investigations, insight, unconditional Love for the greater Oneness, tales of adventure, and shameless optimism from the edge of the not so distant future
The video below shows a visual representation of brainwaves created while listening to a Pharoelidae track, very cool!
Brainpaint www.brainpaint.com BrainPaint is a state-of-the-art neurofeedback system that incorporates a comprehensive assessment tool, which systematically calculates protocol suggestions used to improve and restore activity related to brain function. This assessment tool is revolutionary, turning new clinicians into experienced practitioners in a fraction of the time. Seasoned practitioners will appreciate the automation – similar to that of computerized chess crunching data to explore the potential of future moves – allowing the focus to be on the human aspects of the session.
As it turned out, that histology course was the most exhilarating and intellectually profound period of my academic career. Free to teach the course the way I wanted to teach it, I ventured into a new way of covering the material, an approach that had been roiling in my brain for several years. I had been fascinated by the idea that considering cells as miniature humans would make it easier to understand their physiology and behavior. As I contemplated a new structure for the course, I got excited. The idea of overlapping cell and human biology rekindled the inspiration for science I had felt as a child. I still experienced that enthusiasm in my research laboratory, though not when I was mired in the administrative details of being a tenured faculty member, including endless meetings and what for me were tortuous faculty parties
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When we observe other humans as individual entities or see ourselves in the mirror as an individual organism, in one sense, we are correct, at least from the perspective of our level of observation. However, if I brought you down to the size of an individual cell so you could see your body from that perspective, it would offer a whole new view of the world. When you looked back at yourself from that perspective you would not see yourself as a single entity. You would see yourself as a bustling community of more than 50 trillion individual cells.
Like giant, cosmic chutes between the Earth and sun, magnetic portals open up every eight minutes or so to connect our planet with its host star.
Once the portals open, loads of high-energy particles can travel the 93 million miles (150 million km) through the conduit during its brief opening, space scientists say.
Called a flux transfer event, or FTE, such cosmic connections not only exist but are possibly twice as common as anyone ever imagined, according to space scientists who attended the 2008 Plasma Workshop in Huntsville, Ala., last week.
“Ten years ago I was pretty sure they didn’t exist, but now the evidence is incontrovertible,” said David Sibeck, an astrophysicist at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.
Here’s a talk by a brain scientist who describes the experience of having a stroke which led to a mystical experience of the One-ness… it gives a fascinating perspective.
As a result of seeing this I’m finding focusing on my physical right brain to be of assistance in calming mental chatter!
Jill Bolte Taylor: My Stroke of Insight http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/229 So who are we? We are the life force power of the universe, with manual dexterity and two cognitive minds. And we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere where we are — I am — the life force power of the universe, and the life force power of the 50 trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form. At one with all that is. Or I can choose to step into the consciousness of my left hemisphere. where I become a single individual, a solid, separate from the flow, separate from you. I am Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, intellectual, neuroanatomist. These are the “we” inside of me.
Which would you choose? Which do you choose? And when? I believe that the more time we spend choosing to run the deep inner peace circuitry of our right hemispheres, the more peace we will project into the world and the more peaceful our planet will be. And I thought that was an idea worth spreading.
This guy may be the next Einstein, albeit a bit different in that he was living in a van and working as a ski instructor in British Columbia when he came up with many of his ideas…
I enjoyed the DVDs anyway.
The Resonance Project http://www.theresonanceproject.org/products/dvd.htm Nassim Haramein’s lifelong journey into the geometry of space-time has lead to a coherent understanding of the fundamental structure of the universe. In this 4 DVD presentation, Nassim will take you on a journey through humanity’s evolution,exposing the changes necessary to produce an all-encompassing Unified Physics; a unification of not only the four forces of nature,but also evolution and the occurrence of consciousness. Demonstrating the parallels between this theory and ancient codes found in documents and monuments, Nassim weaves a tale which may prove to be one of the most important discoveries of our time.
There is no need for science to be opposed to spirituality. In fact, the most influential scientists in history found inspiration in their research through dreams, meditation, and visions!
