Via: VideoSift
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Tuesday, March 27, 2007
A Cell's-Eye View of the Human Body (3D Animation)
Found this at Video Sift -- a very cool CGI animation of the inside of the human body, at the cellular level.
Via: VideoSift
Via: VideoSift
Tags:
Speedlinking 3/27/07
Quote of the day:
"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane."
~ Philip K Dick
Image of the day (John Craig):
BODY
~ Top 10 Fun Ways to Live Longer -- I'm going to go with number four on the list.
~ Waterbury Rules II: Good Grub, Good Books, and Good Training Tips! -- "Hey you! That's right, you, with the attention span of an 18-year-old speed freak. This article contains easily digestible snippets of cool, useful information about training, food, and even books (should your attention span tolerate them). Read and absorb... quickly."
~ Yale Researchers Weigh The Science On Soft Drinks And Health -- "Yale University researchers have released results of a study showing clearly that soft drinks are associated with increased caloric intake, higher body weight, a decrease in calcium and other nutrients, and increased risk of Type II diabetes. The report also noted that studies funded by the food industry were much less likely to show detrimental effects from soft drinks than studies that received no industry funding."
~ What is your fitness excuse -- "What is your fitness excuse, why are you not eating or getting the exercise that you need?"
~ Diet Advice to take to Heart -- "Find out 6 ways to make your diet heart-healthy and lose weight."
~ Pizza as health food? Food chemists say yes -- "It's the junk food junkie's wildest dream come true -- pizza as health food."
~ Trans fats linked to greater heart disease risk -- "A study published today supports recent efforts to rid the American diet of trans fats. In the study, women with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had triple the risk of heart disease as those with the lowest levels."
~ Grape seed extract may help prevent skin cancer -- "Chemicals found in grape seeds may help ward of skin cancer due to regular exposure to the sun, according to the results of an animal study reported Sunday in Chicago at the 223rd annual meeting of the American Chemical Society."
~ Blueberry-rich diet may keep the colon healthy -- "A natural antioxidant abundant in blueberries called pterostilbene may help prevent colon cancer, according to an animal study reported Sunday in Chicago at the 233rd national meeting of the American Chemical Society."
~ Sugar: Major Cause of Cancer -- "In this study, women were harmed far more often than men, as elevated blood sugar was linked to cancers of the pancreas, urinary tract, womb and skin, along with breast cancer for females under age 49."
PSYCHE
~ Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Mental Fitness -- "There are two basic principles to keep your brain healthy and sharp as you age: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change."
~ Study ties day care to behavior problems -- "The more time that kids spent in day care, the more likely their sixth -grade teachers were to report problem behaviors such as getting in fights, being disobedient in school and arguing a lot, according to the largest study of child care and development ever conducted in the United States." See also: Few effects of poor day care last past age 11.
~ Schizophrenia And Sex Differences In Emotional Processing -- "Patients with schizophrenia are known to be impaired in several domains of emotional processing. These deficits have been associated with impaired social functioning."
~ Modeling a real brain [Cognitive Daily] -- "A rat's brain has millions of neurons, each with up to 10,000 connections to other neurons. This "simple" animal's neural network is mind-bogglingly complex. Yet a Swiss laboratory has achieved remarkable success duplicating a vast region of a rat's brain using a supercomputer."
~ Seven Ways Music Influences Mood -- "Good music has direct access to the emotions. As such it's a fantastic tool for tweaking our moods. Saarikallio and Erkkila (2007) investigated the ways people use music to control and improve their mood by interviewing eight adolescents from Finland."
~ Hallucinations or Things Psychic? -- "Some mental health professionals are not open to people's psychic experiences and are likely to ignore them or misdiagnose a person as having hallucinations or delusions."
~ Wandering Minds, Study Focus -- "Do your thoughts stray from your work or studies? Do you catch yourself making to-do lists when your attention should be elsewhere? Welcome to the club."
~ Toddlers engage in 'emotional eavesdropping' to guide their behavior -- "University of Washington researchers have found that 18-month-old toddlers engage in what they call "emotional eavesdropping" by listening and watching emotional reactions directed by one adult to another and then using this emotional information to shape their own behavior." Wow, that explains a lot.
CULTURE
~ House Panel Examines Medicare Advantage Plan Payments, Considers Cuts -- "The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee on Wednesday held a hearing to examine whether the government overpays Medicare Advantage plans, which are operated by private insurers, the Washington Times reports."
~ Democrats Seize on Health Overhaul in Split From Republicans -- "All the Democrats running for president agree the US government should ensure that every American has medical coverage."
~ How to end the standoff on executive privilege -- "What information is Congress entitled to know about the U.S. attorney scandal, and what is the White House entitled to withhold? Whose testimony may Congress seek, and whose appearance is off limits? Here is our best effort to answer those questions in relation to the U.S. attorney scandal."
~ The Truth About Talibanistan -- "Islamic militants have turned the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan into a new base for al-Qaeda. An inside look at the next battleground of the war on terrorism."
~ Religious Practices Down in America in Past Decade -- "Many religious ideals and core tenets of social conservatism have grown less common in America over the past decade, according to figures just released by the Pew Center for People and the Press."
~ Reports: Gonzales aide will invoke Fifth Amendment, refuse to answer questions -- "A Justice Department aide involved in the controversial firings of eight federal prosecutors will refuse to answer questions at a Senate hearing this week, citing protection against self-incrimination, the Associated Press reports."
