The Ultimate Vampire Resource and Directory

02:17 Jul 24 2009
Times Read: 1,304

"People don't want to exercise," he said. "They don't want to eat healthy food. They don't want to stop drinking; they don't want to stop smoking; they don't want to stop having dangerous sex. They want to take a pill. Well, good luck."

--Richard Veech of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism



I couldn't have said it better myself.

Chances are if you are overweight, diabetic, have high blood presser, heart disease or a good many other illnesses you fit into the above "lottery of death" and happened to lose.



Eat Right, Live Right and Live Strong

Eat Poor, Live Poor and you'll Die Soon (or Die Sore or Live Sore).



The point is our genetic make up gives us a map and shows our possible life, our choices dictate the outcome.

13:49 Jul 20 2009
Times Read: 1,311

I strongly believe that the fact it's been 40 years since the first Moon landing and we have yet to go anywhere further and probably wont before 2030 is disgraceful.



Limiting our space exploration not only insults the thousands who've worked for/with NASA and those who have died to give a chance to reach out but it also limits our ability to adapt and grow as a civilisation and species.



Humans are explorers, from our first steps out of Africa to a man on the Moon and satellites leaving our Solar System we have exploration carved into our very DNA and to not pursue it with every fibre of our being is unnatural and detrimental.



To think that anyone with access to TV, computers, radio, modern electrical systems or modern medicine can live one day in our world without touching, using or being effected by something that is directly or indirectly associated with NASA at some point is foolish. We owe our modern life to space exploration and I for one can't wait to see what's next.



Not to put to fine a point on the issue :)

05:15 Jul 19 2009
Times Read: 1,323

Now this is a bit long but it's rather interesting, at least to me.



Errors in the Movie "Jurassic Park"



Bennington, J Bret, 1996. Errors in the movie Jurassic Park. American Paleontologist 4(2):4-7.



The following is a edited listing of comments received over the internet in response to a request for scientific inaccuracies in the depiction of dinosaurs in the movie "Jurassic Park". This request was made at the behest of teachers at Memorial Jr. High School in Valley Stream, New York who wished to use the film to stimulate discussion of dinosaurs and what paleontologists do and do not know about them. Comments are organized by topic in the list below and individual comments are not attributed. The final topic is called "Commentary" and includes several more extensive discussions of the movie and the criticism it generated. The authors of these longer comments are identified.



I would like to thank everyone who responded to my initial request for information. The teachers at Memorial Jr. High were astounded to discover that people from all around the globe were interested in helping them with their project. I would also like to thank the managers of both the Paleonet and Dinosaur listservers, both of which accommodated the brunt of the discussion. I also thank Paul Willis for his generous contribution of an extended critical essay on the subject of the scientific accuracy of "Jurassic Park."



Technical Errors



The routines of palaeontology are presented incorrectly in the movie right from the start. There they are, brushing the dirt away from a complete, articulated skeleton of Velociraptor. If only it were this easy to dig up dinosaurs! I have never seen an excavation where dirt is simply brushed away from the fossils. Usually the entombing sediment has consolidated into rock that has to be chiseled, hammered or even blown apart. Even in the exceptional circumstances where the sediment is not consolidated to rock (and these are usually fossil sites much younger than any site likely to contain dinosaurs), the sediment still has to be patiently loosened using screwdrivers or awls. So the fieldwork of a palaeontologist is portrayed as being far easier than a real dig. What is left out is also telling; finding fossils by simply walking around, looking at the ground, forms 95% of the fieldwork of a palaeontologist but, obviously, this would be a little hard to portray in a movie.



They use a shotgun seismic source, and then as the image of the skeleton becomes resolved, the operator refers to "ground penetrating radar"! Then there is the near-impossible resolution (from a single shot!)



The microscope in the trailer at the beginning of the film is set up backwards! Ralph Salomon, a nannofossil specialist here at Amoco in Houston, received a gift from Zeiss after informing them of the mistake.



The amber from which the dino DNA was extracted in the movie came from the Dominican Republic. But Dominican Republic amber is all Late Eocene at the very earliest; no dinosaurs are going to be cloned from that source. In a real Dominican Republic amber mine, you can't stand upright; the shafts are so narrow the miners have to crawl.



Paleobiological Errors (or controversies)



Eucalyptus and other modern plants such as grasses would not be especially good for dinosaurs to eat. This idea is based on the assorted toxins which discourage modern herbivores. Koalas manage by eating a little of several different species of Eucalyptus and still are probably somewhat drugged by their diet. It seems unlikely that brachiosaurs would have adaptations to deal with plant toxins which evolved in the Cretaceous or Cenozoic. Grasses are generally high in cellulose and silica, and diversified relatively recently. Perhaps the Triceratops was ill from trying to digest modern grasses?



In at least one scene in the movie the paleobotanist notes the presence of a formerly extinct plant species from the Mesozoic Era growing on the island. Obviously, plants cannot be cloned from mosquito blood, yet no explanation is given for how extinct flora was ressurected.



Brachiosaurus



The bit about the brachiosaurs "chewing like a cow" was also obviously wrong. They just raked the vegetation and swallowed. It is unlikely their peg-like teeth could chew significantly.



The Brachiosaurus had too large a head, probably could not stand up on hind legs only (was too front-heavy; other sauropods could rear up for feeding or defense with more ease), sneezing is also doubtful, because this diaphragm reflex is typically mammalian (dinosaurs did not have rib-less belly separated by the diaphragm from the ribcage containing lungs).



The movie showed the brachiosaur chewing by moving its jaws from side to side, like a cow or horse chews. Dinosaurs couldn't do that--their jaws moved just up and down, so they had to find other ways to grind vegetal matter (gizzard stones and swing-out upper jaws, for example).



Earlier on, the brachiosaur reared up on its hind legs to bite off some branches from the top of a tree, but rearing up didn't make its head any higher at all. So why did it rear up?



Lunch for the Jurassic Park Brachiosaurus was a good old Aussie Gum Tree. This scene was shot in Hawaii where, like so many other places around the world, gum trees have been introduced as a fast-growing source of timber. What is the problem with Brachiosaurus chowing down on an Aussie lunch? Gum trees are extremely poisonous and the varieties of poisons carried by gum trees were not in existence when Brachiosaurus walked the Earth. It is therefore likely that Brachiosaurus would not have the immunity to these toxins (as have been evolved in Koalas and other eucalyptus munchers) and, if it didn't spit out its first mouthful because of its bitter taste, it would probably drop dead very quickly after its ingestion.



Dilophosaurus



The Dilophosaurus was probably not endowed with neck frill (borrowed from Australian frilled lizard) nor could spit venomous saliva (though its bite could have been poisonous due to bacteria developing in rotting meat in theropoddental serrations; bacterial toxins help the Komodo dragon in killing their prey).



If Dilophosaurus did have a frill, we would know about it. There would be fossil evidence of bones or some other rigid structure required to hold the frill up and there would be markings on the bones of the neck indicating where muscles could attach that would be required to move the frill up and down. We don't see either of these.



Dilophosaurus was too small.



If Dilophosaurus indeed had an expandable skin collar around its neck (and that's total speculation), it certainly wouldn't have deployed it when facing a prospective meal (Nedry). That kind of display is more for intimidating prospective competitors (such as for mates or territory). Why would a carnivore try to intimidate its next meal?



One little side note - When Nedry and the Dilophosaurus are studying each other, Nedry pulls the hood of his raincoat over his head, which may parallel the hood-flaring of the Dilophosaurus and trigger an intimidation response. Or maybe I just have too much time on my hands...



Velociraptor



The Velociraptor was too big (rather Deinonychus-sized), and too intelligent.



The breath expelled through the nostrils of one of the Velociraptors fogged the window in the door to the kitchen. This implies both a moistening of inspired air while in the respiratory system as well as a body temperature elevated well above that of the ambient environment - both traits associated with endothermic (warm blooded) animals.