Newton, Faraday and Einstein were all examples of mystics. Most of their research occurred, not in a laboratory, but within their visionary consciousness.
Oh honey, this is sad news. Generally I choose to stay positive here, however this is important to note.
Most people never think about where the food that magically appears at the grocery store comes from and won’t until their favourite products start getting a lot more expensive.
Vanishing bees threaten US crops http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6438373.stm All over America, beekeepers are opening up their hives in preparation for the spring pollination season, only to find that their bees are dead or have disappeared.
I’m currently reading John Ott’s 1973 book Health and Light as part of a research project on the subject of how light affects human health. Light is as important to life as food & water!
I personally believe that too much exposure to fluorescent and other artificial lights are a factor in many human ailments, including cancer. Unfortunately, this idea is still considered strange (even after over 30 years of research) and few scientists are willing to put their energy and effort behind controversial ideas that might affect their funding or academic reputation. Also, no pharmaceutical company would profit from light therapy like they do from drug therapy.
Here’s a passage from the chapter “Routine Opposition to New Ideas as Standard Procedure” (a clever title indeed):
Some recalled that scientists like Pasteur, Fleming, and Goddard would never have qualified for research funds during the early development of their great discoveries: something must be wrong with our present scientific approach to anything that is new or different from existing conjectures dealing with unsolved problems — problems like cancer. A reexamination of present policies might be in order, in connection with the much publicized appeals for vast sums of money for cancer research in order that “not a single possibility be neglected.”
I’ve often wondered why moths are so attracted to lights & flame, so I looked it up! There doesn’t seem to be one definitive answer, but this one seems compelling.
Why are moths attracted to light? http://science.howstuffworks.com/question675.htm Some types of moths are known to migrate, and it’s possible that the night sky gives them navigational clues. A moth’s up-down orientation might depend in part on the brightness of the sky relative to the ground. Some lepidopterists (moth and butterfly scientists) suggest that moths use the moon as a primary reference point and have the ability to calibrate their flight paths as the Earth’s rotation causes the moon to move across the sky. (There is even evidence to support the theory that migrating moths have an internal geomagnetic compass system to guide them in the right direction.) So a moth’s attraction to an artificial light or to a fire could be related to orientation, and lead to disorientation — the moth wasn’t “expecting” to actually get to “the moon” (the light source) or to be able to fly above it, so confusion results.
Every change made to our ecosystem affects every other thing within that system, including animals, plants, and humanity.
Banff food web shows sharp differences without wolves http://calgary.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=ca-wolves-elk20050802 Since wolves feed on elk, the number of herbivores jumped without the predators. Elk populations were 10 times as high in the low-wolf area compared to where many wolves roamed, the team found. “Where there’s lot of elk, it’s like a lawnmower’s gone through and mowed everything down,” Hebblewhite said. “There’s no young aspen.”
Logging roads bad for caribou: outfitter http://stjohns.cbc.ca/regional/servlet/View?filename=nf-outfitters-caribou-050802 Outfitters say the island’s caribou population is being disrupted by an increase in logging roads. Wayne Holloway, an outfitter in Terra Nova, says there is evidence that new roads are going deeper into the forest and are destroying caribou habitat.
American Babies Born Polluted, Study Says http://www.emagazine.com/view/?2745 “Of the 287 chemicals we detected in umbilical-cord blood, we know that 180 cause cancer in humans or animals, 217 are toxic to the brain and nervous system, and 208 cause birth defects or abnormal development in animal tests,” the report said.
“These 10 newborn babies … were born polluted,” said House Democrat Louise Slaughter of New York, who is leading the charge in Congress to hold chemical producers more accountable to higher standards. “If ever we had proof that our nation’s pollution laws aren’t working, it’s reading the list of industrial chemicals in the bodies of babies who have not yet lived outside the womb,” Slaughter added.
I enjoyed this book but think it could seriously have benefited from another edit and some better graphic design (maybe he had tight publisher deadlines?) However, in terms of insightful information it’s still pretty fabulous!