~ Who's Scripting Gonzales? -- "Why did Attorney General Alberto Gonzales go before the television cameras two weeks ago and deny that he knew anything about last year's firings of U.S. attorneys, when -- as we just learned from yet another Friday-night document dump -- he approved them during an hour-long meeting in November?"
~ The most revealing three-minute You Tube clip ever -- "The refusal of national journalists to acknowledge the importance of the U.S. attorneys scandal reveals much about the dysfunction and corruption of our media."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ The Sordid History of Monsanto Poisoning Our Milk -- "Last fall's wave of dairy companies dropping Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to spur the production of milk might have led you to believe the drugging of cows was a fairly recent development. Not so, according to the Family Farm Defenders."
~ The Changing College Library -- "Books are still books, but the 21st century has brought other changes to college libraries. The 24/7 news cycle is one. Many college libraries, including most recently the library at American University, says the Eagle, are opening their doors all day and all night, even on weekends. Starbucks is another change." Damn, a coffee shop in my college library would have been awesome.
~ Dolphin Numbers Still Low Despite "Safe" Tuna Fishing, Experts Say -- "Twenty years of friendlier fishing practices haven't spurred dolphin recovery in a remote region of the Pacific, and scientists are struggling to find out why."
~ New 'biofuel cell' produces electricity from hydrogen in plain air -- "A pioneering “biofuel cell” that produces electricity from ordinary air spiked with small amounts of hydrogen offers significant potential as an inexpensive and renewable alternative to the costly platinum-based fuel cells that have dominated discussion about the “hydrogen economy” of the future, British scientists reported here today."
~ Greenland's Mysterious Winds Tied to Global Climate -- "Odd hurricane-force winds off the southern tip of Greenland may be a force that helps drive the ocean's main circulation system."
~ Monsanto Asks Court To Allow Sale of GMO Alfalfa -- "Monsanto Co. has asked a San Francisco federal court to allow it to continue selling its genetically modified Roundup Ready Alfalfa while the USDA conducts a court-ordered environmental impact study." Monsanto is evil.
~ Heat Invades Cool Heights Over Arizona Desert -- "'A lot of people think climate change and the ecological repercussions are 50 years away," said Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "But it's happening now in the West. The data is telling us that we are in the middle of one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States.'"
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Descanso Gardens -- Nice pictures of an Asian garden from The Buddha Diaries.
~ From Tyson Williams: Awareness, Gross and Subtle Mind -- a video.
~ The Paradox of Expression from Sean at Deep Surface.
~ The Stuart Davis Show, Episode 8: Death Day! -- You can watch it at YouTube.
~ Moved to WordPress! -- Mystery of Existence has moved -- update your feeds.
~ Matthew at The Daily Goose links to a new Camille Paglia column.
~ Joe Perez and CJ Smith on the Episcopal Church (USA).
~ Spirituality, Atheism, Evolving Worldviews, Christopher Hitchens -- From Julian at Zaadz.
~ Mike at Unknowing Mind blogs on Subtle Stress and Sensation.
"Sometimes the appropriate response to reality is to go insane."
~ Philip K Dick
Image of the day (John Craig):
BODY
~ Top 10 Fun Ways to Live Longer -- I'm going to go with number four on the list.
~ Waterbury Rules II: Good Grub, Good Books, and Good Training Tips! -- "Hey you! That's right, you, with the attention span of an 18-year-old speed freak. This article contains easily digestible snippets of cool, useful information about training, food, and even books (should your attention span tolerate them). Read and absorb... quickly."
~ Yale Researchers Weigh The Science On Soft Drinks And Health -- "Yale University researchers have released results of a study showing clearly that soft drinks are associated with increased caloric intake, higher body weight, a decrease in calcium and other nutrients, and increased risk of Type II diabetes. The report also noted that studies funded by the food industry were much less likely to show detrimental effects from soft drinks than studies that received no industry funding."
~ What is your fitness excuse -- "What is your fitness excuse, why are you not eating or getting the exercise that you need?"
~ Diet Advice to take to Heart -- "Find out 6 ways to make your diet heart-healthy and lose weight."
~ Pizza as health food? Food chemists say yes -- "It's the junk food junkie's wildest dream come true -- pizza as health food."
~ Trans fats linked to greater heart disease risk -- "A study published today supports recent efforts to rid the American diet of trans fats. In the study, women with the highest levels of trans fat in their blood had triple the risk of heart disease as those with the lowest levels."
~ Grape seed extract may help prevent skin cancer -- "Chemicals found in grape seeds may help ward of skin cancer due to regular exposure to the sun, according to the results of an animal study reported Sunday in Chicago at the 223rd annual meeting of the American Chemical Society."
~ Blueberry-rich diet may keep the colon healthy -- "A natural antioxidant abundant in blueberries called pterostilbene may help prevent colon cancer, according to an animal study reported Sunday in Chicago at the 233rd national meeting of the American Chemical Society."
~ Sugar: Major Cause of Cancer -- "In this study, women were harmed far more often than men, as elevated blood sugar was linked to cancers of the pancreas, urinary tract, womb and skin, along with breast cancer for females under age 49."
PSYCHE
~ Top 10 Ways To Improve Your Mental Fitness -- "There are two basic principles to keep your brain healthy and sharp as you age: variety and curiosity. When anything you do becomes second nature, you need to make a change."
~ Study ties day care to behavior problems -- "The more time that kids spent in day care, the more likely their sixth -grade teachers were to report problem behaviors such as getting in fights, being disobedient in school and arguing a lot, according to the largest study of child care and development ever conducted in the United States." See also: Few effects of poor day care last past age 11.
