"If God dropped acid, would he see people?"
~ Steven Wright
Image of the day (David Lorenz Winston):
BODY
~ Deadlifting: Variations On A Theme -- "I've always thought of the deadlift as the most under-appreciated exercise ever. The deadlift is truly an exercise in need of a face-lift!" An excellent article on how to deadlift, one of the full body lifts around. See also: Mastering the Deadlift: Part I.
~ Know the warning signs of heatstroke -- "Heatstroke is a sudden uncontrolled rise in body temperature that affects the brain so that it can’t function properly. It should never happen to you because you get plenty of warning."
~ Clock Gene Plays Role In Weight Gain, Study Finds -- "Scientists at the University of Virginia and the Medical College of Wisconsin have discovered that a gene that participates in the regulation of the body's biological rhythms may also be a major control in regulating metabolism. Their finding shows that mice lacking the gene Nocturnin, which is regulated by the circadian clock in the organs and tissues of mammals, are resistant to weight gain when put on a high fat diet and also are resistant to the accumulation of fat in the liver."
~ Endurance: What Athletes Can Learn from Sled Dogs -- "How can sled dogs run more than 100 miles a day for weeks on end, while humans couldn’t possibly recover from such abuse of their muscles? A study from Ohio State University shows why. How long you can exercise a muscle depends on how long you can keep stored sugar, called glycogen, inside that muscle."
~ Study: Cut Nicotine in Cigarettes -- "The Food and Drug Administration should regulate tobacco and develop a plan to reduce nicotine levels in cigarettes, the Institute of Medicine urged Thursday...."
~ She moves in mysterious ways -- "Science seems to know why men work the way we do, which is pretty much the way other male primates work. Female sexual biology, though, can be puzzling."
PSYCHE
~ Don Quixote and The Narrative Self -- "Once upon a time a philosopher wrote an article called ‘Don Quixote and The Narrative Self’. He commenced by saying: In this essay, I will discuss the question of whether our selves are constituted by narratives, ie stories. Are we like Don Quixote, whose self was created by his reading of medieval romances: are we Homo quixotienses, the narrative self? Or are we rather like the protagonist of Sartre’s novel Nausea, Antonin Roquentin, whose life did not form any narrative unity? Are we in other words rather Homo roquentinenses?" Excellent article.
~ Does the brain show a lie? -- "Amanda lies flat on her back, clad in a steel blue hospital gown and an air of anticipation, as she is rolled headfirst into a beeping, 10-ton functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) unit. Once inside, the 20-something blonde uses a handheld device to respond to questions about the playing cards appearing on the screen at the foot of the machine. With each click of the button, she is either lying or telling the truth about whether a card presented to her matches the one in her pocket, and the white-coated technician who watches her brain image morph into patterns on his computer screen seems to know the difference."
~ Researchers Develop Test to Assess Risk of Self-Injurious Behavior -- "A new behavioral test that does not rely on the patient to express his or her thoughts appears to identify those who are at risk of cutting and other self-injurious behaviors, a new study shows."
~ Chronic Pain Can Drive You To Distraction -- "Anyone who has experienced chronic pain knows that it affects the ability to work, sleep and perform other activities essential to leading a full life. Now researchers at the University of Alberta have confirmed that chronic pain doesn't just cause physical discomfort; it can impair your memory and your concentration." This seems like a no-brainer.
~ Revealing The Origins Of Morality -- Good And Evil, Liberal And Conservative -- "How much money would it take to get you to stick a pin into your palm? How much to stick a pin into the palm of a child you don't know? How much to slap a friend in the face (with his or her permission) as part of a comedy skit? Well, what about slapping your father (with his permission) as part of a skit? How you answer questions such as these may reveal something about your morality, and even your politics - conservatives, for example, tend to care more about issues of hierarchy and respect, while liberals concentrate on caring and fairness."
~ The Amazing Power of One -- "Do you ever feel overwhelmed by all the goals you want to accomplish? Do you find it especially difficult starting out on a new goal? This is where the powerful “Rule of One” comes to the rescue."
~ Participate in Well-Being Research -- "SWB [subjective well-being]Research is running a week long "daily diary" study. This involves completing a brief 3-minute survey each day over an 8-day period. Participants are then presented with feedback about their well-being during this one-week period."
~ Debate Over The Importance Of Self-Esteem, From The Harvard Mental Health Letter -- "Many regard heightened self- esteem as a worthy aim, but others worry that its significance and value are overrated, reports the June 2007 issue of the Harvard Mental Health Letter. There is convincing evidence that people with high self-esteem are happier, as well as more likely to undertake difficult tasks and persevere in the face of failure. Other studies have failed to confirm the virtues of high self-esteem."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ America's widening "marriage gap" -- "As the divorce rate plummets at the top of American society and rises at the bottom, the widening "marriage gap" is breeding inequality."
~ The jolly swashbucklers of Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End -- "Like all abstract art, At World's End is best approached non-narratively, as an experience rather than a story. Still, since that experience will cost you $10 and nearly three hours of your life, I'll try to sort through the flotsam and make sense of the thing."
~ John McCain vs. Mitt Romney -- "Mitt Romney is rising in the polls, and that seems to have irritated John McCain, especially because he thinks Romney is a phony. So, when Romney tried to use the immigration bill that McCain supports to beat up the Arizona senator, McCain fired back by cracking wise about what he sees as Romney's convenient changes of position. Here's how the exchange has played out...."