Here’s a gem from page 44:
How did it come to be that what we call the news is reported solely by journalists? There are so many other kinds of events besides the narrow band favored by that highly specialized brand of storytellers. Indeed, there are many phenomena that can literally not even be perceived by journalists. Their training, their temperament, and their ambitions make vast areas of human experience invisible to them. ”Ninety-six percent of the cosmos puzzles astronomers.” I loved reading that headline on the CNN website. It showed that at least some of our cultural equivalents of high priests, the scientists, are humble enough to acknowledge that the universe is made mostly of stuff they can’t even detect, let alone study. If only the journalists were equally modest. Since they’re not, we’ll say it” The majority of everything that happens on this planet is invisible to them.
Marketing is all about the psychology of buying. Our purchasing habits are studied through our debit cards, credit cards, airmiles cards, and survey people calling us at home during dinner.
There are people who spend their careers pushing the limits of how to manipulate people to desire and buy more things.
Marketers try high-tech tool to push brain’s ‘buy button’ http://www.cbc.ca/story/science/national/2005/06/13/neuro-marketing050613.html Brain scan technology, such as functional MRIs, shows which parts of the brain are activated by impulses. Some marketers theorize that since the scans suggest positive or negative reactions, the technology can help them to fine-tune their message.
Scientists haven’t been able to figure out the purpose of the majority of our DNA, so they refer to it as “junk DNA.”
Just because we don’t know what it is yet doesn’t mean it’s junk!
Someday in the not-so-distant future the concept of junk DNA is going to be as out of date as believing in a flat Earth. Some scientists are already challenging the current assumptions!
‘Junk’ throws up precious secret http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3703935.stm Despite all the questions that this research has raised, one thing is clear: scientists need to review their ideas about junk DNA.
Professor Chris Ponting, from the UK Medical Research Council’s Functional Genetics Unit, told BBC News Online: “Amazingly, there were calls from some sections to only map the bits of genome that coded for protein – mapping the rest was thought to be a waste of time.
Genius of Junk (DNA) http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/s898887.htm Malcolm Simons couldn’t believe that evolution would be so wasteful. In 1987, despite having no formal training in genetics, he had a moment of remarkable insight that convinced him that Junk DNA was serving a vital function; it provided markers that indicated susceptibility to disease. At a Workshop in the United States, he saw patterns emerge from the non-coding DNA. He realised that whatever was going on in non-coding DNA was not random. Malcolm Simons, “There was order in the 95%. If there was order there was likely to be function. Maybe this was a way to also contribute to understanding the function of genes and therefore their malfunction in disease and in so doing help diagnosis – make earlier diagnosis – help save lives.” When he posed his radical theory that this junk might actually have a critical role in diagnosis, his peers announced, “Malcolm, you’re off your friggin’ head.”
NoncodingDNA.com http://www.noncodingdna.com/ It is the goal of this website to pickup where most manuscripts leave off. To help decipher the role of noncoding DNA this website will facilitate the dissemination of data related to the ideas of functional or functionless noncoding DNA, and serve as a hub for information about the latest in noncoding news and research.
I got an email today about my stevia article telling me that such and such study (with no reference!) invalidates what I’ve written. Science is just human observation and not law! I asked him for more information about how the study was carried out and who paid for it.
Here’s a story about how science is also affected by political corruption…
U.S. Scientists Say They Are Told to Alter Findings http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-scientists10feb10,0,4954654.story?coll=la-home-nation More than 200 scientists employed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service say they have been directed to alter official findings to lessen protections for plants and animals, a survey released Wednesday says. … A division of the Department of the Interior, the Fish and Wildlife Service is charged with determining which animals and plants should be placed on the endangered species list and designating areas where such species need to be protected.
More than half of the biologists and other researchers who responded to the survey said they knew of cases in which commercial interests, including timber, grazing, development and energy companies, had applied political pressure to reverse scientific conclusions deemed harmful to their business.
Politics Trumps Science at U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release.cfm?newsID=459 Political intervention to alter scientific results has become pervasive within the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS), according to a survey of its scientists released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) and Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, endangered and threatened wildlife are not being protected as intended by the Endangered Species Act, scientists say.