~ Schizophrenia And Sex Differences In Emotional Processing -- "Patients with schizophrenia are known to be impaired in several domains of emotional processing. These deficits have been associated with impaired social functioning."
~ Modeling a real brain [Cognitive Daily] -- "A rat's brain has millions of neurons, each with up to 10,000 connections to other neurons. This "simple" animal's neural network is mind-bogglingly complex. Yet a Swiss laboratory has achieved remarkable success duplicating a vast region of a rat's brain using a supercomputer."
~ Seven Ways Music Influences Mood -- "Good music has direct access to the emotions. As such it's a fantastic tool for tweaking our moods. Saarikallio and Erkkila (2007) investigated the ways people use music to control and improve their mood by interviewing eight adolescents from Finland."
~ Hallucinations or Things Psychic? -- "Some mental health professionals are not open to people's psychic experiences and are likely to ignore them or misdiagnose a person as having hallucinations or delusions."
~ Wandering Minds, Study Focus -- "Do your thoughts stray from your work or studies? Do you catch yourself making to-do lists when your attention should be elsewhere? Welcome to the club."
~ Toddlers engage in 'emotional eavesdropping' to guide their behavior -- "University of Washington researchers have found that 18-month-old toddlers engage in what they call "emotional eavesdropping" by listening and watching emotional reactions directed by one adult to another and then using this emotional information to shape their own behavior." Wow, that explains a lot.
CULTURE
~ House Panel Examines Medicare Advantage Plan Payments, Considers Cuts -- "The House Ways and Means Health Subcommittee on Wednesday held a hearing to examine whether the government overpays Medicare Advantage plans, which are operated by private insurers, the Washington Times reports."
~ Democrats Seize on Health Overhaul in Split From Republicans -- "All the Democrats running for president agree the US government should ensure that every American has medical coverage."
~ How to end the standoff on executive privilege -- "What information is Congress entitled to know about the U.S. attorney scandal, and what is the White House entitled to withhold? Whose testimony may Congress seek, and whose appearance is off limits? Here is our best effort to answer those questions in relation to the U.S. attorney scandal."
~ The Truth About Talibanistan -- "Islamic militants have turned the borderlands between Pakistan and Afghanistan into a new base for al-Qaeda. An inside look at the next battleground of the war on terrorism."
~ Religious Practices Down in America in Past Decade -- "Many religious ideals and core tenets of social conservatism have grown less common in America over the past decade, according to figures just released by the Pew Center for People and the Press."
~ Reports: Gonzales aide will invoke Fifth Amendment, refuse to answer questions -- "A Justice Department aide involved in the controversial firings of eight federal prosecutors will refuse to answer questions at a Senate hearing this week, citing protection against self-incrimination, the Associated Press reports."
~ Who's Scripting Gonzales? -- "Why did Attorney General Alberto Gonzales go before the television cameras two weeks ago and deny that he knew anything about last year's firings of U.S. attorneys, when -- as we just learned from yet another Friday-night document dump -- he approved them during an hour-long meeting in November?"
~ The most revealing three-minute You Tube clip ever -- "The refusal of national journalists to acknowledge the importance of the U.S. attorneys scandal reveals much about the dysfunction and corruption of our media."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ The Sordid History of Monsanto Poisoning Our Milk -- "Last fall's wave of dairy companies dropping Monsanto's recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) to spur the production of milk might have led you to believe the drugging of cows was a fairly recent development. Not so, according to the Family Farm Defenders."
~ The Changing College Library -- "Books are still books, but the 21st century has brought other changes to college libraries. The 24/7 news cycle is one. Many college libraries, including most recently the library at American University, says the Eagle, are opening their doors all day and all night, even on weekends. Starbucks is another change." Damn, a coffee shop in my college library would have been awesome.
~ Dolphin Numbers Still Low Despite "Safe" Tuna Fishing, Experts Say -- "Twenty years of friendlier fishing practices haven't spurred dolphin recovery in a remote region of the Pacific, and scientists are struggling to find out why."
~ New 'biofuel cell' produces electricity from hydrogen in plain air -- "A pioneering “biofuel cell” that produces electricity from ordinary air spiked with small amounts of hydrogen offers significant potential as an inexpensive and renewable alternative to the costly platinum-based fuel cells that have dominated discussion about the “hydrogen economy” of the future, British scientists reported here today."
~ Greenland's Mysterious Winds Tied to Global Climate -- "Odd hurricane-force winds off the southern tip of Greenland may be a force that helps drive the ocean's main circulation system."
~ Monsanto Asks Court To Allow Sale of GMO Alfalfa -- "Monsanto Co. has asked a San Francisco federal court to allow it to continue selling its genetically modified Roundup Ready Alfalfa while the USDA conducts a court-ordered environmental impact study." Monsanto is evil.
~ Heat Invades Cool Heights Over Arizona Desert -- "'A lot of people think climate change and the ecological repercussions are 50 years away," said Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research at the University of Arizona in Tucson. "But it's happening now in the West. The data is telling us that we are in the middle of one of the first big indicators of climate change impacts in the continental United States.'"
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Descanso Gardens -- Nice pictures of an Asian garden from The Buddha Diaries.
~ From Tyson Williams: Awareness, Gross and Subtle Mind -- a video.
~ The Paradox of Expression from Sean at Deep Surface.
~ The Stuart Davis Show, Episode 8: Death Day! -- You can watch it at YouTube.
~ Moved to WordPress! -- Mystery of Existence has moved -- update your feeds.
~ Matthew at The Daily Goose links to a new Camille Paglia column.
