"Nothing in life is to be feared, it is only to be understood. Now is the time to understand more, so that we may fear less."
~ Marie Curie
Image of the day (David Winston):
BODY
~ National Body Challenge 2008 -- "Discovery Health's 2008 National Body Challenge is coming up soon; you can sign up starting on December 27 and I think it's a great idea for anyone looking to really get moving next year. Can you say "New Year's Resolution"?" Bally Total Fitness is a sponsor of this event -- you can get a free 8 week membership if you sign up.
~ Green Tea, Fruit Extracts Touted as Potential Cancer Fighters (HealthDay) -- "A gel derived from black raspberries, a fruit beverage and old-fashioned green tea all hold potential promise as ways to treat or prevent different types of cancer, preliminary research suggests."
~ Obesity, Diabetes Linked to Cancers (HealthDay) -- "Obesity and diabetes -- risk factors so often linked to heart disease -- can also affect the incidence and severity of cancer, a collection of four new studies suggests."
~ Stem Cells Make Sick Mouse Mighty Again -- "Stem cell treatment cures mice of sickle cell anemia."
~ 90 seconds to amazing health -- "What if you could cut your risk of heart disease, get fitter, and slow aging — not to mention protect your smile — in less time than it takes to watch a couple of commercials?"
~ Catching flu doubles the risk of heart attacks and strokes -- "Winter infections like flu can double the risk of heart attacks and strokes, an extensive study has found. Sufferers are twice as likely to be affected in the week after catching a range of common respiratory infections."
~ Nationwide trial to test omega-3 oils vs. Alzheimer's disease -- "A consortium of researchers, supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institutes on Aging and coordinated by the University of California-San Diego, will be conducting a nationwide clinical trial to study the effects of an omega-3 fatty acid on the progression of Alzheimer's disease."
~ Overview of Varicose Veins and Spider Veins -- "There are many treatment options for varicose veins and spider veins. Learn more here."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ A Metaphysics for Scientific Realism -- "Traditionally and especially in the early twentieth century, around the time of the birth of modern analytic philosophy, realist positions were contrasted with idealism, according to which there is no world external to and thus independent of the mental. The classic statement of this position is credited to Bishop George Berkeley, for whom reality is constituted by thoughts and ultimately sustained by the mind of God. Idealism need not invoke a deity, though. A phenomenalist, for instance, might be an idealist without appealing to the divine. Given an idealist ontology, it is no surprise that scientific claims cannot be construed literally, since they are not about what they seem to describe at face value, but this of course does not preclude knowledge of a mind-dependent reality."
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~ Wake Up: A Guide to Living Your Life Consciously -- "Do you ever have a feeling that you’re drifting through life, and not going where you want to go? Or that you don’t know how you got where you are today? Living consciously is about taking control of your life, about thinking about your decisions rather than making them without thought, about having a life that we want rather than settling for the one that befalls us."
~ Our Secret Attitude Changes -- "When you change your attitude about something, do you know why? Psychologists have argued that the inner workings of our minds are largely hidden away from us. One aspect of this is the surprising finding that people are often unaware when they have changed their attitudes."
~ What Do You REALLY Want? -- "Most of us don’t know what we want. We think we do, but we really don’t. We only know what we don’t want. We don’t want a boring job. We don’t want to be poor. We don’t want to disappoint our loved ones."
~ Subliminal Smells Bias Perception About A Person's Likeability -- "Anyone who has bonded with a puppy madly sniffing with affection gets an idea of how scents, most not apparent to humans, are critical to a dog's appreciation of her two-legged friends. Now new research from Northwestern University suggests that humans also pick up infinitesimal scents that affect whether or not we like somebody."
~ How emotions colour our perception of time -- "Our sense of time is altered by our emotions to such an extent that time seems to fly when we are having fun and drags when we are bored. Recent studies using standardized emotional material provide a unique opportunity for understanding the neurocognitive mechanisms that underlie the effects of emotion on timing and time perception."
