Shared Items - 11/1/08

Some things I found interesting today and bookmarked.

11 Arguments Against so called “Intellectual Property”

"Edited reproduction of an article by Franz Schäfer which appeared in the Keimform blog. 1.) Unequal Distribution of Income Excluding other people form access to immaterial goods does not create any wealth. What it does is it allows the people who create and those distribute these goods to demand some compensation for it. So the system of IPR is essentially a system for distributing income amongst people."

Is Buddhism a religion?

"As you can see I tend to regard the religious aspects of contemporary Buddhism as rather dogmatic and unhealthy. While declining slightly in many parts of Asia, Buddhism is on the rise in the West - in some regions eg. Australia, Scotland and South-West England census data suggests that it is the fastest growing religion ('Jedi' doesn't count as an officially recognised religion, sorry :)). The two most popular sects are Tibetan and Zen. I'd suggest that many people drawn to Buddhism are are attracted by its anti-dogmatic traits compared with Christianity which has been on a slow decline in these areas for many years. Buddhism is in a process of adaptation for the west and I'd suggest that this is a good opportunity to cast off some of the dogmatic and religious baggage it has aquired on its travels."

Roger Ebert: To Studs: With Love and Memories

"So there wasn't a World Series in Chicago, and Studs missed the 2008 Presidential election. Other than that, Louis (Studs) Terkel did everything possible in 96 years. Was he the greatest Chicagoan? I cannot think of another. For me, he represented the joyous, scrappy, liberal, generous, wise-cracking heart of this city."

Protecting Medicinal Plants

"Next time you are tempted to pick your own chamomile or echinacea, give a thought to sustainable plant populations. Many medicines and herbal remedies are based on traditional approaches. But as the human population continues to grow, demand for plant products intensifies. And that means a lot of pressure on sometimes fragile plants and ecosystems."

The Best of Worldchanging Canada: An Anniversary Retrospective

"October 31 marked the second year since the founding of Worldchanging Canada! This excellent blog has flourished under the direction of editor Mark Tovey, and has set the bar high for our other local iterations. Even non-Canadians would do well to learn from the leading innovators in the world's second-largest country. In honor of the blog's second anniversary, we're offering you a handpicked sampling of some of their best, and most uniquely Canadian, work to date. Enjoy!"

Wildlife photographer of the year: The winners

"No lion in its right mind would dare to attack a grown giraffe: a well-placed kick from one of those long legs could be fatal. Yet as Catriona and assembled gemsbok watched one evening near a waterhole at Hobatere Lodge in Damaraland, Namibia, this young male lion repeatedly harassed the thirsty giraffe."

Tags: Shared Items - 11/1/08, Google Reader, internet, speedlinking

Some Google Reader Shared Items

As appears at my Friendfeed page, a new form of speedlinking.

Shared four items on Google Reader

15-pound burger chowed in less than 5 hours

1 hour ago - Comment - Like - More

"A Pennsylvania man wolfed down a 15-pound burger in less than five hours, becoming the first person ever to win the Beer Barrel Belly Bruiser challenge at Denny's Beer Barrel Pub in central PA. His family must be incredibly proud. At 5'11 and 180 pounds, Brad Sciullo added 10 percent more to his frame in a single afternoon -- with toppings and bun, the monstrosity weighed 20 pounds. Gross. How do you cook a burger that big?"

Jane Goodall branches out

1 hour ago - Comment - Like - More

"Goodall, who will receive the Leakey Prize on Saturday, is focusing on humanitarian efforts. She says chimps in Africa can't be protected unless people's living conditions are improved."

Judge halts New York plan to turn yellow cabs green - Reuters

1 hour ago - Comment - Like - More

A good idea shot down - "New York City's plan to turn its entire fleet of yellow cabs green by 2012 was halted on Friday by a federal judge who ruled that regulation of fuel emissions standards falls under federal, not city, authority."

Vigorous Exercise Can Cut Breast Cancer Risk - Washington Post

1 hour ago - Comment - Like - More

"Vigorous activity can reduce the risk of breast cancer by about 30 percent in normal-weight women, according to an 11-year US study of 32269 postmenopausal women." Probably true for men and prostate cancer as well.

Tags: Google Reader, Shared Items, internet, speedlinking, Friendfeed

My Shared Items in Google Reader

As many of you know, I quit doing speedlinks a while back. I just don't have the time anymore to keep up with that much information AND share it with you, my loyal readers.

But I recently switched to Google Reader as my full-time RSS feed reader, and one of the upsides is that I can share links with all of you on a dedicated page. If you also use Google Reader, send me a "chat request" or whatever the hell it is, and I'll be able to read your shared items as well.

I've added a link on the sidebar, just under my email address, that will take you to my Shared Items page. Now that this is up on the blog, I'll try to add items more often (although some will still appear on the blog as specific entries if there is something I want to say).