~ Joe Perez and CJ Smith on the Episcopal Church (USA).
~ Spirituality, Atheism, Evolving Worldviews, Christopher Hitchens -- From Julian at Zaadz.
~ Mike at Unknowing Mind blogs on Subtle Stress and Sensation.
Tags:
Monday, March 26, 2007
Susie Bright on "NSFW"
A good article over at AlterNet by Susie Bright on the designation "NSFW" (not safe for work, for those few people who don't know what that means).
A couple of key quotes:
A couple of key quotes:
Even though NSFW is assumed to have something to do with Sex, it is much more finely tuned to Class -- as in whether material is considered respectable in its proper class-conscious milieu. In that vein, the most elite periodicals enjoy the greatest freedom, while further down the ladder, prudery reigns. Plebians, cover your eyes!The NYer is an easy example to point to, but you could note the same thing about Vogue, a fashion magazine -- nudity in virtually every issue. Vanity Fair, a reader favorite, regularly publishes profane words, nudity, and explicit commentary on sexual controversies.
And . . .
NSFW exists because of undefined and bigoted conceits. It's more outrageous, in its own DIY-Prude fashion, than the federal "child porn" law, the Hays Code, or the almost-irrelevant MPAA.
Why? Because it is unmandated, unlegislated, censorship.
A casual observer may opine of NSFW, like the late Judge Potter said of hardcore pornography, that "I'll know it when I see it."
However, you may find yourself recanting, like the Judge did, when you compare your views to your friends and colleagues -- you can't find five people in a room who'll agree down the line what "NSFW" includes.
Because everyone is afraid of shaming or disciplinary action on this issue, self-censorship leads to absurd cautions, and institutionalized filtering that goes against basic self-interest. Remember when AOL banned the word "breast," causing their readers with breast cancer to go ballistic?
That's inevitable at the unaccountable censor's desk, not the exception.
Read the whole article.
Tags:
When Humans Can Create Universes, Who Needs God?
From New Scientist:
Read the rest.One of the good things about being God is that there's not much competition. From time immemorial, no one else has boasted the skills necessary to create a universe. Now that's about to change. "People are becoming more powerful," says Andrei Linde, a cosmologist based at Stanford University in California. "Maybe it's time we redefine God as something more sophisticated than just the creator of the universe."
Linde was prompted to make this wry observation by the news that a glittering prize is within physicists' reach. For decades, particle accelerators have been racking up an impressive list of achievements, including creating antimatter and exotic particles never seen in nature. The next generation of these giant colliders will provide the hunting ground for the elusive Higgs boson, thought to be the source of all mass. These machines might even create mini black holes. Mighty as those discoveries and creations are, however, they pale into insignificance beside what Nobuyuki Sakai and his colleagues at Yamagata University in Japan have now put on the table. They have discovered how to use a particle accelerator to create a whole new universe.
The idea of creating another cosmos is not a new one; in fact it has a long history. "The story really begins with the question of the origin of our own universe," says Eduardo Guendelman, a physicist at Ben Gurion University, in Beer Sheva, Israel. As physicists began to research what kick-started our universe, they realised that if it happened once, maybe it could happen again. The growing acceptance of the big bang model in particular, which suggested that space-time burst forth in an explosion of energy concentrated in a tiny space, opened up a new set of tantalising possibilities. "People immediately started to wonder what would happen if you put lots of energy in one space in the lab - shot lots of cannons together," Linde says. "Could you concentrate enough energy to set off a mini big bang?"
For theoretical physicists the initial answer was a resounding "no". All of the particles that you would create in such a process would have their own gravity, pulling them together. So, instead of creating a baby universe in the lab, you would just create a black hole. The idea came back to life in 1981, however, when Alan Guth at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology proposed the theory of inflation, which suggests the universe went through a period of rapid expansion just after the big bang.
Guth's idea solves many cosmological puzzles, but no one really knew how or why it happened. So he and his colleagues set about trying to find out what might have made our universe inflate - exactly the question that would help us create a new universe using our own tools.
This sounds kind of dangerous to me, just as does creating one's own black hole. But then, I don't know that much about physics -- maybe it is possible to have your own pet universe or black hole.
Me thinks the "one true God" people aren't going to be too pleased with this development.
Tags:
The Evolution of "Slut"
For 500 years, being a slut meant one thing, and only one thing. But in the last ten years or so, the word has evolved to take on a whole series of new meanings. The Toronto Star has an article that looks at these meanings and what they might mean in our current cultural context.
Here is a portion of the article:
Read the rest.
Here is a portion of the article:
Read the rest.
Tags:
Speedlinking 3/26/07
Quote of the day:
"Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know."
~ Marvin Minsky
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Dark Chocolate May Lower Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease -- "If you eat some dark chocolate now-and-again you could well be lowering your chances of developing cardiovascular disease, say researchers at Yale Prevention Research Center, Connecticut, USA. It seems dark chocolate contains flavonoids which boost the function of endothelial cells in the lining of blood vessels."
~ 5 Simple Steps to Keep Off Rebound Pounds -- "Find out how to keep off weight for good."
~ Exercising With Peers Has Added Appeal -- "A new study in the April issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine has found if given a choice of exercising alone, with people younger or older or with people their same age, most adults would rather exercise with others in their own age group."
~ 10 Keys to the Lean & Sexy Look, Part II -- "If you read the first part of Jen's article, you're only half Lean and Sexy! Here's part 2 so you can complete the transformation."
