"Man is a credulous animal, and must believe something; in the absence of good grounds for belief, he will be satisfied with bad ones."
~ Bertrand Russell
Image of the day (John Craig)
BODY~ Cholesterol-Lowering Drugs Can Cause Muscle Pain -- "This review found that statin- induced muscle damage is more common in Asians, people who exercise, have had recent surgery, have kidney, liver or thyroid disease, or have high triglycerides. The incidence of muscle pain and damage from statins is extremely low in non-exercisers, three to ten percent in those who exercise, and very high in competitive athletes." Diet and exercise . . . diet and exercise.
~ Spring fitness tuneup -- "If you have been working out all Winter then great, you should be fine, but if you have not been working out keep these five tips in mind over the next few weeks as Spring becomes running, biking, exercising, and eating season." Pay special attention to thoughts on stretching.
~ Dr. Details: An Interview with Eric Serrano -- "He's influenced many, including our own Charles Poliquin and Alwyn Cosgrove, but some people in our biz think that Dr. Serrano's just a little "out there." Genius or mad scientist? You decide."
~ One Stage Regeneration System For Articular Cartilage Repair From Depuy Mitek Shows Promise In Pilot Study -- "DePuy Mitek, Inc. announced a critical milestone in its multi-center randomized pilot study evaluating the safety and performance of its Cartilage Autograft Implantation System (CAIS), with 29 patients enrolled in the study in the United States since March 2006. This investigational device and method is designed as a primary surgical treatment of damaged knee cartilage using the patient's own healthy cartilage in a single operation."
~ Exercising harder keeps weight off longer -- "Among a group of overweight men and women participating in an 18-month weight loss program, those who were still getting 75 minutes of exercise daily a year after the program ended had lost 26 pounds, compared with 1.8 pounds for people who were exercising less."
~ Yes, coffee really is good for you -- "Drinking coffee can help ward off type 2 diabetes and may even help prevent certain cancers, according to panelists discussing the benefits — and risks — of the beverage at a scientific meeting." Damn straight.
~ When determining who’s fat, is BMI bunk? -- "A surprising new study finds that some people with a body mass index that indicates they're overweight may actually have little body fat — and some folks whose BMI categorizes them as skinny actually are way too flabby." My BMI is 26 (overweight) but my bodyfat is slightly less than 9%. It took a study to figure out that I'm healthier than a skinny-fat-guy with a BMI of 23 and 18% bodyfat?!
~ Scientists Identify Key To Integrating Transplanted Nerve Cells Into Injured Tissue -- "Scientists at the Schepens Eye Research Institute, an affiliate of Harvard Medical School, have identified a key mechanism for successfully transplanting tissue into the adult central nervous system. The study found that a molecule known as MMP-2 (which is induced by stem cells) has the ability to break down barriers on the outer surface of a damaged retina and allow healthy donor cells to integrate and wire themselves into remaining recipient tissue."
PSYCHE
~ Prognosis worse with childhood bipolar disorder -- "When bipolar disorder arises in childhood, it may take far longer to diagnose and have a worse prognosis, a new study suggests." There's no consensus that children can even be diagnosed as bipolar.
~ An owner's manual for the brain -- "So when did Discover magazine get so good? They've got an excellent 'Mind and Brain' section with a long list of feature articles freely available online. Actually, what I wanted to feature was a one off magazine called 'Discover presents The Brain: An Owner's Manual', which I found on the shelves of my local newsagent."
~ "Obligatory" running and "bizarre" food preoccupations [Dr. Joan Bushwell's Chimpanzee Refuge] -- "I've reproduced my two-year-old post below, and have included the comments that originally appeared there. In re-reading this I was struck, not for the first time, by the general wishy-washiness of behavioral research. I can agree, for example, that a lot of runners have "bizarre preoccupation" with food and are "compulsively" athletic -- and see myself in a lot of what the authors describe, really -- but good luck finding useful clinical criteria for these."
~ STAR*D Depression Study Finds Cognitive Therapy Equivalent To Medication But Selected By Fewer Patients -- "In the federally funded Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) study, outcomes for cognitive therapy as a second-step treatment were not different from outcomes of medication therapy. However, random assignment in this STAR*D level was based on each patient's treatment preferences, and only 26 percent of the patients accepted cognitive therapy as an option."
~ Psychotherapy's Effectiveness In Depression Is Demonstrated By Two Studies Using High And Low Therapy "Doses" -- "Adding intensive psychotherapy to drug treatment for patients hospitalized with severe depression significantly increased the rate of response, compared to a group not receiving psychotherapy, according to a new study. The contribution added by the psychotherapy component was evident early on, with acute response rates of 70 percent in those receiving both medication and psychotherapy, compared with 51 percent for those not receiving psychotherapy."
~ Science of hypnosis -- "Hypnosis and Suggestion is a fantastic website created by Dr Matt Whalley, an academic hypnosis researcher who gives a level-headed and detailed account of what is known about the science of hypnotic states and suggestion."
~ Getting emotional about cognitive science -- "The Boston Globe has a well-researched article on how emotion has become increasingly important in scientific models of the mind."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Hate Makes a Comeback -- "Groups Like the Ku Klux Klan and Neo-Nazis Target Mexican Immigrants."
~ Hitchens Joins the Party [EvolutionBlog] -- "Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett and Sam Harris have had things to themselves for too long. Now it's time for Christopher Hitchens to join the party. His new book God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything is now available."
~ Is the Wall Street Journal Worth It? -- "Rupert Murdoch makes a big bid for the newspaper's parent company. It's not a sign of improving fortunes for beleaguered dailies, but evidence of why the Journal is unique."
~ Supergirl Syndrome -- "She's smart, skinny, athletic, pretty and everybody loves her. Lakshmi Chaudhry writes that this market-driven model of perfection doesn't necessarily make a girl happy."
