I understood that there are about 133 islands that make up French Polynesia.  Most people begin their journey into Paradise at Papeete, Tahiti and continue on by boat or island hopping, small planes.

Raiatea was one of my last stops.  Friends of mine had just left and the owner of the hotel where I stayed had some old, wobbly bicycles he loaned to guests.  I wobbled myself around the small island, and found that free dives and snorkeling near the reef surrounding the lagoon was of most interest to me.  I helped to refull the fish tank in the hotel’s dining room that afternoon.

The manager mentioned that, for a small fee, the man who ran the mail boat would take me to Taha’a where he had a girlfriend.  I was shown how to make French bread and bake it in the islands huge stone ovens for which the island was famous.  It is now known as a center of fire walking.  Beyond this island is the atoll of Tetiaroa and Marlon Brando’s “vision”.  Construction of The Brando Luxury eco-resort is slated for late 2011.

There is concern that heavy construction could have a negative effect on the population and almost pristine environment.  47 deluxe bungalow villas (each with a private plunge pool), a spa, scuba diving, island activities and archaeological tours of royal Tahitian sites will be included.  The airstrip is being refurbished and extended to meet all safety requirements.  A platform on the coral reef will provide protected access to the island.

Tahiti Beachcomber SA is overseeing the project.  Richard Bailey, CEO was a good friend of Brando’s and worked with him for many years on their joint venture.

The hotel features “sea water air conditioning systems” (SWAC) drawing on an inexhaustible supply of completely renewable clean energy with zero impact on the environment.  His company works closely with the Tahitian Ministry of  Environment.  They stive to protect marine life and educate the public.

www.thebrando.com

Charlie’s interpretation was a jumble of words, complex phases and disjointed thinking which had to come from the author.  I could only stop dead in my state of confusion and breath slowly.

There are authors and writers.  There are thick books which contain amoung their pages, the work of several people, each with their own agenda.  They are the people who “eat dictionaries and anthologies” for breakfast, then spit out long words and sentances that tend to defy comprehension by mere mortals.

A very large book (size, weight and content) sits on my work table challenging me to read it, sneering at the very thought that I will understand it.

Hundreds of years ago when I was in 4th grade, I had a fabulous English teacher, Nellie Wi bbing.  She was and remains one of my mentors opening literary doors to me, and helping me to win “The Book Award” for reading and writing the  most book reports.  I gobbled up glorious words, savored them and stashed them away for future use.  My favorite word was “philoprogenitiveness” which meant love of your children (I couldn’t find it in my dictionary).  I never use it…

Now, I am confused and wonder why stories, reports and perspectives can’t be written in a more simple and direct manner?  Are the writers just filling pages?  Do they covet their words to a point of no return leaving the reader suspended from the pages barely hanging on only to crash into confusion as they fall?

Aqua Expeditions has captured the Amazon River Bandits.  The CEO of the company, Francesco Galli-Zurgaro through Peruvian news agencies, announced the capture of six armed “bandits” who robbed passengers on July 26th on the river vessel cruising the Amazon in Peru.

All of the crew and passengers involved were not harmed, and passegers continued with their Peruvian travel.

The Aqua riverboat accommodates twenty-four passengers, and cruises are continuing as planned reports travel publication Travel Pulse.

Mr. Galli-Zurgaro’s company has instigated measures to prevent any further incidents which includes the “discreet stationing of security personnel on board”.

Aqua Expeditions feels the quick action in apprehending the “Amazon pirates” will bring a close to any future situations. 

www.aquaexpeditions.com

“The average energy efficiency of the top supercomputers in the world increased by 10 percent,” said Wu Feng (http://people.cs.vt.edu/~feng), an associate professor within the College of Engineering’s computer science and the electrical and computer engineering departments at Virginia Tech, of the latest rankings (http://www.green500.org/lists/2009/06/list.php).

The 10 percent increase in energy efficiency translates to a 10 megaflops/watt improvement, rising to 108 megaflops/watt from 98 megaflops/watt recorded in November 2008. (Megaflops stand for millions of floating-point operations per second.) Also, aggregate power of the list increased by 15 percent, to 230 megawatts from 200 megawatts. “While the supercomputers on the Green500 are collectively consuming more power, they are using the power more efficiently than before,” Feng added.

The Green500 List (http://www.green500.org) serves as a ranking of environmentally friendly, low-energy supercomputers and a complement to the TOP500 List. The Green500 debuted in November 2007 at the 2007 Supercomputing conference to provide a foundation for tracking trends in green supercomputing.

For the first time, the rankings show maximum energy efficiency remaining the same, but three 500-megaflops/watt supercomputers fell out of the Green500. “The three supercomputers that occupied the No. 2 spot on the November 2008 Green500 are no longer computationally powerful enough to be considered among the TOP500 supercomputers in the world, and hence, they dropped off the Green500 List. This occurrence thus provides further fuel to the argument for a ‘more inclusive’ Green500,” Feng said. “If the trend of performance doubling continues, the No. 1 machine on this Green500 is unlikely to make the November 2009 Green500 List.”

Topping the list is the BladeCenter QS22 Cluster, PowerXCell 8i 4.0 Gigahertz, Infiniband, operated by the Interdisciplinary Centre for Mathematical and Computational Modeling at the University of Warsaw.

Also significant: More machines range more than 200 megaflops/watt, while fewer machines are less than 50 megaflops/watt. “As more powerful supercomputers supplant the less powerful, these new machines are performing their computations more energy efficiently,” Feng said.

Meanwhile, a self-made accelerator-based supercomputer from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan catapulted into fifth spot. The self-made GRAPE-DR could be the first Green500 supercomputer with more than a million processing elements at 2.097 million, Feng said.

The Department of State warned U. S. Citizens not to travel to Mexico in April, and those already in Mexico should return home at once.  Schools and commercial venues in Mexico closed.  They reopened on May 7th and 11th.  By the end of May, most museums, bars, discos, night clubs, movie theatres and convention centers were up and running.

Consider what happened to Mexico’s tourism industry which helps to support much of the population directly and indirectly.  Their “tourism stimulus package” initially cost approximately $165 million dollars.  The World Health Organization is not restricting travel, and noted that it’s unfair to accuse Mexico for overreacting.

There are great bargains on tour packages, hotels and resorts across Mexico.  Check out the travel offers with your travel agent.

www.visitmexico.com or www.mexico

Of the $3.25 billion in subsidy costs from the stimulus act, $500 million is specifically for biofuel projects, and $750 million is for large transmission projects that begin construction before Sept. 30, 2011.

Applicants have 45 days to apply for the new guarantee authority, DOE said.

The government-backed authority should help boost lending capital for renewable and other clean-energy technology projects, which has dried up with the financial recession. The stimulus act also included an extension of tax credits for renewable energy and added flexibility where companies can apply for grants instead of using tax credits that the Treasury Department also made available this month (E&ENews PM, July 9).

“This administration has set a goal of doubling renewable electricity generation over the next three years,” Energy Secretary Steven Chu said in a statement. “To achieve that goal, we need to accelerate renewable project development by ensuring access to capital for advanced technology projects. We also need a grid that can move clean energy from the places it can be produced to the places where it can be used and that can integrate variable sources of power, like wind and solar,” he said.

The loan guarantee authority should decrease the cost of the investments, making a “smart grid” investment a lower investment risk and thus less costly for consumers. DOE also announced the availability of almost $4 billion for demonstration and grants for smart grid projects last month (E&ENews PM, June 25).

Many of us within the travel industry overlook the unheralded work of this UNESCO activity.  Often, we’re unaware as we  visit one or more of the 890 diverse sites in 148 countries that these sites are under international protection.

Travelling the world, I’ve watched native dances from Spain throughout Africa, Egypt and Canada, never realizing that “Intangible Cultural Heritage” (traditional dance and linguistics) is part of the program.  Sites are submitted as nominations each year (47 this year).  In the first 10 years hundreds of sites and 34 new countries joined the World Heritage Sites Incentive.

Mankind often appears to be in such a relentless race to update and modernize rather than preserve our past.  I read of a man who tore down one of the Mayan pyramids to build a hotel with the building material!

The World Heritage Committee in Paris leads the assessment process along with deligations from 21 of the 187 member nations participating on a rotating basis.

Under the “endangered list” are the Galapagos Islands.  Many cruise companies want to dock there and the fishing industry has caused concern.  Fortunately, this has been stabilized for the time being.  The Belize Barrier Reef (the “Blue Hole” of Captain Costeau where I foolishly decided not to dive as the depth is unknown) is endangered due to mangrove cutting and land development (in both cases).

Within the next 3-5 years we’ll continue to be faced with climage changes and the impact on natural sites and biospheres (top of the list).  The World Tourism Organization (WTO) is on board raising tourism awareness worldwide. 

Somehow, words from the poem “In Flanders Field” by Lt. Col. John McCrae, MD of the Canadian army whom my grandmother knew, echoed:  “Take up our quarrel with the foe – To you from failing hands we throw – The torch; be yours to hold it high!”  It is up to us to help in preserving the precious gifts of the past which we have inherited.

http.//whc.unesco.org

As I commented when I wrote about the Zero Point Field, we create our own reality.  The focus here is “consciousness is the prime foundaton of reality”.  Ergo ” is this not a way of saying the same thing?”

About every 50 or so years we intelligencia have  a mad urge to explain ourselves in relation to our concepts of what is and what might be.  The arena usually becomes as the essays point out, “Circular debates ending in belief system statements.”  Of course, this leaves them open-ended so we can continue endlessly.

It is written that “The Chasm that had been opened between scientific material universal consciousness; a dead mechanical universe vs. a living universe is being closed!  The change in thinking leads towards a mechanical universe (shades of 1984) vs. God.  And, during the last 300-400 years we’ve grown up along with our science to appreciate science and spirituality

To paraphrase Poincare: logic, therefore, remains barren until awakened by intuition. Quantum physics was the next leap led by such great minds as Einstein and Bohm.  Part of their discoveries was that the observer affects the observed:  “The iceberg in the ocean only appears separate from the sea.”

With the philosophy essays are, “Part of a new paradign realization process will be the continued rift between science and spirituality.  As one stumbles through long words and obtuse phrases, it smells of creativism, positurst reductionism, a “lifeless universe” and that lonely feeling that makes your stomuch hurt.

PSI is very slowly being accepted into mainstream studies as a measuring device.  Don Carroll, who summarized the book wrote “(We) need to name and measure which has its purpose, but as we are warned … “science is based on osbservation, and if science cannot measure, and observe repeatedly, the events are considered suspect.’

Trish Pfeiffer and John E. Mack, MD edited Mind Before Matter.  My brain is still maturing, but I applaud another “Thinking Man’s Book”.  Well done.

www.intuitive-connections.net

Japan Airlines (JAL) recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of their Los Angeles to Tokyo service.  Cabin service is, of course, important, but you also have to get up and walk around.  I can handle a tourist class seat for three hours.  On my flight from Los Angeles via Tokyo to “KL” with Malaysian Airlines, I crawled out of the plane at Tokyo and begged for an opening in business or first class.  I was willing to pay the difference.  It didn’t happen.

JAL has a 4-class service with tourist, business and first, but on the new 777-300ER aircraft on US routes to Asia they have first, executive and Premium Economy Class seats along with Economy class.  The four class cabin features 8 JAL Suites in lst class, 77 JAL Shell Flat NEO’s in Executive class and 46 JAL Sky Shell Seats – the world’s first shell type seating in the premium economy class.

Oh, to occupy a lst class JAL suite!  It’s 20% larger than the old JAL Skysleeper Solo Central seats, upholstered in pale grey leather with 5″ wide, thickly padded armrest.  In the upright position, there’s an ottoman on which to raise your feet.  Should you be travelling with someone else, and travel in a pair of suites, you can raise or lower privacy partitions located between them.  Enjoy Bose noise cancelling headphones and a 19-inch personal TV screen with movies, music or video games using JAL”s audio-visual on demand entertainment system.

Many moons ago I flew first class to London on Pan Am’s first grand 747 with dinner “upstairs” on a real table with 3 other passengers, linen tablecloth, china service and silver tableware  We were served “real” food.  Today the food seems to be made of plastic and tastes weird.

Now, on long hauls, you can order what you want when you want it in first class.  There are many airlines with menus and choices – vegetable, Kosher, meatless, etc.

On my last trip from Los Angeles to Honolulu I sat at the very front of the plane, in a middle seat.  I fell asleep having taken a connecting flight to Los Angeles earlier.  On awakening I found that my head had rested on the shoulder of a rigid Japanese gentleman who had braved my heavy head for hours.  I thanked him in Japanese.  He grunted, “Ah ha!”  And so ended my sleep.  We’ve come a long ‘way, baby.

On my medical information sheet I indicated that I suffer from hyperthyroidism, Graves Disease and macular degeneration.  I was told that I was an “excellent candidate” for the operation.

Following each operation my eyes were blood red.  My computer wasn’t touched for weeks, and I could not drive.  My distance sight was gone.  For the first time in my life I was given prescription glasses which I had to cover with dark glasses because of my sensativity to light.

On my sixth visit I complained about a problem with clear vision, and I was told that my thyroid was trying to get rid of the new lens by coating them with “gunk” (my own special word).  According to my doctor I was “one in a million”.  After weeks of applications of special cream and a prednisone sterate, I developed “floaters”, black bits of “gunk” broken up by the sterate.

When the floaters were down to about 16, I named each one and formed soccer teams.  As the “floaters” lessened I decided that the players had gone to Spain or Italy’s teams.  When I laughingly told my doctor I could see that he considered me quite mad.

Now I can read almost everything and work on my computer for hours.  Driving?  I can see and read everything except long street signs.  The warning that I might have to have my lens “zapped” with a laser about every six months to remove the “gunk” is no longer applicable.

We all want to have instant gratification when we read advertisements promising beauty in a box, glamor over night or immediate clear vision.  Nothing really works out that way.  Even with the best physicians, it takes patience and faith.

www.medscape.com/viewarticle/461817

The Zero Point Field caused me to clear my mind again.  It presents a new confrontational yet inspiring concept with which I am at home because “it contains a blueprint of our existance.”  We’re all connected to each other by an endless sea of energy from man to matter according to Lynne McTaggart.  The “Field” is our alpha and omega.

Accepting that there must be a connection between mind and matter (although I have never been able to bend a spoon with my mind), I’m aware of the power of the energy of the mind.

As pointed out by Rene Descartes, “The human mind is separate from the lifeless matter we call ‘body’”.  We’re all aware of the survival of the fittest where only the strong survive, an evolutionary accident without any particular meaning.  It comes down to science vs. religion, and scientists are falling over their own interpretations.

Matter, to me, is held together by energy.  Einstein’s group couldn’t reconcile new discoveries in quantum physics with Newton in reality and created a scientific monster.  Zero Point Field may provide a bridge between spirituality and science.

Clinical studies on Salamanders showed they might have an unusually strong connection with the energy field around them as do humans.  Similar research done on clairvoyants gave startling proof when they were given co-ordinates of places, then without being there, each clairvoyant could describe the area.

