"Communism doesn't work because people like to own stuff."
~ Frank Zappa
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Plateau Busters -- "Sooner or later, bubba, your progress is going to come to a dull thud. It's no reason to hang yourself from the chin bar with a stretch band, though, as there are plenty of ways to bust through that nasty plateau."
~ A Role For Glucose-Sensing Neurons In Type 2 Diabetes Identified By Researchers -- "In cases of Type 2 diabetes, the body's cells fail to appropriately regulate blood glucose levels. Research has suggested that this results from two simultaneous problems: the improper functioning of pancreatic beta cells and the impairment of insulin's actions on target tissues, including the liver, fat and muscles."
~ Viewing Food As Healthy Often Encourages Overeating -- "An important new study from the Journal of Consumer Research explains the "American obesity paradox": the parallel rise in obesity rates and the popularity of healthier food. In a series of four studies, the researchers reveal that we over-generalize "healthy" claims. In fact, consumers chose beverages, side dishes, and desserts containing up to 131% more calories when the main dish was positioned as "healthy"."
~ Avocados Prove Fruitful In Fighting Oral Cancer -- "The next time you reach for the guacamole and chips, you'll be doing something good for your body. Avocados are loaded with healthy monounsaturated fat,* and now researchers say they might also help your body fight off cancer. Renee Bean always tries to make fresh fruits and vegetables a part of her recipes. As a chef, she says they can make her dishes taste better. As an oral cancer survivor, she believes they might actually help her feel better."
~ Tour de France cyclists have big hearts (AP) -- "Riding the grueling Tour de France bike race takes strength, stamina — and perhaps a heart nearly 40 percent bigger than normal."
~ Tips to build muscles mass at any age -- "If you think 20 to 30 minutes of cardio a few days a week is all you need to keep your health in check over the next few decades, it's time to wake up and smell the iron."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ 12 Secrets to a Happy Life -- "Find out 12 ways to be happier."
~ Study Suggests That We Should Re-Think Learning Methods For Long-Term Retention -- "When you look back on your school days, doesn't it seem like you studied all the time? However, most of us seem to have retained almost nothing from our early immersion in math, history, and foreign language.Were we studying the wrong way during all those wee hours? Well, as it turns out we may have been."
~ Shortage of Talk Therapy for Bipolar -- "Psychological therapy can greatly boost the effectiveness of drugs in treating bipolar disorder, but these specialized talk therapies aren't as widely available as they should be, experts say...." Blame the HMOs.
~ Dream Symbols 15: Water, Swimming and Drowning -- "Water in dreams is often described as being a symbol of the unconscious or subconscious mind. At that level, if we find ourselves in water, swimming, floundering, drowning, trying to reach an unattainable shore, mingling with an assorted selection of other creatures, such as snakes, dragons, whales, dolphins, etc., we could well assume that the dream is telling us something."
~ Taking Personal Responsibility -- "Personal responsibility is the most important ethic you can exercise. With the cultivation of personal responsibility comes growth in all areas of life. It is a matter of taking charge of your own self and your circumstances through well-directed thoughts, words, and deeds."
~ Altruism Emerges When Thoughts Focus On God -- "Thoughts related to God cultivate cooperative behaviour and generosity, according to University of British Columbia psychology researchers. In a study to be published in the September issue of Psychological Science journal, researchers investigated how thinking about God and notions of a higher power influenced positive social behaviour, specifically cooperation with others and generosity to strangers."
~ Mind and brain disorder encyclopedia now free online -- "The Dana Guide to Brain Health is a fantastic book that contains a wealth of practical information about keeping your brain healthy, maintaining mental sharpness, and dealing with problems when they arise. Even better, the section on mind and brain disorders has now been made fully searchable and freely available on Dana's website."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ State Of the Union -- "One of the enduring beauties of college football season is the way that it unveils itself to the world. While the N.F.L. slogs through bad preseason games to fill its owners’ coffers, college football opens with a snap, like an artist pulling a sheet off of a canvas. And sometimes, there’s an unexpected work of beauty after the toil of the off-season."
~ U.S. is king of the Americas -- "Star-studded but also dedicated and unselfish, American team completes romp through Olympic qualifying tournament with 118-81 rout of Argentina." Remember when USA basketball was a force of nature? Looks like that is finally true again as the best players played as a team and made it look easy.
