Thursday, June 14, 2007

Speedlinking 6/14/07

Quote of the day:

"I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image."
~ Stephen Hawking

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Adjusting the Thermostat for Fat Loss Success -- "Your metabolism is like a thermostat. If the temperature in the room is 75 degrees. chances are good that the thermostat is set for 75 degrees. Is it possible that a window is open and is cooling the house, so that the temperature drops to 65? Sure. But the thermostat will kick in and pretty soon you'll be back at 75."
~ "The Man" Talks Training -- "In this audio interview, Stan [McQuay] talks about training - not his childhood, his favorite color, whether he believes in love at first sight or any of that newsstand magazine horse piss. Just training."
~ Runner’s Knee and the processes of prevention & healing -- "The term “runner’s knee” refers to an inflammation of the tendon, the (ITB), that is located on the outside of the thigh. As injury to this tendon often results from overuse of the knees, and runner’s rely on their knees to function within their sport, the title “runner’s knee” is quite appropriate."
~ Anti-Aging Tips -- "Find out how to turn back the clock."
~ Believe me: alli is no wonder drug; diet and exercise are -- "Folks, if it came down to a choice between torture and taking alli, the weight-loss drug to be available over the counter starting Friday, I’d take the red-hot pokers rammed through my intestines." I'm with her, well, except for the hot poker thing.
~ Kellogg to boost nutrition in cereal, snacks -- "Kellogg Co. has agreed to raise the nutritional value of cereals and snacks it markets to children."
~ Landmark Study Prompts DNA Rethink -- "There's more to "junk" DNA than meets the eye, say researchers." Ya think!?
~ Gabapentin Shown Effective For Fibromyalgia Pain -- "New research supported by the National Institutes of Health's National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) shows that the anticonvulsant medication gabapentin, which is used for certain types of seizures, can be an effective treatment for the pain and other symptoms associated with the common, often hard-to-treat chronic pain disorder, fibromyalgia."
~ Bookmarkable: Super Simple Calorie Calculator -- "This calorie calculator is extra-simple and easy to use. No frills, just info. Pick your activity from the extensive list on the left, enter your stuff on the right, and you’re done."