Hall Puthoff of Stanford University concluded that time and space do not exist on the level of the Zero Point Field.  True?  Do past, present and future apparently flow together in the energy field?  Could time be a relative notion?

One human being is connected to another through energy, and together, we create reality.  Ergo: I am one with everyone and I understand the Zero Point Field…a bit.

www.oden\a magazine.com/doc/8/the_amazing_promise_of_the_zero_point_field/

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) is the first “satellite for our satellite” to have a resolution high enough to capture the Apollo sites, reportedly able to photograph things as small as 4 feet across or four feet per pixel.

The pictures show the Apollo missions’ lunar module descent stages sitting on the moon’s surface, as long shadows from a low sun angle make the modules’ locations evident.

The Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter Camera, or LROC, was able to image five of the six Apollo sites, with the remaining Apollo 12 site expected to be photographed in the coming weeks.

NASA reports “The satellite reached lunar orbit June 23 and captured the Apollo sites between July 11 and 15. Though it had been expected that LRO would be able to resolve the remnants of the Apollo mission, these first images came before the spacecraft reached its final mapping orbit. Future LROC images from these sites will have two to three times greater resolution.

The spacecraft’s current elliptical orbit resulted in image resolutions that were slightly different for each site but were all around four feet per pixel. Because the deck of the descent stage is about 12 feet in diameter, the Apollo relics themselves fill an area of about nine pixels. However, because the sun was low to the horizon when the images were made, even subtle variations in topography create long shadows. Standing slightly more than ten feet above the surface, each Apollo descent stage creates a distinct shadow that fills roughly 20 pixels.”

See all the photos here!

Now, I feel that I must return.  The Panama Canal is being expanded to almost twice its width, update and preapred for a new world of the 2000’s.  We visited Canaima Park near the Canal, and drove inland to see the falls.  There were only the very rich, and the very poor. 

Gamboa Rainforest Resort is nestled among the vast Soberaina National Park Rainforest, some 30 minutes from Panama City.  At last a fascinating and emerging part of the world!

You can take a boat ride or go fishing in the Panama Canal, they provide jungle adventures via an aerial tramway, take a visit to Monkey Island, do a bit of bird watching on Pipeline Road and enjoy kayaking at the Panama Canal.

The resort itself has a breathtaking pool and spa where you can kick back and relax, and it’s being called “stunningly beautiful luxury.”  See you there…

www.gamboaresort.com/index_english.html

The Honorable Barack H. Obama
President of the United States
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:

You have repeatedly and appropriately called for a Clean Energy Technology Fund of $150 billion over ten years that could be funded from receipts collected from a greenhouse gas cap and trade program. The stable support this Fund would provide is essential to pay for the research and development needed if the U.S., as well as the developing world, are to achieve their goals in reducing greenhouse gases at an affordable cost.

This stable R&D spending is not a luxury. It is in fact necessary because rapid scientific and technical progress is crucial to achieving these goals, and to making the cost affordable.

We are concerned that “The American Clean Energy and Security Act” (H.R. 2454) that recently passed the House provides less than one fifteenth of the amount you proposed for federal energy research, development, and demonstration programs. The legislation provides no stable, specific funding for sustained research in the Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Science, or for the energy research and associated technology development programs of DOE (at the Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Electricity Deliverability, Fossil, and Nuclear offices).

Given the expected growing federal budget deficits, and the corresponding pressure on the government’s discretionary budget, this is a serious deficiency.

We hope that you will urge the Congress to send you a bill that will invest in energy research, development, and demonstration at an amount approaching the stable $15 billion annual support that you have proposed.

We stand ready to assist you in any way we can.

Signed,

Paul Berg, Physics 1980
Stanley Cohen, Physiology or Medicine 1986
Robert F. Curl, Jr., Chemistry 1996
Johann Deisenhofer, Chemistry 1988
Val L. Fitch, Physics 1980
Jerome Friedman, Physics 1990
Sheldon Glashow, Physics 1979
Roy Glauber, Physics 2005
Dudley R. Herschbach, Chemistry 1986
Wolfgang Ketterle, Physics 2001
Roger D. Kornberg, Chemistry 2006
Herbert Kroemer, Physics 2000
Robert B. Laughlin, Physics 1998
Leon Lederman, Physics 1988
Anthony Leggett, Physics 2003
John Mather, Physics 2006
Marshall Nirenberg, Medicine 1968
George A. Olah, Chemistry 1994
Douglas Osheroff, Physics 1996
Arno Penzias, Physics 1978
Martin L. Perl, Physics 1995
William D. Phillips, Physics 1997
David Politzer, Physics 2004
Robert C. Richardson, Physics 1996
Burton Richter, Physics 1976
F. Sherwood Rowland, Chemistry 1995
Phillip A. Sharp, Physiology or Medicine 1993
George Smoot, Physics 2006
Horst Stormer, Physics 1998
Richard Taylor, Physics 1990
Daniel Tsui, Physics 1998
Steven Weinberg, Physics 1979
Frank Wilczek, Physics 2004
Robert W. Wilson, Physics 1978

“Mardi Gras has been going topless for some years with no end in sight,” says Farley, a former president of the American Psychological Association. “Is this reflecting a growing acceptance of such behavior in America? I think so.”

Liberal views on many fronts are gaining ground, from a healthy decline in racism, sexism, and ageism on one hand to a more questionable tolerance of such public nudity displays on the other, he says.

“Censorship of such displays is becoming increasingly difficult in this media saturated century and the Mardi Gras is helping to fuel the trend,” adds Farley. “Self-exposure of all types, including the now accepted ‘flashing breasts-for-beads’ at Mardi Gras, is beginning to define the Internet.”

While no one knows for sure, people all over the world throughout time have had experiences of what they call ghosts. Do ghosts really exist? It all depends on how you define “ghost.” What are ghosts?

A rational explanation is that our experience of ghosts, or paranormal phenomena, can be attributed to our evolutionary survival mechanisms. It is a way for us to explain things that we don’t understand. One scientific explanation is that what we experience as ghosts is actually caused by sound waves trapped inside of buildings.

For some reason, New England seems to have more haunted houses than the rest of the country. Paul Eno, paranormal investigator in New England, has some very interesting opinions on the subject. Paul Eno’s explanation of ghosts goes beyond the rational or scientific explanations, suggesting a whole new way of looking at reality as a multiverse.

Within the multiverse, parallel universes exist. It is a complex idea that has been around for a long time, it is just tough for a lot of people to understand, much less believe. Do you believe in the multiverse?

Am I an alien?  It didn’t bother me because most of the members of my family were more than “mere” mortals sailing fleets of ships, climbing tall mountains (I got half ‘way up Mt. Kenya), building mansions, painting and writing.  They were fascinating.

My father didn’t blink when I blew up the chemistry lab at boarding school.  He was secretly delighted as a chemical engineer, because I was developing a new formula for bleaching hair.

Yes, I admit that I gave normal birth to my son and daughter.  However, as soon as I could, I turned my son’s interest toward sci-fi.  I always had someone with whom to go to  alien movies!

Yes, I am deeply concerned about preservation of our natural resources and “the greening of the planet”.  I also consider what will happen if we wake up one day and find that our planet can no longer support human life.  The endless debris floating in space concerns me, and I want to find a “nasty” black hole out there and dump it all in…

When I flew on the Concorde (alas, no more) I got a taste of flight at mach speeds, and wondered what I might see in the blackness beyond my tiny window.  Fortunately, Sir Richard Branson will soon offer “space” flights to folks like me who can afford the price tag.

We have come so far with our journey into space.  What next?  I’m ready.

“A major reason explaining why women are underrepresented not only in math-intensive fields but also in senior leadership positions in most fields is that many women choose to have children, and the timing of child rearing coincides with the most demanding periods of their career, such as trying to get tenure or working exorbitant hours to get promoted,” said lead author Stephen J. Ceci, professor of human development at Cornell.

Women with advanced math abilities choose non-math fields more often than men with similar abilities, he added.

Women also tend to drop out of scientific fields — especially math and physical sciences — at higher rates than do men, particularly as they advance, because of their need for greater flexibility and the demands of parenting and caregiving, said co-author Wendy M. Williams, Cornell professor of human development.

“These are choices that all women, but almost no men, are forced to make,” she said.

The study, published in the March issue of the American Psychological Association’s Psychological Bulletin (135:2), is an integrative analysis of 35 years of research on sex differences in math. Ceci and his Cornell co-authors reviewed more than 400 articles and book chapters to better understand why women are underrepresented in such math-intensive science careers as computer science, physics, technology, engineering, chemistry and higher mathematics.

Women today comprise about 50 percent of medical school classes; yet women who enter academic medicine are less likely than men to be promoted or serve in leadership posts, the authors report. As of 2005, only 15 percent of full professors and 11 percent of department chairs were women. Non-math fields are also affected: For example, only 19 percent of the tenure-track faculty members in the top 20 philosophy departments are women.

The authors concluded that hormonal, brain and other biological sex differences were not primary factors in explaining why women were underrepresented in science careers, and that studies on social and cultural effects were inconsistent and inconclusive. They also reported that although “institutional barriers and discrimination exist, these influences still cannot explain why women are not entering or staying in STEM careers,” said Ceci. “The evidence did not show that removal of these barriers would equalize the sexes in these fields, especially given that women’s career preferences and lifestyle choices tilt them toward other careers such as medicine and biology over mathematics, computer science, physics and engineering.”

The analysis, which also was conducted with Susan Barnett, Ph.D. ‘04, a visiting scholar at Cornell, also found that “Women would comprise 33 percent of the professorships in math-intensive fields if it was based solely on being in the top 1 percent of math ability, but they currently comprise less than 10 percent,” Ceci said.

Science, technology, engineering and math are not the only professions affected by women’s career choices, said the authors. Women are still underrepresented in the top positions of such fields as medicine, law, biology, psychology, dentistry and veterinary science.

The authors recommended that universities and companies create options for women with math talents who want to pursue math-intensive careers. These could include deferred start-up of tenure-track positions and part-time work that segues to full-time tenure-track work for women who are raising children, and courtesy appointments for women unable to work full time but who would benefit from use of university resources (e-mail, library resources, grant support) to continue their research from home.

Astrobiology: Life in Space

By Linda Buzzell, AlterNet.

Not so very long ago, humans — like the rest of the animals and plants on earth — moved through our natural cycles at nature’s pace. Time was marked by the passing of the seasons, the life cycles of human, animal and plant life and the yet grander cycles of the moon and the other celestial bodies.

Homo sapiens, a late-appearing species in the long history of our unimaginably ancient planet and universe, evolved during the recent (as the universe views these things!) Pleistocene era, adapted for a life intimately connected with and expressive of our natural surroundings on the African savannah and beyond.

And this is how we lived for millennia.

In the last 150 years, however, the human relationship with time has radically changed. Some say the problems started earlier, with the development of agriculture or writing, but it was really the Industrial Revolution — the rise of the Machine — that put humans in thrall to mechanical processes and machine time. And the recent exponential speeding up into Cybertime has accelerated the process still further. Industrial time was bad enough (Charlie Chaplin did a wonderful job of visualizing that “cog in the wheel” feeling in his film “Modern Times”) but Cybertime can be dizzyingly discombobulating for a Pleistocene primate.

And that’s how many modern people feel — completely frazzled and out of synch with our deepest selves.

The results of this disconnection from nature and nature’s pace show up in therapists’ and doctors’ offices every day. Living under unnatural time pressures causes a myriad of psychological, social and physical ailments. Delinked from the natural rhythms of our bodies and the rest of the planet, we struggle with diminishing success to adapt to the strange mechanical and disembodied world we have created.

As a practicing psychotherapist and ecotherapist, when I see patients who are suffering from depression or anxiety I ask them to keep a time-journal in which they record the hours and minutes spent each day outside, as well as the hours spent inside in front of a screen. My clients are often shocked to realize how disassociated they have become from nature and our species’ natural ways of living, and the effect this disconnection is having on their psyche. In fact, a 2007 study from the University of Essex shows that a daily “dose” of walking outside in nature can be as effective at treating mild to moderate depression as expensive antidepressant medications that can sometimes have negative side-effects.

Time poverty is now a recognized psychological and social stressor. In a speeded-up, highly complex society, there just isn’t enough time for everything: our demanding jobs, our interlocking bureaucratic responsibilities (taxes, insurance, legal issues), our loved one, kids, our community (including the rest of nature), plus commuting and keeping up with traditional media and endless 24/7 online communications. Constantly rushing to keep up as we inevitably fall further behind, we find ourselves destroying not only our own health, but our habitat and the habitat of the people, plants and animals with whom we share the planet.

Click here to read the rest at Alternet.

We’ve seen reference to the dangers plastic poses to marine life, garbage that we humans directly and indirectly deposit in the oceans, but how clearly have we received the message? Not well enough according to a recent article in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin entitled “Leatherback turtles: The menace of plastic,” co-authored by Dalhousie University’s Mike James.

“We wanted to see if plastics ingestion in leatherbacks was hype or reality,” says Dr. James, senior species at risk biologist for Fisheries and Oceans Canada and adjunct professor with Dalhousie’s Department of Biology.

“It was a monumental effort that looked back at necropsies over the last century from all over the world,” he explains. (Necropsies are post-mortem examinations performed on animals.) “After reviewing the results of 371 necropsies since 1968, we discovered over one third of the turtles had ingested plastic.”

Since leatherbacks prefer eating jellyfish, it’s widely believed they mistake bags or other plastics for their meals. Since jellyfish and marine debris concentrate where ocean water masses meet, leatherbacks feeding in these areas are vulnerable to ingesting plastic.

Once leatherbacks ingest plastic, thousands of spines lining the throat and esophagus make it nearly impossible to regurgitate. The plastic can lead to partial or even complete obstruction of the gastrointestinal tract, resulting in decreased digestive efficiency, energetic and reproductive costs and, for some, starvation.

“Plastics ingestion doesn’t always cause death, but there are clearly health risks to the turtles,” says Dr.James.

Fascinated by reptiles as a child, Dr. James developed a lifelong interest in turtles, from raising them as a kid, to his PhD research and now as a biologist and conservationist. He says there are simple ways to stop these ongoing threats.

“The frustrating, yet hopeful aspect is that humans can easily begin addressing the solution, without major lifestyle changes,” says Dr. James. “It’s as simple as reducing packaging and moving towards alternative, biodegradable materials and recycling.”

Leatherback turtles are classified as critically endangered world-wide. The true population size is not precisely known, as only adult females come ashore for nesting in remote tropical locations. During the summer and fall, Canadian waters support the highest density of foraging leatherbacks in the North Atlantic.

If you are reading this on Sunday morning, anytime between 8 am – 12pm Eastern Time, or 6 am – 10 am Mountain Time (the time zone that I’m in), then I am currently running the first marathon I’ve ever run in my life. Last year, I ran the half-marathon version of this same race, and it was the first running race I’d ever been in. (The picture above is not me, and it’s from last year, but this is the finish line of the Missoula Marathon.)

