"The real art of conversation is not only to say the right thing at the right place but to leave unsaid the wrong thing at the tempting moment."
~ Dorothy Nevill
Image of the day:
BODY
~ My Training -- "About a month before Christmas, I decide to see how much body fat I could drop in that short time period. With a few modifications to my strength training and an increase in energy systems training to add some metabolic stress, the exercise programming was a snap."
~ Study Finds Diet And Lifestyle Critical To Recovery -- "Diet and lifestyle may play a much more significant role in a person's ability to respond favourably to certain drugs, including some cancer therapies, than previously understood, say scientists.Writing in Nature Genetics, University of Manchester researchers have shown how the nutrients in the environment are critical to the fitness of cells that carry genetic mutations caused by diseases."
~ New Study Shows That Fitness Trumps Fatness In Determining Risk Of Cancer Death In Men -- "The Cooper Institute, a research and education nonprofit located at the world-renowned Cooper Aerobics Center in Dallas, announces a new study published in Obesity showing that fitness trumps fatness in determining risk of cancer mortality among men."
~ Vitamin C is the Bee’s Knees -- "A recent Australian study has shown that the more Vitamin C we consume as adults, the less likely we are to develop the bone and tissue problems that can ultimately lead to arthritis."
~ Glycoscience Now Hotbed Of Medical Research -- "Sugars were once credited with magical healing powers but are now seen like salt as an evil necessary in small doses but the cause of numerous diseases such as diabetes if taken in excess. Yet latest research suggests this view ignores the vital role played by more complex sugars in many biological structures, and the great therapeutic potential they have."
~ Study explains how protein keeps hunger at bay -- "Diets high in protein may be the best way to keep hunger in check, U.S. researchers said on Thursday in a study that offers insight into how diets work."
~ Spice Slashes Blood Sugar Levels -- "While Ginseng has been a busy little herb these last few thousand years, cinnamon has recently been found to pack a powerful medicinal punch. A tasty addition to hot chocolate and apple pie, nutritionists agree this popular spice offers surprising benefits for those suffering from diabetes." And high cholesterol.
~ Pistachio Power: Lowers Cholesterol And Blood Sugar, Relieves Stress -- "In recent months, researchers from the University of Toronto, Penn State University, and George Mason University in conjunction with Inova Fairfax Hospital, conducted three different studies on pistachios with stellar results for this lime-green colored kernel."
~ New Questions on Treating Cholesterol -- "Following results of recent clinical trials on popular cholesterol drugs, cardiologists are questioning whether a patient’s cholesterol should be all that matters."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ 12 Tenets of Conscious Living -- "I got this from Anthony Robbins and thought it was great..."
~ Cultural differences alter the brain -- "It's no secret culture influences your food preferences and taste in music. But now scientists say it impacts the hard-wiring of your brain."
~ Flourishing or Soulless Work? -- "I have been caught up recently in reading different books and articles about the law industry in order to get a more in-depth understanding of my new, interesting job. Accidentally, I came across an article from another PPND author Dave Shearon, Seven Positive Psychology Steps to Thriving in Law School. I am pretty inspired by the passage, particularly his last step - Remember (or find out) why you want to be a lawyer. His article appears to offer an answer to why some people would find their work soulless."
~ Loneliness Increases the Belief in God -- "In his experiments he showed that the lonelier a person was the more likely they were to believe in supernatural entities such as God, angels, etc. They were also more likely to attribute human characteristics to their pets, such as thoughtfulness or compassion."
~ Do You Recognize the 7 Ingredients of Maturity? -- "To get a better understanding of maturity is let’s take a look at some of the qualities of maturity and see how they relate to our lives and our actions. I am curious to hear if you agree with these or if you judge maturity in an entirely different light."
~ Experiences Beat Possessions: Why Materialism Causes Unhappiness -- "But, just like studies examining the connection between success and happiness, many of the findings are correlational. As a result we can't say for sure that materialism causes all these things, only that they're associated. So, for better evidence, cue the experiment."
~ Questionning the cognitive -- "American Scientist has two great reviews that tackle books on perhaps the most important theory of psychology: that the mind can be understood as an information processing system."
~ Scientists Close In On Taurine's Activity In The Brain -- "Taurine is one of the most plentiful amino acids in the human brain, but neuroscientists are still puzzled by just how brain cells put it to use. Now, a team of researchers at Weill Cornell Medical College in New York City has uncovered a prime site of activity for the molecule, bringing them closer to solving that mystery."
~ The Emotional Power of Smell -- "Sense of smell and emotional memory."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Save the Dramatic Chipmunk -- "When college kids make mashups of Hollywood movies, do they violate the law? Not necessarily, according to a study Peter Jaszi and I completed at American University. In fact, those funny little videos you watch when you’re supposed to be working—if you’ve missed “Dramatic Chipmunk,” the best five seconds on the Internet ever (Yes, Google it now)—are important harbingers of a more participatory media culture."
~ The Rise of the New Secularism and the New Atheism -- "The year 2007 is noteworthy for the sudden emergence of “the new secularism” and “the new atheism.” These two powerful intellectual forces have brought to public awareness the existence of widespread dissenting views on religion."
~ Huckabee's radical religious friends -- "Mike Huckabee, the former Baptist preacher turned Arkansas governor and now Republican presidential candidate, has deep connections to some conservative Christians with radical political ideas. As Salon's Mike Madden details here, while Huckabee talks up his experience visiting Israel in response to questions about foreign policy, he is also campaigning with the support of prominent figures who see Israel as the site of a coming Armageddon."
~ Bobby Fischer, Enfant Terrible of Chess, Dies at 64 -- "The difficult, reclusive chess master became an American hero at the height of the Cold War, then thumbed his nose at his country and renounced his citizenship."
