"The point of philosophy is to start with something so simple as not to seem worth stating, and to end with something so paradoxical that no one will believe it."
~ Bertrand Russell
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Boost your body image -- "Get real about your body."
~ Preventing liver disease through healthy eating -- "Nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) refers to a range of conditions from cirrhosis to liver inflammation that can lead to liver disease and death, and afflict individuals who drink little to no alcohol. Why should you care about this? According to some recent research, NAFLD affects nearly one-third of all American adults."
~ The MH Minute: Great Squat! -- "Test your core strength and balance with the single-leg squat."
~ High-carb diet may help you think faster -- "A low-carbohydrate/high-fat diet and a high-carbohydrate/low-fat diet both improve weight loss, enhance mood, and speed thinking, a study shows, but the low-carb diet may offer less benefit in terms of the rate of cognitive processing." This is a bit misleading -- at first the brain is sluggish when using ketones for fuel, but it eventually adapts. I eat less than 50 grams of carbs most days with no brain sluggishness.
~ ISSA Explains How To Protect Yourself Against Fraudulent Supplement Claims -- "Although nutritional supplements are viewed as an important component of the International Sport Sciences Association's overall integrated approach to personal training, these products should not be taken without doing the proper research first. The International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) reminds consumers of a few easy rules to remember in order to protect yourself against fraudulent supplement claims."
~ Why Americans 'Tune Out' Fat Talk -- "Despite more information and resources, we're still getting fatter. Why?"
~ Quit counting calories if it doesn't add up -- "Good news for anyone who hates number crunching: You don’t need to add or subtract a thing to get slim."
~ Health Tip: Considering Low-Carb? -- "Low-carbohydrate diets are rich in proteins (such as meats) and low in carbohydrates (such as breads and pastas). Because of the limited food choices offered by these plans, some people on a low-carb diet may need to take a multivitamin and a fiber supplement to get needed nutrients, says the American Academy of Family Physicians."
~ Fried Food Compounds May Harm Heart -- "Foods high in compounds called advanced glycation end products (AGEs) -- such as hamburgers, french fries and other fatty foods cooked at high temperatures -- cause a short-lived but significant dysfunction in blood vessel dilation that can lead to heart disease, a new study suggests."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Sometimes It's Better To Give Up -- "Are there times when it is better to simply give up? Psychologists have been exploring this question, and more specifically a possible link between tenacity and both physical and mental health. "
~ Bounded awareness: Socrates 2.0 -- "According to an article by Chugh and Bazerman, entitled "Bounded Awareness: what you fail to see can hurt you", economists and behavioral psychologists make the same mistake for which Socrates chastized the ancient Athenians. Researchers in both disciplines, despite believing very different things about human behavior, tend to assume that people will "accurately perceive the stimuli available to them". That is, that people receive, correctly interpret, and use all the information there is."
~ More news from the savannah -- "An experiment just published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Joshua New of Yale University shows that people pay more attention to the activities of animals than to those of vehicles. That applies even among urban Westerners who rarely see an animal from one year's end to the next."
~ To Do Lists and Mindfulness -- "There are more than 600 items on my to do list right now. Everything is there. A sea of two-word commands like “organize notes” or “buy Kashi” or “call Judd” occupy an endless hierarchy of spreadsheet cells. Such a document, at first glance, might seem daunting. Rather than inciting angst, however, this spreadsheet is one of my most important tools for cultivating and maintaining mindfulness."
~ Risk Of New Suicidal Thoughts During Antidepressant Treatment Has Genetic Component, New AJP Study Shows -- "DNA samples from patients in the federally funded Sequenced Treatment Alternatives to Relieve Depression (STAR*D) trial have revealed two genetic markers that appear to be associated with the emergence of suicidal thoughts during treatment with citalopram, a selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressant. The findings strongly suggest a genetic basis underlying the rare emergence of suicidal thoughts associated with taking an SSRI."
~ Nature and Nocturnal Themes in Positive Psychology -- "Lately I have been thinking about night music, dreams, what Freud and Jung got right, neuroplasticity and positive psychology. Huh? And this column is supposed to be six paragraphs? Yup. I promise."
~ How to Use Mini-Meditations to Relax and Find Focus -- "It’s often hard to be as focused as we’d like to be. Many things in our hectic lives interrupt our concentration and erode focus. Think: cell phones, instant messaging, email, and co-workers vying for our time and energy."
~ Depression: Flesh and Blood Or Thoughts and Emotions? By Alex Ellorde -- "Is depression caused by external factors, or by our own mind and body? The answer may not be as simple as some would like to believe."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Bush Vows to Veto Insurance Expansion -- "President Bush insisted to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Friday that he's going ahead with his promised veto of a major expansion of a children's health program despite its overwhelming approval by Congress...." Moron.