I decided last year to get in the best shape I’ve ever been in by the time I turned 40, and running seemed like a good way to do it. I have since run two 5Ks and another 1/2 marathon last winter. But today will be my longest run ever.

Of course I am doing it for myself, but I am also doing it for my family, because running makes me healthier and happier, gives me more energy and sets a good example for my two sons, ages 4 and 6. And I am also doing it as part of my fundraising efforts for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation because my youngest son has Cystic Fibrosis. I have been documenting my progress for the last year or so on my blog.

I think it is really amazing and wonderful that I’ve lived in this body for 40 years now and I’m still learning what it can do.

2012 is the next 1999. A whole lot of people seem to believe that on 12/21/2012 we will experience the end of the world as we know it. This date is based on the Mayan calandar.

I remember New Year’s Eve, 1999. I avoided big crowds. It was pretty anti-climactic. Nothing really changed.  I had friends who had stocked up food and other survival items in their basement. They have since quit their religion, got divorced, and moved on with their lives.

There are plenty of books, websites, and even a movie out there about 2012, the Mayan calandar, predictions and prophecies, postulations and speculations. There is so much information out there about it, I would recommend going to the library to research if you are seriously interested.

I think an even more interesting question than “is the world as we know going to end in 2012″ is “why do we seem to want the world to end?”

Heon Joo Jung, assistant professor of East Asian Languages and Cultures and a native of South Korea, pointed to strong statements issued in late June by North Korea’s Committee for Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland about South Korea’s attempts to join Cyber Storm, a full-scale cybersecurity exercise led by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

“South Korea’s National Intelligence Service (NIS) considered joining the Cyber Storm program this year,” Jung said. “North Korea on June 27 heavily criticized their efforts and (said) that was one of the provocative actions by South Korea.

“South Korea is one of the most wired countries in the world,” Jung said, adding that a cyber attack eventually had been expected by intelligence agencies and lawmakers as a result. “The South Korean government and the ruling party have been suspicious, but this kind of massive attack is unprecedented.”

Broadband access to the Internet is available in more than 90 percent of homes in South Korea.

Citing Pyongyang’s recent actions to test nuclear weapons and launch missile tests, the cyber attacks could be a further attempt by North Korea to get the United States’ attention. “North Korea has not been a top priority of the Obama administration so far. They’re trying to be a focus of the Obama foreign policy, because they have been feeling neglected,” he said.

While it is logical to believe reports coming out of the NIS, Jung said it would not be implausible that the Internet attack could have been launched by anti-conservative forces within South Korea to oppose the current administration’s policies, including tightening of Internet restrictions.

“The tension in the cyberspace in South Korea is growing,” he said. “That’s where many of the progressive people are really active. The ruling conservative forces in South Korea tried to pass a law called a ‘cyber terrorism law’ to strengthen censorship and strengthen the monitoring of the Internet, because they think the cyberspace is dominated by the progressive forces.”

Among the targets in the attacks were the ruling party’s official Web site and another site belonging to the country’s most influential conservative newspaper. Tensions between the two sides have been especially heightened since the suicide of former South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in late May.

“The key is that regardless of who launched the attack, implications might be very similar in the domestic politics of South Korea,” Jung said. “Already the major conservative newspaper has published editorials that call for strengthening of anti-terrorism efforts in cyberspace that has been regarded as anti-democratic by progressive forces.”

While doing research this summer in South Korea, Jung was able to interview some recent defectors from North Korea a few weeks ago. They told him that few North Koreans were aware of Kim Jong-il’s health condition and the possible anointing of his youngest son as Kim’s successor.

“Having said that, I think that the leadership change (in North Korea) will be very secretive,” Jung said. “If the Obama administration is still waiting for the leadership change and adopting a ‘wait and see’ strategy, I think North Korea may keep initiating provocative actions. There might be further danger to regional security and stability in East Asia as well.”

Symans is among the team of researchers who will converge in the Japanese city of Miki to perform the largest earthquake simulation ever attempted on a wooden structure. The multi-university team, led by Colorado State University, has placed a seven-story building – loaded with sensing equipment and video cameras – on a massive shake table, and will expose the building to the force of an earthquake that hits once every 2,500 years.

The experiment will be Webcast live on Tuesday, July 14 at 11 a.m. EDT at www.nsf.gov/neeswood, and should yield critical data and insight on how to make wooden structures stronger and better able to withstand major earthquakes.

“Right now, wood can’t compete with steel and concrete as building materials for mid-rise buildings, partly because we don’t have a good understanding of how taller wood-framed structures will perform in a strong earthquake,” said Symans, associate professor in Rensselaer’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. “With this shaking table test, we’ll be collecting data that will help us to further the development of design approaches for such structures, which is one of the major goals of the project.”

The 1994 magnitude 6.7 earthquake in Northridge, Calif., and 1995 magnitude 6.9 earthquake in Kobe, Japan, clearly demonstrate the seismic vulnerability of wood-framed construction, Symans said. The shake table experiment will offer researchers a chance to better understand how wood reacts in an earthquake, he said, and the resulting data could lead to the advancement of engineering techniques for mitigating earthquake damage.

As the ground shakes, the energy that goes into a building needs to flow somewhere, Symans said. Typically, a large portion of this energy is spent moving – and damaging – the building. There are proven engineering techniques for absorbing or displacing some of this energy in order to minimize damage, but the technology for doing so has not yet been thoroughly evaluated for wooden structures. Next week’s shake should produce sufficient data to allow the research team to develop accurate computer models of mid-rise wood buildings, which can subsequently be used to advance and validate some of these seismic protection techniques.

As one example, Symans is working on the application of seismic damping systems for wooden buildings. These systems, which can be installed inside the walls of most wooden buildings, include metal bracing and dampers filled with viscous fluid. A portion of the energy generated by the earthquake is spent shaking the fluid back and forth in the dampers, which in turn reduces the energy available to damage the wall or building structure. Recently completed shaking table tests at Rensselaer on wooden walls outfitted with such a damping system have demonstrated the viability of such an approach to mitigating damage in wooden buildings.

“The system allows a significant portion of the wood-frame displacement to be transferred to the dampers where the energy can be harmlessly dissipated,” Symans said. “With dampers in place, we have a better ability to predict how a structure will react to and perform during an earthquake.”

In the 1994 Northridge earthquake, all but one of the 25 fatalities caused by building damage occurred in wooden buildings, and at least half of the $40 billion in property damage was attributed to wood buildings. The quake resulted in nearly 50,000 housing units rendered uninhabitable, most of them wood-framed buildings. The advancement of seismic protection systems could help to save lives and prevent or limit damage in similar future earthquakes, Symans said. This is particularly important considering that most residential structures in the United States, even in seismically active areas, have wooden frames.

The Miki shake is the capstone experiment of the four-year NEESWood project, which receives its primary support from the U.S. National Science Foundation Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) Program. NEESWood is led by Colorado State University, in collaboration with Rensselaer, the University at Buffalo, the University of Delaware, and Texas A&M University. One intended end result of NEESWood is the development of new tools, software, and best practices that result in building code revisions and allow engineers and architects to design wooden structures which can better withstand earthquakes.

The seven-story structure has been built with new seismic design methods informed by NEESWood research for mid-rise wood frame construction. The tests in Miki, to be performed at the Hyogo Earthquake Engineering Research Center, home of the world’s largest seismic shaking table, will be used to evaluate the performance of the building and, in turn, the new design methods.

David Rosowsky, who will join Rensselaer in August as the new dean of engineering, is also a co-investigator of the NEESWood project and will attend the shake in Miki next week.

“NEESWood aims to develop a new seismic design philosophy that will provide the necessary mechanisms to safely increase the height of wood-frame structures in active seismic zones of the United States, as well as mitigate earthquake damage to low-rise wood-frame structures. When this challenge is successfully met, mid-rise wood-frame construction will be an economic option in seismic regions in the United States and around the world,” said Rosowsky, currently the head of the Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A&M.

“It’s exciting for Rensselaer to be a part of the international team participating in the NEESWood project. This project has already brought tremendous visibility to the School of Engineering at Rensselaer which, with its geotechnical centrifuge facility, already is a part of the NEES network of world-class laboratories for earthquake engineering,” Rosowsky said.

For more information on earthquake research and simulation at Rensselaer visit: http://www.nees.rpi.edu/.

The U.S., European Union and 12 of the world’s largest nations plan to embrace “an aspirational goal” of reducing emissions of global-warming gases by 50% by 2050, according to a draft declaration by world leaders set for release next week in Italy.

The draft, seen by The Wall Street Journal, sets up a framework for detailed negotiations on the issue ahead of a United Nations climate conference in December. But it leaves key areas in the climate-change debate in dispute. The draft is subject to change ahead of a meeting of global leaders starting Wednesday.

The declaration recognizes a “broad scientific view” that global temperatures shouldn’t rise more than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, but doesn’t lock in the “two-degree ceiling” that some nations and environmentalists want. Global temperatures currently are about 0.8 degree Celsius above those levels.

Some people may think that chickens are stupid and harmless birds. These people have never observed chicken behavior on a close level.  Yesterday two of our six hens hatched out some baby chicks for the first time ever. The other hens proceeded to tear one of the chicks limb from limb in a vicious attack, before we were able to rescue it. We were able to rescue three other chicks, however, and separated them and their mothers from the other vicious chickens.

Observing chicken behavior can be entertaining, but this was downright horrifying. And the contrast – first there are these sweet hens laying on their eggs and hatching out and caring for and protecting these cute little fuzzy chicks, and then there are the other hens, tearing apart a little baby chick in the dirt. So, I found some good merchandise – a bag that says “WARNING, beware of the killer chickens.”

If chickens were the size of dinosaurs, there would be no human race.

Recently, Charlie drew my attention to The Crystal Star which he calls “a knock off” of ‘Star Wars’.  It tells of the ten years following Darth Vader becoming peaceful, and then dying in “Return of the Jedi”.  He enjoyed the book, but said, “You can tell that it was written by a girl because it was all about family, hugging and friendship stuff”.

Princess Leia had twins, and a boy named Anakin after Luke’s dad.  The children were kidnapped by one of Darth Vader’s Imperial Justices.  Luke and Han were off investigating a research vessel which was by a white dwarf that was about to fall into a black hole.  He added that, of course, being by a black hole reduced the Force considerably, so Jedi defenses were almost non-existent.

According to Charlie, “Some being from another universe had come through the black hole, and was drawing from Jedis near the hole to regain its strength in order to go home with the power from the Force”.  As my son mentioned, most of the story is about the twins trying to escape from their captors.  The twins were five, and Anakin was a brave three and a half year old.  Of course, the family dog (Six Legs) was cute, and defending them.

My son said that “the kids found not only were they part of a slave trade with a bunch of other multi-species children, but the Imperial Justice Representative was planning to train them for the Empire Reborn!  Ceethreepio, Artoo Deeto, Chewbacca and the cool starships were all there.  But Charlie missed the whole “Star War’s ” atmosphere.  This was a real family presentation complete with a friendly dragon who loved to play.  Princess Leia of Alderaan, Freedom Fighter, Destroyer of the Empire and Founder of the New Republic seemed to have been well represented.

Throughout the tons of science fiction books I’ve read in the past, there seems to be few female writers.  Maybe…just maybe, I should become an Alpha Female and try my hand at it?

“Sometimes it is hard for people to admit that there are good, ordinary, sane Muslims living in Iran, because it feels as though they are supporting the actions of the government,” said Fatemeh Keshavarz, Ph.D., chair of the Department of Asian and Near Eastern Languages and Literatures in Arts & Sciences.

“But I think we have to overcome that. There are good Muslims — ordinary, peace-loving people — out there, and we have to let them come into the picture.”

Keshavarz, professor of Persian and of comparative literature and the author of a recent book on women in Iranian society, has been posting daily updates on election-related turmoil in Iran as part of her long-running electronic newsletter on cultural, political and social issues in Iran.

Her postings, filled with cell phone videos and firsthand anecdotes from friends and academic contacts within Iran, are available at the Windows on Iran Web site: http://windowsoniran.wordpress.com.

In her most recent posting about what she has referred to as “a peaceful movement that is seeking a repeat of the election in Iran,” she writes on June 22: “There seems to have been relative calm in Iran today. If there were clashes, they have remained unreported. All my personal attempts to dial numbers in Iran remained unsuccessful. The general mood seems to be that of waiting and reevaluating the situation among the people.”

However, the scene was quite different the night before when she wrote:

“Dear All, ?If you believe in praying, it is time to pray for Iran. Things are getting worse and worse.

* Riot police has blocked all the streets to the Azadi Square. People are being arrested in large numbers.

* After dark, shotguns and cries of Allaho Akbar from the rooftops are heard.

* On the streets, the chants have now changed to ‘Down with Khamenei.’”

Keshavarz is available for media interviews on the day-to-day news reports she’s receiving from contacts within Iran and for broader discussions of the cultural context of these events, including the role of women, art and literature in modern Iranian society and the unique ways that this protest is being shaped by the use of cell phones, instant messaging and other online social media.

Countering negative images

Raised in Shiraz, Iran, Keshavarz earned a bachelor’s in Persian language and literature and a master’s in library, archive and information studies from Shiraz University and a master of arts and a doctorate in Near Eastern studies from the University of London.

She also takes interest in the broader implications of cultural education for world peace, and in May 2007, she spoke on this topic to the United Nations General Assembly.

Keshavarz has not resided in Iran since leaving for college abroad just prior to the Iranian Revolution of 1979, but she returns to her homeland for long visits almost every summer.

Although she continues to wear a headscarf on these annual trips, she strongly favors freedom of choice for women in the way they dress.

Her most recent book, “Jasmine and Stars: Reading More Than Lolita in Tehran,” offers warm stories about ordinary, peace-loving Iranians who share the hopes and aspirations of us all, a perspective intended to counter the negative image of Iranian society that is so often portrayed in Western news coverage and in popular books, such as Azar Nafisi’s “Reading Lolita in Tehran.”

Americans don’t know this side of Iran, she says — and don’t realize that it still exists today.

“China has become a safe haven for Web site operators that use spam to promote their products because of the willingness of some Chinese Web-hosting companies to ignore spam complaints about those sites, which are hosted on their servers for a fee,” Warner said. “The hosting companies don’t create the spam, but rather declare themselves bullet-proof hosting sites – meaning that regardless of the illegal activities being reported, they will not terminate their customer’s spam-related Web sites or domains.”

Computer spam refers to unsolicited commercial advertisements distributed online via e-mail, which can sometimes carry viruses and other programs that harm computers. For the year to date, the UAB Spam Data Mine has reviewed millions of spam e-mails and successfully connected the hundreds of thousands of advertised Web sites in the spam to 69,117 unique hosting domains, Warner said. Of the total reviewed domains, 48,552, 70 percent, had Internet domains – or addresses – that ended in the Chinese country code “.cn”. Additionally, 48,331, 70 percent, of the sites were hosted on Chinese computers.