Tags: Shared Items, Google Reader, blogging, speedlinking

Speedlinking 2/25/08

Quote of the day:

"Reality is the leading cause of stress amongst those in touch with it."
~ Jane Wagner

Image of the day (Darien Chin):



BODY
~ Advice From the World’s Healthiest Men -- "Want to lead an emotionally and physically healthier lifestyle? MSNBC published a worldwide survey of over 20,000 men in various countries on topics such as fitness, work, vacations, diet, sex lives, and health. Using surveys and statistics from sources such as the World Health Organization, the best and the worst countries in each category were ranked."
~ (Video) Why Soy is Not a Health Food -- "In this video, Dr. Mercola talks about how nonfermented soy is not a health food, and should be avoided because it has been genetically modified. This is a topic that can be of debate to vegetarians, because many of us depend upon soy to get our protein needs met."
~ Monster Whey Protein Shake Recipe! -- "One great thing about low-carb eating is that it is very satiating i.e. you feel satisfied sooner than when on a low-fat diet. This is good for cutting fat but could work against you if it causes you to under-eat." This is good for skinny younger guys, but us older guys would want to cut the cream.
~ 5 Ways to Avoid Lower Back Pain from Deadlifts -- "The prime movers during Deadlifts are your quadriceps, hamstrings & glutes. Your lower back, upper-back, traps & forearms perform isometric contractions: they stay contracted during the whole lift. That’s how Deadlifts strengthen your lower back: you must keep your back rigid against a load. Unfortunately many don’t strengthen but hurt their back doing Deadlifts. Here are 5 ways to avoid lower back pain from Deadlifts."
~ T-Nation Strength and Size Roundtable, Part 1 -- "A cadre of coaches discuss various bodybuilding and powerlifting topics, including the wisdom of trying to build size and strength at the same time, and the relative benefits of isolation movements vs. compound movements."
~ Study Suggests Antibiotics Are Overused -- "A woman dying of Alzheimer's has a fever. Should she be given antibiotics? Many people would say yes. But a provocative new study suggests that antibiotics are overused in people dying of dementia diseases and should be considered more carefully because of the growing problem of drug-resistant superbugs...."
~ Flu may be peaking, but can be avoided -- "In parts of the United States, influenza is peaking, and while this year's vaccine isn't as effective as usual, the flu's misery can be avoided, an expert says."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Blood test could reveal bipolar disorder - "A blood test could be used to diagnose and assess the severity of certain mental illnesses, such as bipolar disorder, according to a new study. But some experts think this raises ethical concerns."
~ Psychosis and the coming glutamate revolution -- "Dopamine has been the big player in understanding schizophrenia since antipsychotic drugs were discovered. All current antipsychotics have their main effect by blocking dopamine function in the mesolimbic pathway and there's now significant evidence that this is the location of one of the major dysfunctions."
~ How to Build Your Self-Esteem -- "Learn how to build confidence and increase your self-image. Vanquish your fears and overcome insecurity with these simple steps."
~ Clinical MDMA Brief (25 Feb 2008) [DrugMonkey] -- "As a brief update on my posts on the clinical use of MDMA (Part 1, Part 2) I'll note that the MAPS folks are trumpeting the initiation of yet another clinical trial with extra oomph because it is at dear auld Haavahd."
~ Coping with Existential Depression - "People and professionals often divide up depression into different types, such as “clinical” depression versus “non-clinical” depression, “biological” depression versus “situational” depression. The diagnostic manual professionals refer to, however, doesn’t make any distinctions about theorizing where or how your depression is caused, and neither does most research in this area. And yet, I believe such distinctions may serve a purpose if they help guide a person’s treatment choices."
~ 10 Ways We Hurt Our Romantic Relationships -- "It’s not easy to have a great relationship with your boy/girlfriend, partner, or spouse. But it’s not impossible, either — it takes some work, of course, but it’s good work, work that’s a joy when everything comes together."
~ Researchers Identify New Receptor Complex In Brain -- "Mount Sinai researchers have identified a new receptor complex in the brain that responds to several types of antipsychotic drugs used to treat schizophrenia and also reacts to hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD."
~ Anticipation Fires the Imagination -- "How horrifying might it be to lose a limb? How exhilarating might it be to find true love? When these things actually happen, reality rarely matches our predictions. At the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (ScienceNOW's publisher) today, psychologist Daniel Gilbert of Harvard University presented new experimental results that may explain why."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Hillary Steps Up Attacks on Obama as Judgment Day Approaches -- "Clinton's campaign has increased its attacks on Obama before Ohio and Texas, but is it to blame for circulating a picture of him in Kenyan garb?"
~ Two Views on Nader’s Candidacy -- "Ralph Nader has announced that he will run for the presidency for a third time. In the past months on Truthdig, the case has been made both for and against such a campaign. Here Chris Hedges says why he should run, while Robert Scheer tells Nader himself it would be better if he didn’t."
~ Architecture’s Battle of the Modernisms -- "Modernist architecture almost from the start had two chief strains. The one that produced Manhattan’s greatest icons, the Chrysler and Empire State Buildings, as well as Rockefeller Center, flows from Paris: from the classical massing, symmetry, and proportion that Gotham architects learned at the École des Beaux-Arts, and from the astonishing vocabulary of ornament that they learned from the 1925 Exposition des Arts Décoratifs that gave us the art deco style. The other current, the International Style, flowing from the Bauhaus art and design school founded in Germany in 1919, gave the world the glass and steel box, which arrived in New York at the start of the 1950s in the relatively refined forms of the UN Secretariat and Lever House on Park Avenue."
~ Judy Blume's lessons in love -- "Her explicit novels about the rites of adolescence are loved by teenage girls the world over - and loathed by America's religious right. As she approaches her 70th birthday, Judy Blume talks to Melissa Whitworth about sex, censorship and the trials of being fairy godmother to a generation of women."
~ Is a Liberal Renaissance in the Making? -- " This election should bring some optimism after years of right-wing dominance."
~ The Movement And The Maverick -- "An Obama-McCain race would probably accelerate the process of scrambling the parties' historic class alignment."
~ Take a Stand Against Torture (It’s a Moral Issue) -- "The National Religious Campaign Against Torture is an interfaith effort “committed to ending U.S.-sponsored torture, and cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” Its motto: ‘Torture is a moral issue.’"
~ America's Unfaithful Faithful -- "Americans are a religious people, but they switch religious groups with surprising frequency, a major new survey finds."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ South Africa OKs Killing of Elephants -- "South Africa announced Monday that it was reversing a 1995 ban on killing elephants to help control their booming population, drawing instant outrage from animal-rights activists." It's things like this that make me misanthropic on occasion.
~ Low-Level Carbon Monoxide Dangers -- "You might be suffering the toxic effects without even knowing it."
~ SCUBA-2 Camera Will Explore Earliest Phases Of Galaxy Formation -- "A giant camera known as SCUBA-2 is being transported to the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. Rather than detecting visible light, SCUBA-2 will detect submillimeter radiation, which is sensitive to the heat emitted by extremely cold dust in the Universe. This material is associated with the mysterious earliest phases of the formation of galaxies, stars and planets, until now largely undetectable. Typically the dust is at temperatures of about -200 Celsius and so detecting its extremely weak emissions presents a huge technological challenge."
~ Masters Of Disguise: Secrets Of Nature's 'Great Pretenders' Revealed -- "A gene which helps a harmless African butterfly ward off predators by giving it wing patterns like those of toxic species, has been identified. The mocker swallowtail butterfly, Papilio dardanus, is unusual because it emerges from its chrysalis with one of a large number of different possible wing patterns and colors. This is different from most butterfly species which are identified by a common wing pattern and colour. Furthermore, some of the different patterns that the mocker swallowtail exhibits mimic those of poisonous species, which affords this harmless insect a valuable disguise which scares off predators."
~ Dust In West Up 500 Percent In Past Two Centuries -- "The West has become 500 percent dustier in the past two centuries due to westward US expansion and accompanying human activity beginning in the 1800s, according to a new study."
~ Honey bee invaders exploit the genetic resources of their predecessors -- "Like any species that aspires to rule the world, the honey bee, Apis mellifera, invades new territories in repeated assaults. A new study demonstrates that when these honey bees arrive in a place that has already been invaded, the newcomers benefit from the genetic endowment of their predecessors."
~ That's Folding! Cube's Urban Street Concept Bike -- "We love folding bikes. Because they remove one of the arguments about taking up cycling; “I don’t have any room for a bicycle.” Here is a folding bike concept to would give short shrift to that excuse, were it ever to transition into a real world commercial product. Gregor Dauth, a student at the Coburg University of Applied Sciences in Germany has worked with Cube bikes to develop his Urban Street Concept Bike." Beautiful bike!