Snowflakes are temporary works of art. After just a few short minutes on the ground, a fallen snowflake will lose its ornate structure, its unique pattern that will never again be repeated. Photography allows us to preserve a few of these minute masterpieces and to examine their form up close. Below are some examples of snow crystal photographs from around the world.
Out of curiosity, I’m going to take a look in the forest behind my place and see if there are any similar patterns around here. The rain might be an issue though…
Feeling lost? Rocks can point the way http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6853431 Night has fallen, and you are lost in the middle of an unfamiliar desert. There are ways to find your bearings by looking up at the stars. But how about looking down at the rocks?
According to Leslie McFadden of the University of New Mexico, there may be a kind of compass in the alignment of cracks in certain rocks.
This is another one of those jobs I can’t imagine doing. How do they sleep at night?
Kudos to this scientist for speaking up!
Americans are trying to discredit me, claims Chief Scientist http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=601497 “You have a group of lobbyists, some of whom are chasing me around the planet, which I’m chuffed about because it means they are worrying about what I’m saying, and these lobbyists stand up after I’ve given an hour’s talk and say, ‘There are scientists who disagree with you’,” Sir David said.
“I always say, ‘Which bit of the science that I’ve just presented to you are you challenging’? I don’t get the answer.”
Solar Energy is a wonderful thing, but unfortunately production of the solar cells we use today is expensive and partially toxic.
Here’s a press release about some exciting new research at Georgia Tech:
Tech Developing Efficient Organic Solar Cell http://www.gatech.edu/news-room/release.php?id=497 As the price of energy continues to rise, businesses are looking to renewable energy for cheaper sources of power. Making electricity from the most plentiful of these sources – the sun -can be expensive due to the high price of producing traditional silicon-based solar cells. Enter organic solar cells. Made from cheaper materials, their flexibility and feather-weight construction promise to open up new markets for solar energy, potentially powering everything from Radio-Frequency Identification (RFID) tags to iPods and laptop computers.
I’m not too excited about RFID tags, but otherwise this could be a very good development.
The Near Earth Object Program is a division of NASA that monitors space for asteroids or other objects that could possibly damage Earth and/or us. They have observed an asteroid that *might* hit Earth in 2029.
Perhaps if the public can be convinced that there’s danger, the current administration can re-brand their extremely controversial Strategic Defense Initiative (aka “Star Wars“) expenditures as an asteroid protection program? Sounds like the perfect application for that “space-based interceptor” they’ve been testing.
Sometimes the news feels like a badly written SciFi novel. What a weird story for Christmas.
Scientist: Asteroid Could Hit Earth in 2029 http://www.sci-tech-today.com/story.xhtml?story_id=29267 There’s a 1-in-300 chance that a recently discovered asteroid, believed to be about 1,300 feet (396 meters) long, could hit Earth in 2029, a NASA scientist said Thursday, but he added that the perceived risk probably will be eliminated once astronomers get more detail about its orbit.
Asteroid has 1-in-60ish chance of Earth hit http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/space/2004-12-25-meteor-potential-hit_x.htm An asteroid that has a small chance of hitting Earth in the year 2029 was upgraded to an unprecedented level of risk Friday, Dec. 24. Scientists still stress, however, that odds are further observations will show the space rock won’t be on a collision course with the planet.
The risk rating for asteroid 2004 MN4 was raised Friday by NASA and a separate group of researchers in Italy.
Near-Earth Asteroid 2004 MN4 Reaches Highest Score To Date On Hazard Scale http://neo.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news146.html A recently rediscovered 400-meter Near-Earth Asteroid (NEA) is predicted to pass near the Earth on 13 April 2029. The flyby distance is uncertain and an Earth impact cannot yet be ruled out. The odds of impact, presently around 1 in 300, are unusual enough to merit special monitoring by astronomers, but should not be of public concern. These odds are likely to change on a day-to-day basis as new data are received. In all likelihood, the possibility of impact will eventually be eliminated as the asteroid continues to be tracked by astronomers around the world.