Further encouraging the Chinese spam epidemic is the widespread availability of cheap domain names. Domain names based in China can cost as little as one yuan, or 15 cents in U.S. currency. In contrast, U.S. domain names can costs as much as $35 a year, with a portion of the fees going toward efforts to detect fraud and abuse like spam. The low domain rates in China encourage Web page operators to buy numerous domains, leading to a continuous stream of spam promoting those various sites.

“Not only is it cheap to operate spam-promoted Web sites through the Chinese technology infrastructure, there is not enough revenue being generated to pay for the creation of programs or entities that could prevent such abuses from taking place,” Warner said.

Warner said that while only a very few companies in China are responsible for perpetuating the illegal spam activity, they risk the reputation of their entire nation’s Internet presence. Warner believes the solution lies in a renewed effort by the country’s government to target companies acting as a haven for cyber-criminals rather than a complete block of all Internet flow coming from China. He said China must develop mechanisms to accept and respond to spam abuse complaints. Read more on Warner’s blog at http://garwarner.blogspot.com/.

About UAB
The UAB computer forensics program is on the front lines of cyber crime and takes a three-part approach in its response to battling the problem. The first focus is on academic training to prepare the next generation cyber-crime investigators. The program also seeks to build a public awareness of cyber crime while conducting research to develop cutting edge options for taking on cyber criminals. For more, log on to http://www.cis.uab.edu/forensics/.

“Eighty percent of facial recognition — what makes a face unique — comes from the eyes,” says Glenn Miller, supervisor of the Forensic Services Unit for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children in Alexandria, Va. It also turns out that we can read a lot of body language through the eyes.

Often referred to as “the window to the soul,” our eyes can tell a lot about what we are thinking and feeling, and remain a constant part of our appearance throughout our lifetimes, even if so many other things about us change.

(The Eye of Horus)

This mystery skull does not fit neatly into any known human skull deformations. But why would this lead researchers to jump to the conclusion that it was alien?

Apparently, Indian Legends told of “star-people” who came down and created alien-human hybrids, waiting until the offspring reached about the age of 6, when they returned to take them.

While no concrete proof has been found that the skull is actually that of a human-alien hybrid, researchers have still been unable to classify just what conditions caused the unusual deformations of this skull.

What do you think?

That’s the focus of research by Kansas State University’s Eduardo Alvarado, sophomore in pre-law, who is looking at the behaviors elicited from the musical lyrics of common songs.

Alvarado is working with Donald Saucier, associate professor of psychology at K-State to study the effects priming can have on behavior by looking at the positive and negative responses stimulated from music lyrics from a variety of song categories, including patriotic and Christmas songs. Priming, he said, is when someone is exposed to a certain environment and their subconscious is activated, and then they tend to act in accordance with that environment without deliberate intent. Priming can manipulate behavior; if someone witnesses violent behavior, they would likely behave more violently.

“One of the key implications is that behaviors may be malleable in the sense that many individuals have the capacity for similar reactions in social situations,” Saucier said. “Relatively small-scale primes may activate certain reactions, and these may be pro-social or anti-social depending on the context.”

Alvarado said the researchers wanted to see if certain musical lyrics activated a pro-social response, which is a positive feeling like empathy, or an anti-social response, which is a negative feeling like aggression. Study participants had to complete a survey and do a lyrics exercise. For the lyrics exercise, participants had to fill in missing lyrics for different songs.

The songs involved in the study were patriotic songs, such as “The Star-Spangled Banner”; secular Christmas songs, such as “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”; religious Christmas songs, such as “O Holy Night”; and neutral songs, such as “Itsy Bitsy Spider.”

Participants filled out a survey that asked questions about their religion and their attitudes toward other cultures and diversity. Half of the participants were asked to complete the survey before the lyric exercise, and the other half completed the survey after the exercise.

Alvarado said the researchers assume people act similarly to primes, and they looked overall at the surveys to see if there was a change in the responses before and after completing the lyrics exercise. They wanted to see if the songs created a pro-social or an anti-social response. He said the preliminary findings showed that the patriotic songs had a negative effect on the participants, as shown through their responses to the survey’s questions about other cultures and diversity. The patriotic songs made the participants close-minded and prejudiced.

“Once they were in a patriotic point of view, they were less empathetic,” Alvarado said. “They didn’t put themselves in other people’s perspective.”

Though songs like “Itsy Bitsy Spider” and “Row, Row, Row Your Boat” were meant to be neutral primes, the researchers found that they stimulated a pro-social response.

“You wouldn’t think that those songs were going to put people in a certain mind frame, but they do activate a certain attitude,” Alvarado said. “We found it made people more accepting and more empathetic. The reason for this we think is because we used to listen to these songs when we were little and they kind of activate childhood happiness.”

Saucier said follow-up research will focus on using stronger and more salient primes to influence pro-social and anti-social behavior. Jessica McManus, graduate student in psychology, has been collaborating on the project.

All ships and boats have a “soul”, and when you understand the spirit of a ship, it opens doors.  When does a ship receive that soul?  On its christening, of course.  And so it was June 5, 2009 that two Costa Cruises’ ships were christened at what was called “a massive party”.  The 114,500 ton Costa Pacifica and the 92,000 ton Costa Luminosa (the fleet’s first flagship) were christened together on a moonlit night in Genoa, Italy which has been Costa’ homeport since 1854.

That morning Costa VIP’s, along with dignataries from the area made speaches.  By cocktail time 9 planes of the Italian Air Force put on an airshow.  The piers were filled with residents and guests.  Red, green and white plumes were released skyward amidst cheers.  The sounds of the voice of the late Pavarotti’s Nessun Dorma filled the air.  In Italy, forget the champagne.  They toasted the event with prosecco.

4,000 guests attended a gala dinner prepared by two of Italy’s finest chefs.  The christening started at 11 PM with a show, “An Italian Portrait in Music and Light” starring Noa, an Israeli singe – he christened the Pacifica.  Valentine Vezzall (an Italian Olympic fencing gold medalist) christened the Luminosa.  Despite the fact that some questioned two ships being christened at one time, it was certified.

There were circus acts, cutting of the ribbons and two bottles of prosecco completed the celebration.  The ships are not twins, but both breathtaking.  The Costa Luminosa has more streamlined decor, but each is understated luxury and pleasure at sea.

Many thanks to Theresa Norton Masek, editor in chief of Vacation Agent Magazine for all of the information.  When are you going to run away to sea?

There are few areas of Lower Town which I’ve not walked, and I know the St. Lawrence Seaway well as it was the entrance and exit for the Allan Line ships which my family owned.

The Image Mill is the world’s largest multi media projection screen.  Moving images are projected against the grain silos in Lower Town at the Port of Quebec.  The project was part of the 400th anniversary of the historical city.  The technology is brilliant, and the effect amazing.  The “show” takes 40 minutes and includes much reworking, improvement and enhancement to 20% of the original show.  The screen is 600 meters wide and 300 meters tall…the equivalent of 25 IMAX screens, and the effect is 3D.  It was, of course, the star attraction of the city’s 400th anniversary!

The screenings are Wednesday to Sunday starting mid-July until September 13, 2009 at the present time.  We have Ex Machina to thank for this extraordinary show, and the awesome Robert Lepage born in Quebec in 1957.  He’s a director, scenic artist, playwright, actor, film director and, at the top of the list, an applause worthy visionary.

The Image Mill transports those watching through four centuries of Quebec history in four movements: waterways (recounting the days of Quebec’s discovery and exploration), road building (that period in which the land was cleared, then developed),  rail expansion (the years of industrialiation and railway construction), and air travel (the era of balloons, airplanes and communications)  The production begins at 10:00 PM.

You can view this enormous work from many vantage points in Quebec City and Levis (on the other side of the St. Lawrence), and the wharves between the old Port Market and rue Dalhousie, north of Quai Saint-Andre will offer the best view.  Check out www.theimagemill.com and www.bonjourquebec.com.

When I was a boy of fourteen, my father was so ignorant I could hardly stand to have the old man around. But when I got to be twenty-one, I was astonished at how much the old man had learned in seven years. — Mark Twain

Research shows that fathers play an important role in the development and well-being of their children. 

Today is a day to honor our fathers. For most people this means making a phone call, sending a card, or getting a gift for dad. But what do you do when your father is no longer living?

An artist friend of mine, Kerri Rosenstein, has used her art as a way of working through the loss of her father. Her latest show, titled “father” opened at the Missoula Art Museum this month. For this show, Kerri collected a stone for every day of her father’s life, painted them a rose color, and painted “rosenstein,” meaning “rose stone,” in gold lettering on stones for each day of her life, so far. Visitors to the exhibition were encouraged to take a stone and bring it back out into the world.

Well I started off this morning thinking I was going to write about the aquatic ape theory, and then I found The Moken. I went to Thailand about 12 years ago and loved the place, it’s history, it’s beautiful kind people. We even spent most of our time there around Phuket and Ko Phi Phi, and didn’t know a thing about the Moken, a group of semi-nomadic sea people, until today. Unfortunately now their way of life is threatened by tourism and the general encroachment of the rest of the world.

One thing I found fascinating about these people is that, according to one source, none of them died in the tsunami of 2005. Apparently, the fish told them it was coming. Some of them took to the mountains inland, others rescued tourists from the islands, and still others actually rode out the tsunami in their boats.

Seeing the way that these people live, it is easier to imagine that humans as a species evolved in and around water, as hypothesized by the proponents of the aquatic ape theory. What is harder to imagine is what would make people decide to move inland, away from the water. It used to be widely believed that North America was settled by the Native Americans by the Bering Strait land bridge, but more recently scientists have been looking at coastal routes as more plausible.

Some even suggest that global warming could cause cataclysmic flooding that would once again put us in a position of having to survive in a watery environment, as soon as 2012.

The research, forthcoming in the August 2009 issue of the Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization, expands our understanding of the correlation between happiness and democracy — and whether economic concerns outweigh political reforms in their impact on subjective well-being.

“Although one might suppose these questions are of interest — some might even say fundamental interest, considering that they involve comparing capitalism and socialism — they have received little attention in the voluminous literature on transition economies,” says Richard Easterlin, USC University Professor and professor of economics in the USC College of Letters, Arts & Sciences.

Easterlin examines life satisfaction in thirteen countries in the so-called communist-bloc using self-reported data from a range of sources, particularly the World Values Survey. Communist-bloc countries first appeared in the large-scale Survey in 1989, when a representative population in each country was asked to rate “life these days, as a whole” on a scale of 1 (dissatisfied) to 10 (satisfied).

Other surveys before and after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991 asked similar questions about specific aspects of life — such as work, health, and standard of living — and about “the way democracy works in (your country).”

“The dissolution of the police states and increase in political and civil rights in many of the transition countries might have been expected to increase life satisfaction,” Easterlin says. “The sharp decline that initially occurred suggests that adverse economic and social conditions trumped the political in their impact on subjective well-being.”

Indeed, the study finds that the trend in overall satisfaction with democracy is actually slightly negatively correlated to the trend in reported happiness after the fall of the Iron Curtain. This correlation is not statistically significant, according to Easterlin, but undermines the assertion by some scholars that democratization in these countries significantly increased happiness.

“There is evidence that, when asked about their sources of well-being, people rarely mention political circumstances,” Easterlin explains. “Rather, they put foremost those concerns that principally occupy their time, most notably making a living, family life and health.”

Satisfaction with work, childcare and health all decreased significantly during the transition from socialism to capitalism, reflecting a marked rise in symptoms of social stress such as divorce rates, suicide rates, domestic violence and increased alcoholism and drug use, Easterlin finds.

However, people were much more satisfied with one particular aspect of their lives after the fall of the Soviet Union: their material circumstances, including standard of living, goods availability and the environment.

“The positive contribution of life satisfaction to improved material living was outweighed by losses in employment security, health and child care, and provision for old age,” Easterlin says.

Disparities in life satisfaction also increased after the fall of the Soviet Union, particularly along the lines of age and education. Those older than 30, who had already established careers under the socialist system, were far more likely to be dissatisfied with life under capitalism than younger adults. Older people also faced the deterioration of old-age pension support and rising unemployment rates.

Men and women had about equal declines in life satisfaction, Easterlin finds.

“The human cost of the transition was enormous, with the lives of millions turned upside down,” Easterlin says. “The impact of these changes on people’s personal lives and their well-being is almost totally missed by GDP per capita.”

While life satisfaction had rebounded somewhat by 1999, there is evidence to suggest that even by 2005 it had not yet reach pre-transition levels, according to the study. By this time, GDP in the countries studied had increased 25 percent on average since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

“The life satisfaction measure, which reflects not only material well-being, but the everyday concerns and worries of women and men about work, health and family, is more indicative of the far-reaching changes that were taking place,” Easterlin says.

He continues: “Life satisfaction is not an exhaustive measure of well-being. But if, in formulating transition policy, some consideration had been given to this measure, perhaps there would have been fewer ‘lost in transition.’”

Richard A. Easterlin. “Lost in Transition: Life Satisfaction on the Road to Capitalism,” Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization (2009: 71:2).

Online here: http://www.tampabay.com/news/science/personaltech/article1008611.ece

Bing me. Bing it. It’s time to Bing and decide. Prepare yourself as Microsoft wages its all-out advertising assault on Web-surfing lingo.

Last week, the software giant launched its new online search engine, Bing. It’s spending an estimated $80 million to $100 million on a campaign to shape Bing.com as a “decision engine” for consumers.

What will you find there?

Bing focuses on four experiences: making a purchase, planning a trip, researching a health condition and finding a local business.

Like Google, Bing also provides tools to search videos, images, news and maps updated with real-time traffic info.

Bing enters a search engine landscape dominated by Google, which holds more than 81 percent of the global market, according to statistics by Market Share. Yahoo, in second, garners a little more than 9 percent.

Will Bing’s consumer focus win people over?

Dewey Davis-Thompson, who owns Internet Adept Inc., a St. Petersburg Web design service, said he hasn’t seen anything beyond Bing’s glossy interface to capture his attention.

“They may catch up with Google, but I don’t know about surpassing it,” he said. “Google is a word like Coke — like Kleenex or Trojan.

“People don’t use a search engine. They Google.”

Will they also Bing?

The train is also one of the greenest ways you can travel.  I can’t recommend it enough.  I will also be filing some stories, post-trip, about my experiences, to give you a more intimate view of what train travel is actually like.  Do you have your own stories?  Let us know!

I started thinking of all the different ways that I escape reality on a regular basis: reading, daydreaming, watching television and movies, drinking alcohol…I’m sure there are more. I wondered, why is it that I feel the need to escape from reality? I mean, my life is pretty good. But even if I were to eliminate all of these ways of escaping, I would still go to sleep and dream every night. It seems to me that people actually have a need to escape reality on a regular basis.

One of the fantastic things about books is that ideas emerge from someone’s imagination and can be shared with others long after the person who had the original idea is gone. There they are on my shelf – the ideas of people long gone. We have a need to share stories and ideas; to use our imaginations. In fact, if we did not go to sleep and dream every night, we would probably go insane.