PSYCHE
~ She's Gotta Have It -- in Her Dreams -- "Women Report as Many Sex Dreams as Men Do, Researchers Say."
~ Self-effacing people are secretly confident -- "No matter how meek they might appear, most people are endowed with the same self-confidence, new research reveals. For some, however, that confidence is buried deep inside."
~ Guys and Sex: 5 Things You’ve Probably Got Wrong -- "Psychology Today is laying to rest some long standing stereotypes about males and their special purpose. So here’s a quick summary of what you think is going on with your sex-stuff, and what actually is."
~ What Can You Learn From a Society With No Words For "Want" and "Worry"? -- "The Moken are a group of nomadic islanders who live off the coast of Thailand and Burma. What makes them special, other than their adherence to their traditional culture while the world around them changes, is that their language is lacking, or, perhaps, free, of key words that Americans use daily."
~ Injection of brain cells offers hope for Parkinson's -- "A single injection of neural stem cells into monkeys with the disease produces a marked improvement in symptoms."
~ The reflected relationship: the science of transference -- "This week's Science News has an article on transference, originally a Freudian concept of how feelings from one relationship can affect another if the two people share similarities. In its simplest sense, transference is taking out your feelings of frustration on your partner when you've just had an argument with the bus driver. You've just transferred them from one person to another."
~ Mimic His Moves -- "Empathy and compassion are linked to mimicking others."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Dad's absence ‘decimates’ black community -- "For Chris Gardner, who was played by Will Smith in the movie “The Pursuit of Happyness,” fatherhood is the greatest job in the world. But many in the black community feel there is a father-absence crisis in America."
~ America's irrational voters -- "How the electorate is irrational."
~ Barack Obama's campaign -- "Crowds love him. But can the charismatic young senator from Illinois lead?"
~ The critical buzz on Queens of the Stone Age -- "Led by their enigmatic singer, Josh Homme, Queens of the Stone Age have managed to keep fans from across a wide musical spectrum—rock, metal, even dance—entertained for four albums. The band's fifth, Era Vulgaris, features guest appearances from the likes of Mark Lanegan, Trent Reznor, and the Strokes' Julian Casablancas, and critics mostly like it."
~ Massachusetts Keeps Gay Marriage -- "The Bay State's legislature has voted to keep a gay marriage amendment off the November 2008 ballot."
~ How she got to the top - author renga -- "OpenDemocracy authors explore gender and power through storytelling. Check back as the story grows. Each writer will add a paragraph until the story is complete, and all participants' names will be published at the end,"
~ New Presidential Debate Site? Clearly, YouTube -- " The presidential debates are about to enter the world of YouTube, the anything-goes home-video-sharing Web site that puts the power in the hands of the camera holder. YouTube, which is owned by Google, and CNN are co-sponsoring a debate among the eight Democratic presidential candidates on July 23 in South Carolina, an event that could define the next phase of what has already been called the YouTube election, a visual realm beyond Web sites and blogs."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Scientists tailor light waves to desired frequencies -- "The ability to control light is vital for many of today`s technologies, most notably in communications and advanced computing. For example, by using materials from mirrors to nanoparticles, scientists can alter light`s speed with refraction, use diffraction to bend light, use electric fields to rotate light`s polarization, and more."
~ YouTube Clips to Pose Debate Questions -- "CNN and YouTube will host a Democratic debate next month in which questions for the candidates will come entirely from citizens posting video clips, the latest sign of how the Internet has transformed presidential politics."
~ Some Common Birds Not So Common Anymore -- "The populations of nearly two dozen common American birds - the fence-sitting meadowlark, the frenetic Rufous hummingbird and the whippoorwill with its haunting call - are half what they were 40 years ago, a new analysis found."
~ Pluto Isn't Even Largest Dwarf Planet -- "Pity poor Pluto, the puny former planet is facing yet another indignity. Demoted from planethood a year ago into a new category of dwarf planet, it now turns out that it isn't even the biggest one of those."
~ 2 qubits in action, new step towards the quantum computer -- "Researchers at Delft University of Technology have succeeded in carrying out calculations with two quantum bits, the building blocks of a possible future quantum computer. The Delft researchers are publishing an article about this important step towards a workable quantum computer in this week`s issue of Nature."
~ AssignmentZero: By the People Formerly Known as the Audience -- "This story is rife with Web 2.0 geek buzzwords. Open Source, crowdsourcing, citizen media, peer production, information commons, swarming...It's a tale of an online project called AssignmentZero, the first collaborative journalism project from NewAssignment.net, which we wrote about last year when it was announced by its founder, NYU professor Jay Rosen, who wanted to create a platform for professional journalists to collaborate with 'the people formerly known as the audience.'"
~ Could Some Win With Global Warming? -- "It's not in Al Gore's PowerPoint presentation, but there are some upsides to global warming."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Indigo Buddhism? -- "In Integral Spirituality (IS) Ken talks about evolutionary enlightenment. He defines enlightenment as the highest level and state at a given historical period. When the originators of the perennial tradition formulated its paradigm it was pre-modern, or possibly mythical-rational. But it had yet to achieve modernity and certain not postmodernity."
~ The Edge #213 is up.
~ The Wilber Effect? -- "Its worth asking whether Wilber's material, or at least some of his more famous books have a mood altering effect."
~ DharmaFlix video wiki -- Check it out (thanks to Moving Mountains for the tip).
~ Buddha: A Story of Enlightenment Podcast - Part 1 -- "I hope you enjoy watching this four part series with Deepak and Wild Divine: Part 1."
~ BLOG: Guest Blog: Imperfect Perfection - An Experiment in Semantics (Jordan Quaglia) -- "In a vague clarity, it all makes sense. Articulation bound by grammar suffocates the Witness, and so I speak in tongues unspoken. Heard. The periodic table of elemental bliss: "Form is emptiness, emptiness is form," and so this simple complexity is translated: "Imperfect is perfect, perfect is imperfect." Life is art. Colorful, fluid, flowing Godhead."
~ Who Knows You Better - Western Psychology or Buddhism? -- "I began practicing Buddhism a year or so before entering into my graduate counseling program, and ever since I have sought to understand the relationship between Buddhism and Western psychology, at least on a personal level. Now that I have finished that program and am in a graduate Indo-Tibetan Buddhist program, I’m beginning to see connections between the two1."


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