Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Speedlinking 6/20/07

Quote of the day:

"O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet."
~ Saint Augustine

Image of the day:

I Post this image in hope of an early monsoon this year, since it will be 106 today and 110 tomorrow.


BODY
~ A Joint-by-Joint Approach to Training -- "Mike Boyle and other coaches think you should train movement patterns, not muscles. The next step? Thinking about training from a joint perspective. Confused? Read this article and all will be clear!"
~ Exercise Can Prevent Bone Fractures In Men -- "It has been well documented that regular exercise can help prevent osteoporosis in women, but now researchers believe that regular exercise can prevent bone fractures in older men."
~ Focus On Exercise Alone For Diabetics Makes Greater Improvement Than Diet And Medicine -- "Diabetes is often called a lifestyle disease, and now a new study from the University of Missouri-Columbia verifies that a lifestyle change brings strong improvements. People with diabetes who attended classes to help them increase their exercise had more significant improvements than people who focused on trying to change exercise, diet modification and medication at the same time."
~ Feds, Legal Threats Put Snacks on a Diet -- "America's snack food makers are marketing smaller portion packs, using healthier fats and reducing sugar in some of the nation's favorite potato chips and cookies...."
~ The State of The Union’s Fat -- Interesting graphic.
~ Junk Food or Junk Diet? -- "The week-end arrives; you heave a sigh of relief as you now have a couple of days relaxation before you face the pressures of work again. Or do you?"
~ Spoonful of cinnamon helps blood sugar stay down -- "Adding some cinnamon to your dessert may temper the blood sugar surge that follows a sweet treat, a new study suggests." Or better yet, take a cinnamon capsule or two each day and avoid the junk food altogether.


PSYCHE
~ Men eye faces, while women gaze at sex -- "Contrary to popular opinion, men are more likely to look at a female's face before other areas when looking at pictures of naked women, according to a study by Emory University researchers."
~ Health Tip: What Causes Nightmares? -- "Nightmares can cause poor sleep and anxiety, triggering health problems. The U.S. National Library of Medicine says the following factors can contribute to nightmares."
~ Sense of touch is crucial for empathy -- "A rare condition in which people sense physical touch when they see someone else being touched could help us understand empathy."
~ The Alleged Risks of Psychotherapies -- "A column in the most recent edition of Newsweek addresses a sometimes-controversial topic in mental health circles: negative outcomes of psychotherapy. The subject is tackled by science writer Sharon Begley, and throughout her piece she raises many legitimate concerns about the potential for risk and even harm during therapy."
~ Genetics Open Door to More Effective Depression Treatment -- "This similar reaction of relatives to medication suggests that a genetic analysis can predict an individual's reaction to a drug. This assumption is at the heart of a burgeoning new medical field--pharmacogenomics."
~ Counselling Not Helpful In The Immediate Aftermath Of A Disaster -- "Mental health professionals should stay away during the immediate aftermath of a terrorist atrocity or environmental disaster. Forcing counselling on trauma victims not only prevents them from talking to their family and friends but could increase the risk of their developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Bush vetoes popular stem-cell research bill -- "President George W. Bush on Wednesday vetoed legislation to expand federally funded embryonic stem cell research, triggering an uphill battle in the Democratic-led Congress to override him." Dumbass.
~ An Army of Macs Powers Brian Eno's Scuptures of Sight and Sound -- "Brian Eno's new art installation, made up of constantly evolving digital canvases of sight and sound, gets its North American premiere for three nights only this weekend in San Francisco."
~ The 1.8 Million Solution -- "Like the supine parrot of Monty Python fame, the Senate's immigration reform bill might be dead, or it might be resting. Has it joined the choir invisible, or is it pinin' for the fjords?"
~ Bloomberg's Independent Streak -- "New York's mayor claims he has no plans to run for President. But his latest party change suggests he's toying with the idea."
~ DAVID COLE—The Constitution -- "From the collection “Undoing Bush: how to repair eight years of sabotage, bungling, and neglect” in the June Harper's. David Cole is a professor at Georgetown University Law Center."
~ Multiculturalism’s civic future: a response -- "I thank the six commentators who offered me some comments on my original openDemocracy article ("Multiculturalism, citizenship and national identity", 17 May 2007) and on the book whose arguments it summarised (Multiculturalism: A Civic Idea¸ Polity, 2007). Each contribution has given me some food for thought, and I would like here both to respond to some of them and use the opportunity to clarify some points of my position."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ China overtakes US as world's biggest CO2 emitter -- "The surprising announcement will increase anxiety about China's growing role in driving man-made global warming and will pile pressure onto world politicians to agree a new global agreement on climate change that includes the booming Chinese economy."
~ The Battle for the Air -- "In one corner, a coalition of public interest groups, scientists and academic advisors. In the other corner, industry lobbyists. The prize for the fight? The quality of our air."
~ Dinos' demise spurred rise of the mammals, new fossil suggests -- "A fossil discovered in the Gobi Desert has unlocked the most emphatic evidence to date that the mass extinction of the dinosaurs helped placental mammals -- of which Homo sapiens is a member -- become masters of the planet."
~ Geophysicists detect a molten rock layer deep below the American Southwest -- "A sheet of molten rock roughly 10 miles thick spreads underneath much of the American Southwest, some 250 miles below Tucson, Ariz. From the surface, you can't see it, smell it or feel it." I'm not so sure -- the ground feels pretty damn hot.
~ Prey Forget to Fear Predators -- "Prey animals are not necessarily hard-wired to fear their enemies."
~ Carbon nanotube injectors probe living cells without damage -- "In order to investigate the processes that go on inside a single human cell—or even specific subcellular compartments—researchers need a device that is small and controlled enough to pass through the delicate cell membrane. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs), with their needle-like geometry, high elasticity and strength, have recently shown that they`re up to the task."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ How Your Mind Really Works -- "Your ability to handle new situations goes way beyond behavior though. You can solve a problem entirely in your mind, even without taking any direct action. Sometimes you’re aware of the process, and sometimes it happens unconsciously, but either way there’s a purely cognitive aspect to human intelligence that’s independent of behavior."
~ Chinese and the Islamic Fundamentalists vs. Social Evolution -- "This post is completely OFF TOPIC - I started off writing about the Great Fire Wall of China and then went on an insane religious and political tangent. I started asking myself, “Why does the chinese government and other nations repress the cutting edge of human social evolution?” And here is what I came up with."
~ Irrational morality -- "I agree that Tantra needs to be transcended and included. I also think that much of our sexual morality should likewise be either included or transcended. As far as I’m concerned a great deal of our sexual morality is based on mythic thinking. When you examine sexual mores from a rational/integral perspective you realise that many of them are irrational."
~ Pringles are another word for poison -- "Chemicals are reliable, if boring. Phone calls to far away friends. Lovers let go to grow. Goals we create out of the dust and ashes, smoke and mirrors. Where is God in all this? Watching over me while I sit wrapped in a blanket in the June basement cold. What does He want me to do, wait here forever? Return phone calls and emails? Why?"
~ The Secret Life of (Burned) Objects -- "Do things exist outside of perception of them? More importantly: do they exist for each other? And if so, how? I am thinking now of all the ruined, melted, and charred objects which came out of our house fire a few weeks ago -- a collapsed typewriter, a torched piano, a gutted futon mattress -- objects which no longer retain their function, but still exist in the world."


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