Velociraptor would not likely jump on a T. rex (as in the visitor center at the end of the movie), any more than a cat might jump on the back of a wolf--for any reason.



During high-excitement moments, the 'raptors' and the T rex both ripple their tails and lash them, rather like a cat that's highly annoyed. Therapods, however, have rigid fibers reinforcing the vertebrae in the spine to help counter-balance the weight of the animal. This would make tails much too stiff for thrashing. (the reason they did it that way--Hollywood stop-motion dinosaurs have always rippled their tails. It's a tradition that people seem to expect from their dinosaurs).



The 'raptors' snarled several times, and even lifted their lips in a snarl when angry. Theropods didn't have a lot of face muscles and this is actually a very sophisticated movement in a human, taking an extremely complex series of muscle movements that there is no evidence of dromasaurids being able to do.



Tyrannosaurus



The Tyrannosaurus' vision was rather more bird-like than frog-like, thus the idea that it could see only moving objects was only necessary to allow the people to escape from sure death in close contact with the T. rex (and perhaps a heritage from the frog DNA used in the JP genetic lab).



When the T rex is chasing the jeep, watch his knees. They wobble like someone doing the Charleston. If a real animal that stood 30 ft high, and weighed in the area of 9 tons ran like that, the creature would dislocate it's own knees with each step of a run. There's a LOT of force in a 9 ton animal's leg.(the reason they did it that way--The animation tool that ILM was using for animating in a computer environment, Softimage, had no way to simulate ball-and-socket-type joints, such as the hip, so the animators faked one out of a hinge-type joint as a poor substitute).



R. McNeill Alexander has argued previously that T. rex's leg bones were neither thick enough or strong enough to support a full grown animal running faster than 18 mph. Recently, James Farlow has argued that running at high speed (such as would be required to chase a jeep) would put T. rex at great risk of mortal injury if it fell. This arguement is based on the physics of falling at 45 mph -- the head dropping 11 feet to the ground and decelerating on impact with a force of 16 g.



The T. rex always sounded like it was running on pile drivers. Any potential prey within miles would have beaten a hasty retreat at the sound of those booming footfalls. Also, tyrannosaurs had springy, flexible ankles, which would have made it very difficult, if not indeed impossible, for a T. rex to make that much noise, even if it wanted to.





Triceratops



The Triceratops dung was of course much too big, compared to any known coproliths and any possible rectal diameter of a dinosaur.



It appears that one of the favorite scenes for most children is where the female palaeontologist starts raking through the mound of Triceratops poo. Here comes my favorite mistake in the whole movie. The poo piles appear to reach heights of around 2 metres yet the anus of Triceratops would be around one metre above the ground. How did it get the poo to the top of the pile?



The Triceratops had "fossil" horns! Somehow I don't think the horns of a living Triceratops would be full of angular, "post-fossilization" cracks.



Misc.



Most dinosaurs in the Jurassic Park were not Jurassic, but Cretaceous.



Check the spelling of the dinosaur names (Hint, Check out the tubes holding the frozen genetic material).



They spell "Stegosaurus" incorrectly in the Embryo Storage Room.



DNA - Cloning Errors



Frog DNA would be an exceedingly poor choice for use as a template for dino cloning (even if that were possible). Frogs aren't particularly close relatives of dinosaurs. Leaving aside the obvious choice of bird DNA (Yes Virginia, phylogenetically-speaking birds are dinosaurs), there is a closer link between human DNA and dino DNA than there is between that of frogs and dinos. One suspects, that the archetypal image of "reptiles" as "lower" vertebrates demanded that dino DNA be hybridized with the DNA of another "lower" vertebrate.



The movie-clip showed a scientist drilling into the amber, inserting a needle, and WITHDRAWING FLUIDS. Fluids? After 65 million years? Come on, now. The real scientists that do this type of research are at the University of California at Berkeley. They take scrapings of the material, and do much preparation in order to make the fluid that they can then test for DNA.



Even having successfully cloned a dinosaur and produced an egg, how does one get fully grown dinosaurs to grow up within the 3 year time frame of the story? Would it not take ten years, maybe fifty years to grow a full size Brachiosaurus?



Although amber preserves insects in exquisite detail, it does not preserve the animal (and its gut contents) in perfect order. Usually all that is left inside the insect is a series of carbon films that may preserve the major structures inside the animal. Having said this, DNA fragments have been retrieved from insects preserved in amber from the Mesozoic. But the fragments retrieved so far are woefully incomplete. The best is two fragments of DNA from a Cretaceous weevil. One fragment is 312 base pairs long and the other is 226 base pairs long. The complete compliment of DNA for that weevil would be between 1 and 10 billion base pairs long. And this is DNA of the insect itself, not what it had been feeding on. There are a number of laboratories around the world today that are looking for fragments of dinosaur DNA, but not so that they can recreate dinosaurs. If fragments of dino DNA are found, they can be compared to the DNA of other animals to determine their relationships. It is a similar process to DNA fingerprinting in criminal cases but, instead of focusing on the differences between DNA fragments, palaeontologists would be interested in the degree of similarity between different DNA fragments which should be a measure of the degree of relatedness between the original owners of the DNA. Although some hopeful finds have been made, as yet no one has found indisputable dino DNA.



While we understand that DNA is the blueprint of an animals, and while we have learned how to read pieces of that blueprint, we do not know how to take a sample of DNA and turn it into an animal. While we do have some techniques that work for reproducing short sections of animals DNA and we can even 'create' new animals by manipulating the DNA sequences available to us, we do not have the technology to build a desired DNA sequence from scratch then translate that raw DNA into a living animal.



Continuity Errors



During the "explanation" of chaos, the mathematician's watch jumps ahead a few hours.



We see Dr Grant encounter a sheer concrete wall a couple of tens of metres high. Only moments earlier we saw the Tyrannosaurus simply step over this drop as if it were flat land.



Commentary



It's rather fun and (at least sometimes) illuminating to go fault-finding in Jurassic Park, but maybe we should be more bashful in our Crichton/Spielberg-bashing. The team behind the movie have made a better effort to get things "right" than most makers of science-fiction movies, so let's grant them the right to add some details for effect as long as it's not too flagrant or ridiculous.



` Adding venom to Dilophosaurus seems no less allowable than adding color to its skin, which you must do to make it look alive even though we know nothing about its real color. And, yes, it might have been "better" to use birds or even humans rather than frogs for the complementary DNA, but there was a purpose to the frog, namely to introduce propensity for hermaphroditism. If we can swallow the necessary but preposterous precondition of amber-begets-DNA-begets-dinosaur, we should be able to swallow that the choice of the frog was not based on phylogenetic proximity. And as for the proper time designation, would a more accurate title, like "Mesozoic Park", have made such an impact?



Some of the alleged errors are no worse than the delightful little joke when Velociraptor stalked beneath a metal grid and the light that sieved through spelt out the letters ACCGGATTCC... etc. on its skin. Light doesn't behave that way, but we don't care just now.



So let's allow the moviemakers some freedom with the details, particularly with regard to such cases where paleontologists don't have a full answer either, like the nature of Tyrannosaurus' vision, the maximum size of Velociraptor, etc. (I agree, though, the cow-like aspects of Brachiosaurus were unbecoming, and the dung heap was way-way oversized.) They have used science as framework and inspiration, and rather than pointing out that this little nut should be there instead and that little bolt was a wee bit smaller, we should use the limelight they have provided to bring our thoughts across on the whole thing. We should point out how palaeontology is the basis for their spectacular reconstructions, that some aspects of the reconstructions are well supported whereas others are more or less guesswork, but that every scientific interpretation needs to be tested and retested against new evidence, and, of course, that in order to do so we need to keep the science alive and evolving and wouldn't it be lovely if we could have some more money for field work in Mongolia?



I guess, though, that Bennington's kids might prefer finding plain errors in the movie. No big problem, just as long as they remember that there are errors and ERRORS and that even well-established TRVTHS occasionally turn out to be errors.