~ The Guantánamo Hunger Strike -- "Guantánamo is in the grips of a hunger strike--an age-old form of protest that marked such world events as the fight for women's suffrage and Indian and Irish independence. The U.S. military's response to the hunger strike is not surprising: punitive force-feeding, a dangerous and painful approach." Gotta keep them alive so we can kill them, eh?
~ "Jihad": idea and history | Patricia Crone -- "The notion of jihad is one of the most contested in the modern Islamic and political lexicon. In a four-part essay, Patricia Crone makes it comprehensible: by identifying its textual sources, examining how early Muslims translated it into practice, asking how they made sense of it ethically, and exploring its contemporary relevance."
~ SCOTT HORTON—Bill Moyers: “Buying the War” -- "I recently wrote that America needed a journalist who could do what David Halberstam did in The Best and the Brightest with respect to the decision to go to war in Iraq. Well, Moyers has done exactly that. The story is called “Buying the War.” His work is patient, fair and sympathetic—in all those points it takes a softer approach than Halberstam would have—but it doesn’t shirk from asking the essential questions. This is well done, and essential."
~ Will the Dems Let Florida Cut in Line? -- "The state that had the last word on the 2000 election now wants the first one on the 2008 Presidential race. It's the latest battle in the Primary War Between the States."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ It's Not What Chimps Say, It's What They Gesture -- "A new study of chimpanzees and bonobos reveals that the meaning of vocalizations is fixed whereas the meaning of gestures depends on the context."
~ News seekers turning to online search engines, videos and blogs -- "US news-seekers are increasingly turning to Internet search engines, video clips and gossip-slingers to sate curiosity about current events, according to a study released Tuesday."
~ Computers Simulate 50 Percent of a Mouse Brain -- "Researchers simulated half of a mouse brain on a supercomputer."
~ Technique monitors thousands of molecules simultaneously -- "A chemist at Washington University in St. Louis is making molecules the new-fashioned way — selectively harnessing thousands of minuscule electrodes on a tiny computer chip that do chemical reactions and yield molecules that bind to receptor sites."
~ Death, Sex in Space Considered by NASA -- "As NASA plans long journeys to Mars, officials begin to consider ethical issues."
~ Be afraid. Be very very afraid [The Island of Doubt] -- "In a story that caught the attention of only the more astute climate science journalists a few weeks ago, one of the more experienced oceanographers of our time, Peter Wadhams of Cambridge University, reported that the Arctic ice cap is melting much faster than we thought. How much faster? So fast that the rate made the story seem too alarmist to take seriously."
~ Can Plankton Save the Planet? [commonground] -- "In an effort to ameliorate the effects of global warming, several groups are working on ventures to grow vast floating fields of plankton intended to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and carry it to the depths of the ocean. It is an idea, debated by experts for years, that still sounds like science fiction -- and some scholars think that is where it belongs."
~ Why Supercontinents Self-Destruct -- "Analysis shows why Pangea burst, leading to huge eruptions and rapid warming."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ The Spiritual Problem of The New Age for Integral -- "I have deep roots in critical thinking, inquiry-based practice, and shadow-work, yet am living and practicing my profession in a community largely defined by a complete absence of these perspectives and a deep adherence to gullible New Age magical thinking, defensive metaphysical consolation and dissociative denial of reality. "
~ Don't taint my Buddhism with comparisons to Christianity -- "I recently commented on an article discussing Buddhism from a more traditional Christian perspective and subsequently received a reply from a Catholic priest in a small spark of interfaith dialog. Perhaps it would for some be better to call it establishment Christianity rather than traditional as some could rightly point out that many now heretical views on the life of Christ once flourished among the early Christians. This raises the question of how many Buddhists, especially Western Buddhists, see Christianity."
~ Plato, on artistry -- "Firstly, I ought add that Plato (here through the voice of Timaeus), never explicitly states that he refers to artists, or artistry. But on the premise that artists are creators, the logic that what is said about creators can bear transfer to artists (though maybe not inerrantly) for consideration by artists on how to conduct their creative affairs seems sound." This is good stuff -- check it out.
~ Meditation is Not to Soothe -- "Soothing activities aren’t meditation, and are often quite different from focusing on the breath, and calming the chatter. I notice more and more people saying that they meditate when they’re driving (oh-oh…look out!), or exercising. Do you see the distinction between focused concentration, relaxing or soothing yourself, and meditating? We should definitely keep talking about this."
~ Self and brain -- "The last time I did zazen it was really very deep - there was almost no sense of self, only constantly shifting processes of sensation, feeling and thought. At one point the thought appeared that this was an unborn, undying state, neither eternal nor nonexistent, but free from birth and death. I had just been reading a text, which had inspired me. But this wasn't a sutra or the writings of some mystic, it was a description of the issues surrounding consciousness and self from the perspective of neuroscience."
~ Gnosis and Outreach -- "Carrying on from the topic of the last post. First, a current working definition of "integral" that is able to include both Wilber and Aurobindo. By "integral" can be meant they share these qualities" See also: Spiritual attitude -- "I've been getting some very good comments from my original suggestion for a gnostic community."
~ B-SCAN with Steve Pavlina (Part 1) -- "During the past week, Steve was kind enough to take some time to grant me this interview. Initially, I sent him the usual set of questions I ask in this B-SCAN series. To my surprise, it was Steve who suggested that I ask the questions that matter to me and that I don't hold back. So I revised the questions and included those which are 'controversial.'"
~ Meditation and Intimacy -- "I have just started teaching another ten-week meditation course at the botanical gardens, and I’ve been thinking about what a strange and difficult thing meditation is to teach – not because it is in any way esoteric, but because it is, I think, incredibly subtle."
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