More information on the study of imagination and the importance of dreaming reveals the how crucial these processes are in the maintenance of everyday reality. Another fascinating topic regarding imagination and consciousness is lucid dreaming. It appears that not only is it totally ok to escape from reality every once in a while, it may be entirely necessary.

I went to a boarding school with Valentina who was from Cuba.  By then it was the late 40’s and some of the stories she told about politics frightened me.  I kept in touch with her, and in the mid 50’s my letters were not answered.

April 14, 2009 Travel Pulse published an article titled, “Obama Lifts Certain Travel Restrictions”.  It began, “President Barack Obama is allowing Americans to make unlimited trips and money transfers to family in Cuba, and easing other restrictions to usher in a new era of openness toward the island nation ruled by Communists for 50 years.”

About 1.5 million Americans have relatives on the island nation that turned to Communist rule in 1959 when Fidel Castro seized control.  Do I approve?  I may have a friend still there.  As such, I am emotionally involved.

My mother’s fabulous dresses are lost to the past.  No longer will she gracefully descend the marble stairs of the hotel in all her finery, no longer will she dance the starry nights away in Havana…but it is a beginning, we pray, back to individual freedom, a return to contact with the outside world and, as such, a better life.

Only time will tell.

Ok, I actually don’t know if Bigfoot exists or not, but, like Fox Mulder from the X-Files, “I want to believe.” And I’m not the only one. Even though some Bigfoot sightings have been proven to be hoaxs, people continue to believe and look for the real Bigfoot.

The Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization claims to be “the only scientific research organization exploring the bigfoot/sasquatch mystery.” Their website includes a comprehensive sightings database, where you can search Canada and the US for reports of Bigfoot sightings. Other websites describe sightings as well.

Despite the lack of concrete evidence of this creatures existance, many people still believe and hope to find this potential primate relative. There are myths of Bigfoot-like creatures all over the world, just like there are myths of “little people” around the world, and recent evidence has shown that “homo floresiensis,” a small homind, in fact did exist simulataneously with modern humans. So why not Bigfoot?

It’s been called everything from “a circus on acid” to “French burlesque meets Sweeney Todd.” Cirque Berzerk’s unique flavor of adult psychedelic vaudevillian tomfoolery returns to the Los Angeles State Historic Park. Performances run Thursday, June 18th through Sunday, July 5th, 2009.

The Cirque includes acrobats, aerialists, stilt walkers, dancers, contortionists, clowns, and more — it sounds like a punk rock cross between Cirque du Soleil and mid-90s Lollapalooza.  If you’re in Los Angeles, why not check it out?  And if you do, report back, please!

“The agreement opens the door to the largest single transfer of Guantánamo prisoners and is the first major deal on detainees since President Obama pledged soon after taking office in January to close the prison within a year….But the United States had not been able to persuade any country to take them, despite contacting about 100 governments. Washington had said it would not hand them over to China, which has demanded their return, because it feared they would be persecuted or even executed.”

The U.S. goverment has promised $200 million in aid to Palau, but denies that the aid is linked to Palau’s acceptance of the Uighur prisoners.  Whether this is true or not, it is a relief that these persecuted men finally have a place to go.

Find out more in this video.

How Our Brains Are Different

I have a friend who says “never trust anyone who says they have no vices.” We are creatures of habit and it is too easy to fall into bad ones. Although I am not a religious person, I love yoga. While the Christian Bible gives it’s followers the 10 Commandments, in yoga, there are the Yamas and Niyamas, or Virtues and Non-Virtues. Basically, these are the things that one should aspire to and avoid.

People who know me now are surprised to learn that I used to smoke cigarettes. I tried to quit for YEARS. As long as I was frequenting bars and doing a whole lot of “hanging out,” quitting felt impossible. But once I started rock climbing and running, I found that smoking no longer fit in. Quitting smoking was hard, until I changed my lifestyle and replaced old habits with new ones.

Aspiring toward good habits and avoiding bad ones is a daily practice, and I don’t know anyone who has totally perfected this. But, I figure it is kind of like eating your veggies. It is better to eat a little bit than none at all.

The Daily Revolution’s own Lori maintains an excellent blog.  Ostensibly, it’s about training for her first marathon, but it’s much bigger than that.

My friend Kate writes a blog as well; Chasing Palindromes is about her life, her bikes, and associated adventures.  She also maintains a cooking blog with some really fun recipes.  “Curried Anything but Couscous” is especially excellent.

Finally, I couldn’t live without Science Daily.  I could get a lot more work done without it, though.  Have fun!

Apparently, this behavior is not unusual for male robins during the mating season. The male robin was actually trying to fight his own reflection. Their advice was to cover the window with cardboard, and after a few days he would go away. However, we have these huge windows and were only able to cover the lower half with large pieces of cardboard. The robin was not deterred. It continued for weeks. We got used to the slamming and tapping, but the worst part was that he would sit there and poop in front of our sliding glass doors. Just when we were so tired of it we started thinking of “getting rid of” him for good, we noticed the fantastic nest that he had built just a few feet away, in front of the wood shed.

It was so lovely, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to get rid of him. Then, when we had finally gotten used to the noise and the poop, it stopped. I went out to look at the nest this morning and discovered three little baby robins there (kind of hard to see in this picture). Finally, all the crazy behavior made sense, and I was happy to be able to share my “territory” with this nutty bird.

The books follow a young girl and her family in the latter half of the nineteenth century, through various moves across what is now the northern Midwest, and through many trials and triumphs. Although written for young people, the content may resonate for those of all ages. The character Laura and her family are poor, although this is not explicitly stated. They simply work very hard and appreciate what they have. That struck me even as a young child – I marveled at Laura’s appreciation of her Christmas gifts: a stick of candy and a tin cup to call her own.

In these fast-moving and hyper-connected times, Wilder’s books possess a seductive simplicity, but they also show timeless values: love, friendship, hard work, cooperation, and appreciation for what we have. The collection I bought is available at Amazon and elsewhere; other collections and the individual books are available as well. I recommend them for both the young and the young at heart.

“The previous oldest-known example of pottery was found in Japan, dated to an age between 16,000 and 17,000 years ago, but debate has raged in the archaeological community as to whether pottery was first made in China or Japan.”

Pottery and ceramics have a long history, and archaeologists have relied upon shards as insights into ancient cultures. According to Wikipedia, “The study of pottery may also allow inferences to be drawn about a culture’s daily life, religion, social relationships, attitudes towards neighbours, attitudes to their own world and even the way the culture understood the universe.”

Standard DNA procedure for bones is to freeze them. When Coyle and her team re-examined the mummy remains they realized the Gobi desert created a natural bone baking process. “It makes the bone more brittle so it makes it easier to grind and break open more cells, so we think we are accessing more DNA to begin with,” Dr. Coyle said.

This technological innovation might have a huge impact on DNA extraction, particularly from older bones, where it is extremely difficult to get usable DNA. For her part, Dr. Coyle hopes the new technique can be used to solve cold cases.

In the meantime, the number of cats in my house has increased a bit over the last couple years. I rescued an abandoned domestic cat who was living in my yard, along with her two surviving kittens, but before I could get her to the vet, she had another litter – of seven. They lived in my rec room, and I set out finding various places for them, including a couple friends’ homes, and several no-kill sanctuaries. In the middle of this tumultuous period, I was home alone one evening near Thanksgiving when I heard a small, terrible cry coming from outside, repeated over and over again. I grabbed a flashlight and stepped into the darkness with trepidation. Huddled on the breezeway, a tiny kitten, not four weeks old, sat abandoned. I have to admit that my eyes filled with tears as I scooped her up – not just because I felt badly for her, but because I was so overwhelmed by the sheer number of cats I was trying to help.

The story ends well. I found places for all the cats. I never discovered where the baby kitten had come from; I often wondered, as I bottle-fed her and cleaned her and taught her how to use the litter box. There had been no female cats, let alone pregnant ones, in my neighborhood. I think she was abandoned by some callous creep, but at least she was left at the right place. Her name is Mija (Spanish for “my little girl”) and she lords it over my older cats with the supreme confidence of a beloved creature. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

I believe that we human animals have a strong responsibility for the well-being of all other animals, particularly the ones that we domesticated. There are so many ways to help, and every small contribution, whether cash or volunteer work or simply being a responsible pet owner, adds up and makes the world a much better place. Please help any way you can.

Links

·    ASPCA

·   Humane Society

·   Best Friends Animal Society

·    Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine

But no matter how much I love and appreciate my body, I still manage to do things that I know are not good for it. And I know I’m not the only one. I go out into the world and I see so many overweight or just plain unhealthy looking people, and they don’t look very happy.

Why do people do things that they know are bad for them – like eating junkfood, smoking and drinking alcohol, and not do things that they know are good like exercise? Wouldn’t we all be happier if we were as healthy as we can be? Instead people do all these things that they know are not good for them, then go to the doctor and expect to be healed, cured, fixed.

It has been estimated that around 70% of healthcare costs in this country are due to lifestyle choices. It seems to me that a lot of problems could be solved simply by taking better care of ourselves.

“People who can speak two languages are more adept at learning a new foreign language than their monolingual counterparts, according to research conducted at Northwestern University. And their bilingual advantage persists even when the new language they study is completely different from the languages they already know.”

An earlier report, also from Science Daily, reveals that bilingualism seems to protect the brain against some of the ravages of aging.

“Children who speak a second or third language may have an unexpected advantage later in life, a new Tel Aviv University study has found. Knowing and speaking many languages may protect the brain against the effects of aging….Dr. Gitit Kavé, a clinical neuro-psychologist from the Herczeg Institute on Aging at Tel Aviv University, together with her colleagues Nitza Eyal, Aviva Shorek, and Jiska Cohen-Manfield, discovered recently that senior citizens who speak more languages test for better cognitive functioning.”

The United States is not known for a high percentage of bilingual citizens, though I myself live in an area where nearly half the population speaks both English and Spanish. Like many high school students, I did take foreign language classes: four years of Spanish. I also scored highly enough on the Spanish language Achievement Test that I didn’t have to take any foreign language in college. Today, I regret that. I like to joke that I speak one-and-a-half languages: I could survive in a Spanish-speaking country, but I’m nowhere near fluent. These studies have made me reconsider. My new goal: to read Chicago White Sox baseball news on their Spanish language website. It can’t hurt!

Here are just a few that I discovered today that I found interesting:

The child’s song “Sing a Song of Sixpence” was actually a coded message to recruit pirates.

Water boiled in a microwave can suddenly explode.

Outdoor temperature can be determined by counting the number of cricket chirps.

And, thankfully, some old wives tales I believed as a child are apparently untrue, such as:

Chewing gum takes seven years to pass through the human digestive system, and if you go swimming less than an hour after eating, you will get a cramp and drown.

If you get an email or hear a story and you are not sure what to think, you may be able to verify whether the information is true or not by checking the “Snopes” site.

Born in Hawaii, Johnson was a competitive surfer, but a surf accident in his teens prompted him to find another career path. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara with a degree in film and then became a musician. His debut album, Brushfire Fairytales, came out in 2001; he now has five solo studio CDs to his credit, as well as soundtracks, collaborations, and EPs.

Johnson’s music has a soft folk/acoustic sound with a hint of reggae. The overall feeling is mellow and relaxed, but he addresses serious issues, particularly environmentalism and green living, and his lyrics can be clever and insightful. You can hear his music and view his videos here.

I recommend Jack Johnson not just for his talent but also for his ethics – it’s a nice combination that I’d like to see more of in this world.

Recently I dreamt that I stole a car and careened off across the states, visiting all manner of crazy sites before the police caught up with me thanks to credit card receipts. In just such an insane spirit, then, here are a few places that are on my list…

The Madonna Inn in San Luis Obispo, California, features 110 different themed rooms, including “Caveman,” “Fabulous Fifties,” “Kona Rock,” and “Safari.” The tacky appeal is endless.

The Amargosa Opera House, founded, designed, and performed in by the multitalented 84-year-old ballerina Marta Becket, is located in Death Valley Junction, California. Get tickets sooner rather than later.

Mitchell, South Dakota’s Corn Palace, originally established in 1892, is made of corn. I first saw the Corn Palace at 2 a.m. one morning, falling asleep in front of the Weather Channel, and thought I had hallucinated it. It would certainly make a great setting for a creepy, corn-themed horror film.

Carhenge, in western Nebraska, is a reproduction of Stonehenge, but made with gray-painted vintage automobiles. Check out its eerie power…

South of the Border, located in Dillon, South Carolina, is a complex of shops, restaurants, and other attractions (a dozen weddings performed every weekend in the summer!). SOB combines the best of the old South and old Mexico. I think.

Finally, I had to include York’s Wild Kingdom, in southern Maine, for old time’s sake. It’s a rather grimy little amusement park and zoo that only a child might love – or at least this child. Wild Kingdom was also home to my imaginary childhood tiger-friend, Tigerolly – another story entirely.

So, there are a lot of wild places to visit in this enormous country. Go out and find some, and let me know all about it.

“The researchers used calling and mobility data from over six million anonymous mobile phone users to create a comprehensive picture of the threat mobile phone viruses pose to users. The results of this study, published in the May 22 issue of Science, indicate that a highly fragmented market share has effectively hindered outbreaks thus far. Further, their work predicts that viruses will pose a serious threat once a single mobile operating system’s market share grows sufficiently large.”

So far only cell phones with operating systems (“smart phones”) can be considered susceptible, but as this feature becomes more common, technology users will need to be more aware of such threats.

]]> http://dailyrevolution.com/?feed=rss2&p=667 1 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=661 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=661#comments Mon, 25 May 2009 07:40:13 +0000 Kelly http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=661 Science Daily reports on interesting developments in the field of whale studies. Scientists have wondered how and why sperm whales feed from deep sea fishermen’s “longlines.” Researchers from Scripps and the Southeast Alaska Sperm Whale Avoidance Project deployed acoustic and video recorders near Sitka, Alaska, and recorded some surprising results:

“The resulting video, recorded using ambient light at 100 meters (328 feet) depth, not only successfully gave the fishermen a clear idea of how the thieving whales were stealing the fish—they pluck the line at one end to jar the black cod free at the other end, somewhat like shaking apples from a tree—but it gave scientists a chance to match the animal’s acoustics with video depictions of its physical features.”

There is so much about other animals and our planet that we don’t yet know – I personally look forward to more of such breakthroughs in science.

Plants use sunlight to make their own food, in the process known as photosynthesis. But can humans live on light and air alone? Breatharians believe that they can. Members of the Breatharian Institute of America claim to be able to exist without food and water. This practice was known to some in India thousands of years ago, and Hira Ratan Marek claims to be able to literally live on the energy of the sun using these ancient practices.

Research does seem to show that we need at least some sunshine for our mental and physical health. But as I watch the new sprouts coming up in my garden, I think it’s going to take a long time for humans to be able to do that successfully. Let’s not give up food just yet.