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ Gray Hairs & the Dhamma -- "Reflecting on the aging process over a period of time helps one to accept the fact that one isn’t getting any younger. It’s a natural aspect of life that all phenomena deteriorate with time: even million year old wine won’t be a vintage! And it’s not just living beings that wither with time: looking at the ruins of Angkor Wat, the Coliseum, or the Sphinx, it can be seen how they all are subject to the same forces that whiten our hair over the years. Everything is impermanent (anicca)."
~ Change is certain (replay) -- "Change of URL! I'm about to start a new blog at hokai.info/ws/ where I will post my own articles from time to time. (Therefore, hokai.wordpress.com will only be used privately. Sorry for the confusion.) This place has been renamed to h~log and will feature recommendations, references, or short comments on entertaining, educating, and enlightening material found elsewhere in text or video." Make note of this in your readers.
~ Jonah Goldberg's Narcissistic Take on Global Warming -- "So I was surfing the conservative side of the Web when I encountered Jonah Goldberg's article on National Review Online, Global Cooling Costs Too Much. I would've let his article pass but even to a Climate Change moderate like me Goldberg's closing statement was just too ludicrous not to rip apart."
~ 2008 Blogisattva Award Winners Announced -- "Today's the day that the world has been waiting for, when the winners are announced -- for the Blogisattva Awards! [drumroll, please] "And the winners are ... why, Buddhism blog readers, worldwide."
~ It is so, it is so -- "Much of the life of Shinran, founder of Jodo Shinshu Buddhism, is detailed in the letters his wife, Eshinni, and his daughter Kakushinni exchanged. In the final years of Shinran’s life, both he and Kakushinni moved to Kyoto (now that Shinran was pardoned), and so both mother and daughter exchanged letters."
~ The Merits of Melancholia -- "English professor Eric G. Wilson argues that the American pursuit of happiness, fueled by Prozac and "positive psychology," has robbed many lives of the "fertility of pain" or "melancholia" that propelled Keats, Handel, Georgia O'Keefe, and countless others to their greatest works. Joni Mitchell calls her bouts with melancholia the "sand that makes the pearl," and Professor Wilson says...."
~ Become an Integral Peacemaker -- "Watch Fleet Maull on Integral Peacemaker Training."