~ 8 Powerful Ways to Rediscover Your Passion -- "You were born with a passion to do something unique with your life. As a divine being it was given you from the infinite supply of the universe. As an unborn child in your mother’s womb, you had it swirling all around you, and it lived and breathed inside of you, even before your little lungs developed." Ignore the New Age-y opening, it's a good article.
~ Domestic Violence -- "Verbal abuse is just as damaging as physical or sexual violence–the American Psychological Association classifies all three as wartime torture methods. In their daily wars women come to view themselves as worthless and powerless and internalize the loathing. They may develop serious medical problems like depression, anorexia/bulimia, post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, substance abuse and more, all while afraid to leave the abuser." Emphasis added.
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Poetry is not a tool for teaching other things -- "It should be taught for its own sake - and the more challenging it is, the better."
~ Studying Those Who Studied the Bible -- "While reading Karen Armstrong's new book, "The Bible: A Biography," a volume in the Atlantic Monthly's Books That Changed the World series, I fancied I could hear the sound of recently qualified Ph.D.s in the Bible sharpening their pencils for comment."
~ ‘Irritable Centrism’ -- "Irritable centrism has shown itself in different guises, all of them consequential, several times in the past several years. It emerged very clearly in the spring of 2004, after the supreme court in Massachusetts essentially forced the state to recognize marriages between gay partners. For millions of people with unshakable convictions on this issue, the decision was either an overdue recognition of an important civil right or a disgraceful repudiation of conventional moral standards."
~ Atheism's Wrong Turn -- "Journalists have dubbed this combative style of challenging religious belief "the new atheism." To the extent that the appellation is meant to highlight the novelty of virulently anti-religious ideas finding a mass audience in the United States, it is certainly fitting. But, as a description of the style of unbelief itself, it demonstrates a striking lack of historical awareness. That's because "the new atheism" is not particularly new."
~ Huckster -- "Mike Huckabee has been scaring the bejesus out of the Republican establishment with his scorching populist invective. In one recent interview, the former Arkansas governor declared, 'I am like a lot of folks who are tired of thinking the Republican Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of Wall Street.' He has denounced "immoral" CEO salaries, and warned, 'People will only endure this for so many years before there is a revolt.' The terrified anti-tax Club for Growth is waging jihad against Huckabee, and Robert Novak has called him an advocate of 'class struggle.'"
~ Holy Nonsense: Mitt Romney's windy, worthless speech -- Christopher Hitchens -- "Composed chiefly of boilerplate, the windy speech raised the vexed question of the candidate's religious affiliation—and thus broke the taboo on mentioning it—without setting to rest any of the difficulties that make it legitimate to raise the issue in the first place."
~ Joseph A. Palermo: Congress Must Find Out: Who Destroyed the Tapes? -- "The Democratic Congress might have taken impeachment "off the table" but it cannot ignore the Central Intelligence Agency's obstruction of justice. Destroying videotaped evidence of CIA personnel torturing Al Qaeda suspects in violation of U.S. law is no small matter."
~ Deepak Chopra: Religion's Greatest Enemy? -- "Decades after Monty Python came to an end, John Cleese is dapper, intelligent, freethinking, and still funny. I heard him give an impromptu talk and came away with one of his best lines: "The biggest enemy of religion is spirituality." The talk was in California among people who immediately applauded. On a certain level it's only a quip, because spirituality, in its truest sense, has no enemies. The same can't be said of religion."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ TED Talk -- Robert Full: Secrets of movement, from geckos and roaches -- "UC Berkeley biologist Robert Full shares his fascination with spiny cockroach legs that allow them to scuttle at full speed across loose mesh and gecko feet that have billions of nano-bristles to run straight up walls. His talk, complete with wonderful slow-mo video of cockroach, crab and gecko gaits, explains his goal of creating the perfect robotic 'distributed foot.'"
~ Life's Complexity Began With Poop -- "Every now and then, science puts forth a theory that -- at least on a bitterly cold December day, with a flu infection stirring fatigue in a certain science journalist -- resonates with grand poetic truth. The theory: the incredible complexity of life on Earth, the myriad of forms and forms and functions, owes its existence to poop."