~ Ang Lee's Lust, Caution reviewed -- "With Lust, Caution (Focus Features), protean Taiwanese director Ang Lee (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon; The Hulk; Brokeback Mountain) does something that's unexpected and truly daring. He takes a compact gem of a short story by Chinese writer Eileen Chang and spins it into a 158-minute saga of espionage, deceit, sexual humiliation, and something that could be perversely—but not untruthfully—called love."
~ Burmese Junta Silences the Monks -- "The protests have diminished and the monks have been scattered, as the junta lashes out at Burmese civilians."
~ Satellite Images Show Myanmar Abuses -- "The new photos show disappearing villages and the buildup of army camps."
~ In the Valley of the Shadow -- "At West Point, a professor teaches poetry to cadets and learns more than she expected."
~ Clinton: $5,000 for Every U.S. Baby -- "Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday that every child born in the United States should get a $5,000 "baby bond" from the government to help pay for future costs of college or buying a home." It'll never happen, but imagine how much the government could save in financial aid funding alone.
~ The New Affirmative Action -- "Colleges want diversity. Students want diversity. There’s just this little problem with the law."
~ U.S. Missile Claims "Not Correct" -- "A number of top U.S-based physicists have concluded the United States used inaccurate claims to reassure NATO allies about U.S. missile defense plans in Eastern Europe."
~ Previewing the new Supreme Court term -- "As one of the most conservative in recent memory, the just-completed 2006 Supreme Court term has served as a rallying cry for progressives. But will the Roberts Court help bring Democratic voters to the polls for the 2008 election? Because the public's interest in the court is notoriously weak and its memory short, the upcoming term is more relevant to whether the court can be a mobilizing force. And the cases lined up for the new term, which begins next week, strongly suggest that the highest-profile decisions will actually make the court look liberal."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Cosmic Ghost Leaves Radio Footprint -- "Astronomers stumble across a very peculiar, yet strong sound from deep space."
~ Beetle to Beetle: Will Mate for Water -- "Thirsty female weevils get a life-saving benefit from mating: hydration."
~ A Kinder Cut: Humanely Raised Meat -- "Humanely or sustainably raised meat has entered the mainstream. Consumers -- already buying local food, free-range eggs, and organic produce at sometimes higher cost -- are willing to pay a premium for the knowledge that their steak didn't suffer on the way to becoming dinner."
~ Doug Rushkoff on the Technologies of Persuasion -- "Doug Rushkoff is a leading author and teacher on the intersections of media technologies with how people communicate, create, and learn. When I read (via boingboing.net) that Doug would be teaching an online course about "Technologies of Persuasion" at the distance learning site Maybe Logic Academy, I invited him to stop by and tell us what he's up to."
~ Chimp Not a Person, Court Rules -- "Courts and animal advocates clash over whether a chimp is a 'person' or a 'thing.'"
~ Alien intrusions threaten Sweden's seas -- "A gluttonous American pseudo-jellyfish, giant Japanese oysters, and an unidentified virus killing seals: strange intrusions are threatening Sweden's seas and fishermen are concerned."
~ Risky Science at the Top of the World -- "Geologist recounts her travels to unstable Nepal in the aftermath of 9/11."
~ Recovery from acid rain 'much slower than expected' -- "Acid rain was one of the world`s worst pollution problems of the 1970s and 1980s, affecting large areas of upland Britain, as well as Europe and North America."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Preconceived notions… -- "What it boils down to is this: We tend to get into patterns of thought, and what we think about things influences how we see the world. We’ll actually actively ignore plain-as-day evidence of things that conflicts with our preconceived notions. We’ll also believe totally unbelievable things simply because they fit into our scheme of notions."
~ Thoughts, Emotions and the Seat of Consciousness -- "The first step out of this absorption with thoughts and emotions, according to the teacher, is to pull yourself back to the center, which he says is not a place. By "centering", he means that we pull ourselves away from whatever it is we're absorbed in, like a t.v. for instance, and bring our awareness back to where we are."
~ Process, Structure, and Form: An Evolutionary Transpersonal Psychology of Consciousness -- In his seminal book on integral psychology The Radiance of Being (1996), Alan Combs demonstrated that consciousness must be understood from a systems perspective. In the following essay, Alan Combs & Stanley Krippner briefly outline a theory on how consciousness is generated as a dynamical process, both at the level of experience, and at the level of the neurological events ...."
~ Sitting, Sitting, Sitting -- "It's much easier to not sit, to not practice than it is to practice. There's a world of things that need to be done, all of which seem to be more important, exciting and worthwhile than sitting down and doing nothing. Yet we keep sitting, and we keep experiencing."
~ Consciousness: Chaotic and Strangely Attractive -- "In the following essay Alan Combs argues that consciousness is similarly awhirl with motion, both at the level of experience, and at the level of the neurological events which undergird experience."
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