Tags: Fleet Maull, integral, peacemaking, melancholy, Shinran, Buddhism, Blogisattva Awards, Jonah Goldberg, global warming, Hokai, change, aging, Dharma, folding bikes, honey bees, dust, nature, great pretenders, SCUBA-2, carbon monoxide, killing elephants, American religion, torture, Obama-McCain, liberal renewal, Judy Blume, architecture, Ralph Nader, Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, anticipation, imagination, brain, receptors, romantic relationships, existential depression, MDMA, self-esteem, psychosis, bipolar blood test, flu, antibiotics, weight training, deadlifts, whey protein shake, soy, healthy men, speedlinking

Speedlinking 2/20/08

[NOTE: After a week away, Speedlinking is back. However, as I am incredibly busy of late, the daily links might not be so daily. I'll do what I can to keep up.]

Quote of the day:

"Have you ever observed that we pay much more attention to a wise passage when it is quoted than when we read it in the original author?"
~ Philip G. Hamerton

Image of the day (Alessandro Zocchi):


BODY
~ Training to Hit a Homer -- "In all the years I played baseball, I never hit a ball over the fence. When I started playing slow pitch softball, I figured it was only a matter of time. The fields were smaller, the ball was slower, and I was much stronger then I ever was as a kid. Boy was I wrong."
~ 5 Things You Need to Know About Every Exercise -- "You may know the name of a particular exercise, but do you know what the agonists in the movement are? How about the synergists? Hrrummpph! And you call yourself a weightlifter!"
~ 30 New Ways to Build the Body You Want -- "We traveled the nation to find America's Best Gyms. Then we asked their experts for advice to help you build your best body, whether you train at an upscale health center or at home."
~ Shredded in 6 Days -- "Ever wonder how competitive bodybuilders get extra shredded for a show or photo shoot? Well, here's the complete how-to guide to becoming extra shredded. Get the camera ready, because it's only temporary." This is good -- too many people think the Men's Health cover models always look like that -- they don't.
~ Common Exercise Misconceptions Part 2 -- "Finally, some ammo to use against those putzes who insist on benching with their feet in the air. Craig also makes the case that chin-ups are a better lat exercise than pull-ups. Let the arguments begin!"
~ Top 10 Reasons You’re Not Building Any Muscle -- "Check the following 10 factors against your current lifestyle to ensure you’re not making some fundamental errors."
~ Whole grains help deflate belly rolls -- "Cutting calories helps people lose weight, but doing so by filling up on whole grains may be particularly heart-healthy, new research suggests."
~ Hypoglycemia Alert Dogs Offer Assistance To People With Diabetes -- "Glucose monitors, test strips, and lancets: people with diabetes are all too familiar with the equipment used to test their blood glucose (sugar) levels. Now some people are adding a different kind of aid to their diabetes management regimen." Beats getting stuck with a needle.
~ 13 Scientifically Proven Health Benefits Of Exercise -- "Nowadays you can't check out at the grocery store or do much of anything without being reminded that us mortal humans need to exercise. Still, we persist, procrastinate and eventually complain that we're overweight, sick, dying, etc."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ Fascinating split brain behavioral experiments -- "To reduce the severity of his seizures, Joe had the bridge between his left and right cerebral hemisphers (the corpus callosum) severed. As a result, his left and right brains no longer communicate through that pathway. This is an extraordinary insight into the machinary of the mind. Here’s what happens as a result...."
~ Panic-Focused Psychodynamic Psychotherapy -- "Both cognitive-behavioral^1-3 and pharmacological treatments for panic disorder have been found to be effective over the short term. Not all patients, however, can tolerate or fully respond to these approaches, and the effectiveness of these interventions over the long term remains unclear."
~ This Wednesday: Six questions to help you stay serene -- "Every Wednesday is Tip Day. This Wednesday: Six questions to help you stay serene. Or, at the very least, to keep from losing your temper in an angry fit."
~ Has Idealism Been Refuted? -- "So, I have been having a very nice and informative discussion with Brandon about Berkeley’s so-called “Master Argument” which got me to thinking. Has immaterialism been refuted? It seems to me not. Here is a brief, and no doubt sketchy, survey of some of the better known ‘refutations’."
~ Serotonin, Violence and Prozac -- "A lot has been written in the past week guessing as to whether Prozac, a commonly-prescribed 20-year-old antidepressant, had any connection to the violence that Steven Kazmierczak (the NIU murderer) perpetrated. Kazmierczak was reportedly previously taking Prozac (usually prescribed for depression), but had stopped taking it 3 weeks prior to the murders."
~ How the Consistency Bias Warps Our Personal and Political Memories -- "What were your political views a decade ago? How good was your relationship last year? Studies show we often assume things haven't changed, when in fact they have."
~ 10 Steps to Handle Relationship Conflicts -- "Every relationship experiences some conflict. Some experience more than others, some are playful, and some are hateful. Then there are those that are never ending patterns of conflict that seem impossible to break."
~ Technology Exployed By Neuroscientists To Trace Source Of Emotions In Brain -- "First came direct marketing, then focus groups. Now, advertisers, with the help of neuroscientists, are closing in on the holy grail: mind reading. At least, that's what is suggested in a paper published in the journal Human Brain Mapping authored by a group of professors in advertising and communication and neuroscience at the University of Florida."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ The Principle of Complementarity in Bohr's Quantum Mechanics and Vico's Historicism -- "Vico was acutely aware that to treat real concrete moments of Man’s history as mere moments of something higher is not to take them very seriously. Indeed, this was Hegel flaw: by absorbing the concrete historical situation into a higher theoretical scheme he in effect distorted the reality of their contingency."
~ In Intervals: Robert Pinsky and Tom Sleigh in Conversation -- "Tom Sleigh conducted the following interview with United States Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky on October 1, 1997, in West Newton, Massachusetts."
~ Covering Reality with Gold Leaf -- "IT’S THIS RECOGNITION of complexity and uncertainty that has been the key to the success of the West. An inductive, pragmatic mindset underpinned the economic expansion that led the West out of the long stagnation of the Middle Ages. It underpinned the development of science and technology (after a millennium where technology had essentially stagnated at Roman levels)."
~ Nietzsche’s Deeper Truth -- "At the outset of On the Genealogy of Morals, Friedrich Nietzsche reports that his polemical book of pseudo-history, pseudo-anthropology, and pseudo-psychology is an exercise in knowing ourselves. We cannot simply investigate morality and Christianity, as if these were topics we could entertain with dispassionate detachment as we do biological specimens or mathematical equations. No, according to Nietzsche, our commitment to a moral frame of reference penetrates to the depths of our soul."