-Stefan Bengtson



I think Jurassic Park is simply a wonderful movie, and I would never consider participating in its deconstruction. I read the book at field camp. I saw the movie more than once on the big screen, and I bought a videotape as soon as one was available. I think the principal weakness of the film was not with frog DNA or backward microscopes or even with its unrealistic presentation of seismic imaging but rather with the way it portrays scientists and their work. Since the original inquiry to PaleoNet was for ideas that could lead to discussion among younger students, let me suggest that conveying to these students who scientists are and the ways in which they work is quite an important topic for discussion.



Present in Jurassic Park are all the principal stereotypes that have haunted science from the beginning: the bungling hero who probably couldn't plug in a desk lamp on his own (where is Fred McMurry when we really need him?); the oblivious and amorphous chaps in white coats cranking out monsters because it can be done with no thought to the trouble they might be causing (shades of Dr. Frankenstein); the mad scientists (one benign and one--the computer bloke--inherently evil); and, yes, the practical, khaki-clad, great-white-hunter type--a real-world kind of guy--who, in Jungle Jim fashion, sees the problem but is powerless to stop what others view as progress.



I know a few paleobotanists. None is also a skilled veterinarian tooled up to snuff out heartburn among Triceratops. I know a few mathematicians. None is quite as obnoxious or as single-minded as Jeff Goldblum's 'chaosologist'. (The flick would have been better if he had been the one in the outhouse.) I know a few bungling scientists. None wears his clutzhood as a badge of honor. I hope the younger students who discuss the scientific shortcomings of Jurassic Park can come away from their experience with an understanding that in the world of the 1990s scientists are just people, and lots of people are scientists. After all, every last one of us has at least one, real scientist living right in our own neighborhood!



-Roger L. Kaesler



At the beginning, before going to the Park, the paleontologist made statements about dinosaurs he had no way of knowing (since they were behavioral statements of sort which could leave no fossil correlates). This is a fundamental *procedural* error with respect to science, since science is a method based on using observations to develop and establish results. Bret, if you can teach the students to ask the question "how would he know that" of anything they hear attributed to a scientist, you will be doing the world a favor.



-Stan Friesen



I think deconstructing cultural items like Jurassic Park is a valuable exercise for both professional paleontologists and for high school students. Jurassic Park was a movie carefully designed to entertain, not a documentary whose primary purpose was to inform. Yes, Crichton, Speilberg & Co. made some efforts to be accurate, but the errors we've already listed demonstrate that this sentiment wasn't allowed to get in the way of the director's and producer's vision. I too was very bothered by the way paleontologists were portrayed in the film; as stereotypic nerdish, computer illiterate people focused on their own research to the exclusion of everything else in life, willing to use their knowledge to score cheap points in arguments with little kids, and (most distressingly) willing to do almost anything (e.g., break camp and follow complete strangers to the ends of the earth to provide obviously bogus commercial endorsements) so long as someone waves a fistful of dollar bills in our face. Not a very complimentary image. Then again, Jurassic Park seemed to me to be a special effects movie, pure and simple. As one newspaper reviewer put it, the plot (of the movie, not the book) can be summed up in a single line; "attractive people running away from hungry animals." Given that the emphasis was on the dinos (as opposed to character development or plot) from the start, "nit-picking" the movie can provide important information as to how dinosaurs are seen by the general public.



For example, the gratuitous increase in size of the Velociraptors was used (by the production team's own admission) to make them appear more "sinister." Personally, I feel that even a single normal-sized Velociraptor (much less a pair, much less a group) would be a pretty formidable animal. I don't buy the idea that the Velociraptors needed to be scaled up in this way for the purpose of the plot. The production team had lots of expert advice on this movie (e.g., Jack Horner) and they did make some changes. I read that they tried to film the sequence of the Tyrannosaurus using his tongue in the Land Rover attack, but the tongue just looked silly on film. Even more interestingly, I understand that The movie team originally gave the Velociraptors forked tongues (Crichton makes no explicit mention of tongue shape in the book), but deleted them when Jack pointed out that there is no evidence for the presence of Jacobson's organs in any dino skull. It is interesting to ponder why the moviemakers felt the forked tongues were an inaccuracy they could afford to correct, whereas the gross exaggeration of Velociraptor size was deemed indispensable. As paleontologists, we are the ones who provide society with much of its image of the past. Critical looks at movies like Jurassic Park provide us with important feedback as to how the culture is responding to the images we send them.



To move the conversation along on a different tack, I'd also like to pick up on Rich Lane's question of whether Jurassic Park was a net plus or minus for paleontology. It certainly did wonders for museum attendance. On the other hand, paleontology is more than dinosaur studies. Even though a paleobotanist figured prominently in the book and the movie, I haven't detected any change in the public's awareness of paleobotany. My guess is that once you get away from the money made on commercial spin-offs from the movie (very little of which found it's way back into our coffers), Jurassic Park was pretty much irrelevant. However, there is a new book (The Lost World) and a new Speilberg movie in pre-production. Perhaps what we need to discuss is how we can do a better job promoting paleontology and reaping some tangible benefits during the second coming of the Hollywood dinosaurs.



-Norm MacLeod



From: http://people.hofstra.edu/J_B_Bennington/publications/JPerrors.html



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I for one think he has wayyyy to much time on his hands but then again so do I, I did read it all right? lol I also think that the term "artistic license" didn't factor into his thinking process much. Some of his arguments or critiques I find lacking however the bit about dino's sneezing I did find interesting. The basics of general reptile/amphibious anatomy I know pretty well but the thought never really occurred that sneezing might be something they couldn't do.

22:53 Jul 17 2009
Times Read: 1,344


Houston, we lost the moon tapes



Today we honored the 40th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 that brought astronauts Buzz Aldrin and Neil Armstrong to the moon's surface. But we also discovered that NASA indeed taped over the footage of that first landing.



NASA TV specialist Dick Nafzger, who headed the search for the tapes, spoke to KPCC this morning:



"I don't think anyone in the NASA organization did anything wrong," Nafzger says. "I think it slipped through the cracks, and nobody's happy about it."



After a three-year search for the tapes, NASA concluded that the original footage was deleted when the program started erasing old magnetic tape so it could record satellite data. Search team members say that as they discovered that tens of thousands of magnetic tape boxes had disappeared from the enormous government records center, their hope waned for ever finding the original moon landing footage recorded on the lunar camera operated by the astronauts. NASA says the picture was much clearer than the TV broadcast of the historic moment. How sad...



But wait! There's hope.



After piecing together a complete version of the moonwalk from a variety of broadcast television sources from around the world, NASA has contracted with Lowry Digital in Burbank, the digital restoration firm responsible for restoring movies from "Bambi" to "Star Wars," to make the "original" better. They're touching it up, making it less fuzzy and brighter so you can actually make out Neil Armstrong descending from the "Eagle" instead of the dark blob viewers saw in 1969.



So while technology makes it so that our generation and future generations will see the moonwalk with more clarity than ever before, the fact remains that it's not the original. Are we tampering with history, or preserving a moment?



Source: http://opinion.latimes.com/opinionla/2009/07/houston-we-lost-the-moon-tapes.html



To me this is a perfect example of how shitty our government is. Are you people serious!?!?! You want to allow the federal government to have control over your health care, employment, economy, currency, banking, election protocols, environment, education, local defense and human rights?



This makes me sick. I could say so much more but it's pointless, the general American public is well, mentally defective and/or totally ignorant of reality.

09:53 Jul 17 2009
Times Read: 1,363

Chapter 1



What Is God?



We'll start this book off with probably the biggest question there is, what is God? Why waste time right? In truth though, to fully understand the other questions that we shall examine in this text, understanding God, or at least attempting too, is paramount. This is a topic that we have talked about, debated over, and researched for a very long time. It is after all the greatest question of them all.