~ Really Big Planets: When Do Gas Giants Reach The Point Of No Return? -- "Astronomers have identified the point at which a star causes the atmosphere of an orbiting gas giant to become critically unstable. Depending upon their proximity to a host star, giant Jupiter-like planets have atmospheres which are either stable and thin, or unstable and rapidly expanding. The research enables us to work out whether planets in other systems are stable or unstable by using a 3-D model to characterize their atmospheres."
~ Methanol Shows Increasing Promise As An Alternative Fuel -- "After grabbing headlines for years as the ultimate solution to world energy problems, the "hydrogen economy" has an emerging but lesser-known competitor called the "methanol economy," according to a new article. Methanol, an alcohol like ethanol, shows increasing promise as an alternative energy source with advantages over both ethanol and hydrogen."
~ New research may lead to better climate models for global warming, El Nino -- "One hundred fifty scientists from more than 40 universities in nine countries are starting a coordinated program aimed at gaining new insights about the Earth's climate and the complex, interconnected system involving the oceans, the atmosphere and the land."
~ Astronomer detects atmosphere of extra-solar planet -- "University of Texas at Austin astronomer and Hubble Fellow Seth Redfield has used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope (HET) at McDonald Observatory to make the first ground-based detection of the atmosphere of a planet outside our solar system."
~ Bioprospectors Identify Hot New Biofuel-producing Bacteria -- "A bioprospecting expedition to Iceland's famed hot springs has yielded new strains of bacteria with potential of producing hydrogen and ethanol fuels from wastewater now discharged from factories that process sugar beets, potatoes and other plant material. The microbes hold potential for combining energy production with wastewater treatment."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ 4 Questions That Will Bring Balance to Your Life -- "If you focus on one aspect of your life to the exclusion of the others then no matter how much you improve in that one area, neglecting those other areas will only lead to overall digression. To ensure a more balanced approach, each key area of your life must be addressed."
~ Where Politics and Buddhism Intersect -- "TAP talks to Ethan Nichtern, author of the new Buddhist political treatise One City, about faith, youth, 9-11, consumption, and powerlessness."
~ Obama, Thompson, and “the fray” -- "If the general election is Fred Thompson versus Barack Obama, not only will they (based upon their current campaigns) largely stay “above the fray” (something Thompson as well has been commended for during the GOP debates), but by virtue of both’s commitment to depth, they will do something more. They will raise the level of debate in this country to the level of high intelligence and deep mutual respect perhaps not seen in this country at the presidential level for at least a generation." Agreed.
~ One City Blog -- "Ethan Nichtern is rapidly becoming my favourite Buddhist blogger. I’ve been a huge fan of his InterDependence Project Podcast for a long while now. His new book One City has been touted as “A trenchant and engaging call to an expanded awareness.” by Daniel Goleman, author Social Intelligence. And now… his new blog totally rocks too."
~ Mitt Romney On Faith in America -- "Now, just to be clear, I don't know enough about Romney to cast a judgment on his values. For all I know he could be playing a religious facade to get the sympathy of the religious voters (e.g. Christian evangelicals) to garner votes (ala G.W. Bush), but deep inside his values could be different from what he publicly profess (of course, this applies to all candidates). However, based on what I've seen so far, Romney is indeed a man of faith (see this debate video). His professed faith is mythic to the core. And his speech stretches the gap between believers, not-so believers (moderates, those with no religious affiliation, agnostics), and non-believers (seculars, atheists). It elevates the believers (faithful) above the non-believers (faithless). Romney's preference of belief over non-belief is more divisive than unitive--a reflection of his (predominantly) mythic faith."
~ Theory and Practice of Integral Sustainable Development: Part 1 – Quadrants and the Practitioner -- "This is part one of a two-part paper that offers an overview of Integral Sustainable Development. The paper explains the rudiments of a practical framework that integrates the crowded conceptual and operational landscape of sustainable development and enables practitioners to ...."
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