~ Wistful over lost dreams at Summer of Love fest -- "Some of the biggest musical stars of the 1960s counterculture gathered in San Francisco on Sunday for a concert to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Summer of Love, yet backstage many voiced disappointment about the era's unfulfilled ideals."
~ Psychiatrists least religious of U.S. doctors: study -- "U.S. psychiatrists generally are less likely to be Protestant or Roman Catholic than other types of doctors, according to a study released on Monday."
~ Labor Day Meditation -- "Today is Labor Day in the United States. A product of the labor movement, Labor Day was established in 1882 (it became a federal holiday in 1894) as a day to celebrate and acknowledge the achievements of American workers — though you’d hardly know it from the drunken barbeques and (non-drunken) white sales that are our preferred means of celebrating the day today."
~ Secret Report: Corruption Is 'Norm' Within Iraqi Government -- "A Baghdad embassy study says Prime Minister Maliki is blocking corruption probes, his government is partly controlled by criminal gangs, and the U.S. is doing little to clean up the mess."
~ The Vanishing American Vacation -- "Compared to people in other developed countries, Americans don't ask for more vacation time, don't take all the vacation time their employers give them and continue to work while they are on vacation."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ 500 days at Venus, and the surprises keep coming -- "Venus Express has now orbited Earth`s twin for 500 Earth days, completing as many orbits. While the satellite maintains steady and excellent performance, the planet continues to surprise and amaze us."
~ Studying evidence from Ice Age lakes -- "During the last Ice Age, the ice dammed enormous lakes in Russia. The drainage system was reversed several times and the rivers flowed southwards. A group of geologists is now investigating what took place when the ice melted and the lakes released huge volumes of fresh water into the Arctic Ocean."
~ Stellar Firework in a Whirlwind -- "Stars do not like to be alone. Indeed, most stars are members of a binary system, in which two stars circle around each other in an apparently never-ending cosmic ballet. But sometimes, things can go wrong."
~ European Union OKs fusion project -- "European scientists will build on U.S. military research to try to create laser-based nuclear fusion aimed at replacing fossil fuels, it was reported."
~ Hurricane Felix: Some Staggering Facts [The Intersection] -- "Here's some data I recently compiled. First, concerning Hurricane Felix . . . ."
~ Rare Breeds Of Farm Animals Face Extinction -- "With the world's first global inventory of farm animals showing many breeds of African, Asian, and Latin American livestock at risk of extinction, scientists have called for the rapid establishment of genebanks to conserve the sperm and ovaries of key animals critical for the global population's future survival."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Effing the Ineffable -- "Many people believe that mystical experience--the wordless experience of "Ultimate Reality"--cannot be translated into words. That is, it is "ineffable." But Ken Wilber disagrees. Actually, he doesn't disagree completely. All experiences are ineffable. We can't perfectly describe our common experience of a sunset or an orgasm any more than we can describe mystical experience. But we CAN use words--i.e, "signifiers"--to represent sunsets and orgasms pretty well if we really try, and so we can also use them to represent mystical experience."
~ Buddhist Geeks 35: Theory, Yoga, & Art -- "In our last segment with art and meditation professor Robert Spellman he shares with us a key distinction between the theoretical and the yogic and how that important distinction relates to artistic practice."
~ Rounding Up the Buddhas - September 2, 2007 -- Good links.
~ A Post-Metaphysical Interpretation of Synchronicity -- "I've already linked to this in a previous post, but i thought it was worth its own entry. Several months ago i recorded this piece with Ken Wilber, during one of the live conference calls at Integral Spiritual Center, and i found the discussion to be absolutely fascinating. Synchronicity has long been a defining texture in my own spiritual path, and was a topic which, until this call, i had never heard Ken speak or write about."
~ Belief and Disbelief -- "A new insight. Well, it’s new to me. Like all my “insights,” it has probably been perfectly obvious for years to many other people, but it came to me yesterday with a certain clarity as I was reading a translation of The Heart Sutra by Red Pine...."
~ Are You My Mother? -- "I don't know how long I stood there vibrating in her belly. I was so totally eclipsed by her that I could not have conjured a scrap of my personal story to save my life." Beautiful post.
Tags:
No comments:
Post a Comment