We're confident that through a matrix of philosophy, religion, and most importantly science, that we have come to a better understanding of God. We'll of coarse expand upon that, but first let us journey through human history and look at how the many different religions of the world view the creator and how those beliefs came about. Let us examine the differences, but even more so, let us recognize the similarities.



It is certain that the concept of God is nearly as old as man himself. Spirituality has been with us since the dawn of recorded history, and undoubtedly long before even that date. It can be argued, and is in fact true we believe, that the human being has an intuitive sense of the divine. It is evident in our very essence, our constantly curious minds staring up into the heavens filled with wonder and awe. Not only do we all have a need for a God, or at least some type of "God like force"; to satisfy our ever questioning minds, but we feel compelled to define that God. We attribute to God human characteristics such as emotions, location, age, and in the cases of multiple gods even birth and death.



We are driven not only to accept that a creator(s) exist, but also to have an almost personal relationship with such an entity. The concept of God drives us to always ponder not only about ourselves, but also about the world the world around us. To keep looking both inside and out for evidence of this mysterious creator, it is impossible to find something that at one point in history wasn't associated with God. Humanity is consumed by the notion of our divine origins, and our very human-like creator. The quest to find God is inescapable, even atheists feel a sense of compulsion to find God, manifested in the almost militant pursuit of disproving his/her very existence.



In the early times of man's history we associated practically every bit of phenomena we observed with the gods. The story is essentially the same regardless of which culture you attribute it too. There was a god for rain, for wind, a god for every season, for the farmland, for the ocean, etc. Some times these gods took the form of people, some times animals, many times it was a mixture of both. The gods were of coarse superior to man, and we as lowly human beings were constantly trying to please them. We sacrificed our belongings unto them, created great idols and temples for them, praised and thanked them at every occasion.



It is in this pantheon of the old gods that we can see how in our attempts to define the divine we associated every aspect of it with our own selves. Every god has his/her own unique human traits, even those who were more animal in form. They had both wants and needs, strengths and weaknesses, likes and dislikes. In the mindset of ancient mankind, if there was a flood, fire, earthquake, or any other form of disaster it was most certainly punishment from the gods. The gods would frequently go to war with one another, just as we here on earth would constantly fight amongst ourselves. They were consumed by both rage and lust. The old gods were known to lash out at humanity with only the slightest of provocations, and would frequently copulate with humans for their own sexual gratification. Many of the great heroes of mythology, such as Hercules, were the result of such escapades.



As human society evolved so did spirituality, from personal philosophy, to shared tribal beliefs, into full-blown religions. Out of the religions grew the churches, and from the churches came ever-increasing amounts of dogma. The religions continued to thrive as man continued to seek answers for the questions burning deep in his soul. The churches gave humanity a much-needed form of social order, a type of legitimacy to various traditions, and a clear definition of right and wrong. In truth it is almost impossible to see how society could have ever evolved with out the considerable influence of religion.



It important to note how religion evolved alongside of society. In very ancient times the gods controlled every facet of human existence, however as man continued to learn more about the world around him, his concepts of God(s) continued to become more refined. As religion evolved alongside of society, old traditions were discarded and new ones adopted. Various belief systems became merged together over time as a result of trade, immigration, and war. As our communities grew in size, our churches grew in complexity, pushing us forward through history to where we find ourselves today.



Today our world is full of many diverse religions, each favored by a particular segment of society, with its own geographical base. The various religions of today are all built from the beliefs of past civilizations, a process of man's spiritual evolution. It should be noted here that for the most part the religions today can be thought of as either western or eastern doctrine, and that there are striking similarities along those lines.



This is because there were basically two parent religions from which said doctrine originates. In the Indus Valley Civilization, located in what is now known as western India and Pakistan, the earliest form of what we now call Hinduism came into being. Hinduism is the world's oldest remaining religion, and it's precursor philosophies are among the oldest spiritual beliefs in history. The name Hinduism literally translates into "eternal law". Hinduism is based upon the Vedas and the Upanishads, a vast body of scripture developed over a millennia from the older belief systems in the region. These scriptures expound on theology, philosophy and mythology, and provide spiritual insights and guidance on the practice of dharma (religious living).



While most believe Hinduism to be a polytheistic religion it is in fact monotheistic, where God is viewed as capable of existing in several different facets at once. The Devas that are typically misconstrued by those outside of the religion as separate gods are higher spiritual beings that are comparable to the angels in Christianity.

Hinduism shares the concept of the trinity with Christianity, although it should be noted that the Hindu concept predates Christianity by at least a thousand years. Of the many different schools of Hinduism God is seen by some as a more personal supreme being, but by most as an impersonal supreme essence. Unlike the Abrahamic traditions in which God is pleased by faith and communicated with by prayer, Hinduism mandates that God must be directly experienced through active participation in spiritual paths such as yogic meditation. There is no concept of Hell in Hinduism, instead the belief is that one reincarnates into a new body time and time again until one attains enlightenment.



Hinduism has many diverse and yet interconnected beliefs on the creation of the universe and it's contents. To summarize these beliefs and to illustrate their interconnectedness, we can say that the Hindu belief is that the supreme consciousness of God predated everything that is, including time itself. On the moment of self realization God noticed that he was alone in the universe, thus incapable of any experience beyond that of the experience of self. God then "breathed out" the universe into empty space and permeated himself through out it.



A passage from the Rigveda reads: In the beginning there was neither existence nor non- existence; there was no atmosphere, no sky, and no realm beyond the sky. What power was there? Where was that power? Who was that power? Was it finite or infinite? There was neither death nor immortality. There was nothing to distinguish night from day. There was no wind or breath. God alone breathed by his own energy. Other than God there was nothing. In the beginning darkness was swathed in darkness. All was liquid and formless. God was clothed in emptiness. Then fire arose within God; and in the fire arose love. This was the seed of the soul. Sages have found this seed within their hearts; they have discovered that it is the bond between existence and non-existence.



Furthermore, a passage from the Taittiriya Upanishad reads: God said: 'Let me multiply! Let me have offspring! ' So he heated himself up; and when he was hot, he emitted the entire world, and all that it contains. And after emitting the world, he entered it. He who has no body, assumed many bodies. He who is infinite, became finite. He who is everywhere, went to particular places. He who is totally wise, caused ignorance. He who sees all truth, caused delusion. God becomes every being, and gives reality to every being.



Hinduism remains the world's third largest religion today, behind Christianity and Islam. As stated above the philosophies of the Indus Valley Civilization that created Hinduism are among the oldest known spiritual ideals in the world. These philosophies spread throughout Asia influencing the faiths of each local area. Evidence has been found in comparing the script of the oldest known Chinese civilizations with that of the Indus Valley that show a clear link between the two.



Hinduism's most profound impact on the religions of the modern world however would arguably the role it played in the formation of Buddhism. The role of Hinduism to Buddhism is comparable to that of Judaism to Christianity. Buddhism grew out of Hinduism in the fifth century BCE as a religious philosophy realized by Prince Siddhartha, most commonly referred to as Buddha. Buddhism today ranks as the world's fourth largest religion. It is by far the largest religion in Asia with it's various sects comprising over ninety percent of religious people in Japan, China, Korea, and Thailand, as well as other smaller Asian nations such as Burma.



Buddhism holds virtually the same, albeit slightly more open-ended, idea of God as Hinduism, being referred to by most as non-theist. The actual Buddhist view of God could be best described as an omnipotent force that is inherent in all things. Buddhists generally focus on living more so than death, ascribing to the same view as Hinduism on directly experiencing the divine through meditation.



Buddhism shares the basic creation story with Hinduism, however the Buddhist version can differ somewhat in complexity. Most Buddhists share belief in the Devas along with Hinduism, however in most cases they are seen more as metaphors instead of actual spiritual beings. One of the main tenets of Buddhism is that the world is an illusion constructed by the mind, much like a dream state shared by humanity as a whole. Enlightenment in Buddhism is thought of as "awakening" from the dream state and experiencing the world as it truly exists. Describing enlightenment in the Buddhist since is nearly impossible other than by saying that the mind of man becomes one with the mind of God.