Another benefit of my neighborhood is the large standard lot (1.2 acres minimum), which means we see a lot of local flora and fauna. We’re surrounded by mesquite trees, creosote bushes, agaves, and a wide variety of cacti.

The natural landscaping, not to mention my tiny backyard pool, attract many birds. I regularly see finches, sparrows, woodpeckers, doves, thrashers, roadrunners, kingbirds, hawks wheeling overhead, and the shy silver Pyrrholoxia, a cousin of the cardinal.

We also have skunks, coyotes (more often heard than seen), foxes, bull- and rattlesnakes, scorpions, centipedes, cottontail rabbits, jackrabbits, and the actually rather cute pack rats.

So yeah, there’s no ocean here, but there’s a world of beauty, and I can always pour myself a margarita, step into my pool, and dream.

Sometimes it is difficult to tell whether these people are serious or not. When I looked up “Cheesus” I found this great site for “Cheesus Industries, International distributor of premium quality, religious-themed cheese sculptures.” But I couldn’t figure out how to order my own personal Cheesus, or the Gouda Buddha.

Sometimes it is obviously a joke, as in the “uncyclopedia” entry about Cheesus. Other times, the line is not so clear between joking and complete irreverance, as with the line of cosmetics called “Lookin’ Good For Jesus,” whose products were pulled from the shelves in Singapore because they were offensive to some people. The products claim to “redeem you in his eyes and take the edge off sinning.”

I’ve got to say it; it all sounds pretty cheesy to me.

Until now, scientists had thought that the brain’s “default network,” which is linked to easy, routine mental activity, was the only part of the brain that remains active when the mind wanders. But in the study subjects, the brain’s “executive network” – associated with high-level, complex problem-solving – also lit up. The less subjects were aware that their mind was wandering, the more both networks were activated. “This study shows our brains are very active when we daydream – much more active than when we focus on routine tasks,” Christoff said.

So I guess (some of our) parents were wrong. Dream away!

“All the leaves are brown
and the sky is grey,
I’ve been for a walk
on a winter’s day.
I’d be safe and warm
if I was in L.A.
California Dreamin’
on such a winter’s day.”

– “California Dreamin’”, The Mamas & The Papas

I have been to countless beautiful beaches in my life. I have visited various coastal spots in the United States, as well as Mexico (Mazatlan, Cancun, Tulum, and Cozumel) and the Caribbean area (Bahamas and U.S. Virgin Islands). But despite the icy water and summer overcrowding, my favorite beaches are those in my home state, Maine. Boothbay Harbor is gorgeous. Ogunquit features some of the best sandy stretches on the coast. But I always go back to York Beach.

Most of us carry some amount of nostalgia for our childhood homes. I am uplifted by the harsh salt tang in the air, the punishing breezes and shrieking gulls and dark, glittering water that sends the sun’s dazzling rays straight into my eyes. I can wander along Long Sands for hours, or frolic in the tiny shelter of York Harbor. But Short Sands, with its summer skeeball and old cliffside hotels and homemade fudge in nearby shops, cannot be topped.

If you get a chance, visit sometime. And tell them I sent you because it’s wicked cool.

The news is not good. Comprehensive modeling shows that:

“…without rapid and massive action, the problem will be about twice as severe as previously estimated six years ago – and could be even worse than that…. The study uses the MIT Integrated Global Systems Model, a detailed computer simulation of global economic activity and climate processes that has been developed and refined by the Joint Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change since the early 1990s. The new research involved 400 runs of the model with each run using slight variations in input parameters, selected so that each run has about an equal probability of being correct based on present observations and knowledge.”

The study reports, among other items, that there is a median probability of 5.2 degrees Celsius warming by 2100, compared to a projected 2.4 degree warming in a 2003 study.

Governments need to make major changes. So do we.

The fossil, known as Ida, was discovered in the Messel Pit near Darmstadt, Germany, in the 1980s. Scientists disagree about Ida’s place in the evolution of primates, but such an ancient and well-preserved fossil will likely fuel study and debate for decades to come. The BBC article states:

In the PLoS paper itself, the scientists do not actually claim the specimen represents a direct ancestor to us. But Dr Hurum believes that is exactly what Ida is….He told BBC News that the key to proving this lay in the detail of the foot. The shape of a bone in the foot called the talus looks “almost anthropoid”.

Interestinger and interestinger…

Of course this first question makes the wild assumption that the Buddha would reincarnate at all. The Buddha is supposed to be beyond the cycle of death and rebirth. However, according to some, the “Buddha Boy” is the reincarnation of the original Buddha, a god in human form. His followers say that he can meditate for months at a time without eating or drinking. In 2007, The Discover Channel did a documentary about him, and seemed convinced by the end that he could in fact go without food or water for at least a few days and still remain healthy in appearance.

Buddha Boy, whose real name is Ram Bahadur Bomjon, also known as Palden Dorje, has his own website, a community website, MySpace page, and can be found on Facebook. He does not claim to be a reincarnation of the Buddha, and has been quoted as saying, “in this undisciplined world, my life’s practice is reduced to mere entertainment.”

But all of this makes me wonder, what would the real Buddha do? How can we live “the middle way” in this world – how can we be in it but not of it? And as I was wondering this, and thinking of what to write, my computer went all crazy on me and I was forced to sign off. Maybe that is my answer right there.

Unfortunately, many people never learn to swim, and this is reflected in horrifying drowning statistics. It is the second leading cause of unintentional injury death around the world. In the year 2000, there were more than 400,000 drowning deaths globally. Sadly, most of these accidents are preventable.

Even worse, in the United States, minorities suffer disproportionately from drowning deaths. Almost twice as many black children (58%) as white children (31%) can’t swim, and they suffer three times the death rate. Hispanic children (56%) are also almost twice as likely to be unable to swim. We owe it to all children to teach them to swim, to enjoy the water and the health benefits and just plain fun.

So go out and learn how to swim. ClubSwim can help you find lessons in your area. For children and teenagers interested in competitive swimming, visit USA Swimming’s website.

“Worldwide, the number of deaths attributed to the flu each year is between 250,000 and 500,000″ (Thomas Walkom, The Toronto Star, May 1, 2009)

Some have suggested that the media distorted the Swine Flu story in order to thwart attempts at economic recovery, or to weaken the social protest movement through fear.

The truth is that we live in a microbial world. “Humans Have Ten Times More Bacteria Than Human Cells.” Viruses are amazing. Trying to eliminate these microbes with antibiotics and antibacterial agents is counter-productive.

That is not to say that we shouldn’t protect ourselves. One of the best places to get sick is the hospital. It has been suggested that billions of dollars could be saved, not to mention tens of thousands of lives, each year, simply by cleaner practices in medical facilities. According to one source, “2 million patients get health care associated infections each year.”

It’s their world, we’re just living in it.

I remember reading The Women’s Room when I was entirely too young (9 or 10!), simply because it was in the enormous family bookcase, I read anything and everything I could get my hands on, and some of it was very, very interesting, if ultimately confusing. I first read this book as an adult in my early twenties; I don’t remember much of this reading, although my mother claims that I said it had nothing to do with my life. (Digression: in fairness, I should say that although I believed in feminism at that time, I was afraid of the title of “feminist” with its unfairly embarrassing cultural connotations, and called myself a humanist. Today? Feminist all the way, baby.)

I am now reading The Women’s Room for the third time, as a full-fledged adult sliding quickly toward middle age. I don’t know what I will take away from it this time, but this passage, about the character Mira’s youthful experiences, stands out:

Later, much later, she would remember these years, and realize with astonishment that she had, by fifteen, decided on most of the assumptions she would carry for the rest of her life: that people were essentially not evil, that perfection was death, that life was better than order, and a little chaos good for the soul. Most important, this life was all. Unfortunately, she forgot these things, and had to remember them the hard way.

Yahoo! Green reported on rising sea levels and associated environmental dangers from the World Ocean Conference in Manado, Indonesia.

“Dealing with environmental refugees will have a much more serious impact on the global economy and global security in fact than what wars have ever done to this planet,” said Rolph Payet, a presidential adviser from the African island nation of the Seychelles. Other nations under threat from even small rises in sea levels include the Pacific island states of Kiribati and Tuvalu, while heavily populated low-lying areas such as Bangladesh’s coastline would also go under.

The Associated Press reported on a new study of Mexican mestizos’ genetic diversity.

Using mathematical analysis, the researchers produced a map of the genetics of the different groups. They found that the mestizo genome includes variations that stretch from Indian to European….They found genomes closer to Europeans in northern states and closer to American Indians in southern areas. Indications of African ancestry were low in most areas, though a few individuals had high levels of African genes. Mestizos from Yucatan were the only ones with a detectable Maya influence.

“A 1,000-square-foot prototype unveiled at a Clayton show in Knoxville a few months ago was priced at around $140,000. It came furnished, with a master bedroom, full bath, open kitchen and living room with Ikea cabinetry, two ground-level deck areas and a separate “flex room” with a second full bath and a second-story deck covered by a sail-like canopy.”

The house includes a rainwater catchment system, flush-mounted solar panels, bamboo flooring, and multiple Energy Star-rated features, such as a tankless water heater, glazed windows, and dual-flush toilets. Clayton’s website allows interested people to examine the home’s features and create their own layout, and even gives a delivered cost estimate.

This just might be the house of the future.

President Obama’s appointment of Van Jones’s as Green Jobs Adviser to the White House Council on Environmental Quality seems startlingly à propos, especially on the heels of Power Shift ’09, — a major youth campaign which demanded, among other things, green jobs. In light of federally funded job-creation initiatives, a rumored shift in the U.S. economy as a whole, and louder-than-ever support for new green infrastructure, the timing couldn’t be better for paying more attention to how a green economy really works.

Political support is only the beginning. A key issue will be sourcing the workers that can produce and manage clean energy. Many fields require more boots on the ground per kWh than fossil energy sources. For example, in 2008 the number of workers employed in the US wind industry jumped to 85,000, surpassing the 81,000 currently needed to mine coal, even though wind power currently provides only a fraction of the electricity in the US that coal does. According to this University of Massachusetts study, (PDF) investing in projects such as wind power and mass transit creates three to four times more jobs than the same spending directed towards the coal industry.

And training these workers is more complicated than pointing Joe the Plumber towards a solar water heater. The National Council for Workforce Education, in a recent report with the Academy for Educational Development titled Going Green: The Vital Role of Community Colleges in Building a Sustainable Future and Green Workforce (PDF), points out:

[M]any jobs that are currently, or predicted to be, in demand are ‘middle-skilled’ jobs that require more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor’s degree. It is important to note that although there will be a growing number of new green occupations requiring new knowledge, skills, and abilities, it is expected that the majority will be transformed from existing jobs, requiring a redefinition of skill sets, methods, and occupational profiles.

The report goes on to say that community colleges are an ideal place to begin offering such training, since existing vocational programs can be modified, rather than starting from scratch. Fast-growing fields such as energy efficiency, renewable energy and alternative fuels are particularly unable to wait for the development of entirely new programs. Courses already exist at several US schools, including Santa Fe Community College, Great Basin College, Cuyahoga Community College, Central Carolina Community College, and Lansing Community College.

“Community colleges fill a very different role than the other higher education institutions,” says Jay Antle, Sustainability Committee Chair at Johnson County Community College. “The real difference is that the research institutions are inventing and perfecting the technology that community college-trained workers will install and service.”

So, where will the money to fund these training programs come from? As much as $75 billion of the new stimulus bill has implications for the higher education sector, in areas like campus renovations, student loans, federal work-study programs, technology and climate research. Four billion is earmarked for job training. Another $500 million was allocated to the Department of Labor for green jobs education and training, though none of it was set aside specifically for community colleges (though it looks like the DOL may end up granting some to those who apply).

In order to make the most of the limited funds, community colleges are finding creative opportunities to collaborate. A joint project of San Francisco Bay community colleges called the New Energy Workforce (NEW) Initiative has found that cooperation with local workforce boards and each other increases their ability to respond to trends in clean and green technology. In concert, they are launching coordinated courses in photovoltaics and energy management, expanding offerings in renewable energy, and providing “Train-the-Trainer” courses for instructors at other schools.

Department of Labor resources will primarily be coming through local Workforce Investment Boards (WIB), says Kitty O’Doherty, convener of the NEW Initiative. “There are roughly 13 WIBs in our region, and they oversee the operation of one-stop career centers, using Department of Labor funds to provide a variety of career services, including job training, to unemployed and recently laid off adults as well as youth.”

As community colleges coordinate with the local workforce boards, they are better able to predict local employment opportunities. Available energy from wind, solar and geothermal sources varies according to location, and regional networks are more likely to have connections to area employers and estimate training needs.

For example, Centers of Excellence hosted at City College of San Francisco and West Valley College conducted a study in 2008 on Bay Area solar sectors, finding that there was a growing demand for photovoltaic panel installers, solar thermal installers and professionals in photovoltaic sales and marketing. Some fields, like photovoltaic installation, were projected to grow as much as 56 percent in the next 12 months. It was the perfect place for the NEW Initiative to step in.

“When we saw the need [for PV solar technicians], we turned our attention to it immediately,” says O’Doherty. “DeAnza College led the way in securing a grant to fund the effort; Cabrillo and San Jose City Colleges capitalized on existing infrastructure to quickly develop and offer new courses; seasoned faculty at Diablo Valley College hosted a train-the-trainer event to jumpstart both the Cabrillo and San Jose City College courses as well as five others in the region. We can be fast at figuring out which colleges are best positioned for each need; work to meet it; and all the while ensure we don’t over-saturate the market.”

She goes on: “This is a call for new levels of collaboration. We convened the Workforce Investment Boards and the colleges in our region in February, and both groups are extremely committed. They [WIBs] are going to have the funding to place people in these jobs, and we’re going to have the training. The common mission of preparing individuals for meaningful careers and creating a well-qualified workforce for our region is a very compelling motivator.”

Xarissa Holdaway blogs for the Campus Ecology program at National Wildlife Federation and edits ClimateEdu, an email newsletter for colleges and universities.

Photo: Lindsay Randall, Environmental Sustinability Coordinator at Purchase College, advocates for green jobs at the Capitol during PowerShift ‘09.
Photo credit: Xarissa Holdaway

Every year, Americans spend billions of dollars on Mother’s Day. The National Retail Federation shows how this spending has been affected by economic conditions in 2007, 2008, and 2009.

But what is it that moms really want?

In Missoula, Montana , Elke Govertson has come up with a novel way to embrace our capitalist-consumerism while honoring mothers at the same time. Five years ago, Elke put on the first Mother’s Day Eve Bash , with a group of about 30 moms. Each year the event has grown bigger. Last year, approximately 350 attended. The event is free to any and all moms, with a suggested donation of $5. Local businesses donate goods and services and there are many sweet prizes given away (this year’s big prize was a dishwasher from Vann’s). Moms get to spend a night out doing yoga, soaking in the hot tub, drinking wine and eating while chatting with other moms, to name just a few of the activities available.

Missoula Moms enjoying Mother's Day Eve

 This year, Elke also used this venue to launch her new magazine, Mamalode.

