"The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities."
~ Sophocles
Image of the day (John Craig):
BODY
~ Exercise of the Week: The Drag Curl -- "Break out of your training rut and build some new biceps mass with the drag curl! It's not easy, you'll look like a gimp doing it, and you'll have to use sissy resistance. What more could you ask for in an exercise?"
~ Flexible muscles may be stronger muscles -- "Adults with tight leg muscles can improve their flexibility, and may make their muscles stronger in the process, a study shows."
~ African plant halts bleeding, speeds healing -- "The leaves of Aspilia africana, a plant used in African traditional medicine, can stop bleeding, block infection and speed wound healing, a new study from Nigeria confirms."
~ Japanese women live longest -- "Japanese girls born last year can expect to live to an average age of 85.8 years, making them the longest-lived in the world, according to figures released by the government on Thursday."
~ Lactose Intolerance Doesn't Mean Goodbye to Dairy -- "If your child is lactose-intolerant, you probably shy away from giving him or her milk or other dairy products. But that may not be the best tactic to take, experts say."
~ Zen To Slim: A Simple, 5-Step Weight Loss Plan -- "I think this one will be a bit controversial — weight loss theories seem to be a bit divisive, judging from past posts on this topics, as people have very strong opinions about the right way to lose weight." Good advice for the most part.
~ Prebiotics: Food for Good Bacteria -- "No, that supplement manufacturer didn't misspell "probiotics." "Prebiotics" are a separate category of food additive that are supposed to help probiotic bacteria grow and thrive in the human digestive tract. Probiotics, in turn, help people stay healthy, recent research shows."
PSYCHE
~ Legal Hallucinogen Warrants Greater Scrutiny -- "While some drug specialists report no signs of potential for addiction, pointing to the brief duration of the "high" induced by chewing or smoking the plant's leaves and positing that use of the drug will not lead to any late-night emergency room visits or states of prolonged psychosis, others categorically disagree: researcher Bryan L. Roth of the University of North Carolina, author of the most extensive clinical assessments of salvia, states that "Salvia divinorum and salvinorin A are emerging hallucinogenic drugs of abuse" and that they should clearly be regulated by law."
~ PTSD Linked To Physical Problems -- "A new study, conducted at the Netherlands Institute for Health Services Research and published in the journal, Psychosomatic Medicine, has found that people who develop post-traumatic stress disorder are at a higher risk for developing physical problems."
~ SciAm special on the science of children and teens -- "Scientific American have just released one of their special editions of collected articles. This one is on 'the early years' and looks at the psychology and neuroscience of children, from infancy to the teenage years."
~ Some insight into who can "just say no" [Cognitive Daily] -- "Psychologists have been exploring the powerful influence of peer pressure for decades, but now neuroscientists are also getting involved in the research. Can fMRI and other techniques offer more insight into why so many kids do as their peers do, even when they know what their friends are doing is wrong?"
~ Junkies and victims: addiction and the disease debate -- "Slate has an article by a psychologist and a psychiatrist who argue that addiction is not a 'brain disease', contrary to much of the recent rhetoric about drug abuse. This is one side of the debate that is driving our attempts to understand addiction."
~ The Optimism Revolution -- "Grounded optimism can help you fight illness."
~ Key to Successful Marriage: Say 'Thank You' -- "Gratitude can ease resentments over housework."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Medical marijuana backers say they'll fight on -- "Backers of a measure to stop the U.S. government from blocking the use of medical marijuana in states that allow it vowed on Thursday to press on with their fight despite losing another congressional vote."
~ The least bad plan for leaving Iraq -- "Peter Galbraith's article in the current New York Review of Books, "Iraq: The Way to Go," is one of the most bracing essays written on the subject lately—a provocative but logical case for a U.S. withdrawal (though not a total withdrawal) that still manages to achieve a few of the war's original goals."
~ Will the G.O.P. Bag the YouTube Debate? -- "Some of the major candidates are getting skittish about a sequel to the Democrats' CNN debate. Are they leery of the questions or of the network?
~ Where Iron Man and Beowulf Roam -- "At Comic Con, 120,000 geeks are being entertained by everyone from an old English monster to a young Mr. Spock."
~ $100 Million to Wrongfully Incarcerated -- "Yesterday, a federal judge ordered the U.S. government to pay more than $100 million to four men who were wrongfully imprisoned for 35 years. The court found that the FBI had withheld evidence proving the men's innocence for decades. The Justice Department actually argued that the FBI has no duty to share evidence with state prosecutors, even if not sharing will result in a wrongful conviction."
~ Giving Science the Finger -- "In the August issue of British Journal of Psychology, a team of researchers led by psychologist Mark Brosnan of the University of Bath, England, have published findings that suggest women who are good at science and math have longer ring fingers than index fingers, which indicates a relatively high level of prenatal exposure to the male hormone testosterone."
~ Democrats' Best Move Is to Let Gonzales Stay -- "With his bewildering and maddening testimony, the attorney general is a fine target in '08."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ How bacteria evolve into superbugs -- "Researchers at McGill and Oxford Universities have applied ecological and evolutionary theory to demonstrate how bacteria become resistant to antibiotics in hospitals."
~ TurtleNet Tracks Snappers to Save Them -- "Computer-toting turtles could be the key to preserving their habitat."
~ Hundreds of Oil-Covered Penguins Surface in South America -- "Hundreds of oil-covered Magellanic penguins have surfaced off the Atlantic coast of South America."
~ Fractal Dust and Noise [Good Math, Bad Math] -- "While reading Mandelbrot's text on fractals, I found something that surprised me: a relationship between Shannon's information theory and fractals. Thinking about it a bit, it's not really that suprising; in fact, it's more surprising that I've managed to read so much about information theory without encountering the fractal nature of noise in a more than cursory way."
~ BP, coal plants dump mercury into Great Lakes -- "Last week, I put up a post explaining that BP will be increasing their dumping of toxic waste into the Great Lakes. ... Now, thanks to some fine investigative reporting by the Chicago Tribune, we find out that BP has been dumping mercury as well, and will continue to do so."
~ MIT model could predict cells' response to drugs -- "MIT researchers have developed a model that could predict how cells will respond to targeted drug therapies. Models based on this approach could help doctors make better treatment choices for individual patients, who often respond differently to the same drug, and could help drug developers identify the ideal compounds on which to focus their research."
~ Shape-Shifting Robot Bird Flies, Spies -- "The "RoboSwift" mmics a bird that can fly for three years without landing."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Riding the Kundalini Dragon: Integrating Altered States -- "As I contemplate how to present written material that is meaningful for myself and others regarding Kundalini and spiritual emergence, I find myself smiling quietly and simply appreciating what is. It has been many years since my initial awakening, and that has allowed me time, precious time, to assimilate that at once sudden and life-changing experience."
~ Contributing Through Your Career -- "As I see it, your best long-term outlet for making a meaningful contribution to the world is your career. Yes, you can contribute by donating money and volunteering on the side, but that’s not as efficient as being able to give through the work you do each day. Most of the time when I see people overly concerned about giving money and volunteering, it’s because they don’t feel they’re contributing enough through their work, so there’s a bit of guilt connected to the money they receive."
~ Ego -- "Meanings of ego…"
~ Early Tibet -- "Sam van Schaik's Early Tibet weblog, containing notes pertaining mainly to the Dunhuang collections, was announced on H-Buddhism today. We gladly welcome another online drip of primary material on tantric Buddhism."
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