"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing ever happened."
~ Sir Winston Churchill
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Dumbell Exercises to Deem Worthy: Chest Incline Press -- "This article is part 5 of my series on dumbbell exercises every guy should deem worthy. Today’s exercise focuses on the chest. This exercise will improve your pec strength, and secondarily works your biceps."
~ The Ankle Paradox: Building Indestructible Ankles -- "Okay, we know you bare-bones basics guys are asking, "Ankles? WTF?" Truth is, it's all part of the cosmic weightlifting puzzle. If you've got bad knees or an impaired gait, it could be because of your ankles."
~ How to Deal with Shoulder Injuries: The Infraspinatus -- "The Infraspinatus. One of your 4 rotator cuff muscles. The Infraspinatus is a dynamic stabilizer & assists in outward arm rotation. It’s located behind your shoulder & covers your shoulder-blade."
~ Regular exercise - not your genes - will help you live to 90 -- "The secret of enjoying a long life lies in your own hands, claim doctors. Looking after your health and exercising regularly is three times more important than your genes for improving your chances of having an active life in your 90s, according to new research."
~ Health Effects Of Obesity May Be Related To Body Image -- "The difference between actual and desired body weight is a stronger predictor of health than body mass index (BMI). In a secondary analysis of the 2003 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS) data set, researchers looked at a sample of 150,577 participants to examine the impact of desired body weight, independent of actual BMI, on the number of physically and mentally unhealthy days subjects report over one month."
~ Training to Run Faster -- "If you don’t run very fast in practice, you won’t be able to run very fast in races. The following article is written by Dr. Gabe Mirkin, MD, who explains that jogging will decrease your chances for injury, but will not improve your run time."
~ Artificial Skin Mimics the Real Thing -- "A new, nanotube-based artificial skin responds to temperature and pressure."
~ Attention to heart health good for the brain -- "A recent survey found that two out of three African Americans worry about developing heart disease and two out of five are concerned about developing Alzheimer's disease, yet only one in 20 are aware that heart health is linked to brain health."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Well: Reinventing Date Night for Long-Married Couples -- "Brain and behavior researchers say many couples are going about date night all wrong."
~ Why perfect dates make lousy partners -- "The best "catches" in dating land may be the worst choices in the long-run, new research shows."
~ Implicit associations -- "You might have prejudices you won't admit to, or, don't even know about. The Implicit Attribution Test claims to measure this hidden associations and it's been one of the most important psychological developments during the last decade."
~ Homomorphism Theory and the Mental Attitudes -- "So, before my ADD kicked in I was addressing Josh and Rosenthal’s response to my question about the difference between conscious pains and conscious thoughts that results in one being qualitative while the other isn’t. Their response is that the difference between the two cases is the result of the difference between the kind of property that one attributes to oneself. I argued that they still haven’t told me why one isn’t like anything at all for the creature and that it is inconsistent with Rosenthal’s view about the emotions."
~ What is Love Anyway? -- "People love each other all around us, all the time. If I had to place a bet, love is probably essential to the human condition. We all need attachments to others; we all need to love and be loved. If not, why would people write love songs?"
~ Exploring Relationships with the Single Weirdo -- "One of the many interesting things about being a life-long, single male in his early forties is people’s reactions to that single-ness (yep, a word). Everyone has an opinion on it. Depending on the person’s thinking, it can place me anywhere on the scale from ‘complete social outcast’, to ‘coolest bloke on earth’ and ‘luckiest man alive’. And elicit responses ranging from pity and ridicule, to envy and admiration." I can totally relate.
~ Is Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy Effective? -- "Mindfulness cognitive therapy (or mindfulness-based cognitive therapy, MBCT) is a blend of two very different approaches — cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) which focuses on changing our thoughts in order to change our behaviors, and the meditative practice of mindfulness, a process of identifying our thoughts on a moment-to-moment basis while trying not to pass judgment on them. While cognitive behavioral therapy has always emphasized the end result of change of one’s thoughts, mindfulness really looks at how a person thinks — the process of thinking — to help one be more effective in changing negative thoughts."
~ The Fear of Fear Itself -- "Don't panic, it's not a heart attack."
~ Its Hard To Know At Times If Your Dating Partner Is Happy -- "Research tends to focus on the positives of self-monitoring -- a personality characteristic that accounts for how attuned individuals are to societal conventions as well as the degree to which "appropriateness" controls their behavior and moderates how they present themselves to others." High self-monitors are social chameleons," says Northwestern University researcher Michael E. Roloff."
~The Differences in Gender -- Sealed With a Kiss -- "As Valentine's Day approaches, research has begun shedding light on that most basic of all human expressions of love -- the smooch -- which has received surprisingly little scientific scrutiny."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Sam Harris: The Secular Fundamentalist -- Big Think presents a series of videos featuring Sam Harris.
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~ Christian Right's Emerging Deadly Worldview: Kill Muslims to Purify the Earth -- "Christian extremists are preaching a war against tolerance to target and persecute all Muslims, including the 6 million who live in the U.S."
~ Every Year Brings Us Closer to 1984 -- "In the beginning, the government just collected fingerprints -- now they want eye scans and a host of other biometrics. Where will it stop?"
~ The Next Great Awakening -- "Understanding faith communities, especially understanding the complexities of the evangelical and Catholic worlds, is now an easier task, thanks to two new books, The Great Awakening by Sojourners Editor Jim Wallis and Souled Out by syndicated columnist E. J. Dionne. Though written in different styles—the preacher (Wallis) and the political journalist (Dionne)—together offer insight into religious activism and the possibilities for a more progressive approach to religious engagement in the public square."
~ All Problems of Notation Will be Solved by the Masses -- "If relational aesthetics and open source were always commercial, can the musical score provide a way of thinking through different relationships between creativity and code? The return to improvisation in 'livecoding' draws parallels with experimental practices developed by maverick musicians, programmers and educators from Sun Ra, The Art Ensemble of Chicago and the Scratch Orchestra to Seymour Papert. Simon Yuill argues that these 'distributive practices' are worth extending today."
~ Absolutism vs. Relativism in Abortion -- "The NYTimes published two articles about abortion in the last couple days. The first was a review by William Saletan of the book Embryo, A Defense of Human Life by Robert P. George and Christopher Tollefsen. The second was an article about the science of trying to detect pain in infants and possibly fetuses as well. The two juxtaposed reminded me of the tendency of the abortion debate in this country to degenerate into moral absolutes -- and simplistic ones at that. This is the subject of the Saletan article, but I believe it also applies to discussions of fetal pain."
~ Taking Obama seriously -- "The United States presidential race is the most exciting and energising in years. Barack Obama has made it so, and in a way that opens a new era of political possibility, says openDemocracy's founder Anthony Barnett."
~ Can Liberal Arts Colleges Be Saved? -- "This year, a Special Commission appointed by U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings “to consider how best to improve our system of higher education” completed a year long study. Its 55-page report of analysis and recommendations does not even mention liberal education or the liberal arts."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ The Chikungunya Question -- "Before the summer of 2007, Castiglione di Cervia, Italy, was known as a quiet village near Ravenna. In July, however, doctors noticed complaints of excruciating joint pain, fever, headaches, and rash. Their patients were experiencing a fever called "chikungunya"; the word originates in the Makonde language in Tanzania and Mozambique and means "to dry up or become contorted." This epidemic had two years previously raged unexpectedly through islands in the Indian Ocean. But it was new to Europe."
~ Complexity Theory Takes Evolution to Another Level -- "A group of scientists wants to revise Darwin's theory of evolution to better explain jumps in biological complexity, like that from single-celled to multicellular organisms."
~ U.S.: Arctic Oil Deposits May Be Ours, All Ours -- "New mapping data that shows Alaska's continental shelf extending farther out to sea than previously believed may bolster U.S. claims to oil and gas reserves contained in areas currently the subject of an international dispute."
~ New duck-billed Dinosaur From Mexico Offers Insights Into Ancient Life On West America -- "A new species of dinosaur unearthed in Mexico is giving scientists fresh insights into the ancient history of western North America. The new creature -- aptly dubbed Velafrons coahuilensis -- was a massive plant-eater belonging to a group of duck-billed dinosaurs, or hadrosaurs. In addition to isolated skeletons, the researchers found large bonebeds of jumbled duck-bill and horned dinosaur skeletons."
~ 'Junk DNA' Can Explain Origin And Complexity Of Vertebrates, Study Suggests -- "'Junk DNA' could hold the secret of the evolutionary origin of complex animals, according to new research. Vertebrates - animals such as humans that possess a backbone - are the most anatomically and genetically complex of all organisms, but explaining how they achieved this complexity has vexed scientists since the conception of evolutionary theory. Now researchers have traced the beginnings of complex life, i.e. vertebrates, to microRNA."
~ Lake Mead, Key Water Source For Southwestern US, Could Be Dry By 2021 -- "There is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead, a key source of water for millions of people in the southwestern United States, will be dry by 2021 if climate changes as expected and future water usage is not curtailed, according to new research. Without Lake Mead and neighboring Lake Powell, the Colorado River system has no buffer to sustain the population of the Southwest through an unusually dry year, or worse, a sustained drought. In such an event, water deliveries would become highly unstable and variable, said research marine physicists and climate scientists."
~ Android Prototypes Debut in Barcelona -- "Google Inc.'s profile was relatively low as the World Mobile Congress opened, but chip makers eager to help develop the first phones using Google's Android operating system were not so quiet."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Openness on the Forest Path -- "One thing that I realized was that I grasped at my self-image as a friendly Buddhist that had never said or done anything to offend this guy, therefore undeserving of his verbal onslaught. But, is this self-perception accurate? And even if it is, is it worth clinging to as an absolute truth about myself?"
~ No value beyond the practical -- "Any story is a tool. One that helps our human self orient and function in the world. And as any other tool, it has no value beyond the practical."
~ The UU Blog Awards -- "The fourth annual UU Blog Awards, honoring Unitarian Universalist blogging in 2007, is past its nomination stage and is now in an open voting stage that determines winners in fifteen categories."
~ Letting Go of Body Armor II: The Alexander Technique -- "The Alexander Technique is another healing modality that focuses on body-mind integration; although, Alexander stressed that "doing" is not the focus; non-doing is. In fact, healing is not the goal either; stopping ineffectual, habitual movement is. I took my first lesson in the Technique last Thursday, and it has already profoundly affected the way I move in the world."
~ SDi Training for Palestinian Women -- "Dr. Don Beck and Elza Maalouf, CEO of the Center for Human Emergence – Middle East presented a 2-day Spiral Dynamics Integral training for Palestinian women January 25 and 26, 2008. Participant came from Jericho, Nablus, Ramallah, Bethlehem, Tulkarm, Khalil and many other areas of the West Bank."
~ Recently Online Dissertations (IV) -- "In the past two or three years many universities have made an effort to systematically put their dissertations online. A quick glance at what is available shows that North America, Northern Europe (German world, Netherlands, Sweden), Japan, overseas China and Australia lead the way. Coverage remains less than exhaustive, and a surprisingly high number of institutions still block outside access. But generally starting an embarrassment of riches is starting to emerge, available to anyone with an internet connection.
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