~ Barack’s Rock -- "She's the one who keeps him real, the one who makes sure running for leader of the free world doesn't go to his head. Michelle's story." Good timing, considering the non-story about her remarks everyone is fixated on.
~ Interview: Alain Robbe-Grillet -- "Alain Robbe-Grillet occupies that paradoxical position not uncommon to avant–garde writers: He is both famous and obscure; his ideas are well known but his work much less so. Nevertheless, he remains a major figure in the landscape of postwar French letters and film."
~ Can we teach people to be happy? -- "Anthony Seldon and Frank Furedi set out their arguments before the first of a series of live public debates on educational issues."
~ Human culture subject to natural selection, Stanford study shows - "Scientists at Stanford University have shown for the first time that cultural traits affecting survival and reproduction evolve at a different rate than other cultural attributes. Speeded or slowed rates of evolution typically indicate the action of natural selection in analyses of the human genome."
~ MIT: No easy answers in evolution of human language -- "The evolution of human speech was far more complex than is implied by some recent attempts to link it to a specific gene, says Robert Berwick, professor of computational linguistics at MIT."
~ Evolution Wins as Creationists Inadvertently Switch Sides in Florida -- "A decision by the Florida Board of Education to approve a curriculum referring to "the scientific theory of evolution" has an unintended side effect: It embeds evolution in the curriculum for the first time. It also will require teaching kids what a "scientific theory" is."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Study shows where new diseases may arise (AP) -- "New infectious diseases have been appearing more often, says a study that suggests "hot spots" where the next new germs are most likely to appear."
~ America Has Too Many Stores -- "In January, Liz Claiborne said it would shutter 54 Sigrid Olsen stores by mid-2008. Ann Taylor announced that 117 of its 921 stores would be closed over the next three years, and Talbots axed the Talbots Mens and Talbots Kids concepts and 22 Talbots stores. (Those muffled screams you hear are Connecticut preppies trying to suppress their rage.) Even Starbucks has scaled back its yearslong saturation-bombing campaign."
~ Ecotopias Aren't Just for Hippies Anymore — and They're Sprouting Up Worldwide -- "In the 1970s, environmental idealists had a vision of Ecotopia: Everyone recycled, there was no pollution, and we all worshipped trees and co-ops. Today's eco-communities are less crunchy and a lot more high tech. In addition to using renewable energy sources, these projects aim to limit their impact on surrounding ecosystems by building with green materials, promoting earth-friendly transportation, and recycling water and waste."
~ Tonight's Lunar Eclipse: Last Chance Until 2010 -- "There will be a full lunar eclipse tonight, starting at 8:43 pm Eastern time, with the moon totally obscured between 10:01 pm and 10:51 pm."
~ Managing Uncertainty Important In Ecological Balance -- "The balance of nature looms prominently in the public mind these days. Climate change, genetically modified plants and animals, and globally declining fish stocks are but a few of the issues that remind us that ours is a fragile world. Or is it? It depends on whom you ask one professor specializing in biology and society."
~ African Dust Storms May Cool Atlantic, Lessen Hurricanes -- "Every year, storms over West Africa disturb millions of tons of dust and strong winds carry those particles into the skies over the Atlantic. According to atmospheric scientists, this dust from Africa directly affects ocean temperature, a key ingredient in Atlantic hurricane development."
~ Antarctic Life Hung By A Thread During Ice Ages -- "The extreme cold and environmental conditions of past Ice Ages have been even more severe than seen today and changed life at the Antarctic, forcing the migration of many animals such as penguins, whales and seals, researchers argue. Understanding the changes of the past may help scientists to determine how the anticipated temperature increases of the future will work to further transform this continent."
~ Microsoft Opens Game Development -- "Microsoft Corp. says it will make Xbox 360 video games developed by players available for download through the console's online service."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ 2008 Blogisattva Awards Nominees Announced -- "The Blogisattva Organization is pleased to announce the nominees for the 2008 Blogisattva Awards honoring English-language Buddhism blogging during calendar year 2007. This is the third annual iteration of the awards which are given wholly for merit, and not as a measure of blogs’ popularity."
~ Lucy -- "It’s good, at least once in our lives, to call our parents by their names, not mom and dad but Janice and Steven or whatever their names happen to be. It’s not absolutely necessary to do this in their presence; some of us were brought up on customs that would make it easier to cut out our tongues than to address our parents by their legal names."
~ Not Spiritual -- "An interview with Ethan Nichtern, Founder and Director of the Interdependence Project (The ID Project) in New York City and author of the new book "One City: A Declaration of Interdependence". Good stuff!"
~ Would You Have Sex With Someone You Can Reboot? - "Apparently, a few decades from now, David Levy thinks that people would welcome the idea of having sex with robots. Check out this Q&A interview with David Levy, author of Love and Sex with Robots, in Scientific American. Here are some key quotes."
~ Integral Education Seminar 2008 -- "Next Step Integral has announced its 2008 Integral Education seminar called “From Cradle to Kosmos”, taking place August 1–6, 2008, at the Whidbey Institute on Whidbey Island, in Washington State. Integral education is an emerging field, propelled by people who seek to push the envelope of what education can be."
~ Deepak Chopra Comes to Beliefnet -- "To kick off the spiritual teacher's new blog with his son and daughter, watch this exclusive video clip in which he explains how to tell if you're "plugged into" Spirit--or not."
~ Kosmos Magazine Up and Running -- "Last week was our university's club week. Good news for anyone following the development of Fordham's first integral magazine: 30 signups in one day! We were a little weak with the table design, but the Alex Grey paintings seemed to really draw in the crowd."
~ The Joys of Devotional Buddhism -- "Westerners, having come from a Judao-Christian-Islamic background, sometimes like to frown upon devotional Buddhism and hold up meditation as the end-all-be-all of Buddhism. I have had to explain myself a number of times to non-Pure Land Buddhists, and it can be frustrating. The last straw for me occurred this evening when I found this quotation on a Tricycle Blog article (the author is quoting someone from a Buddhist forum, these are not the author’s words)...."
~ Emergence in Palestine and the Arab World -- "At the outset of the February 2, 2008 Nation Building Conference in Bethlehem, Palestine, Elza Maalouf spoke to the nearly 700 Palestinian community leaders from all over the West Bank addressing societal emergence in Palestine and the Arab world."
~ Back from hiatus -- "As my handful of regular readers know by now, I’ve been on hiatus (except for the occasional post on presidential politics) for the past few months. I have been taking some personal time as well as focusing on my screenplay project. While I still have other pressing projects on my plate, I’m going to be returning to posting at Until on a regular basis."

Tags: Joe Perez, Until, Palestine, Spiral Dynamics, Elza Maalouf, devotional Buddhism, Kosmos magazine, Deepak Chopra, sex with robots, Ethan Nichtern, parents, Blogisattva awards, Microsoft, ice age, Africa, dust, hurricanes, uncertainty, ecological balance, lunar eclipse, ecotopias, too many stores, new diseases, evolution, human language, human culture, natural selection, education, happiness, Alain Robbe-Grillet, literature, Michelle Obama, Nietzsche, uncertainty, expansion, Robert Pinsky, history, philosophy, Vico, emotions, advertisers, relationship conflicts, consistency bias, prozac, violence, idealism, immaterialism, stay serene, panic disorder, split brain experiments, exercise, hypoglycemia dogs, whole grains, building muscle, exercise misconceptions, shredded, build the body you want, baseball, speedlinking

Speedlinking 2/13/08

Quote of the day:

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future
~ Niels Bohr

Image of the day (John Craig):



BODY
~ How to Build The Habit of Eating Breakfast -- "You wake up. Kick off the day with a coffee. Then don’t eat until lunch time. For some of you this will sound familiar. Which is a shame because breakfast remains the king of meals." Ideally, one-third of the day's calories should come at breakfast.
~ Are You Man Enough for this Workout? -- "Think you have what it takes to be a Marine? Watch their intense combat training program and learn the 4 rules of building a strong, powerful body that's ready for any challenge."
~ Burn Fat With The Thermic Effect of Food -- "When it comes to losing fat and building muscle, eating less food is not the answer to getting lean and cut. Others will try to tell you that losing excess fat is simply a matter of using more calories than you eat. What they don’t tell you is that eating less will slow your metabolism." This is why the high-protein diets work.
~ One Drink Of Red Wine Or Alcohol Is Relaxing To Circulation, But Two Drinks Are Stressful -- "One drink of either red wine or alcohol slightly benefits the heart and blood vessels, but the positive effects on specific biological markers disappear with two drinks, say researchers at the Peter Munk Cardiac Centre of the Toronto General Hospital."
~ Why Care? Take Care Of Your Heart Now! -- "It's been scientifically proven that there are certain activities, super foods and supplements that you can do and or take on a daily basis to increase your heart health quality. Learn more."
~ 4 Ways Alcohol Hinders Muscle Growth -- "My last article focused on how alcohol will seriously impede your fat loss goals. Here, I’ll give you the skinny on alcohol’s affects on muscle growth, and it ain’t pretty."
~ Recovery Methods 101 -- "Dan John's been dragging his calloused butt across Terra Firma for a relatively long time, but he only recently realized he'd been wasting a lot of time on assistance exercises and aerobics."
~ Scientists see promise in new way to fight viruses -- "Scientists have discovered a promising new method to fight a range of diseases by boosting the body's natural defenses against viruses."


PSYCHE/SELF
~ I Love You, but You Love Meat -- "In an age when many people define themselves by what they will eat and what they won’t, dietary differences can put a strain on a romantic relationship." ~C4Chaos responds.
~ Gals make passes at guys who wash glasses -- "A guy who pulls his own weight around the house isn’t just hot, he’s a boon for his lady’s health and happiness."
~ Neurocognitive Impairment in Borderline Personality Disorder? -- "Borderline personality disorder (BPD) has been described as bordering on 3 DSM classifications: schizophrenia and the psychoses, mood disorders, and impulse control disorders."
~Are 'soul mates' real? -- "Are "soul mates' real? Now there's an interesting question on the day before Valentine's Day! And my happy answer is: Yes!" OK, this is a little left of center, but it's Valentine's Day, so loosen up.
~ 6 kinds of love -- "we’re all familiar with eros – the heady, emotional high of romance, sexual love and infatuation. it makes the world go round; or, more specifically, it twirls the world in a spin...."
~ 20 Things I'm Glad Life Taught Me -- "How many times have you heard someone say, "Hindsight is always 20/20"? If you are like me, you hear it a lot and think it a lot more. Last year Jay wrote an article listing things he wished he'd known earlier. It got me thinking that the most crucial lessons in life and success aren't taught in books or written on blogs, but they are found by living life itself."
~ You Remind Me of Me -- "Trying to decode the subtle cues that lead to human rapport, scientists have trained their focus on mimicry."
~ A Sense of Scarcity: Why it seems like all the good ones are taken -- "Singles’ bars, classified personals and dating websites are a reflection, not only of the common human desire to find a mate, but of the sense of scarcity that seems to surround the hunt. Many people participate in dating activities in the hopes of finding that special someone, yet feel as though it is an impossible task. However, thanks to an international team of psychologists, the solution may be closer than we think -- within ourselves, to be exact."
~ Review - Coercion as Cure -- "In Coercion as Cure, Szasz covers an extensive history of the use of coercion throughout psychiatry, including the early use of various mechanical restraints (e.g. the tranquilising chair), moral treatment, the 'resting cure', insulin shock therapy, ECT, lobotomy, and finally the development of modern-day drug therapies. He maintains throughout that each one of these breakthrough 'discoveries' in psychiatric medicine are simply a reworking of old ideas, all share in common the act of coercion, that is, the depriving of innocent persons of liberty."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Government, Bound or Unbound? -- "This paper is a sequel of an article I wrote twenty years ago that I now think can be put more tightly and clearly.[1] That early paper was born of the irritation I felt, and continue to feel, at much of the classical liberal discourse about limited government. At least since Locke, that discourse sets out a normative ideal of government: the protector of “rights” its citizens are in some fashion endowed with, and the guarantor of liberty that ranks above rival values. Such government uses coercion only to enforce the rules of just conduct."
~ What Life Says to Us · Stephen Burt on Robert Creeley -- "For a spell during the 1960s, Robert Creeley's 'I Know a Man' may have been the most often quoted, even the most widely known, short poem by a living American. Written around 1954, the poem got wide notice after For Love (1962), Creeley's first trade collection, and it is not hard to see why."
~The Coming American Matriarchy: The fairer sex gets ready to take over -- "The number 1.5 is, in this case, a ratio. According to projections by the National Center for Education Statistics, in 2017 half again as many women as men will earn bachelor's degrees. In the early 1990s, six women graduated from college for every five men who did so; today, the ratio is about 4-to-3. A decade from now, it will be 3-to-2—and rising, on current trends."
~ Robert Scheer: Aboard the Condoleezza Rice -- "Clearly, what's good for big oil isn't good for most Americans. So why are the interests of oil companies mistaken for those of the nation?"
~ Paul Loeb: Behind Obama's Wave of Victories: The More They Know Him..... -- "But as Obama began winning, voters who'd been paying only peripheral attention have started taking him seriously. The more familiar they've become with him, the more they've liked his message and chances, while their reservations about Clinton have only grown. Now, she and her surrogates are in a position of trying to rationalize eight straight Obama wins, including his 29-point Virginia victory in a state where she was up by 24 points less than four months ago, and her-23 point loss in Maryland, which she also led by roughly the same margin."
~ Gary Hart: Politics as Transcendence -- "Periods of transformation require experimentation, innovation, and daring. America is a nation much more conservative than it thinks itself to be. Thus, its default position is to resist a forward leap even while applauding itself for its creativity. Al Capone said it best: "We don't want no trouble." But transformation is trouble in the best sense of the word, trouble that causes us to adapt to new conditions and circumstances and create new ways of governing."
~ Obama Sells His Narrative -- "The accolades for Obama couldn’t have scaled higher heights last night. At one point on CNN, Donna Brazile pronounced him “a metaphysical force in American politics.” Praise was heaped upon praise, and it’s no wonder. As the race has narrowed, it’s impossible not to be struck by the contrast between an Obama speech and the geriatric grumblings of McCain...."
~ The Senate offers amnesty to the telecom companies -- "Republicans scored a victory yesterday—with the help of many Democrats and independent Joe Lieberman—with the Senate's spy bill. The legislation would give retroactive immunity to telecom companies who have shared customer data with the government in violation of the law, and it would expand the government's ability to spy on Americans' international phone calls without court oversight. Conservatives were ecstatic." Uh, privacy, anyone?
~ Editors: Truce! -- "Conservatives and McCain should neither pretend that we have no differences nor obsess about those differences. We should instead work on the common task of building a center-right majority in this election year and future ones...."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ The Preservation Predicament -- "Conservation organizations that work to preserve biologically rich landscapes are confronting a painful realization: In an era of climate change, many of their efforts may be insufficient or beside the point."
~ Better Biofuels: The Short Story and the Long Story -- "Before we need more biofuels, writes Alex Farrell in an op-ed in today's San Francisco Chronicle, we need better biofuels. Two articles appeared in Science last week suggesting that the "use of U.S. croplands for biofuels increases greenhouse gas emissions from land use changes." Farrell explains the basics...."
~ World's Largest Science Gathering Promises New Discoveries, Global Impacts -- "Thousands of scientists will spend five days in Boston discussing global climate change, disease and the future of the developing world. It's the world's largest general science conference."
~ Is the Government Pushing Ethanol Too Aggressively? -- "The government says we must use 9 billion gallons of ethanol this year. Some lawmakers worry federal ethanol mandates are 'taking the biofuels industry backward rather than pushing it ahead.'"
~ Dramatic Declines In Wild Salmon Populations Linked To Exposure To Farmed Salmon -- "Comparing the survival of wild salmonid populations in areas near salmon farms with unexposed populations reveals a large reduction in survival in the populations reared near salmon farms. This study shows evidence on a global scale illustrating systematic declines in wild salmon populations that come into contact with farmed salmon."
~ Use of Rogue DNS Servers on Rise -- "They're called "servers that lie." Mendacious machines controlled by hackers that reroute Internet traffic from infected computers to fraudulent Web sites are increasingly being used to launch attacks, according to a paper published this week by researchers with the Georgia Institute of Technology and Google Inc."
~ The need for fossil fuels will last for decades, according to BP's chief scientist -- "The world is almost certainly going to remain hooked on fossil fuels—oil, coal, natural gas—for decades to come, despite our best efforts to cut back, the chief scientist for British Petroleum said during a recent campus talk."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST BLOGS
~ The trap and the dream of freedom -- "'The Trap' by Adam Curtis, or "What happened to our dreams of freedom" (for info, see detailed entry at Wikipedia, from which descriptions below are taken). On liberty, individual freedoms, illussions, control, and politics. Watch at Google video, links for each of the three programs below. Each program 1 hour. Enjoy!"
~ What I Like About Polysemy -- "Great conversation, Polysemy plants seeds for great discussion. Artists spend too much time in the woodshed. You show me an artist that spends 8 to 10 hours a day practicing alone and I will show you an artist who cannot communicate. Art is a language; a language is only of use if it communicates."
~ Trusting and Opening -- "Your loving is an art that deepens as your life grows through phases. Sometimes your masculine directionality will step to the fore, perhaps when you decide to cultivate your career. Sometimes your feminine force of love-energy’s hugeness will move you. Since you are composed of both masculine and feminine aspects, you will naturally demonstrate different parts of yourself at different times throughout your life."
~ Wonder -- "For you nerds out there (I guess - is a sociologist considered a nerd?) I'd just like to take a moment to reflect on my chosen major - Sociology. I have been taking classes for about two semesters now, and hopefully am gaining somewhat of an idea of what it's all about. What is it, essentially? The study of the human collective. It's psychology, plural."

~ OSCAR WILDE: THE TRIUMPH OF LOVE -- "Ever since our remotest ancestors began to cover the walls of the caverns they inhabited with their primitive paintings, beautiful as they were in their simplicity, Life and Art have had at best an uneasy relationship."
~ Change your thoughts and change your life – The Art of Cognitive Reframing -- "We never, ever, see the world as it is. Our awareness – our beliefs, past conditionings, upbringing, the list goes on – these distort everything we see. They creep into every interpretation and misinterpretation."

Tags: cognitive reframing, Oscar Wilde, art, sociology, David Deida, Polysemy, Adam Curtis, fossil fuels, rogue DNS servers, wild salmon, ethanol, biofuels, science, preservation, John McCain, spying, telecoms, Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, oil companies, Condoleeza Rice, American matriarchy, Robert Creeley, poetry, government, Coercion as Cure, therapy, Thomas Szasz, dating, mimicry, relationships, life, love, soul mates, borderline personality disorder, vegetarians, fighting viruses, workout recovery, alcohol, heart care, drinking, thermic effect of food, workouts, eating breakfast, speedlinking

Speedlinking 2/12/08

Quote of the day:

"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.
~ No Children's Tale -- "Little in literature seems smaller or simpler than Aesop. People assume that everyone has read the fables, or had the fables read to them. Thanks to Aesop, we have a common understanding of a wolf in sheep's clothing, the lion's share, the hare versus the tortoise, the playful grasshopper, sour grapes, squeaky wheel, and much more."
~ 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.

Tags: Buddhism, dissertations, SDi, Palestinian Women, Alexander Technique, Unitarian Universalist blogs, the practical, openness, Google Android, Lake Mead, junk DNA, ancient life, West America, Arctic oil, complexity theory, evolution, disease, global warming, liberal arts colleges, Barack Obama, abortion, relational aesthetics, faith communities, 1984, Christian right, Muslims, Aesop's Fables, Sam Harris, kissing, dating, self-monitors, fear, anxiety, mindfulness, cognitive-behavioral therapy, relationships, single men, love, consciousness, implicit associations, date night, heart health, artificial skin, run faster, obesity, body image, exercise, shoulder injuries, ankles, dumbbells, speedlinking