Now with an increased understanding of how the Indus Valley Civilization provided us with the parent religion for eastern doctrine, let us examine the genesis of western religious thought.



Western doctrine stems from the very cradle of civilization itself, Mesopotamia. Located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, largely corresponding to modern-day Iraq. Mesopotamian history stretches as far back as 8,000 years, and fostered what is commonly referred to as the earliest forms of human civilization.



Civilization in Mesopotamia had it's earliest beginnings in the fertile crescent, where the region was inhabited by several distinct tribes at the end of the last ice age, some 10,000 years ago. During the Neolithic period (the final stage of the stone age) civilization as we know it today began to form in the Mesopotamian area. The first of these cites, dating back to 7000 BCE, was the agricultural community of Jarmo, located in Iraqi Kurdistan on the foothills of Zagros Mountains east of Kirkuk city.



The Sumerians hold the distinction of being the first true civilization in the region, their civilization beginning around 3,500 BCE, and together with the Indus Valley Civilization is one of the oldest in history. The Sumerians practiced a polytheistic religion, with anthropomorphic gods and goddesses. They hold that the gods came to Mesopotamia from the heavens to live and work in the region. The Sumerian gods were organized in classes of greater and lesser gods, with the lesser gods serving as a labor force to the greater gods. Fearing an uprising of the lesser gods, the greater gods created humanity as a slave race, but later freed the earlier humans as they proved to be too difficult to effectively manage.



The Sumerian religion would later filter down into later Mesopotamian civilizations such as the Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian, Mitanni, Neo-Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, Parthian, Sassanid and the Abbasid. Ancient Semitic religion, the fore runner to Judaism, also stems forth from Sumerian mythology. With in each civilization the mythologies were altered to meet the culture, and although the stories may seem different on the surface, we see a great many reoccurring themes.



The Sumerians can be credited with the first known mythology concerning the creation of man by an outside deity. The Sumerian version differs greatly from that of the Indus Valley Civilization/Hinduism. Where as in the Hindu version man is created by God as a part of God, the Sumerians state that man was created as a separate and lesser being for the purpose of serving the gods. Also in the Sumerian religion we find the earliest recorded version of Noah's flood, and it has been postulated that the Sumerian ziggurat is the origin for the biblical tale of the tower of Babel.



The Sumerian believed that the universe was a flat disk, in closed by a tin dome. their conception of the afterlife was a dark netherworld where one would spend eternity as a ghost. The religion in it's earliest incarnations tended to focus more on humanity and it's relationship to the gods than on the universe and creation in general. The faith, though centuries older and passed down through the successive civilizations, provided the basis for the Tanakh (Old Testament). As the base religion was passed down from culture to culture it can be argued that it became more refined with the passage of time. Thus the Hebrew bible, being the final transition of the Sumerian religion could be considered the most advanced and complete. It is with Judaism that we see the break away from the ancient Semitic belief in polytheism to monotheism, as well as the most detailed account of the creation of the universe.

Christianity, Islam, and Judaism constitute the three forms of what could essentially be called the Abrahamic religion, or at least the Abrahamic family of religions, that all worship the concept of God as put forth by Abraham. Although each of these religions differ slightly on their interpretation of God, as do pretty much all of the adherents to said religions, the overall concepts are virtually identical. God is seen as an omnipotent supreme being, usually male, who created the world and rules the universe.



Judaism, while holding Abraham as the patriarch, is centered on Moses as the major prophet of the religion. Moses of course led the Jews out of bondage in Egypt and eventually into the promise land. He received the Ten Commandments from God atop mount saini, which plays a major role in all of the Abrahamic religions. It is from Moses that the majority of Jewish law and philosophy comes from; the same is true in Christianity in which Moses is central figure, superseded only by Christ himself. Moses (Musa) is also considered to be one of God's greatest prophets in Islam.



Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon is generally accepted as one of the most important Jewish scholars from medieval times. He composed a list of thirteen principles of faith that has been generally accepted by Jews for centuries as a brief summary of the Jewish faith. The list reads: (1) God exists, (2) God is one and unique, (3) God is incorporeal, (4) God is eternal (5) Prayer is to be directed to God alone and to no other (6) The words of the prophets are true, (7) Moses was the greatest of the prophets, and his prophecies are true, (8) The Written Torah (first 5 books of the Bible) and Oral Torah (teachings now contained in the Talmud and other writings) were given to Moses, (9) There will be no other Torah, (10) God knows the thoughts and deeds of men, (11) God will reward the good and punish the wicked (12) The Messiah will come, (13) The dead will be resurrected.



The Jewish faith, as well as Christianity and Islam of which Judaism can be considered the source religion, adhere to the Genesis account of the creation of the universe. The actual Hebrew text, as opposed to the English translation, finds both the heavens and the earth empty and formless. The first action taken by God is to create light with an oral command, in essence speaking the universe into being. The rest of the creation story deals with the formation of the planet earth and the creation of mankind. In keeping in line with it's Sumerian predecessor the biblical/Hebrew account of creation defines God as being separate from mankind. Man is created to rule over the earth, but also to worship and to serve God.



With in Christianity God is believed to have created man in his image and to have given him free will. Those who choose to be faithful to God are rewarded upon death with eternal life in heaven, those who choose not to are punished for eternity in a literal "lake of fire" called hell. The largest difference between Judaism and Christianity is the belief in the messiah. While Jewish faith holds that the messiah has yet to come, Christianity holds that he has come and gone in the form of Jesus Christ. They await his second coming, in which they believe that he will topple evil and usher in a golden age of peace and prosperity in the world. In the Christian religion it is taught that only by accepting Christ can one go to heaven and join God in the after life.



Christianity is also unique in the Abrahamic religions in that it holds the concept of the trinity, or three separate facets of God. The trinity is interpreted differently by most people and churches, but the general theme is that God exists as; a) God the father/creator, b) God the son/Jesus Christ, c) God the holy spirit/soul(s). This very closely resembles the older Hindu concept of the trinity.



It is important to note that originally Christianity and Judaism where one and the same. In approximately 30 CE the apostle James, and brother of Jesus, created the first Christian church in the form of a Christian reform movement within Judaism. This remained the face of Christianity until Paul, a former Christian persecutor, created the actual religion of Christianity, in conflict with Jewish Christianity, and began building churches through out the Roman Empire circa 55 CE.



Islam is by far the youngest of the Abrahamic religions with its creation coming approximately six hundred years after that of Christianity. Islam shares the same view of Jesus as do many liberal Jews, and even some liberal Christians; they believe him to be a great spiritual teacher and prophet as opposed to the messiah. Like Jews, Muslims believe God to be one singular entity as opposed to the trinity concept in Christianity. The prophet Mohammed is regarded by Muslims to be the most important of God's messengers, however he is typically misunderstood by those outside of the religion. Unlike Christianity, which uses the Jewish Torah as the first part of the bible, Islam utilizes a separate text entirely. The Qur'an, the Islamic holy book, is however very similar to the bible in many ways as it is based on much of the same source material.



Many of the core beliefs in both Judaism and Christianity are also a part of Islam, though Muslims do tend to be more conservative in nature in regards to their beliefs. The most significant differences between Islam and Christianity and Judaism are truthfully more cultural than anything else.



Though most of the world's religions today can be described of as either eastern or western doctrine, arising from either the Sumerian/Mesopotamian or the Indus Valley/Hindu belief structures, they are not the only faiths currently in practice. Nor have they been in the past. The peoples of ancient Europe had their own diverse set of beliefs, many of which have survived to today in the form of Paganism, and it's most common form, the philosophies of what is collectively called Wicca.



Paganism can be thought of as eclectic religion made up of ancient Celtic beliefs. Goddess worship is a major tenet of Wicca and is common in many pagan systems, although most pagan belief structures tend to be polytheistic. Both systems are known for heavy reliance on magic and ritual practices. Reincarnation is also a recurring theme in both sects. In the twentieth century a good amount of Christian mythology has become intertwined with Paganism/Wicca, especially that concerning issues of heaven and hell.



Many believers attempt to contact spirits and other worldly entities, sometimes even claiming to be able to control spirits, even demons, to do their bidding. The majority believe to have their own personal "spirit guides" whom they can form personal relationships with through the use of magic and meditation. Another popular belief, sometimes substituted for spirit guides, is the belief in a higher self. It should be noted that neither paganism nor Wicca are devil-worshiping religions, and that the followers tend to be very good-natured people.



Little is known about the early Celtic beliefs on the creation of the universe, but Wicca itself does have a creation story. Wicca states that the universe existed as empty void until a great drawing together of spiritual energy created the Goddess. The physical objects in the universe were created out of her body, and her dancing through out the cosmos set the universe in motion. It should also be noted that most Wiccans believe this story to be metaphorical in nature and not a literal account of the formation of the universe.



In virtually all of the religious creation accounts several similarities are readily apparent. In the beginning the universe itself is nothing more than empty space. With the exception of Paganism/Wicca creation is brought about by a conscious act of the creator in his desire to bring existence into a realm of nothingness. Where in western doctrine that simple explanation suffices for the creation of space-time and emphasis is placed on the physical creation of the earth, eastern doctrine in contrast, dwells more so on the spiritual creation of the universe itself. It is important to note here that outside of religious bias, these two creation accounts do not necessarily contradict each other. As far as creation goes, the western doctrine focuses on the how, while the eastern concerns itself with the why.



Generally modern science rejects all creation mythology, as well as the concept of God itself, in favor of scientific explanation. Science has indeed succeeded in disproving a great many religious statements. It should also be noted however that these religious ideas were formulated thousands of years ago by relatively primitive people, and science has not succeeded in disproving the general concepts upon which said religions were built.



In this chapter we have given general overviews and histories of the world's major religions, examined the various beliefs on God, and attempted to better understand the spiritual component of creation. Let us now turn our attention to science, lets look at what we know of the actual creation of the universe. Is science correct in it's rejection of God? Or is the sum total of our scientific knowledge truly the best explanation for God's existence?



Draft for Ch. 1 of "Conversations at 3 AM" by Xzavier M and Mike E II

00:48 Jul 16 2009
Times Read: 1,391

**Parents and Students Please Read**



We all remember being woken up by our mom or dad for school. For most of us it meant going back to sleep, getting yelled at and then slowly dragging ourselves into class. During Summer we remember being called lazy and even worse if we slept passed 10 AM. Our teenage years are full of memories fighting with our parents, falling asleep in class and the issues (including depression) that that brings.



Well, students, it isn't your fault and parents you need to keep on reading.



The human body changes greatly from the time of birth to our twenties and so does our sleep reuirements.



An infant needs around 14 hours of sleep a day.

A young child (3-11) needs 8 full hours of sleep.

A teenager and young adult (12-23) needs 12 hours of sleep.

An adult needs 6-8 hours of sleep (less and less as we get older).



The human body doesn't stop developing, especially for boys, until the age of 23. During the teenage years our body undergoes greater change than any other time in our life outside the womb and our bodies require massive amounts of energy and rest. The predominant time in which our body develops is during sleep, in fact long term memories are ONLY formed in sleep so if you don't get enough you'll end up forgetting what you were taught.



Kids and adults ages 12-23 NEED 12 full hours of sleep. In fact schools that don't start until noon tend to have better testing scores and less disruptions/bad behaviour.



So kids, don't think that something is wrong with you or that you're lazy because it's not true. Try your best to get 12 hours of sleep even if your school starts in the early morning and feel free to sleep in during Summer.



Parents, stop calling your kids lazy, stop yelling at them if they don't get up immediately and push for schools to change their hours.

Don't be to hard on yourself for yelling at your child, very few parents actually know this, but now that you do you need stop.



Sleep is the most important life function outside of breathing and eating. You can actually die if you don't sleep. Not getting enough sleep leads to poor memory, weight loss, behavioral issues, depression, anxiety and physical health problems. Make sure you get plenty of rest no matter how old you are and make sure you're getting the right amount.



Sweet dreams :)



--Xzavier



P.S Don't forget to share this to as many people as possible. Journals, E-Mails, Bulletins etc.

05:01 Jul 14 2009
Times Read: 1,402


Baby Incubators and the 1933 World's Fair



The TransMississippi and International Exposition was the first display of Baby Incubators in the United States. The brainchild of Dr. Martin Couney, a specialist in the care of prematurely born infants, the baby incubators were shown at fairs and other exhibitions throughout the world.



Dr. Couney was born in Germany. He studied medicine in Breslau, Berlin and Leipzig. He later studied under Dr. Pierre C. Budin who developed a method of saving the prematurely born.



The baby incubators were first shown at the Berlin Exposition in 1896, and again at the Earl's Court in London. After the exhibit in Omaha he returned to Paris for the exposition of 1900. He returned to the United States for good for the Buffalo Exhibition. He exhibited his incubators at the Chicago Century of Progress Exposition in 1933 and at the New York World's Fair in 1939.



Dr. Couney died in 1950. His obituary appeared in the New York Times on March 2, 1950.



The incubators were made by Paul Altman of Berlin. The incubator was warmed by a cylindrical "water boiler" mounted on the outer wall of the incubator and the infant's cabinet was ventilated by fresh air blown through a large pipe by an electric fan on the outside of the building. The air entered the incubator through a metal box attached to the side of each cabinet. The air was moistened by being passed through a layer of absorbent wool suspended over a saucer containing water. From the filtering box the air passed into the bottom and center of the incubator where it was diffused and passed over the surface of hot water coils from the external heater. On the top of the incubator was an exhaust flue which allowed the air to exit the incubator.



During the first Berlin exhibition, premature infants were acquired from Empress Augusta Victoria, the protectress of Berlin's Charity Hospital. The exhibit in England was almost a bust as he could not secure any infants from local hospitals. Couney was forced to go to Paris, where he was given three wicker baskets full of Parisian premature babies.



The incubators were an interesting attraction in Omaha. The Omaha Bee reported: "Incubators, that started yesterday, are attracting interest from the medical profession. They are glass and metal cases heated to a certain temperature, into which enough air is admitted to maintain life.. until such time as infant is strong enough for temperature of room. Yesterday two babies were put in... 85% of the babies using it have lived... intended for weakly born who otherwise would pass away. " (Omaha Bee 08/12/98)



In 1901, Scientific American extolled the "model nursery" and reproduced pictures from the Buffalo Fair. In 1904, a group of St. Louis businessmen formed "The Imperial Concession Company" for the purpose of exhibiting infants at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition of 1904. With the onset of a hot summer an epidemic of diarrhea started among the babies. By September, the death rate reached 50%. A committee of local physicians was formed to investigate the exhibit. The St. Louis Courier reported that each infant cost the company about $15.00 per day. The exhibit was both a financial and medical catastrophe.



Couney continued to exhibit his baby incubators at various fairs and every summer he set up his incubators at Coney Island. Attendance dwindled and when New York Hospital opened a premature infant station as part of the normal hospital, he closed his operation.



Source: http://www.omahapubliclibrary.org/transmiss/regions/northmid/baby.html

10:24 Jul 13 2009
Times Read: 1,417


**READ**



The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 aka "The 2009 Stimulus Package" was made up of $787 billion dollars.



If the ARRA was it's own nation and the $787B was it's GDP it would rank #18 out of 182 or $12 billion less than the GDP of Turkey.



Another way of putting it would be:

If you added up the GDP of all the nations from the 182 spot (Kiribati) to the 83 spot (Uzbekistan) which totals 99 fully sovereign countries you would get $787,967,000,000 or right at the amount of the stimulus.



How's that for spending :) Aren't you glad we voted in all of these morons? At least we've only spent $45.6 billion or 5.8%....WTF? Emergency recovery my butt!



*Figures according to the World Bank



(Oh I almost forgot, between Dec. 2007 to Nov. 2008 around $7.2 TRILLION had been allocated for various "recovery" projects)

09:24 Jul 13 2009
Times Read: 1,420


Physical Reality of String Theory Demonstrated



July 6th, 2009

String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been made that have not been lived up to. Leiden (The Netherlands) theoretical physicists have now for the first time used string theory to describe a physical phenomenon. Their discovery has been reported in Science Express.



'This is superb. I have never experienced such euphoria.' Jan Zaanen makes no attempt to hide his enthusiasm. Together with Mihailo Cubrovic and Koenraad Schalm, he has successfully managed to shed light on a previously unexplained natural phenomeon using the mathematics of string theory.



Electrons can form a special kind of state, a so-called quantum critical state, that plays a role in high-temperature super-conductivity. Super-conductivity at high temperatures has long been a 'hot issue' in physics. In super-conductivity, discovered by Heike Kamerlingh Onnes in Leiden, electrons can zoom through a material without meeting any resistance. In the first instance, this only seemed possible at very low temperatures close to absolute zero, but more and more examples are coming up where it also occurs at higher temperatures. So far, nobody has managed to explain high temperature super-conductivity. Zaanen: 'It has always been assumed that once you understand this quantum-critical state, you can also understand high temperature super-conductivity. But, although the experiments produced a lot of information, we hadn't the faintest idea of how to describe this phenomenon.' String theory now offers a solution.



This is the first time that a calculation based on string theory has been published in Science, even though the theory is widely known. 'There have always been a lot of expectations surrounding string theory,' Zaanen explains, having himself studied the theory to satisfy his own curiosity. 'String theory is often seen as a child of Einstein that aims to devise a revolutionary and comprehensive theory, a kind of 'theory of everything'. Ten years ago, researchers even said: 'Give us two weeks and we'll be able to tell you where the big bang came from. The problem of string theory was that, in spite of its excellent maths, it was never able to make a concrete link with the physical reality - the world around us.'



But now, Zaanen, together with his colleagues Cubrovic and Schalm, are trying to change this situation, by applying string theory to a phenomenon that physicists, including Zaanen, have for the past fifteen years been unable to explain: the quantum-critical state of electrons. This special state occurs in a material just before it becomes super-conductive at high temperature. Zaanen describes the quantum-critical state as a 'quantum soup', whereby the electrons form a collective independent of distances, where the electrons exhibit the same behaviour at small quantum mechanical scale or at macroscopic human scale.



Because of Zaanen's interest in string theory, he and string theoreticist Koenraad Schalm soon became acquainted after Schalm's arrival in Leiden. Zaanen had an unsolved problem and Schalm was an expert in the field of string theory. Their common interest brought them together, and they decided to work jointly on the research. They used the aspect of string theory known as AdS/CFT correspondence. This allows situations in a large relativistic world to be translated into a description at minuscule quantum physics level. This correspondence bridges the gap between these two different worlds. By applying the correspondence to the situation where a black hole vibrates when an electron falls into it, they arrived at the description of electrons that move in and out of a quantum-critical state.



After days and nights of hard grind, it was a puzzle that fitted. 'We hadn't expected it to work so well,' says a delighted Zaanen. 'The maths was a perfect fit; it was superb. When we saw the calculations, at first we could hardly believe it, but it was right.' Gateway to more



Although the mystery of high temperature super-conductivity isn't fully resolved, the findings do show that major problems in physics can be addressed using string theory. And this is just the start, Zaanen believes. 'AdS/CFT correspondence now explains things that colleagues who have been beavering away for ages were unable to resolve, in spite of their enormous efforts. There are a lot of things that can be done with it. We don't fully understand it yet, but I see it as a gateway to much more.' The fact that Science was keen to publish this discovery early confirms this.



Source: http://www.physorg.com/news166097923.html



Hmm, we shall se what more comes of this. I'm not ready to make any real statements right now.

20:35 Jul 12 2009
Times Read: 1,429

Ok, I'm a HUGE geology buff and one thing I really love about living in Tennessee is the wide range of geologic formations across the state. Tennessee along with a large portion of the South has some of the oldest visible rocks on Earth and some of the newest. For example, the Appalachian Mountains are around 1 billion years old and are actually much older than the Rockies while the area around the Mississippi River has some of the newest strata.



The Nashville area, where I live, is between 300-500 million years old. It used to be an ocean and many of the hills/valleys/mountains in Middle Tenn were formed by the erosion of a massive plateau and contains huge numbers of marine fossils.



We have gold, rubys, natural gas, oil, iron ore, nickel, old growth forests, one of the newest natural lakes in the country (Reelfoot Lake, formed 1811-12 during a major earthquake that formed the 61sq km lake in 24 hours) as well as some of the highest waterfalls and mountains east of the Mississippi.



Gotta love it :D

13:42 Jul 10 2009
Times Read: 1,447

~~Final Draft of the Michael Jackson Project Letter~~



On June 25, 2009 Michael Jackson, celebrated musician and global humanitarian, died from cardiac arrest, and left behind 3 children.



During the weekend of July 4th NY Rep. Pete King posted a video on YouTube calling Michael Jackson a pervert and child molester despite the fact that Mr. Jackson was acquitted and as TX Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee said during Michael's memorial service "[in this country we] are innocent until proven guilty".



Michael Jackson's memorial service was held at the Staples Center in Los Angeles on July 7, 2009. It was attended by 17,500 free ticket holders, an outside crowd of around 100,000, over 17 million via live Internet stream and a global TV audience of nearly 1 billion people.



Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee has written a resolution that would have Michael recognized as a global humanitarian and music icon. This resolution is similar to the many passed for other noteworthy individuals. While Rep. Lee and others work to have the great achievements of Michael Jackson recognized and his good name upheld in the eyes of the law Rep. King continued to make further outrageous remarks on national television and on the Internet.



The following is a letter I wrote to Rep. King.



"Mr. King,



I had a chance to listen to your views concerning the resolution on Michael Jackson. While we are allowed our opinions, granted by the Constitution, we are not allowed to use them in ways which would defame those who have been up-held by the law. As a Representative your job is to support and defend your constituency but more than that, the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. Michael Jackson was found innocent by the very system you are pledged to uphold and I think it in both poor taste and ill thinking that you, a representative of the people would choose to ignore the findings of law just to blast your personal opinion across the media in some selfish attempt to promote a philosophy of hate.



It is common for the Congress to issue such proclamations for individuals who have given so much of themselves and advanced the cause of humanity as to make them worth remembrance. The only issue here is that of your own poor judgment.



Mr. Jackson gave $50 million to charities, helped better the lives of thousands who may have died and lifted the hearts of literally billions with his music. The motives of those who accused him of such dreadful crimes were made brilliantly clear, that of greed and low personal ethics. While Michael Jackson's life may have seemed strange to most a strange life is not a crime and in our history personal eccentricities are what helped build this country.



We enshrine President Jackson though he murdered thousands of Native Americans, we glorify President Roosevelt despite his consultations with psychics and we praise President Kennedy even though he struggled with drug use and womanizing. Yet we can not recognize the great contributions an artist named Michael Jackson gave simply because he was the victim of malicious adults who used their own children for financial gain?



I am ashamed for those who entrusted you with their voice and I am ashamed once more that such a wonderful nation and people could have placed such an ignorant, hypocritical bigot in one of the most trusted and revered stations of our great land.



I hope you come to your senses and I pray that you are not the subject of false allegations which may ruin your already tarnished name.

