Quote of the day:
"Those who dream by day are cognizant of many things which escape those who dream only by night."
~ Edgar Allan Poe
Image of the day:
BODY
~ New Evidence For The Protective Effects Of Fruits And Veggies -- "The age-old refrain, "Eat your vegetables!" had scientific support as researchers presented the latest findings on cancer prevention at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention, held December 5 - 8 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania."
~ Findings On Plant-Derived Cancer Medicines -- "The next cancer-fighting therapeutic could be growing in your garden, according to research presented at the American Association for Cancer Research's Sixth Annual International Conference on Frontiers in Cancer Prevention Research.... For example, a black raspberry-based gel might offer a means of stopping oral lesions from turning into a particularly dangerous and disfiguring form of cancer."
~ Sugary Beverages May Increase Alzheimer's Risk -- "Excess drinking of sugary beverages like soda may increase the risk of Alzheimer's disease, suggests new research in mice. Although the exact mechanisms aren't known, obesity and diabetes are both associated with higher incidences of Alzheimer's. Ling Li and her colleagues tested whether high sugar consumption in an otherwise normal diet would affect Alzheimer's progression."
~ Healthy Holidays: Tips For Making Smart Food Choices -- "The holidays offer tempting challenges to your healthy eating plan. Parties have you eating away from home more often, and sweet treats appear unbidden at your office or doorstep. It's enticing to relax your efforts over the holidays, but your health depends on your diet. Here are some tips from Karen Klatte, M.D., a cardiologist on the medical staff at Baylor Medical Center at Waxahachie. - Make healthy food choices."
~ Broccoli Three Times A Month Can Significantly Reduce Cancer Risk -- "If you are not keen on broccoli or cabbage be comforted with the news that you do not have to eat too much of it to reduce your chances of developing cancer. In fact, if you eat broccoli or cabbage just three times each month you could well be reducing your chances of developing bladder cancer by up to 40%, say scientists from the Roswell Park Cancer Institute in Buffalo, USA."
~ When Schools Offer Salad Bar Kids Eat More Fruits, Vegetables -- "A new UCLA study has found that elementary schools can significantly increase the frequency of fruit and vegetable consumption among low-income students by providing a lunch salad bar.The findings, published in the December issue of the international peer-reviewed journal Public Health Nutrition, show that the frequency of students' fruit and vegetable consumption increased significantly - from 2.97 to 4.09 times daily - after a salad bar was introduced."
~ Products with good bacteria get popular -- "Bugs in baby food? Microbes in your milkshake? Relax, this is not the latest tainted food scare — it's a growing trend in foods designed to boost health, not make you sick." Pro-biotics may be the next big thing in health.
~ The Effects Of Diet And Metabolism On The Body -- "It doesn’t matter whether you are male or female, low calorie dieting slows your metabolism, making it progressively more difficult to lose weight and keep it off. The failure rate of most diets is astronomical, yet people continue to try one after another, always hoping that each new scheme will provide the solution. If you’re a veteran of the diet wars, the one word answer to your dilemma should be muscle. Let’s take a look at why diets often fail and how strength training (exercise) can rev up your metabolism."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Is Generosity Genetically Programmed? -- "Are those inclined towards generosity genetically programmed to behave that way? A team of researchers, including Dr. Ariel Knafo of the Psychology Department at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, believes that this could very well be the case."
~ Tantra: An Ancient Spiritual Path For Self Healing -- "Dr. Dean Ornish, a well respected pioneer in preventive medicine, and author of the best selling book Love and Survival: The Scientific Basis for the Healing Power of Intimacy says relative to intimacy, 'I am not aware of any other factor in medicine, not diet, not smoking, not exercise, not stress, not genetics, not drugs, not surgery, that has a greater impact on our quality of life, incidence of illness and premature death from all causes.'"
~ Having A Good Life -- "Having a good life means that our work, our relationships, our bank account, our social life, our health, how we feel about ourselves, our sense of purpose and satisfaction, and so on, should all be in reasonable order, right? But if they are not? Does that mean we can not have a good life?"
~ Grandma Had It Right! Positive Psychology And Common Folk Wisdom -- "We’ve all heard the sayings: “A penny saved is a penny earned.” “Early to bed, early to rise, makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise.” “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.” “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” But how accurate and helpful are these sayings, anyway?"
~ Possible Genetic Predictor For Response To Lithium Augmentation In Depressed Patients -- "As in most fields of medicine, psychiatry researchers are working to identify specific types of patients, through their individual genetic variations, that may better benefit from particular drugs or combinations of drugs than other patients."
~ How to Recover the Fun of Playfulness -- "Playfulness is fun part of life that we tend to mislay as adults. In our culture there is an expectation that children should play, but adults must be serious. Personally, I think being adult is highly overrated."
~ The human mind intuits probability at one year of age -- "This interesting work (PDF here) shows that 12 month old infants have expectations about future single events never before seen, based on their likelihood."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut on Charlie Rose -- Just because . . . and Vonnegut rocks.