Elke addresses the crowd

So what’s in it for the businesses who are giving stuff away? More customers, hopefully. The majority of household spending is done by mothers. It turns out, making moms happy makes good business sense.

In the early 1970s, a strange phenomenon reached American shores in the guise of a tall silver alien: Ultraman landed, and for some lucky children like me, life would never be the same again. 

I was probably five years old when I first saw this Japanese television series, complete with awkwardly dubbed English, cheap special effects (think unraveled cotton balls substituting for spacecraft exhaust), and an oddly ingratiating cast of oddballs. From the catchy theme song and psychedelic opening graphics to the scary but all’s-well-that-ends-well plots, I was hooked. It helped that the hero, Hayata, was both attractively suave and suavely attractive.

Ultraman fought some of the most bizarre aliens that Earth has ever seen, and he saved the human race more times than we know. I especially remember the grotesque crab creature with frightening pincers, who alternately appeared six feet tall and sixty, who could disappear at will and freeze humans. Only Ultraman could vanquish such a foe – Ultraman and his human counterpart Hayata, infamous beta capsule in hand, alongside his Space Patrol crewmates. Ultraman rocked my world.

Ultraman was a Japanese cultural phenomenon that resulted in numerous sequel-series, not to mention created a huge toy and accessory industry that continues to this day. The show was simply enormous in Japan; according to a Japanese friend, it was their equivalent of Mickey Mouse. And some American children got to experience the thrill. Apparently the show was broadcast in seventies, in the Detroit area, and around Philadelphia, and also in the Washington D.C. metroplex where I lived between 1973 and 1977. It was definitely not a country-wide syndication; only a few of my friends and acquaintances recall having seen the show…but it made a big impression on us.

So what was it about the show that was so damned cool? One can never pinpoint such a fascination…it’s too much like explaining what attracted you to your first crush (or your latest, for that matter). But I can say this, thanks to Nickelodeon, TV Land, and other retro-maniacal cable channels, I have re-experienced most of my favorite childhood shows. Land of the Lost was appallingly acted – except for maybe the evil Sleestaks. Banana Splits offered nothing catchier than its theme song. Electra Woman and Dyna Girl had nothing going for it except female superheroes who, in retrospect, look really bizarre, but then, in that time period, didn’t we all? I still adore Schoolhouse Rock, but other than that, only Ultraman has held up well, still entertains and enthralls me.

If you get a chance, check out Ultraman online. Your local video store might have some episodes as well. Go on – fly with Ultraman!

(article from the 1999/2000 era Daily Revolution)

Science is typically slow to accept new discoveries. Eugene Dubois, who found “the missing link” (Java man, coincidentally also found in Indonesia) died an unhappy man – his discovery was not accepted as authentic until after his death. [See "The Man Who Found the Missing Link, by Pat Shipman.]

Everything that we know so far is based on what we have found. Just because we haven’t found evidence of other little people around the world yet, doesn’t mean that it is not there. There are stories from all over the world about little people: fairies, pixies, leprechauns and goblins to name just a few. And it turns out that there are local legends on the Island of Flores, about a small, hairy human-like creature: the Ebu Gogo.

Although archaeologists are calling homo floresiensis “hobbits,” and have found tools associated with their remains,

if they are indeed the Ebu Gogo of local legend, they were probably much more like Gollum or Goblins, stealing and eating anything they could get their hands on, and not even knowing how to cook.

Are the Ebu Gogo and homo floresiensis the same beings? Could they still exist?

According to an article in Anthropology Today, “Although not particularly probable, the survival of Homo floresiensis in remoter parts of Flores is not impossible.” [See also Gregory Forth's book, "Images of the Wildman in Southeast Asia."]

And finally, if homo floresiensis is actually the Ebu Gogo, are they also the clan of Yagog and Magog of the Quran, who will come through a wormhole at the end of days to devour the earth?

Project Gutenberg is the oldest digital library. Started by Michael Hart in 1971, the original PG lived on one of the fifteen computers that eventually became the internet. PG currently offers over 28,000 free books.

Wikibooks is a collection of free textbooks in a wide variety of academic areas, and features as diverse as a cookbook, nonfiction for children, and a “random book” button.

Munseys offers downloadable books in a multitude of categories for various portable reading devices.

Baen Books publishes science fiction and offers some of its titles for free, to read online or download.

AudioBooksForFree.com has a wide variety of downloadable audio books.

There really is something for everyone…

“The work revealed the continent to be the most genetically diverse place on Earth, and identified descendents of our earliest human ancestors….The research also located the origin of modern human migration in south-western Africa, near the coastal border of Namibia and Angola. This is based on the widely-accepted theory that the highest level of genetic diversity is in the oldest population – the one that has had the longest to evolve.”

Previous genetic studies of Africa have focused on smaller areas and populations.  This time scientists studied genetic material from 121 different African populations, involving the collection of over 3,000 samples and the identification of 14 ancestral population clusters, led by Sarah Tishkoff of the University of Pennsylvania.  “Our goal has been to do research that will benefit Africans…I hope this will set the stage for future genomics research there, and future biomedical research,” Dr. Tishkoff reported.

One interesting result is the identification of the San people (also known as Bushmen), located in southwestern Africa near the coastline border of Namibia and Angola, as possibly “the desendants of a population ancestral to all modern humans,” based on genetic diversity and lineage.

“We need more data centres, we need more servers. Each server burns more watts than the previous generation and each watt costs more. If you compound all of these trends, you have the perfect storm.”

Globally, there are more than 1.5 billion people using the internet, and estimates put the yearly energy footprint growth rate at 10%. United States data centers are estimated to consume 1.5% of total energy annually. Google and YouTube are among the most visited websites, resulting in ever-increasing energy costs – and therefore carbon debt. The article states, “From having a relatively small impact just a few years ago, [the computer industry] is now leapfrogging other sectors like the airline industry that are more widely known for their negative environmental impact.”

That’s the problem that a team of University of Virginia business students has a plan to solve. And their plan has been getting some validation recently.

Darden School of Business students Baijnath Ramraika, Ravi Yekula and Chip Ransler won two business plan competitions last week, raking in $5,000 at Wake Forest University on March 29 and pocketing $10,000 on March 30 from the Darden-U.Va. Business Plan Competition. The top finish in the Social Entrepreneurship category at the Wake Forest Elevator Competition also netted the team a share of $65,000 in legal and marketing services. Last week’s success follows three other wins in the past six months that garnered a total of $3,000.

The business, called Clean India http://www.clean-india.com/, will use algae and sand filtration to treat and recycle wastewater as a “pay-for-use” service.

The garment makers of Tirupur, India generate about 100 million liters of chemical dye-laced wastewater per day, and generally face no penalties for dumping it into the local water supply, Yekula explained. To make their pollution less obvious, the companies typically add toxic de-coloring chemicals to the water before discharging it. The resulting contamination has caused such a shortage of clean water that the local price of clean water has doubled in the past five years. Many places in India, China and other developing countries face similar water supply challenges, giving Clean India lots of long-term growth potential.

But several factors make Tirupur an ideal spot to launch the business, Yekula said. For years, many Tirupur businesses got water by drilling wells, but the growth of this practice has completely depleted the local groundwater. The local municipal water supply is poorly developed, and so manufacturers purchase 60 percent to 70 percent of their water needs from private suppliers, who typically deliver it by the truckload. Clean India will also use tanker trucks to shuttle contaminated water to their treatment facility, and to deliver the cleaned and recycled water.

The large, up-front costs of traditional wastewater treatment equipment are not economically viable for these small garment makers, Yekula said, so Clean India plans to sell them recycled and cleaned water as an on-demand service, costing slightly less than they now pay for delivered clean water. The first target customers are a number of textile firms that are clustered together in a Tirupur industrial park. Three of the firms have already signed on as ready customers whenever the business gets online.

Clean India will use algae and sand filtration to treat the contaminated water. The algae is grown in a patented bioreactor, and then introduced to open ponds of wastewater. The algae breaks down the toxic elements in the water into nonharmful elements. Then a sand filter captures any remaining sediments and particulates. The whole process takes about five days for a given batch of wastewater. The process can be customized by identifying strains of algae that are best suited to removing particular pollutants.

The process is labor-intensive, as workers must move water from pond to pond and separate the algae every day. This harnesses India’s low-cost labor as a substitute for the high capital costs of traditional wastewater treatment equipment costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, Yekula said.

The modular system can be expanded as new customers are added. A 5-million-liter pilot treatment facility will cost $1.5 million. It should pay for itself in 18 months, Yekula said, and produce $4 million in revenue and $1 million in profits by the end of five years. By year five they hope to expand to 26 plants.

“India has a scarcity of water,” Yekula said. “This problem is huge, but we think Clean India has a solution that actually makes a difference. … It’s not only solving a social problem, it’s doing it in a very profitable way.”

Clean India has not yet lined up financing for the pilot facility, but investors and venture capitalists have expressed interest, Yekula said. “With the global economic meltdown, people are looking for places to invest where there will still be at least some growth, and India is still growing.”

As an adult, I continued to use the bicycle as my primary mode of transportation whenever possible. So when my husband asked me what I would like my next car to be, I said emphatically, “a Velomobile!” A Velomobile is basically an enclosed recumbent bicycle, to protect against the elements. Recumbant bicycles are more comfortable, more efficient, and can be faster than traditional bicycles.

Two huge problems in the US are increased obesity and its many health-related problems, and dependence on fossil fuels. According to Chevron, the world’s demand for oil will only increase in the next 20 years. Their solution? “Better ways to deliver oil and gas.” Drill for more oil. My solution to both of these problems is human powered vehicles.

LIFE EINSTEIN

In the late 1800s, bicycles were all the rage. When the car came on the scene, people embraced it as a cleaner way of getting around than horse power – no more horse poop in the street – but they had no idea of what the cost would be to our environment. Cars have become such an accepted part of our lifestyle that most people would find it difficult to imagine living without them. But with decreasing oil supply and increasing gasoline prices, now might be just the right time to start.

Not only can we use human power to turn our morning commutes into our morning workouts, we can also generate energy by exercising, or even just by being in the right place at the right time. We are only limited by our imaginations. And as Einstein said, imagination is more important than knowledge.

Just for fun, check out Greg Kolodziejzyk, who holds the world records the greatest distance by human power in one day, in both land and water. For more information on Velomobiles, check out this Velomobile guide, and the following sites:

http://www.lightfootcycles.com/velomobile.htm

http://www.velomobiling.com/

http://www.bluevelo.com/

http://www.velomobiles.net/

]]> http://dailyrevolution.com/?feed=rss2&p=480 0 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=481 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=481#comments Sun, 03 May 2009 02:33:12 +0000 Kelly http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=481 A recent New York Times article revealed many of the benefits that we gain from having good friends, including higher cancer survival rates, a longer life, and improved brain health.

“In general, the role of friendship in our lives isn’t terribly well appreciated,” said Rebecca G. Adams, a professor of sociology at the University of North Carolina, Greensboro. “There is just scads of stuff on families and marriage, but very little on friendship. It baffles me. Friendship has a bigger impact on our psychological well-being than family relationships.”

So why are you reading this article?  Go out and make some friends!

And so they instilled within our brains, young and old alike, the need and desire for cereal that tastes like candy, products that make us attractive or smell better, detergents that make our clothes brighter or retain their color and shape longer, lawns that grow greener and make our neighbors envious.

Beyond that, they offer us credit cards with our picture or the picture of our cat on them, plus they offer “special rewards” for using the cards at specific retailers.  The cards come in platinum, gold and silver.  Who can resist?

A long time ago I heard about “subliminal”  advertising being outlawed…certain messages were being implanted in advertising on TV.  And yet, I look around me at products I’ve purchased because my brain said “You may not realize it, but you really need this.”

Of course the credit card companies made it easy!  On radio there are the soft voices selling  CDs.  Have you noticed that advertising firms aren’t taking Chapter II?  They aren’t asking the government for a bail out!  So, stop blaming America for its spending spree…put the blame where it belongs.

For years I wrote corporate profiles of tech companies, involving extensive research and interviews. I’ve also written weekly columns for a baseball website, assisted a college Social Work program with the reaccreditation process, and of course been a Daily Revolution contributor. Some of this work has paid very well indeed; some I’ve done because I care about the topic or source. Very little has been work that I can count on weekly to pay my bills.

The economy has hit freelancers, particularly in the arts, very hard. Craigslist ads have bottomed out; listings seem to have diminished by 75% or more. There are normally very few creative jobs in my community; now I may see only one or two per year at my local university. I am interested in working for non-profits that focus on literacy or animal welfare. But where are these (paying) jobs? Do they even exist?

Freelancing is a tough life. I’m not complaining; I’m simply observing. I have multiple friends in more or less the same situation. I have a good friend in Portland, Maine, a visual artist, whose company was recently bought out. Her job is gone. I have another artist friend who has always had to take other jobs to make ends meet. This is the reality for many creative types. We love what we do, and we’d probably be doing it anyway – but it would be nice if there were paying opportunities for us out there. For the most part we are incredibly hard-working and dedicated people. There should be a place for us – ideally, anyway.

Are you a creative type? What are your experiences? Let me know and I will follow up. In the meantime, best wishes and good luck to all the hard workers out there in every field. Keep following your dreams!

Costa’s cruise begins and ends in Tianjin (Beijing), China.  Ports of call include Chejhu, South Korea, Kagoshima and Kobe, Japan (you’ll spend 2 nights in Kobe).  If you want optional tours at an additional cost there’s an overnight bullet train excursion to Tokyo or an overnight to Kyoto with tours planned for Kyoto and Osaka.  Want the ultimate?  There are optional tour extensions including Beijing, Shanghai and Xian.

Pricetag?  Per person cruise only based on double occupancy from $2,599 inside cabin or $3,643 per person, cruise only based on double occupancy of an outside cabin.  The charter dates are July 16-29, 2009 and special airfares are available in addition from your home airport

On the day of the eclipse, yours will probably be the only group in the world to see this at the Point of Longest Duration.  For fun they are going to use the forward motion of the ship along the center line of the eclipse to push the length of totality to 6 minutes and 40 seconds … because they can.

There are 3-7 day tour extensions in China, and all tours are escorted with English speaking guides.  Somewhere along the way I’ll be waving to you…

http://www.astronomyvacations.com/Classicaltinerary.html, Astronomy Vacations by Mayhugh Travel, Inc.

“A half century ago, this nation made a commitment to lead the world in scientific and technological innovation…There are those who say we cannot afford to invest in science, that support for research is somehow a luxury at moments defined by necessities. I fundamentally disagree…Science is more essential for our prosperity, our security, our health, our environment and our quality of life than it has ever been before.”

This Daily Revolution writer applauds Obama’s decision. Commitment to science is commitment to knowledge; there can’t be too much, especially given the state of global warming and dwindling fossil fuels. It is also interesting to compare the United States’ scientific research budget to other countries’. The article includes a graph showing that Japan and South Korea allocate approximately 3.25% of their respective GDPs to science research; the countries of the European Union allocate just over 2.75%, and China just under 1.5%.

