you lose your ability to make AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) (Cell Metabolism, February 2007). This enzyme functions to increase mitochondria in muscles."
~ Hips Don't Lie: 10 Food Fibs that Make You Fat -- "Find out the myths that are keeping you from shedding pounds."
~ 'Good Fat' OK for Heart Attack Patients -- "A Mediterranean-style diet high in olive oil and other "healthy" fats is just as good as the classic American Heart Association low-fat diet for the 8 million Americans who have suffered a heart attack and want to prevent a repeat, new research suggests...."
PSYCHE
~ Slow Down, Multitaskers; Don’t Read in Traffic -- "The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car."
~ Gifted Students Beat The Blues With Heavy Metal -- "Gifted students who feel the pressure of their ability could be using Heavy Metal music to get rid of negative emotions.This is the conclusion of Stuart Cadwallader and Professor Jim Campbell of The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth at the University of Warwick."
~ Why We Give In To Temptation -- "We’ve all had our moments of weakness when trying to control ourselves; eating that donut on your diet, losing your temper with your kids, becoming upset when you’re doing your best not to. It isn’t like we plan on these lapses in judgment. It’s more like they just sort of happen."
~ Beliefs about the rigidity of personality -- "Among other things the researchers found that beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors; and that recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms."
~ How to Make Wise Judgments -- "What is wise judgment? Why is it important? How can you develop it to make your life happier? This article shows you how."
~ Therapy Via Phone or Internet is Effective for Depression -- "New research reveals that non-traditional forms of treatment occurring over the phone can be very beneficial for patients suffering from depression who are beginning a medical regimen but either cannot or choose not to undergo in-person therapy."
~ As Alcoholics Recover, Spirituality Increases -- "For decades, recovering alcoholics and those who treat them have incorporated spirituality into the recovery process - whether or not it's religious in nature. But few research studies have documented if and how spirituality changes during recovery, nor how those changes might influence a person's chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety.Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center sheds light on this phenomenon." Addiction is an affliction of the soul as much as it is the psyche.
~ Infants Are Able To Detect The 'Impossible' At An Early Age -- "If you've ever been captivated by an M.C. Escher drawing of stairways that lead to nowhere or a waterfall that starts and ends at the same place, then you are familiar with what Psychologists describe as "impossible" objects and scenes. These are pictures or illusions of three-dimensional images that do not make any visual sense. Inevitably, we end up gawking at the image for several moments, attempting to make sense of the impossible."
CULTURE
~ Globalization Seen As Undermining Local Folk Knowledge Associated With Healthy Child Development -- "In a remote area of the Amazon, globalization is threatening the time-honored transmission of plant knowledge from generation to generation, with adverse effects on childhood health and nutrition."
~ Survey Reveals Family Ties And Traditional Activities Keep Arctic Communities Vital -- "A newly released survey of indigenous Arctic people indicates that an overwhelming majority of the region's native people think traditional pursuits such as hunting, boat-building and manufacturing crafts are important to their identity."
~ No, really, I doubt that religion is adaptive [Pharyngula] -- "That Allen MacNeill fella is crazy brave — after trying to approach Intelligent Design seriously as a course subject, now he's going to teach another controversial summer seminar on whether religion is adaptive."
~ Army deployed seriously injured troops -- "Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready."
~ A New Probe into Justice Meddling -- "Congress wants answers about charges that the DOJ interfered in the prosecution of a federal tobacco lawsuit."
~ The Case for Teaching The Bible -- "Should the Holy Book be taught in public schools? Yes. It's the bedrock of Western culture. And when taught right, it's even constitutional." Hmmm . . .
~ Congressional oversight is a linchpin of how our democracy works -- "Aggressive Congressional scrutiny of the Executive branch is not optional, but instead lies at the heart of how our system of government functions."
~ Courtney E. Martin: Gay Expectations Make for Complex Relationships -- "Baumgardner explores the idea that bisexuality liberates women to have "gay expectations" even if they end up married to the man, in her new book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics (February, FSG). Having "gay expectations," as she explains, produces more intimacy, more intensity, and less compromise for women, regardless of whether their beau of the moment is a Jane or a John."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Living With Water Scarcity -- World Must Act Now -- "Only if we act to improve water use in agriculture now will we meet the acute water-environment-poverty challenges facing humankind over the next 50 years."