~ Make it Harder: How to Make Easy Exercises More Difficult and More Effective -- An excellent article on making standard lifts more challenging, from TC at T-Nation.
~ Exercise makes cells more efficient; increases overall health & life expectancy -- "Why does risk for heart attacks, strokes or diabetes increase with age? A team from Yale University showed that as you age, you lose your ability to make AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) (Cell Metabolism, February 2007). This enzyme functions to increase mitochondria in muscles."
~ Hips Don't Lie: 10 Food Fibs that Make You Fat -- "Find out the myths that are keeping you from shedding pounds."
~ 'Good Fat' OK for Heart Attack Patients -- "A Mediterranean-style diet high in olive oil and other "healthy" fats is just as good as the classic American Heart Association low-fat diet for the 8 million Americans who have suffered a heart attack and want to prevent a repeat, new research suggests...."
PSYCHE
~ Slow Down, Multitaskers; Don’t Read in Traffic -- "The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car."
~ Gifted Students Beat The Blues With Heavy Metal -- "Gifted students who feel the pressure of their ability could be using Heavy Metal music to get rid of negative emotions.This is the conclusion of Stuart Cadwallader and Professor Jim Campbell of The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth at the University of Warwick."
~ Why We Give In To Temptation -- "We’ve all had our moments of weakness when trying to control ourselves; eating that donut on your diet, losing your temper with your kids, becoming upset when you’re doing your best not to. It isn’t like we plan on these lapses in judgment. It’s more like they just sort of happen."
~ Beliefs about the rigidity of personality -- "Among other things the researchers found that beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors; and that recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms."
~ How to Make Wise Judgments -- "What is wise judgment? Why is it important? How can you develop it to make your life happier? This article shows you how."
~ Therapy Via Phone or Internet is Effective for Depression -- "New research reveals that non-traditional forms of treatment occurring over the phone can be very beneficial for patients suffering from depression who are beginning a medical regimen but either cannot or choose not to undergo in-person therapy."
~ As Alcoholics Recover, Spirituality Increases -- "For decades, recovering alcoholics and those who treat them have incorporated spirituality into the recovery process - whether or not it's religious in nature. But few research studies have documented if and how spirituality changes during recovery, nor how those changes might influence a person's chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety.Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center sheds light on this phenomenon." Addiction is an affliction of the soul as much as it is the psyche.
~ Infants Are Able To Detect The 'Impossible' At An Early Age -- "If you've ever been captivated by an M.C. Escher drawing of stairways that lead to nowhere or a waterfall that starts and ends at the same place, then you are familiar with what Psychologists describe as "impossible" objects and scenes. These are pictures or illusions of three-dimensional images that do not make any visual sense. Inevitably, we end up gawking at the image for several moments, attempting to make sense of the impossible."
CULTURE
~ Globalization Seen As Undermining Local Folk Knowledge Associated With Healthy Child Development -- "In a remote area of the Amazon, globalization is threatening the time-honored transmission of plant knowledge from generation to generation, with adverse effects on childhood health and nutrition."
~ Survey Reveals Family Ties And Traditional Activities Keep Arctic Communities Vital -- "A newly released survey of indigenous Arctic people indicates that an overwhelming majority of the region's native people think traditional pursuits such as hunting, boat-building and manufacturing crafts are important to their identity."
~ No, really, I doubt that religion is adaptive [Pharyngula] -- "That Allen MacNeill fella is crazy brave — after trying to approach Intelligent Design seriously as a course subject, now he's going to teach another controversial summer seminar on whether religion is adaptive."
~ Army deployed seriously injured troops -- "Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready."
~ A New Probe into Justice Meddling -- "Congress wants answers about charges that the DOJ interfered in the prosecution of a federal tobacco lawsuit."
~ The Case for Teaching The Bible -- "Should the Holy Book be taught in public schools? Yes. It's the bedrock of Western culture. And when taught right, it's even constitutional." Hmmm . . .
~ Congressional oversight is a linchpin of how our democracy works -- "Aggressive Congressional scrutiny of the Executive branch is not optional, but instead lies at the heart of how our system of government functions."
~ Courtney E. Martin: Gay Expectations Make for Complex Relationships -- "Baumgardner explores the idea that bisexuality liberates women to have "gay expectations" even if they end up married to the man, in her new book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics (February, FSG). Having "gay expectations," as she explains, produces more intimacy, more intensity, and less compromise for women, regardless of whether their beau of the moment is a Jane or a John."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Living With Water Scarcity -- World Must Act Now -- "Only if we act to improve water use in agriculture now will we meet the acute water-environment-poverty challenges facing humankind over the next 50 years."
~ The next wave in design: Gadgets that won't bug you -- "People want more control over their lives and that means owning phones, notebooks and other devices that you can turn off. Quiet time--whether it is reflected in prayer, meditation or nap time--has been a concept in virtually all cultures around the world throughout history. The influx of technology has intruded on these domestic moments of peace, but field studies around the world seem to indicate that people want it back."
~ 'Juiced-up' Sugar-Fueled Battery Could Power Portable Electronics -- "Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say."
~ Are Web 2.0 Office Apps Just Wired Wikis with Weird Names? -- "No one said the taboo words "bubble" or "boom" at the Dealmaker Media Under The Radar conference at the Mountain View Microsoft campus on Friday. But the mood was certainly festive."
~ Global Warming Could Reverse Trend Toward Bigger Human Brains -- "Early humans developed larger brains as they adapted to colder climates. A warming climate might reverse that trend. Imagine that, while you still can."