Where do you think we should be? What should we be studying, and why? Enquiring minds want to know.

223,777 Smoking-related items (cigarettes, lighters, cigars, tobacco packaging, etc.)

116,835 Beverage containers (plastic, glass and cans)

53,712 Bags (11,336 paper and 42,376 plastic)

11,039 Large objects (refrigerators, cars, building materials, etc.)

6,078 Toys

4,404 Balloons

Read the rest of the report at the Ocean Conservancy web site.

I’ve heard they are always hardest on Sundays, but I wouldn’t know – for me, they are always hard. Try the New York Times.

Apparently doing things like crossword puzzles can help keep you sharp – and stave off Alzheimer’s disease – which is always a good thing. Or, you might try surfing the internet, which may increase brain function as well.

“Pursuing activities that keep the mind engaged may help preserve brain health and cognitive ability. Traditionally, these include games such as crossword puzzles, but with the advent of technology, scientists are beginning to assess the influence of computer use — including the Internet.”

Other studies show that coffee improves brain performance and may also protect against dimentia. Drinking coffee may even help prolong your life.

So you can kick back and enjoy that cup of coffee along with your crossword or internet surfing, knowing that what you are doing is good for your body and mind.

For more on the many benefits of coffee, see http://www.positivelycoffee.org/.

Professor Alan Maryon-Davis, president of the Faculty of Public Health said shifting the population weight distribution back to that of the 1970s would do quite a lot to help the planet. “In the 1970s we had bigger portions of vegetables and smaller portions of meat and there’s been a shift in the amount of exercise we do. All these things are combining to hurt the planet and this is a calculation that deserves a bit more attention,” he said.

I talked about this with my great friend Lori, who wondered whether disco dancing might have also had a benefit, compared to today’s Xbox and even Wii, not to mention email, cell phones and texting, and Twittering (I am personally the anti-Tweet). I could never give up my WiFi laptop, parked conveniently in front of 250+ satellite channels, and just fifteen feet from the refrigerator – which, come to think of it, may have something to do with the size of my…anatomy. Jeez, where’s Thelma Houston when I need her? Oh yeah – YouTube.

So who says you can’t go home again? That’s why we have Nick at Night, and YouTube, and a million satellite channels of old music, not to mention a thousand more choices in the produce section of the grocery store than we ever had when I was a kid. Should we take advantage? Should we let our hair go wild, and slip into bellbottoms or hot pants, tune into the Brady Bunch or Partridge Family and just let it all hang out?

Si, se puede!

And have I got a song for you…

“In the latest survey, astronomers sifted through thousands of signals from Sagittarius B2, a vast dust cloud at the centre of our galaxy. While they failed to find evidence for amino acids, they did find a substance called ethyl formate, the chemical responsible for the flavour of raspberries…Curiously, ethyl formate has another distinguishing characteristic: it also smells of rum.”

I’ve read a lot of science fiction over the years – some of my favorite authors are William Gibson, C.J. Cherryh, and Larry Niven.  But I never imagined that galactic clouds would have a smell, let alone a taste. Suddenly I’m envisioning future culinary tours of space, thronged with haute cuisine passengers waiting to sample vaporized intergalactic delicacies.

My ideal galactic cloud would smell of hot apple pie, combined with the mouth- and eye-watering flavors of fresh serrano chiles and extra-sharp cheddar cheese. I also wouldn’t mind the scent of fresh-squeezed lemon juice and the taste of a very dry gin martini. But that’s just me. How about you – what’s your ultimate galactic combination?

Theroux is equally known for his many nonfiction books about his railway and other travel experiences. The Great Railway Bazaar chronicles his first major trip, circling from England to Europe, the Middle East, India, Asia, Russia, and back to England. In The Old Patagonian Express, he travels from Massachusetts all the way down to Patagonia. My personal favorite, The Happy Isles of Oceania, follows his travel by plane, train, and kayak (!) around Meganesia (Australia and New Zealand), Melanesia, and Polynesia. His most recent book is Ghost Train to the Eastern Star (2008), which retraces The Great Railway Bazaar.

I am most familiar with Theroux’s travel books. He is a witty and astute observer, often highly acerbic, critical, and seeking. When I read his experiences, personal as they are, I feel as though I am really seeing a place – he does not rhapsodize like a tourist brochure; he relates sights and smells and sounds and people as he encounters them, no sugarcoating and no bullshit. Some will not like this approach, but I enjoy the (sometimes brutal and necessarily subjective) honesty. He has given me so much information about so many places, most of which I will never see other than through his eyes. Because of Oceania, though, I dream of Aitutaki…

You can find more information about Theroux at the PaulTheroux.com fan site, and in an excellent National Geographic Traveler interview.

Years ago I was invited to tour one of Crystal Cruises ships.  The ship was scheduled to leave Miami in the early evening.  I visited the bridge, spa, theatre, dining rooms, work out facilities, library, pools and ended in the Crystal Penthouse with veranda (the ultimate suite on the ship at 1,345 square feet).  I felt it would fit my needs from the living room, dining area, personal butler service, a devine sound system, pantry, library and all the bells and whistles that one could wish.  There were enough acitivities on the ship to keep anyone busy from dawn to dusk!

After the ship leaves Miami (the World Cruise sails January 11, 2010) it heads to St. Lucia, Castries and on to my favorite island in the Caribbean, Barbados.  January 18th it reaches Devil’s Island, Giuana, continuing to Fortaleza and Rio de Janiero, Brazil.  Stops are made at Buenos Aires, Montevideo and then we cross the South Atlantic Ocean to Cape Town, South Africa.  You can take any one of 7 portions of the Cruise with the first one ending in Rio, the second one ending in Cape Town.  Continue to Pt. Elizabeth and on to Durban, Zanzibar, Mombasa, the Seychelles, Mali and Cochin and Mumbai, India.

Before returning from London, you’ll stop in the Ukraine, Russia, Turkey, Italy, Portugal, Spain and France.

“Madam, are you leaving the ship?” the steward asked.  I wondered, for a second, if I could stow away.  But, I smiled and left the ship reluctantly.  It had been the voyage of a lifetime…and I’d only spent just over $300,000 including taxes and my single occupancy of the suite.  The memories were worth every penny. www.crystalcruises.com

I found a watch I want, but it’s an “adventure” watch for Alpha Males.  They call it a “Compass Watch for Budding MacGyvers”.  It’s a TIMEX EXPEDITION E.TIDE TEMP COMPASS, and it reveals everything from the direction to the rise and fall of tides.  Check out www.timex.com.

What’s a “Headphone Splitter for Media Unity”.  You can share video and music with this five socket splitter, compatible with all MP3 and DVD players.  See www.flight001.c0m.

I’m fascinated by the so-called upstart in the Voice over Internet Protocol (VOIP) arena, so popularized by Skype as well as by other companies such as Vonage and Vodaphone,  magicJack (www.magicJack.com), which enables you to access the Internet over your land-line telephone as well as your computer.  The magicJack device, which looks like a large thumb drive, connects to your computer’s USB port.  At the other end of the device is a standard jack that connects to your phone.  The device loads the software into your computer (it’s Widows and Mack Intel compatible) and you can then talk online over your landline.  On the road, you can plug the device into your computer, pop on a headset and get a dial tone.  You can also buy international service, but it doesn’t just let you talk online affordably, it allows you to forward your home voice-mails to your e-mail – just click the e-mail and listen to the message.

Last night I read this great children’s book “The Wartville Wizard,” by Don Madden, in which an old man, unhappy with his neighbors’ habit of littering, becomes a wizard with “the power over trash.” Instead of yelling “slobs!” and picking up the trash along the road by his house, he sends each piece of trash back to the person who threw it out, where it sticks to them. In the end the townspeople, covered in their own trash, promise never to litter again if the wizard will just remove all the trash that is stuck to them. The wizard agrees, “but he would miss yelling ‘slobs!’ a little, because that was kind of fun.”

This seems an appropriate message for Earth Day, the 40^th anniversary of which is happening this Wednesday, April 22^nd.  According to the official U.S. Government Earth Day website:

“Earth Day is a time to celebrate gains we have made and create new visions to accelerate environmental progress. Earth Day is a time to unite around new actions. Earth Day and every day is a time to act to protect our planet…Earthday.gov is a cooperative effort across the entire U.S. government.”

This website features information on how you can help improve the planet, through both individual actions and volunteer opportunities.  They also include a section just for kids.

This Earth Day, ask yourself, what if everything you threw away were to come back and stick to you? You would probably give a lot more thought to what you threw away. Although we are continually reminded to “reduce, reuse, and recycle,” unfortunately too many people forget the first two and think that it is all about putting cans and bottles in the right bins.

What if there were no garbage service? What if you had to find a way to reuse everything you bought? Think about how much trash you buy. Take a look in your garbage can. Is there anything in there that you could have reused? Is there someway you could have avoided buying that trash? I just did that. I see that I have thrown away plastic bags from cereal boxes that I could reuse somehow. Next time, I could buy cereal from the bulk food section, reusing those very bags. When they finally wear out, perhaps I could find some other use for them. My husband takes old plastic bags and fills a burlap sack with them, making a target for his archery practice.

I know a couple who built one wall of their house out of old colored bottles and straw bale. The effect was almost like stained glass. I know some other people who have used crushed recycled glass as a fantastic decoration on their new floors. Crushed glass can be used to make amazing mosaics.

How can you reduce the amount of stuff that you bring home, just to throw away? You could start by buying things with less packaging. Here are some ideas to reduce your imprint, when it comes to garbage.

Buy used clothes from thrift stores. Give away old clothes that you don’t wear anymore. Have a clothing exchange party. This is especially good with kids’ clothes, since they grow out of them so fast. If your old clothes, sheets, etc. are too trashed to give away for someone else to use, turn them into rags (instead of buying and throwing away paper towels) or use them in craft projects (make a crazy quilt!).

Buy whole foods and cook from scratch. Bring your own reusable grocery bags to the store, and/or reuse paper bags.

Consider also where the things you buy come from. I was looking through this catalog the other day of “green living” products, the motto on the front: “simple choices make a difference.” Inside they advertise all kinds of organic clothes, “recycled” products, etc. but on closer inspection you see that many of these things are made in China or some other country where there are very little environmental controls. And think about all the resources it will take to get that product to you! Is this really “green living?” Is this really a “simple choice?”

It turns out that living simply in this world can actually get pretty complicated. But it is worth it to try, instead of just yelling “slobs!” at the rest of the world, even if it is kind of fun.

Other sources of information on Earth Day can be found at:

· Earth Day Network

· Wikipedia

Do you intend to celebrate and participate in Earth Day?  Share your stories with us!

]]> http://dailyrevolution.com/?feed=rss2&p=362 1 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=359 http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=359#comments Sun, 19 Apr 2009 05:48:27 +0000 Kelly http://dailyrevolution.com/?p=359 A long time ago (coming up on fifteen years), I set out to get a cat. A friend of a friend gave me a kitten – a feisty long-haired grey with a bad-ass attitude and frightening intelligence. Bast helped to make my house a home. Over the years, I gained a few more cats, all by accident, and all giving immeasurable joy every day. So as a long-time pet of multiple cats, I can personally attest to the many benefits of companion animals, and science has been backing me up for decades now. Your health, both physical and mental, will be significantly improved by the presence of a cat, dog, or other pet. Here are a number of informative sources:

· CDC

· Peteducation.com

· Parents.com

· Preciouspets.org

· Wcco.com

Of course, if you are considering adopting a companion animal, you need to take many things into account. How much time do you have? How much money? What kind of lifestyle? Also, I know many people think that a particular breed is special or attractive, but the fact is that there are many wonderful mongrels and mixed breeds in shelters all over the United States (and world) who would love the chance to become your companion, so check your local shelters and you will be sure to find a friend. Above all, be patient and caring. You will be repaid a thousand-fold.

For more information, visit the Humane Society of the United States, the ASPCA, and Best Friends Animal Society; and of course your local shelter and/or sanctuary. Feel free to send your comments, questions, and stories; I will answer all queries, and may feature your own tale in a future column.

My biggest irritation at the moment is the heinous use of “big of,” as in “it’s not that big of a deal.” Excuse me? When did this change? It is “that big a deal.” The creeping “of” creeps me out. More knowledgeable people can explain this better than I, so check out:

· Grammarphobia Blog

· Bartleby.com

So, please, please, please, just say no to excessive “of”!

And as long as we’re talking grammar, don’t even get me started on the hyper hyphenation I see everywhere today, including the overly hyphenated (overly-hyphenated? not!) New York Times. See also:

· New York University

· GrammarBook.com

· Grammar Curmudgeon

(P.S. I’m already cringing at the thought that I’ve committed any number of grammatical errors in this article – if I have, do let me know!)

It covers the evolution of man billions of years in the future.  Today’s rapidly changing (I hesitate to use the word “declining”) evolution  could make those billions change to hundreds of years.  It’s a telepathic revelation of man’s chaotic future through space and time.

With a 1930’s perspective, peace is present until an “airship” crashes into London releasing toxic warfare gas.  England retaliates against Western Europe and a state of almost total extinction occurs.  The US and China become the super powers and agree to a peaceful solution.  Shortages of oil, metal and food follow, but an “inexhaustible” energy source is found and “we” cook the planet.  The last bit of life exists on the tip of an island close to the North Pole.  Darwinism takes over as man continues resulting in a stronger man who regains dominence over earth.  He decides to build a genetically perfect brain that will warn of impending doom.

“Brain” feels unfulfilled, replicates itself into a higher state.  Man’s prime urge shines through.  The brain designs Adam and Eve to experience emotions who eventually destroy the brain through their descendants.  A dark cloud appears above a  mountaintop and covers the terrain in a “green mist” which is a conglomerate of Martians which act together as the Borg.  After the mist consumes crops and people men once again surge forward and send the “mist” back to Mars.

Humans battle the remaining Martians and flourish, after which point the moon falls out of orbit.  They are down to a pitiful group, but somehow escape to Venus.  On arrival they find Venus almost covered by water.  A few islands exist, and there they survive.  Vesuvians live in the sea as swardfish creatures who dislike Earthlings.  When Venus becomes too hot for them, the humans move to Neptune.  The sun is dying.  Throughout the book there are flying humans, fish-like humanoids and a  “Planet of the Apes” evolution at the end (we make it through).

Yes, it’s Sci-Fi 101, but there were parts of the book that came almost too close for comfort.  I’m glad I’m not living in the “Green Mist” period.  And, yet, looking out the window…OH, NO……..

Ah, my kitchen! I just happened to be making a delicious local fusion specialty (well, local to my good friend Pat and me) – green chile risotto. If you’ve never made risotto because it seems too difficult, let go of that particular prejudice. Risotto takes time – it does not take any special ability or knowledge. Trust me on this – I’m no chef, but I can make very decent meals, thank you very much. Oh, okay, don’t trust me – check out these recipes, anyway: