Thursday, June 07, 2007

Speedlinking 6/7/07

Quote of the day:

"We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be."
~ Kurt Vonnegut

Image of the day:


BODY
~ Double Trouble Hypertrophy -- "Most of us poor slobs have jobs so we don't have the luxury of doing two-a-days, but we figure since it's summer there are a bunch of feckless college students out there doing one bong hit after another who just might be able to take advantage of this program."
~ Metabolic Syndrome Points To Heart Health -- "Typified by high blood pressure, weight gain around the waist and problems regulating blood sugar, metabolic syndrome may also be associated with compromised heart structure and function, according to a paper published in the online open access journal BMC Cardiovascular Disorders."
~ Hormone That Signals We Are Full When Eating Also Curbs Fast Food Consumption And Tendency To Binge Eat -- "The synthetic form of a hormone previously found to produce a feeling of fullness when eating and reduce body weight, also may help curb binge eating and the desire to eat high-fat foods and sweets. The findings on fast food consumption and binge eating tendencies are based on a 6-week research study of 88 obese individuals."
~ Young gymnasts show high bone density -- "The high-impact tumbling of gymnastics may boost young girls' muscle mass and bone density, according to a small study."
~ A Little Something for all The Gentlemen… -- "Today is the monthly theme day here at the b5media Science and Health Channel. The theme for this month is men and our army company poorly paid militia of bloggers has cranked out some good stuff." Links a plenty.
~ Healthful Diet: Include Lots of Seeds -- "Seeds have been the staple of the human diet for millions of years. Humans and other animals who can gather and store their food have an advantage over those who can only graze. Our ancestors found that the easiest, most abundant foods to gather, carry and store are seeds."


PSYCHE
~ New brain cells may revive old neurons -- "The brains of adult mammals are slowly, constantly churning out new brain cells. Previously scientists assumed the fresh neurons acted simply as replacements for old and dying cells."
~ Scientists Discover Brain Area That Helps To Suppress Unconscious Actions -- "New research led by scientists at UCL's Institute of Neurology and Cardiff University has found that the brain's so-called 'supplementary motor regions', located in the medial frontal cortex, play a key role in suppressing unconsciously-triggered actions which occur when we encounter familiar objects and situations."
~ Religious nominalism & cognitive opacity [Gene Expression] -- "I am a proponent of nominalism when it comes to religion. Or, to put it another way, instead of a religion being a Platonic category with precise and specific boundaries, I think a more accurate model is a distribution of ideas and sentiments in the minds of human beings which is always in flux."
~ Taking Positive Psychology to Work: The Reframing Skill -- "Taking Positive Psychology to work means being realistic about what is going on and then taking charge of what one can control – in particular one’s own response. It does not mean glossing over the negative and pretending it does not exist."
~ Sports Psych -- "The competitive edge in the rink."
~ Learning field sense -- "Wired has an article on 'field sense' - a sportsman's ability to infer seemingly unknowable information from subtle perceptual cues."
~ Why You Can't Teach An Old Dog New Tricks: Cognitive Lock-In -- "The ability to learn from experience is of central importance to human existence. It allows us to acquire many of the skills we need to complete a wide variety of complicated, multi-step tasks in an efficient manner. It also creates habit - a critical, if often overlooked factor in the product and service choices consumers make."
~ Origin of Deja Vu Pinpointed -- "Brain's hippocampus may play big role in causing bouts of deja vu."