~ Photo in the News: "Strange Owl" Seen in Wild for First Time -- "A tiny bird so rare and unusual that its scientific name means "strange owl" has been spotted for the first time in the wild, scientists announced yesterday."
~ When it comes to risk, not all nanomaterials are created equal -- "In new studies, the teams found that while carbon nanotubes inhibited growth in mammalian cells, they sustained the growth of commonly occurring bacteria."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ RECOVERING OUR “CENTER The Integral Worldview -- "Without being widely known yet, advanced groups of individuals around the world are building a new culture that is recovering its soul and its center. This dynamic mega-perspective is called the integral worldview. It’s a large-scale, powerful step in cultural evolution—and a quantum leap beyond boomer postmodernism."
~ Reaiming Evolution -- "The framework I use to direct my personal development is an Integral Life Practice, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Central to ILP are various modules used to assess and improve many aspects of our lives. I’d like to share with you my most recent look at my overall practice in a range of areas in hope it might inspire you to look at your own life."
~ Bowing -- "To a Westerner unfamiliar with Zen or Zen arts, these actions can seem very strange. We no longer have a culture where we bow to one another in greeting or to show respect."
~ Nonduality revisited -- "In the end of the EI thread I once again came back to how Ken mixes and matches the various kinds and schools of nondualism in his rhetoric, depending on his immediate need. The thing is, he doesn’t take the time to elucidate which definition or school he’s using so that it becomes a mash with the implicit assumption that there is an underlying agreement between all these definitions and/or schools. The reality is that it’s Ken’s mash (mush?). Does it work? Can it work? Can we truly integrate all this in a developmental scheme when some schools of nonduality don’t have developmental schemes?"
~ Buddhism and its Value-Added Boost -- "People write and think about what’s lacking in Western Buddhism and how pitiful pre-modern Buddhism in Asia might have been, but somehow the discussion never seems to touch what is the only vital issue: what does Buddhism do for people?"
~ Mental masturbation or Buddhist hermeneutics? -- "But is it merely masturbation? See the below abstract of the article “Buddhist Hermeneutics” by Robert Thurman. This demonstrates that such philosophy is far more than just mental abstraction but a component to the path of 'enlightenment.'"
~ Guilt, Shame and Buddhist Practice -- "Carrying guilt around in our minds is like hiking up a mountain and picking up every rock we stub our toe upon and throwing it in our backpack. That is unskillful. It is unnecessary suffering and it stems from a belief in a separate self."
~ BLOG: Transcript: Idiot Savant, or Just an Idiot? -- Ken Wilber in conversation with integral students.
~ Take a few paragraphs to describe a perfect world -- From ~C4Chaos.
~ Pheromones and puberty -- "Any ‘integral’ sexology needs to consider the pre-conscious aspects of human sexuality. It is now understood that pheromones play a part in sexual attraction. Our mind might tell us we are attracted for this or that reason after the pheromones kick in, but our immediate attraction may be subliminal."
~ A Roundup from Blogmandu.
"Imagine what it would be like if TV actually were good. It would be the end of everything we know."
~ Marvin Minsky
Image of the day:
BODY
~ Dark Chocolate May Lower Risk Of Cardiovascular Disease -- "If you eat some dark chocolate now-and-again you could well be lowering your chances of developing cardiovascular disease, say researchers at Yale Prevention Research Center, Connecticut, USA. It seems dark chocolate contains flavonoids which boost the function of endothelial cells in the lining of blood vessels."
~ 5 Simple Steps to Keep Off Rebound Pounds -- "Find out how to keep off weight for good."
~ Exercising With Peers Has Added Appeal -- "A new study in the April issue of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine has found if given a choice of exercising alone, with people younger or older or with people their same age, most adults would rather exercise with others in their own age group."
~ 10 Keys to the Lean & Sexy Look, Part II -- "If you read the first part of Jen's article, you're only half Lean and Sexy! Here's part 2 so you can complete the transformation."
~ Make it Harder: How to Make Easy Exercises More Difficult and More Effective -- An excellent article on making standard lifts more challenging, from TC at T-Nation.
~ Exercise makes cells more efficient; increases overall health & life expectancy -- "Why does risk for heart attacks, strokes or diabetes increase with age? A team from Yale University showed that as you age, you lose your ability to make AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK) (Cell Metabolism, February 2007). This enzyme functions to increase mitochondria in muscles."
~ Hips Don't Lie: 10 Food Fibs that Make You Fat -- "Find out the myths that are keeping you from shedding pounds."
~ 'Good Fat' OK for Heart Attack Patients -- "A Mediterranean-style diet high in olive oil and other "healthy" fats is just as good as the classic American Heart Association low-fat diet for the 8 million Americans who have suffered a heart attack and want to prevent a repeat, new research suggests...."
PSYCHE
~ Slow Down, Multitaskers; Don’t Read in Traffic -- "The findings, according to neuroscientists, psychologists and management professors, suggest that many people would be wise to curb their multitasking behavior when working in an office, studying or driving a car."
~ Gifted Students Beat The Blues With Heavy Metal -- "Gifted students who feel the pressure of their ability could be using Heavy Metal music to get rid of negative emotions.This is the conclusion of Stuart Cadwallader and Professor Jim Campbell of The National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth at the University of Warwick."
~ Why We Give In To Temptation -- "We’ve all had our moments of weakness when trying to control ourselves; eating that donut on your diet, losing your temper with your kids, becoming upset when you’re doing your best not to. It isn’t like we plan on these lapses in judgment. It’s more like they just sort of happen."