~ More Candidate Bloomberg -- "How much larger and fruit-flavored can the Bloomberg for President bubble get? Evidence this morning came in the form of an NPR segment that was accompanied online by your very own “Candidate Bingo Card.” No, I’m not kidding. Robert Smith, the NPR reporter, sat in on the New York mayor’s State of the City address and instead of just analyzing it on its own merits insisted on…you know what? I’m too embarrassed to explain any further. I’ll let Smith do it...."
~ Is a Clinton-Obama Ticket in Our Future? -- "Pairing Clinton and Obama (in either order) might produce a ticket that's greater than the sum of its parts."
~ The Future of Marriage -- "Any serious discussion of the future of marriage requires a clear understanding of how marriage evolved over the ages, along with the causes of its most recent transformations. Many people who hope to “re-institutionalize” marriage misunderstand the reasons that marriage was once more stable and played a stronger role in regulating social life."
~ Obama the conservative -- "Despite running for the candidacy of the Democratic party, Barack Obama should be the great hope of conservatives—both in the US and Europe."
~ Directors, Studios Reach Deal -- "Hollywood directors have reached a tentative contract deal with studios after five days of negotiations, the directors union said Thursday." About freaking time.
~ Bush wants $150 billion plan to lift economy -- "President George W. Bush called on Congress on Friday to give the U.S. economy a "shot in the arm" with an election-year package of temporary tax cuts and other measures worth up to $150 billion." Why does the GOP love to spend our grandkids money? Debt is not a good thing.
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Scientists find way to increase corn's vitamin A -- "U.S. scientists have developed a way to breed corn that can boost the vitamin A it gives people who eat it -- a potentially important advance for regions of the world burdened by vitamin A deficiencies."
~ Google to Host Terabytes of Open-Source Scientific Data -- "Google is planning to launch a new product that will allow researchers to store open-source datasets for free, allowing anyone with an internet connection access to terabytes of scientific data." AWESOME!
~ Siphoning the Globe: Water Exhibit Exposes Worldwide Crisis -- "The exhibit, now at NYC's American Museum of Natural History and headed to San Diego and St. Paul, explores the depth of our global water crisis."
~ Food for Thought: How Plastic We've Become -- "Uncle Sam has confirmed it: Our bodies carry residues of kitchen plastics." And we wonder why cancer is so prevalent.
~ Math Models Snowflakes In Extraordinary Detail -- "Three-dimensional snowflakes can now be grown in a computer using a program developed by mathematicians. Intricate, incredibly variable and beautiful, snowflakes have been puzzling mathematicians since at least 1611, when Johannes Kepler predicted that the six-pointed structure would reflect an underlying crystal structure."
~ Green car sales soar 49 percent in Sweden: agency -- "Swedish sales of environmentally friendly cars rose by 49 percent in 2007 largely thanks to financial incentives from the state, Sweden's Environmental Protection Agency said Friday."
~ Can the environmental economy dodge a recession? -- "As one key economic engine after another -- housing, finance, autos, retail -- sputters and stalls out, the fledgling eco-economy is purring right along, fueled in no small part by venture capital firms hungry for new opportunities in industries that promise outsized returns on their investments."
~ Could the Universe be tied up with cosmic string? -- "A team of physicists and astronomers at the University of Sussex and Imperial College London have uncovered hints that there may be cosmic strings - lines of pure mass-energy - stretching across the entire Universe."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ The Development of Development -- "The developmental approach has been around, says Ken Wilber in this week's featured audio, for millennia. The Great Chain of Being—an attempt to express the core of the world’s religious traditions—holds that, in involution, spirit takes on the form of mind, then body, then matter, and in evolution (or, development!), it begins its long journey back."
~ Huntington on Understanding the Madhyamaka -- "Mistakes to be avoided: (1) thinking that, at some point, Western philosophers have adequately addressed the concerns of Madhyamaka philosophy -- they haven't!"
~ Up Close and Personal: John Edwards -- "They say he's angry. John Edwards, I mean. And I say, well, why not? So am I. Aren't you? I like that bumper sticker that reads: If you're not outraged, you're not paying attention."
~ Understanding “fine art” -- "A worse misuse of the term “fine art” occurs when it is used exclusively for works of visual art–paintings, photographs, etchings, engrave, tapestries, and sculptures. It should rather be used in the most extended sense to include not only all forms of imaginative literature, and musical performances, pieces of music, ballet compositions and performances, and dramatic performances, but also even bullfights and athletic competitions that provide the same kind of enjoyment that people experience at concerts, in the theatre, and in museums where works of visual art are exhibited."
~ Love as Play -- "I spent a couple of hours after work recently with a sweet friend I hadn't seen in a couple of months. We talked mostly, as is my wont these days, about love, conversation and community. Since she is polyamorous, I had the rare luxury of bouncing some of the criticisms and doubts about the lifestyle of loving many people, off someone who supports that lifestyle -- usually I'm the one defending it against skeptics."
~ The Sanbutsuge -- "The Sanbutsuge (讃佛偈) is a chant found in Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, sometimes called the Tanbutsuge. The Sanbutsuge actually is an excerpt of the Larger Sutra of Immeasurable Life, which is not nearly as long as the Lotus Sutra, but takes an hour or so to read. The Larger Sutra is one of three sutras in the Pure Land sects of Buddhism (of which Jodo Shinshu is a part), and is the longest and arguably the most important. This sutra is the one that defines who Amida Buddha is, and his story to becoming first a Bodhisattva, then a Buddha."
~ Living on the Edge: The Evolution of Integral Society -- "A subtle, but significant shift is underway in western civilization. Academics might call this a paradigm shift, while historians would describe it as a sea change or a great turning. It is a time when all aspects of a civilization undergo simultaneously a change of head, heart and soul."
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