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Congress passes stem cell funding bill -- "Congress has passed legislation to ease restrictions on federal funding of embryonic stem cell research." See also: Bush vows repeat veto of stem-cell bill.
~ India giving out condoms at porn theaters -- "Health officials in western India are distributing condoms outside cinema halls screening illegal pornographic films, to promote safe sex and curb the spread of sexually transmitted diseases like HIV/AIDS."
~ Grading the GOP -- "The press has given its take on the latest GOP debate this week. Now let's see what the base thought. Our partners at MediaCurves.com played selected scenes from the CNN debate for 396 Republicans and independents. Watch the video to see how they responded to the clips in real time."
~ Doctors dissect Dr. Death -- "After eight years in prison, Jack Kevorkian—the self-styled Rosa Parks of assisted suicide—is making the rounds on the talk show circuit again. Our partners at MediaCurves.com asked 560 medical doctors of different religions to watch Dr. Death's appearance this week on Larry King Live. Click below and you'll see how the doctors responded in real time to clips of Kervorkian's appearance on King. For extra insight, their responses to his pro-euthanasia message are broken down by religion."
~ Bill Gates Goes Back to School -- "Harvard's most famous dropout returns for his diploma, 30 years late. His final exam: Can he save the world?"
~ The New Atheists -- "An outspoken community of atheists and agnostics is tired of being marginalized, insulted and ignored, writes Ronald Aronson."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Search for life in space getting closer -- "Scientists in Britain say they are making remarkable advances in the search for life in other solar systems, though results are more than a decade off."
~ Excitons play peek-a-boo on carbon nanotubes -- "In the quantum world, photons and electrons dance, bump and carry out transactions that govern everything we see in the world around us. In this week's issue of Science, French and U.S. scientists describe a new technique in nanotechnology that allowed them to zoom in -- way in -- and observe those quantum transactions on a single DNA-sized carbon molecule called a nanotube."
~ Cigarettes Top Trash List at Waterways -- "An international coastal cleanup clears 7 million pounds of debris."
~ Margin for profit in petrol prices no error, says economist -- "A University of Western Sydney economist says there is no doubt who benefits from any increase in petrol prices - especially when it comes to long weekends."
~ Birds, Bees, and Moths Drive Flower Evolution -- "Flowers evolve in a predictable fashion to match the mouthparts of pollinating birds and insects, rather than engaging in a gradual "arms race" between flower and pollinator, according to a new study by researchers at the University of California, Davis and the University of California, Santa Barbara."
~ Two Heftiest Stars Found in Milky Way -- "The stars are the heaviest ever recorded at 83 times our own sun's mass."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ Work in Progress: Spiritual Altitude, Politics &Interpreting Art -- "The concept of a "worldview" is a fascinating one - Altitude helps us to think about the different lenses that human beings use to look at reality." This will be updated and expanded.
~ Washing Bowls -- "Among the forty-eight koans recorded in the Gateless Barrier is an exchange so simple that one might pass easily by it, were it not that its very simplicity draws to it a certain curiosity and wonderment. A monk said to Chao Chou, “I have just entered this monastery. Please teach me.” Chao Chou said, “Have you eaten your rice gruel?” The monk said, “Yes, I have.” Chao Chou said, “Wash your bowl.” The monk understood."
~ Great Artistry -- "Great Artistry requires the ground of disciplinary study. In my case, for example, Great Artistry begins when I commit deeply to my discipline of music composition. It is traditional to use the organizing principle of the Trivium to understand disciplinary study. The Trivium consists of Grammar (the rules), Dialectic (the relationships) and Rhetoric (the representation). So for the discipline of music composition, there exists the Grammar of tone, the Dialectic of harmony, and the Rhetoric of orchestration."
~ BLOG: Listen to Ken LIVE Friday, June 8th, at 1PM MST -- "Just a heads up to let you all know that Ken will be an exclusive guest on a program called "Of Consuming Interest", hosted by our good friend Jim Turner, on the Progressive Radio Network. The show is being aired live at 1PM MST, and you can tune in for free by simply clicking here."
~ Empty News Reporting - Integral Analysis? -- "Which brings up, of course, the clear emptiness of current news reporting. Entertainment, rather than worthwhile news. What entertains, rather than what informs. It would be interesting to see an integral analysis of this."
~ BLOG: Integral Leadership Review Interviews Robb Smith -- "In a fascinating interview published just today, Keith Bellamy from Integral Leadership Review (an online publication of integrally informed approaches to leadership) speaks with Robb Smith, the newly appointed CEO of Integral Institute. They discuss Robbs own perspective of what it takes to be an integral leader, as well as some of the unique challenges and opportunities that come with trying to bring a company like I-I to a new level of organizational development."
~ Lyin’, Cheatin’ Buddhists -- "During a recent conversation with a close friend that might call herself a recovering Buddhist (and I’ve met more than one) the subject of the importance of a teacher “practicing what s/he preaches” arose. As a teacher qualified to teach both English and yoga I hesitate to write this post, because I risk undermining my “authority,” but I also see the necessity in doing so. This is meant as a head’s up. A kick in the ass to those that would put a teacher, of any subject, on a plane higher than themselves."
~ Open Source Religion -- "I’m not militant about Open Source, but at the same time, I like the ethos of the Open Source and Open Access movements. So I was very pleased to hear this morning about Yoism, which claims to be the world’s first Open Source religion."


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