~ City on a Hill -- "In “Head and Heart” [Garry Wills] invites readers to reconsider American religious history, challenging the conventional wisdom on many issues while synthesizing much of the finest recent scholarship. ... The “head” of Wills’s title is Enlightenment religion, embodied in the thoughtful but sometimes chilly deism of Washington, Jefferson and Madison. The “heart,” by contrast, is evangelicalism, to be found in America’s emotionally intense but intellectually thin revivalists, like George Whitefield before the Revolution and Charles Grandison Finney not long after."
~ MediaCulture: The Roots of the Lending Crisis Run Run Through Wall Street -- "The debate over whether the blame for the crisis should rest with lenders or borrowers misses a crucial point: if lenders couldn't offset their loans to Wall Street, their practices couldn't have spiraled out of control." And these are the same folks who are writing the bail-out.
~ Tough Choices for Values Voters -- "Religious conservatives in Ohio are credited with helping President George W. Bush win that state--and thus the election-- in 2004. In that same year, more than 60 percent of Ohio voters also approved a constitutional ban on gay marriage. But since then, the political landscape has changed, quickly. So-called "values voters" are now scrambling to figure out who they should back. They are weighing the candidates that reflect their values versus the one who might win."
~ A Christmas Meditation on Kazantzakis' 'Greek Passion' -- "Most people have heard of Nikos Kazantzakis’ Zorba the Greek and the controversial The Last Temptation of Christ made even more famous and controversial by Martin Scorsese’s film. But, to my mind, the greatest of Kazantzakis' works is The Greek Passion. As one reads it one gets a glimpse at the very soul of its author and his views on religion. The novel assumes epic proportions because in the final analysis it is concerned with the titanic struggle between good and evil."
~ Oprah tries to give Obama a lift with black voters -- "Talk show host Oprah Winfrey has long been a role model for black women because of her rags-to-riches story, her status as a tastemaker and her message of self improvement."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Can Where You Live Lead To An Early Death? -- "For people in five regions of the United States, their choice of where to live may significantly impact longevity. Four areas--the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia, Coastal Plains along the East Coast, and northern Nevada--have clusters of counties with some of the highest mortality rates nationwide."
~ Climate Scientists Tout Seaweed As Potent Weapon -- "Scientists at the climate conference in Bali say seaweed and algae could be a potent weapon against global warming. Sea plants can suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere at rates comparable to the largest rain forests."
~ US CO2 reduction: the first 40% is cheap -- "For years, the United States has resisted mandatory reductions in greenhouse gas emissions because of the perceived cost to the national economy. But a new report suggests that significantly reducing U.S. carbon emissions could cost far less than the trillions of dollars some have projected. McKinsey & Co., a privately owned management consulting firm, predicts that making substantial emissions cuts may cost the economy only a few billion dollars, and that at least 40 percent of the reductions would actually bring economic savings.:
~ The Option of Urbanism -- "If, as I believe, building much denser cities is the lynchpin to any realistic strategy for building a bright green future, we'll need to learn the lessons Barcelona has to teach, and figure out how to make compact communities more vibrant and fulfilling places to live than the suburban alternative."
~ 'Nanohybrid' Plastic May Expand Use Of Biodegradable Plastic -- "Scientists are reporting development of a new biodegradable "nanohybrid" plastic that can be engineered to decompose much faster than existing plastics used in everything from soft drink bottles to medical implants."
~ Car Prototype Generates Electricity, And Cash -- "The price of oil nearly reached $100 a barrel recently, but a new prototype vehicle demonstrates how the cost of the black stuff could become a concern of the past. The system enables vehicles to not only run on electricity alone, but also to generate revenue by storing and providing electricity for utilities. The technology -- known as V2G, for vehicle-to-grid--lets electricity flow from the car's battery to power lines and back."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Deism vs Fidelism -- "Dowd is a promising voice of neo-deism (see a really nice entry at Wikipedia), though he doesn't identify as such, nor does he identify as integral (but then, some who do are not etc.). Deism is typically contrasted with fideism, where semantically religion and spirituality is identified or - more correctly - delimited in many Western cultures as "faith", as if religion and spirituality cannot be known by any other name."
~ Becoming a Dervish -- "I’m thinking of being initiated into a Sufi Order. I contacted the Sufi Order International, and might also be visiting the Nimatullahi Sufi Order and the Nur Ashki Jerrahi Order (all have centers in New York). I feel this will help me heal the ego-wounds I have related to my Islamic upbringing, and will also help me integrate my shadow more."
~ Blending Christmas with Winter Solstice and Bodhi Day (Rohatsu) -- "First let me say Happy Bodhi Day to all. This is the day that we not only celebrate the enlightenment of Buddha but the birth of Buddhism as well. In the west it is a time dominated by the Christian holiday celebrating the birth of their savior, Jesus Christ. For many Western Buddhists this can be a time of isolation feeling disconnected from society which brings us suffering."
~ Ancient philosophy begins with the Vedas -- "The Vedas are arguably the oldest surviving scriptures that are still used. Most Indologists agree that an oral tradition existed long before they were written down by the second century BC. The oldest surviving manuscripts are dated in the 11th century BC."
~ Plotinus, Ibn Arabi, and Sri Aurobindo -- "In working on my book Integral Metaphysics & Transformation I've been brushing up on Plotinus and Ibn Arabi; because their insighst should be incorporated (especially since they are so little known and understood in the West today)."
~ What do you do for ILP? -- Some Zaadzsters share what they do.
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