~ Is Giuliani too liberal for the GOP? Nope -- "He's a pro-choice, pro-gay-rights candidate seeking to lead a party dominated by Christian evangelical voters who hate those positions. Giuliani's three marriages, the charges of adultery that led to the very public flameout of his second one, and an open feud with his children also threaten his standing among social-conservative voters. Conservative leaders are always stirred up about something, but Giuliani seems to have gotten them in a particular snit."
~ Reason Sought in Linguist Firings -- "Lawmakers who say the military has kicked out 58 Arabic language experts because they were gay want the Pentagon to explain how it can afford to let the valuable specialists go."
~ The Changing Face of China | openDemocracy -- "As change sweeps through China at a rapid rate, adaptability has become the password to success. A new book by former BBC correspondent, Duncan Hewitt, examines at close hand how peasant revolutionaries have transformed themselves into lifestyle gurus, how migrant workers have become entrepreneurs, and how a once conservative father now runs a gay hotline. " This is an audio file free for download.
~ Obama Leads GOP in Head-to-Head Matches -- "In the race for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, Barack Obama trails fellow U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton in a national survey of likely Democratic Primary voters, but that same survey shows he would fare better against Republican opponents in General Election match-ups, a new Zogby International telephone poll shows. Obama would defeat all Republican opponents, including John McCain of Arizona, Rudy Giuliani of New York City, Mitt Romney of Massachusetts, and Fred Thompson of Tennessee in prospective presidential contests, the poll shows."
~ A Great But Broken Promise -- Bill Moyers -- "Think it over: In 1960, the gap in wealth between the top 20 percent of our country and the bottom 20 percent was 30 fold. Now, it is 75 fold. Stock prices and productivity are up, and CEO salaries are soaring, but ordinary workers aren't sharing in the profits they helped generate. Their incomes aren't keeping up with costs. More Americans live in poverty - 37 million, including 12 million children. 12 million children! America's a broken promise. America needs fixing."
~ Study Questions Analysis in JFK Slaying -- "New testing on the type of ammunition used in the 1963 assassination of President John F. Kennedy raises questions about whether Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone, according to a study by researchers at Texas A&M University."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Carbon Taxes Versus Carbon Markets -- "Although there remain serious uncertainties about the magnitude of the human role in climate change, there is a growing consensus that emissions need to be reduced. The battle now is over how. The two leading approaches are carbon markets and carbon taxes."
~ Drought Aids Scientists in Muck Removal -- "State water and wildlife managers are taking advantage of an unprecedented drought by removing life-choking muck along Lake Okeechobee's shoreline."
~ Japan Proposes Halving Emissions by 2050 -- "The world should aim to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050 as part of a new global warming pact to succeed the Kyoto Protocol, Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Thursday."
~ Color vision drove primates to develop red skin and hair, study finds -- "You might call it a tale of "monkey see, monkey do." Researchers at Ohio University have found that after primates evolved the ability to see red, they began to develop red and orange skin and hair."
~ CNN.com to Stop Charging for Live Video -- "CNN will give away access to an online video service that now costs $25 a year, becoming the latest news organization to revamp its revenue model on the Web."
~ Cassini Radar Images Sea, Islands and Mountains -- "Cassini completed its 31st flyby of Saturn's moon Titan, which the team calls T30. The radar instrument obtained this image showing the coastline and numerous island groups of a portion of a large sea, consistent with the larger sea seen by the Cassini imaging instrument."
~ Essential tones of music rooted in human speech -- "The use of 12 tone intervals in the music of many human cultures is rooted in the physics of how our vocal anatomy produces speech, according to researchers at the Duke University Center for Cognitive Neuroscience."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Am I a Christian? -- "I was certainly brought up Christian; baptized and confirmed in the Lutheran Church. But all that was basically compulsory, and I have only thought deeply about theological matters since round about the time Hannah was pregnant with Twyla, 2 1/2 years ago. Ten years ago, I took at course in college "The Bible as Literature", and that was a highlight for me, because I was very struck by the Book of Ecclesiastes, struck profoundly. Outside of that, not much theological thinking until recently."
~ Anchor Management - the Art of Forgiveness -- "My sponsor, being the wise person she is, smiled. 'Forgiveness has nothing to do with letting them off the hook. It has everything to do with letting YOU off the hook.'"
~ Relating to the world, on both sides of the split -- "When we relate to the world from within a sense of I-Other split, we relate to both sides (I and Other) the same way. We just can’t help it."
~ The Metamorphasis of Buddhism Strengthens the Global Sangha -- "There is so much discussion over Buddhism in the west. There are many from the East who feel that they have a corner or the "true" Dharma/Buddhism and that "Western Buddhism" is diluting the "True Buddhism." Yet as [the Dalai Lama] states above, the Buddha taught differently according to the place (which I'm 99% sure meant the culture as well)."
~ Meditating on the Wild Side -- "Enigmatic rock icon Lou Reed on his "not New Agey" meditation album, his devotion to tai chi, and the greatest thing he's ever done."
~ Buddhism: where do we *belong?* -- "It was a nearly silent ascent, the wetness of the grass muffling my footsteps. Suddenly I was startled, a deer which had been lying near the brush just north of me on the hill stood up and began walking away from me, very slowly, very deliberately. So I took her picture and returned my gaze to the fading golden sunset. She didn't go far though and finally took up a position and watched me. Unsure of what this meant, I decided to move further up the hill."
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