~ The next wave in design: Gadgets that won't bug you -- "People want more control over their lives and that means owning phones, notebooks and other devices that you can turn off. Quiet time--whether it is reflected in prayer, meditation or nap time--has been a concept in virtually all cultures around the world throughout history. The influx of technology has intruded on these domestic moments of peace, but field studies around the world seem to indicate that people want it back."
~ 'Juiced-up' Sugar-Fueled Battery Could Power Portable Electronics -- "Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say."
~ Are Web 2.0 Office Apps Just Wired Wikis with Weird Names? -- "No one said the taboo words "bubble" or "boom" at the Dealmaker Media Under The Radar conference at the Mountain View Microsoft campus on Friday. But the mood was certainly festive."
~ Global Warming Could Reverse Trend Toward Bigger Human Brains -- "Early humans developed larger brains as they adapted to colder climates. A warming climate might reverse that trend. Imagine that, while you still can."
~ Photo in the News: "Strange Owl" Seen in Wild for First Time -- "A tiny bird so rare and unusual that its scientific name means "strange owl" has been spotted for the first time in the wild, scientists announced yesterday."
~ When it comes to risk, not all nanomaterials are created equal -- "In new studies, the teams found that while carbon nanotubes inhibited growth in mammalian cells, they sustained the growth of commonly occurring bacteria."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ RECOVERING OUR “CENTER The Integral Worldview -- "Without being widely known yet, advanced groups of individuals around the world are building a new culture that is recovering its soul and its center. This dynamic mega-perspective is called the integral worldview. It’s a large-scale, powerful step in cultural evolution—and a quantum leap beyond boomer postmodernism."
~ Reaiming Evolution -- "The framework I use to direct my personal development is an Integral Life Practice, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Central to ILP are various modules used to assess and improve many aspects of our lives. I’d like to share with you my most recent look at my overall practice in a range of areas in hope it might inspire you to look at your own life."
~ Bowing -- "To a Westerner unfamiliar with Zen or Zen arts, these actions can seem very strange. We no longer have a culture where we bow to one another in greeting or to show respect."
~ Nonduality revisited -- "In the end of the EI thread I once again came back to how Ken mixes and matches the various kinds and schools of nondualism in his rhetoric, depending on his immediate need. The thing is, he doesn’t take the time to elucidate which definition or school he’s using so that it becomes a mash with the implicit assumption that there is an underlying agreement between all these definitions and/or schools. The reality is that it’s Ken’s mash (mush?). Does it work? Can it work? Can we truly integrate all this in a developmental scheme when some schools of nonduality don’t have developmental schemes?"
~ Buddhism and its Value-Added Boost -- "People write and think about what’s lacking in Western Buddhism and how pitiful pre-modern Buddhism in Asia might have been, but somehow the discussion never seems to touch what is the only vital issue: what does Buddhism do for people?"
~ Mental masturbation or Buddhist hermeneutics? -- "But is it merely masturbation? See the below abstract of the article “Buddhist Hermeneutics” by Robert Thurman. This demonstrates that such philosophy is far more than just mental abstraction but a component to the path of 'enlightenment.'"
~ Guilt, Shame and Buddhist Practice -- "Carrying guilt around in our minds is like hiking up a mountain and picking up every rock we stub our toe upon and throwing it in our backpack. That is unskillful. It is unnecessary suffering and it stems from a belief in a separate self."
~ BLOG: Transcript: Idiot Savant, or Just an Idiot? -- Ken Wilber in conversation with integral students.
~ Take a few paragraphs to describe a perfect world -- From ~C4Chaos.
~ Pheromones and puberty -- "Any ‘integral’ sexology needs to consider the pre-conscious aspects of human sexuality. It is now understood that pheromones play a part in sexual attraction. Our mind might tell us we are attracted for this or that reason after the pheromones kick in, but our immediate attraction may be subliminal."
~ A Roundup from Blogmandu.
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