~ Beliefs about the rigidity of personality -- "Among other things the researchers found that beliefs about normative personality change generally corresponded to research evidence on adult trajectories of the Big Five factors; and that recalled and anticipated personal change tended to be more positive than these norms."
~ How to Make Wise Judgments -- "What is wise judgment? Why is it important? How can you develop it to make your life happier? This article shows you how."
~ Therapy Via Phone or Internet is Effective for Depression -- "New research reveals that non-traditional forms of treatment occurring over the phone can be very beneficial for patients suffering from depression who are beginning a medical regimen but either cannot or choose not to undergo in-person therapy."
~ As Alcoholics Recover, Spirituality Increases -- "For decades, recovering alcoholics and those who treat them have incorporated spirituality into the recovery process - whether or not it's religious in nature. But few research studies have documented if and how spirituality changes during recovery, nor how those changes might influence a person's chance of succeeding in the quest for sobriety.Now, a new study from researchers at the University of Michigan Addiction Research Center sheds light on this phenomenon." Addiction is an affliction of the soul as much as it is the psyche.
~ Infants Are Able To Detect The 'Impossible' At An Early Age -- "If you've ever been captivated by an M.C. Escher drawing of stairways that lead to nowhere or a waterfall that starts and ends at the same place, then you are familiar with what Psychologists describe as "impossible" objects and scenes. These are pictures or illusions of three-dimensional images that do not make any visual sense. Inevitably, we end up gawking at the image for several moments, attempting to make sense of the impossible."
CULTURE
~ Globalization Seen As Undermining Local Folk Knowledge Associated With Healthy Child Development -- "In a remote area of the Amazon, globalization is threatening the time-honored transmission of plant knowledge from generation to generation, with adverse effects on childhood health and nutrition."
~ Survey Reveals Family Ties And Traditional Activities Keep Arctic Communities Vital -- "A newly released survey of indigenous Arctic people indicates that an overwhelming majority of the region's native people think traditional pursuits such as hunting, boat-building and manufacturing crafts are important to their identity."
~ No, really, I doubt that religion is adaptive [Pharyngula] -- "That Allen MacNeill fella is crazy brave — after trying to approach Intelligent Design seriously as a course subject, now he's going to teach another controversial summer seminar on whether religion is adaptive."
~ Army deployed seriously injured troops -- "Soldiers on crutches and canes were sent to a main desert camp used for Iraq training. Military experts say the Army was pumping up manpower statistics to show a brigade was battle ready."
~ A New Probe into Justice Meddling -- "Congress wants answers about charges that the DOJ interfered in the prosecution of a federal tobacco lawsuit."
~ The Case for Teaching The Bible -- "Should the Holy Book be taught in public schools? Yes. It's the bedrock of Western culture. And when taught right, it's even constitutional." Hmmm . . .
~ Congressional oversight is a linchpin of how our democracy works -- "Aggressive Congressional scrutiny of the Executive branch is not optional, but instead lies at the heart of how our system of government functions."
~ Courtney E. Martin: Gay Expectations Make for Complex Relationships -- "Baumgardner explores the idea that bisexuality liberates women to have "gay expectations" even if they end up married to the man, in her new book Look Both Ways: Bisexual Politics (February, FSG). Having "gay expectations," as she explains, produces more intimacy, more intensity, and less compromise for women, regardless of whether their beau of the moment is a Jane or a John."
HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Living With Water Scarcity -- World Must Act Now -- "Only if we act to improve water use in agriculture now will we meet the acute water-environment-poverty challenges facing humankind over the next 50 years."
~ The next wave in design: Gadgets that won't bug you -- "People want more control over their lives and that means owning phones, notebooks and other devices that you can turn off. Quiet time--whether it is reflected in prayer, meditation or nap time--has been a concept in virtually all cultures around the world throughout history. The influx of technology has intruded on these domestic moments of peace, but field studies around the world seem to indicate that people want it back."
~ 'Juiced-up' Sugar-Fueled Battery Could Power Portable Electronics -- "Juicing up your cell phone or iPod may take on a whole new meaning in the future. Researchers at Saint Louis University in Missouri have developed a fuel cell battery that runs on virtually any sugar source — from soft drinks to tree sap — and has the potential to operate three to four times longer on a single charge than conventional lithium ion batteries, they say."
~ Are Web 2.0 Office Apps Just Wired Wikis with Weird Names? -- "No one said the taboo words "bubble" or "boom" at the Dealmaker Media Under The Radar conference at the Mountain View Microsoft campus on Friday. But the mood was certainly festive."
~ Global Warming Could Reverse Trend Toward Bigger Human Brains -- "Early humans developed larger brains as they adapted to colder climates. A warming climate might reverse that trend. Imagine that, while you still can."
~ Photo in the News: "Strange Owl" Seen in Wild for First Time -- "A tiny bird so rare and unusual that its scientific name means "strange owl" has been spotted for the first time in the wild, scientists announced yesterday."
~ When it comes to risk, not all nanomaterials are created equal -- "In new studies, the teams found that while carbon nanotubes inhibited growth in mammalian cells, they sustained the growth of commonly occurring bacteria."
INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ RECOVERING OUR “CENTER The Integral Worldview -- "Without being widely known yet, advanced groups of individuals around the world are building a new culture that is recovering its soul and its center. This dynamic mega-perspective is called the integral worldview. It’s a large-scale, powerful step in cultural evolution—and a quantum leap beyond boomer postmodernism."
