I’m not sure this is something that really needed thorough empirical research. Everyone who was perseverent enough to master the arts of meditation can immediately recognise beneficial effects even after a few sessions.
Perhaps it’s all about just giving your mind a break to recollect itself, we are shot at with so much bulk after all. I’m looking forward to the time when I’ll have enough courage and will to just sit down and deal with my mind’s demons.
Namaste!
via New Scientist
Image: World Processor
The government will open the site next year with organised tours that do not include ‘dangerous spots’. Now, perhaps I am exaggerating, but my stomach gets a bad feeling about this. It’s like throwing a party next to your mother’s grave stone.
via The Guardian
Photo: The Big Picture
I believe there is a big revolution on its way, whether it’s the education reform in the States, the tuition fee protests in London, the technology revolution or the economic shift towards the Orient; major changes are taking place everywhere around us, with people becoming more aware of what is happening. 2012 prophecies or not, we are dramatically undergoing a process of reconfiguration. Whether for the better or not, I welcome change; stagnation is involution in my view.
Photos via The Big Picture
Image: @tweetbeat
28 Nov ’10: WikiLeaks releases US embassy cables.
29 Nov-06 Dec ’10: Praise and criticism regarding the disclosure.
07 Dec ’10: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrested in the UK.
08 Dec ’10: WikiLeaks supporters hack into MasterCard, PayPal and Visa systems causing them to shut down, following their refusal to process donations or payments made for WikiLeaks
I call that crowd accelerated innovation.
Image: Domaster, DeviantArt
Consumer Reports revealed in their January 2011 magazine that the levels of mercury contained in canned tuna are still worryingly high, despite the fact a 2006 research had the same results. It looks like things haven’t changed much, apart from spreading the warning. Children and pregnant women should pay close attention to the kind of fish they and go only for fresh fish, rich in healthy omega-3 fats.
via Consumer Reports
Image: Yoxi TV
Experiments at Yale and University of Pennsylvania reveal that the brain interprets sweets and fat foods in the same way as it does when you take addictive drugs. Apparently the same neural pathways for pleasure are activated in both cases, but Yale brain scientist Ralph DiLeone says it is not as if food is as addictive as drugs.
Furthermore, Uri Shalev, a researcher at Concordia University in Montreal, shows that hungry animals are prone to the intake of drugs, which confirms the above mentioned ideas.
This only reiterates what my mother has always taught me, despite not having any academic qualifications in this subject: you have to learn good eating habbits early in your childhood. Accustom your brain to eating good food early and you won’t have to think about dieting when you will start caring about your looks.
via NPR
Image: Science/AAAS
A team from the NASA Astrobiology Institute found bacteria that use arsenic in cells in place of the phosphorous in Mono Lake, California. The breakthrough reveals new possible forms of life on other planets that scientists might have failed to research because it didn’t contain the six known elements to support life on Earth: carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, sulfur, and phosphorus.
The research article, published in ScienceMag at the beginning of November, anticipates the find of the GFAJ-1 bacterium to ‘have profound evolutionary and geochemical significance’.
Earlier this week a robot reproducing itself without human intervention was revealed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute, taking us one step closer to a computer dominated world.
I wonder what all these discoveries lead to; surely they must converge somewhere.
via Wired
Image: The Guardian
Access them via The Guardian
Photo by Paul/ FreeDigitalPhotos
Carbon dioxide emissions are on the rise again now that economy has recovered, while a study at the University of Exeter claims this year’s figures are reaching record levels. Apparently there has been a decrease in 2008 and 2009, however it is believed only because of the economic downturn.
We should get used to this: there just can’t be a problem-free world. Life can only exist on a solid yet vulnerable balance.
via Wired
Photo by Pixomar
Researchers at MIT are experimenting with new lighting systems that puts control back into the users’ hands and halves the electricity bill. Everything will be controlled from a business card-sized tablet, from which you will be able to adjust which bulbs you want on or the intensity of the light.
This new application will mostly be useful in office spaces where so much electricity is being wasted because lights are often left on when not needed or because of commodity reasons. It also comes in handy in other public spaces, such as schools where it has been discovered that pupils’ learning outcomes are directly affected by the type of light that illuminates their classrooms.
via MIT
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