"Advertising is the modern substitute for argument; its function is to make the worse appear the better."
~ George Santayana
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Man Boobs: A Guy’s Worst Nightmare -- "As we get older, our concerns go from losing our hair and going gray to forgetting things and becoming hard of hearing. But there is one universal thing men of all ages dread as they gain pounds: man boobs. As silly as it sounds, almost half of all men have to deal with woman-like breasts at some point in their lives—either as they hit puberty or as they age."
~ Vital Signs: Symptoms: Metabolic Syndrome Is Tied to Diet Soda -- "Researchers have found a correlation between drinking diet soda and metabolic syndrome and elevated blood pressure."
~ Stripped Down Hypertrophy -- "Whenever Joel reads an article that promises "the best gains of your life," he starts laughing like a naked fat lady that's being tickled by sadistic Boy Scouts. Trouble is, he thinks this program really will offer the best gains of your life."
~ Nature Recreation In Decline -- "From backyard gardening to mountain climbing, outdoor activities are on the wane as people around the world spend more leisure time online or in front of the tube, according to findings published this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences."
~ How exercise prevents diabetes: more than just weight control -- "A fascinating study from Maastricht University in the Netherlands shows that exercise helps to prevent and treat diabetes by increasing the number of enzymes that transport fat from fat cells to muscle cells where it can be used for energy by the muscles."
~ When Should a Beginner Use Isolation Exercises? -- "If all of the machines and isolation exercises were to disappear from the face of the earth this very moment, 90% of all trainees would see their workouts improve."
~ Human Survival Genes Pinpointed -- "Scientists hone in on more than 500 genes that evolved to help populations survive."
~ Kids on steroids willing to risk it all -- "Some sports stars may deny they are role models for a younger generation, but a new study finds quite the contrary."
PSYCHE/SELF
~ Marriage: It's only going to get worse -- "If your spouse already bugs you now, the future is bleak. New research suggests couples view one another as even more irritating and demanding the longer they are together."
~ Me, a name I call myself... -- "When you think of me, what comes to mind? Perhaps I should rephrase the question… what comes to mind when you think of 'me'? Is that any clearer?" This is a call for submissions, for those writer types out there.
~ Don’t Let it be Boring – Let Life Excite You -- "It is far too easy to get locked into a daily routine that quickly becomes boring. Sometimes we forget we need to live life with excitement and enthusiasm – which can be difficult to accomplish when you are racing to meet deadlines, or you are bogged down under an endless pile of assignments. However, you need to incorporate little doses of electricity into your life to keep you energized. You will have more success in the long run when you are enjoying your life."
~ Self Harm: Hurting Yourself to Help Yourself -- "The issue of self-harm is gaining a higher profile, in the UK at least, but it still remains to some extent a hidden and misunderstood problem, as evidenced by the stereotype of a teenage girl cutting her arms in a dark bedroom."
~ From Mind to Hand: Hidden Knowledge Revealed and Enhanced By Gesture [Developing Intelligence] -- "We often assume that true understanding is conveyed through spoken speech rather than gesture, but new research shows that "talking with your hands" can not only reveal different information than spoken language, it can be both more correct and yield better learning."
~ Confronting Your Therapist -- "Although a therapist is a professional, this does not mean that being deferential to them is in your best interests as a client. If you feel that you are not making progress, or that your therapist does not 'get' you or what you are saying, it is time to speak up."
~ How Memories are Distorted and Invented: Misattribution -- "While misattributions can have disastrous consequences, most are not so dramatic in everyday circumstances. Like the other sins of memory, misattributions are probably a daily occurrence for most people. Some examples that have been studied in the lab are...."
~ Absent-Mindedness: A Blessing in Disguise? -- "This is the second in a series on the 7 deadly sins of memory. In this one, absent-mindedness: how we would forget our heads if they weren't screwed on and why absent-mindedness could be a blessing in disguise."
~ Some Adults Abused As Children Carry Gene Which Protects Them From Depression -- "Some forms of a gene that controls the body's response to stress hormones appear to protect adults who were abused in childhood from depression, psychiatrists have found.People who had been abused as children and who carried the most protective forms of the gene, called corticotropin-releasing hormone receptor one (CRHR1), had markedly lower measures of depression, compared with people with less protective forms, the researchers found in a recent study."
CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Influence Peddler -- "The idea of influencers - i.e. trendsetting social connectors - was one of the stickiest ideas in a book full of them, Malcolm Gladwell’s bestseller The Tipping Point. But writer Clive Thompson says the idea is based on shaky science, and that when it comes to trendsetting - all power to the people." Audio file.
~ THE BEGINNING OF THE END OF DIVISIVE DISCOURSE? -- "Want to know one of the most revealing developments of this campaign that has gone largely unnoted? It's that Barack Obama does not woo the press."
~ The Boom Was a Bust for Ordinary People -- " Our challenge isn't just to prop up stock prices but to rebuild an economy in which everyone shares the good times."
~ Not always in His image -- "Throughout history, Jews, Christians and Muslims have pictured the divine in many ways. Jeremy Rosen, William Dalrymple and Ziauddin Sardar explain."
~ Keep the faith -- "For most Europeans, a belief in God may have given way to a belief in democracy, law and human rights. But the Almighty remains the source of our secular freedoms."
~ Girl power comes of age -- "Clinical psychologist Dan Kindlon has been researching children and adolescents for over 20 years and argues that the psychology of American girls has radically changed in recent years owing to the effect of feminism and increased equality."
~ Great Art for the Greatest Numbers -- "Mr. Gioia, a graduate of the Stanford Business School, is a former vice president of marketing for General Foods Corp., where he was credited with the revival of such brands as Jell-O and Kool-Aid. But he also holds a master's degree in comparative literature from Harvard and is a poet, critic, translator and anthologist of some renown. His 1991 essay, "Can Poetry Matter?" -- published in The Atlantic Monthly and later expanded into a book -- sparked a cultural furor, and his most recent poetry collection, "Interrogations at Noon" (2001), received the American Book Award."
~ Competing Visions of the Presidency -- "How do Clinton, Obama, Romney, and McCain understand
the role of commander-in-chief?"
~ The Test -- "Inside the Clinton and Obama war rooms, they’ve spent months preparing for Super Tuesday by shaping and reshaping two candidates with similar politics — but very different worldviews."
~ “The McCain Mutiny” -- "First we got Coulter promising with a straight face to campaign for Hillary if McCain wins. Now Rush Limbaugh is saying that he’d rather see Clinton or Obama win the presidency than John McCain, despite Bob Dole’s plea for sanity on the party’s far right. Too bad, Bob Dole. That ship sailed a long time ago."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ 1,000 Genomes Project: Expanding the Map of Human Genetics -- "The number of sequenced human genomes will soon swell to more than 1,000 as part of a new international research consortium's effort to trace the potential genetic origins of disease. But first the mother, father and adult child of a European-ancestry family from Utah and a Yoruba-ancestry family from Nigeria will join an anonymous individual as well as famous geneticists Craig Venter and James Watson as part of the handful of humans to have on record a complete readout of their roughly three billion pairs of DNA."
~ A 10-Year Energy Plan? -- "In a world in which billions of people remain mired in poverty and lack access to modern sources of energy, a positive environmental program stressing technological innovation and economic growth is far more politically viable. However, Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that the threat of potentially catastrophic man-made climate change can only be addressed by massive government research and development initiatives that aim to create low-carbon energy supplies. How massive? To the tune of $300 billion per year over the next 10 years."
~ Darpa Nabs Big Bucks for Mach 6 Planes, Giant Blimps, Next-Gen Networks -- "Darpa, the Pentagon's mad science division, got a $324 million boost in the Defense Department's new budget -- a 10 percent increase. Which means lots more cash for giant blimps, next-gen wireless networks, Mach 6 planes, shape-shifting drones, and improvised bomb-beaters."
~ Buy Big or Don't Bother: Five Tiny Gadgets That Suck -- "With gadgets, smaller is generally better -- with a few exceptions. Wired lists five gadgets for which manufacturers' mania for extreme miniaturization is actually a liability."
~ Study: More Web Surfing Dulls Concern for Environment -- 'The more time people spend surfing the web and watching TV, the less time they spend in nature. And that loss of contact eventually lessens their interest in protecting the natural environment, a new study claims." A different take on an article posted in the body section.
~ Ancient Climate Secrets Raised From Ocean Depths -- "Photos and samples taken of coral in the deepest recesses of the Southern Ocean investigated to date off Australia, are expected to yield valuable historical data on climate change."
~ River Plants May Play Major Role In Health Of Ocean Coastal Waters -- "Aquatic plants in rivers and streams may play a major role in the health of large areas of ocean coastal waters. A new article describes the physics of water flow around aquatic plants. It may be used to guide restoration work in rivers, wetlands and coastal zones by helping ecologists determine appropriate vegetation patch length and planting density."
~ How crystal becomes a conductor -- "Squeeze a crystal of manganese oxide hard enough, and it changes from an electrical insulator to a conductive metal. In a report published online this week by the journal Nature Materials, researchers use computational modeling to show why this happens."
~ Tearless Onion Created In Lab Using Gene Silencing -- "Tearless onions are still in the developmental stages but if the research progresses well, researchers would like to see them become the household and industry norm within the next decade. The scientists have been unable to induce tearing by crushing their model tearless onions."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Peer to Peer Relational and Participatory Spirituality Emerges, Part 1: Relational Spirituality -- "Is there a unique new form of absolute God, Buddha or Consciousness emerging both in our inter-relationships and through our collective group US-ness? Is there a unique new form of God, Buddha or Consciousness creating a new expression in spirituality only concerned with the wellbeing of humanity as a whole? If so, how can you become an active, equipotential partner in this exciting emergence and in the relational and participatory peer to peer evolutionary spiritual process?"
~ The Distance Between Spiritual Experience and Interpretation -- "This is a favorite subject of mine - the distance between experience and interpretation. It is undeniable that human beings in all times and cultures have been hardwired for spiritual experiences – some of course more than others. But is this proof of any of the multiple metaphysical belief systems that we tend, I would suggest, to superimpose onto the experience?"
~ Shadow Spotting -(not only) in Turquoise -- "This is a lengthy transscript of a conversation with Ken Wilber about shadow. Mirrored from Adastra blog. Tkx Adastra for doing it. I am posting it again as KW puts Shadow into the greatest possible context here. Not limiting the work to the 3-2-1 process. And again remembers (as In Transformations of consciousness already 1986) that there are 9 levels of possible psycho-pathology."
~ Join Dharma Overground -- "Thanks to Daniel Ingram's initiative, we have a great new website (basically a wiki) called "Dharma Overground", with a mission "to promote the notion that practice really can lead to remarkable results and that meditation culture should be conducive to talking about these things in straightforward, honest, open, empowering terms"."
~ Anger on the Forest Path -- "Learning from our mistakes is an important part of walking the forest path of wisdom, and sometimes we’ll wander off the straight and narrow. Finding our way back to the path, and making our way through life’s forest can be enriched in the long run by the understanding that grows out of realizing the limitations (and breaking points) of the mind."
~ Personality Features -- "When I think about Buddhism, I find it kind of ironic that I am a dedicated Buddhist practitioner these days but am still often very difficult in my speech and attitude. These behaviors are not good examples of “Right Speech” as espoused by the eightfold path and I am not really happy that I have not found a good way to solve the issues that give rise to them."
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