~ Reaiming Evolution -- "The framework I use to direct my personal development is an Integral Life Practice, and I can’t recommend it highly enough. Central to ILP are various modules used to assess and improve many aspects of our lives. I’d like to share with you my most recent look at my overall practice in a range of areas in hope it might inspire you to look at your own life."
~ Bowing -- "To a Westerner unfamiliar with Zen or Zen arts, these actions can seem very strange. We no longer have a culture where we bow to one another in greeting or to show respect."
~ Nonduality revisited -- "In the end of the EI thread I once again came back to how Ken mixes and matches the various kinds and schools of nondualism in his rhetoric, depending on his immediate need. The thing is, he doesn’t take the time to elucidate which definition or school he’s using so that it becomes a mash with the implicit assumption that there is an underlying agreement between all these definitions and/or schools. The reality is that it’s Ken’s mash (mush?). Does it work? Can it work? Can we truly integrate all this in a developmental scheme when some schools of nonduality don’t have developmental schemes?"
~ Buddhism and its Value-Added Boost -- "People write and think about what’s lacking in Western Buddhism and how pitiful pre-modern Buddhism in Asia might have been, but somehow the discussion never seems to touch what is the only vital issue: what does Buddhism do for people?"
~ Mental masturbation or Buddhist hermeneutics? -- "But is it merely masturbation? See the below abstract of the article “Buddhist Hermeneutics” by Robert Thurman. This demonstrates that such philosophy is far more than just mental abstraction but a component to the path of 'enlightenment.'"
~ Guilt, Shame and Buddhist Practice -- "Carrying guilt around in our minds is like hiking up a mountain and picking up every rock we stub our toe upon and throwing it in our backpack. That is unskillful. It is unnecessary suffering and it stems from a belief in a separate self."
~ BLOG: Transcript: Idiot Savant, or Just an Idiot? -- Ken Wilber in conversation with integral students.
~ Take a few paragraphs to describe a perfect world -- From ~C4Chaos.
~ Pheromones and puberty -- "Any ‘integral’ sexology needs to consider the pre-conscious aspects of human sexuality. It is now understood that pheromones play a part in sexual attraction. Our mind might tell us we are attracted for this or that reason after the pheromones kick in, but our immediate attraction may be subliminal."
~ A Roundup from Blogmandu.
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Saturday, March 24, 2007
Are You a Nonconformist?
| You Are 82% Non Conformist |
 You're incredibly strange. And a weirdness like yours takes skill to cultivate! No one really understands you. And you're cool with that. You just hope you never have to understand them! |
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Satire: White House's Tony Snow Announces Surgery : Soul to be removed
From Unconfirmed Sources:
White House's Tony Snow Announces Surgery : Soul to be removed
by WalidWishing you the best...sort of.(Washington D.C. : Ucs News) White House press secretary, Tony Snow, said Friday he would have surgery on Monday to remove a growth inside his abdomen. Doctors examined the growth and discovered it was in fact Snows soul returning to his body.The President demanded the emergency surgery to "Prepare Tony for the last two years on my administration" According to white house staffers a soul would prevent the press secretary from effectively representing the administration during it's final downward spiral.
Dana Perino will be temporarily handling the responsibilities from behind the podium. Doctors expect a full recover with Tony returning to his soulless self in three to four weeks. Speaking off the record Snow is relieved to be missing the next 3 weeks as he was not looking forward to sand bagging the US congress and misleading the public about the legality of congressional oversight.
In his closing remarks Snow said "I'm getting required medical treatment and Alberto Gonzales will fry with or without me."
From the staff of Unconfirmed Sources: Tony we hate you and would generally enjoy seeing you and the President be torn apart by a pack of wild dogs, we do wish you a speedy recovery. And don't worry we will do our best to eviscerate Dana Perino in your absence.
A Note from the editer: It is generally against the Unconfirmed Sources code of Satirical conduct to pick on dead or sick people, but I have used MY Executive Privilege to allow this article. I will allow this because Tony has been advancing the Bush administration's position that Congress has no oversight authority over the President. This position is blatantly UNconstitutional and Tony deserves a stake in the heart, along with our sympathy.
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Stuart Hameroff and Sam Harris
Andrew Sullivan has posted parts of an email exchange between Stuart Hameroff and Sam Harris that was inspired by a reader comment at Sullivan's blog. It's an interesting discussion, at least to me, because I am familiar with the Hameroff & Penrose Orch OR theory. Unfortunately, I think Hameroff's reputation in the science world was irrevocably tarnished by his appearance in the silly What the Bleep? nonsense.
Anyway, check it out if you like consciousness studies.
Anyway, check it out if you like consciousness studies.
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The Mevlana Celaleddin Rumi Whirling Dervishes of Damascus
This is pretty damn cool.
Whirling Dervishes
Via: VideoSift
The Whirling Dervishes are a Muslim Sufi order who are known for their famous practice of performing their dhikr (remembrance of Allah) in the form of a whirling "dance" and musical ceremony called the sema. The Sema represents a mystical journey of man's spiritual ascent to God.Rumi
Whirling Dervishes
Via: VideoSift
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Daily Dharma: Avoid Doing Harm
The Daily Dharma from Tricycle:
Avoid Doing HarmIf you wonder whether evil karma can be neutralized or not, then know that it is neutralized by desire for goodness. But they who knowingly do evil deeds, exchange a mouthful of food for infamy. They who knowing not wither they themselves are bound, yet presume to pose as guides for others, do injury both to themselves and others. If pain and sorrow ye desire sincerely to avoid, avoid, then, doing harm to others.
~ W.Y. Evans-Wentz, Tibet's Great Yogi Milarepa
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