--Jacob Bogle"



Please help in this effort to defend a man who gave over $50 million to charities, helped spear-head research for HIV/AIDS, funded multiple hospitals and gave millions joy though his music by selling over 770 million songs. It doesn't take much to contact your Congressman, post a bulletin or send an e-mail. If you would like to use my letter feel free to do so.



Let us put the negative and false issues of the past behind and show everyone black or white, rich or poor that this is a nation of laws and that anyone can achieve their dreams no matter how big or small. Not to mention the positive impact it will have on his children, to know that America really does defend the innocent and that, for the majority, their father isn't seen as some aberration. This isn't just about one man but about the outrageous remarks of an elected official, it's about decency, justice and caring.



The full text of the resolution:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.RES.600:



To support it please contact your local congressman: http://www.house.gov



To contact/support Rep. Lee: http://www.jacksonlee.house.gov



To voice your outrage over Rep. King's comments: http://www.peteking.house.gov

His comments: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2009/07/06/new-york-congressman-blasts-jackson-pervert-low-life/



Original Blog Entry:

http://blogs.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendid=225516633&blogid=499298705



Author: Jacob Bogle

http://www.myspace.com/jayboitn

jacob_bogle@yahoo.com



Feel free to use all your skills on MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, E-mails and anything else you can to get this message out and that resolution passed!



Thank you!

--Jacob

7/8/09

07:17 Jul 09 2009
Times Read: 1,476


Graphene. 2009's Miracle substance and could make silicon a thing of the distant past.



New material could lead to faster chips

Graphene may solve communications speed limit

David Chandler, MIT News Office

March 19, 2009



New research findings at MIT could lead to microchips that operate at much higher speeds than is possible with today's standard silicon chips, leading to cell phones and other communications systems that can transmit data much faster.



The key to the superfast chips is the use of a material called graphene, a form of pure carbon that was first identified in 2004. Researchers at other institutions have already used the one-atom-thick layer of carbon atoms to make prototype transistors and other simple devices, but the latest MIT results could open up a range of new applications.



The MIT researchers built an experimental graphene chip known as a frequency multiplier, meaning it is capable of taking an incoming electrical signal of a certain frequency -- for example, the clock speed that determines how fast a computer chip can carry out its computations -- and producing an output signal that is a multiple of that frequency. In this case, the MIT graphene chip can double the frequency of an electromagnetic signal.



Frequency multipliers are widely used in radio communications and other applications. But existing systems require multiple components, produce "noisy" signals that require filtering and consume large power, whereas the new graphene system has just a single transistor and produces, in a highly efficient manner, a clean output that needs no filtering.



The findings are being reported in a paper in the May issue of Electron Device Letters and also in a talk this week at the American Physical Society meeting by Tomás Palacios, assistant professor in MIT's Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and a core member of the Microsystems Technology Laboratories. The work was done by Palacios along with EECS Assistant Professor Jing Kong and two of their students, Han Wang and Daniel Nezich.



"In electronics, we're always trying to increase the frequency," Palacios says, in order to make "faster and faster computers" and cellphones that can send data at higher rates, for example. "It's very difficult to generate high frequencies above 4 or 5 gigahertz," he says, but the new graphene technology could lead to practical systems in the 500 to 1,000 gigahertz range.



"Researchers have been trying to find uses for this material since its discovery in 2004," he says. "I believe this application will have tremendous implications in high-frequency communications and electronics." By running several of the frequency-doubling chips in series, it should be possible to attain frequencies many times higher than are now feasible.



While the work is still at the laboratory stage, Palacios says, because it is mostly based on relatively standard chip processing technology he thinks developing it to a stage that could become a commercial product "may take a year of work, maximum two." This project is currently being partially funded by the MIT Institute for Soldier Nanotechnology and by the Interconnect Focus Center program, and it has already attracted the interest of "many other offices in the federal government and major chip-making companies," according to Palacios.



Graphene is related to the better-known buckyballs and carbon nanotubes, which also are made of one-atom-thick sheets of carbon. But in those materials, the carbon sheets are rolled up in the form of a tube or a ball. While physicists had long speculated that flat sheets of the material should be theoretically possible, some had doubted that it could ever remain stable in the real world.



"In physics today, graphene is, arguably, the most exciting topic," Palacios says. It is the strongest material ever discovered, and also has a number of unsurpassed electrical properties, such as "mobility" -- the ease with which electrons can start moving in the material, key to use in electronics -- which is 100 times that of silicon, the standard material of computer chips.



One key factor in enabling widespread use of graphene will be perfecting methods for making the material in sufficient quantity. The material was first identified, and most of the early work was based on, using "sticky tape technology," Palacios explains. That involves taking a block of graphite, pressing a piece of sticky tape against it, peeling it off and then applying the tape to a wafer of silicon or other material.



But Kong has been developing a method for growing entire wafers of graphene directly, which could make the material practical for electronics. Kong and Palacios' groups are currently working to transfer the frequency multipliers to these new graphene wafers.



"Graphene will play a key role in future electronics," Palacios says. "We just need to identify the right devices to take full advantage of its outstanding properties. Frequency multipliers could be one of these devices."



From: http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2009/graphene-palacios-0319.html

03:03 Jul 09 2009
Times Read: 1,492

I sent this to NY Rep. Pete King over his remarks concerning the Michael Jackson resolution.



He called Michael a pervert and child molester on national TV around the time of Michaels memorial.



The resolution purposed by Sheila Jackson Lee calls for recognition of Michael Jackson as a global humanitarian and music icon. Such resolutions are actually very common and I for one support it.



Full text of the res:

http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/z?c111:H.RES.600:



To support it please contact your local congressman: www.house.gov



To contact/support Rep. Lee: www.jacksonlee.house.gov



To voice your outrage over Rep. King's comments: www.peteking.house.gov



If you would like to use my letter to Mr. King please feel free to do so. I will be working with others on this issue and hopefully will have the resolution passed.



"Mr. King,



I had a chance to listen to your views concerning the resolution on Michael Jackson. While we are allowed our opinions, granted by the Constitution, we are not allowed to use them in ways which would defame those who have been up-held by the law. As a Representative your job is to support and defend your constituency but more than that, the Constitution and laws of the United States of America. Michael Jackson was found innocent by the very system you are pledged to uphold and I think it in both poor taste and ill thinking that you, a representative of the people would choose to ignore the findings of law just to blast your personal opinion across the media in some selfish attempt to promote a philosophy of hate.



It is common for the Congress to issue such proclamations for individuals who have given so much of themselves and advanced the cause of humanity as to make them worth remembrance. The only issue here is that of your own poor judgment.



Mr. Jackson gave $50 million to charities, helped better the lives of thousands who may have died and lifted the hearts of literally billions with his music. The motives of those who accused him of such dreadful crimes were made brilliantly clear, that of greed and low personal ethics. While Michael Jackson's life may have seemed strange to most a strange life is not a crime and in our history personal eccentricities are what helped build this country.



We enshrine President Jackson though he murdered thousands of Native Americans, we glorify President Roosevelt despite his consultations with psychics and we praise President Kennedy even though he struggled with drug use and womanizing. Yet we can not recognize the great contributions an artist named Michael Jackson gave simply because he was the victim of malicious adults who used their own children for financial gain?



I am ashamed for those who entrusted you with their voice and I am ashamed once more that such a wonderful nation and people could have placed such an ignorant, hypocritical bigot in one of the most trusted and revered stations of our great land.



I hope you come to your senses and I pray that you are not the subject of false allegations which may ruin your already tarnished name."



Please help in this effort to defend a man who gave over $50 million to charities, helped spear-head research for HIV/AIDS, funded multiple hospitals and gave literally billions joy though his music.

08:49 Jul 08 2009
Times Read: 1,504

Well this is rather interesting.



First US Case of Valerian Root Overdose



AUTHOR(S): Mady, W. L.; Cobaugh, S.; Wax, D.

TITLE: Valerian overdose: A case report.

YEAR: 1994 CITATION: Vet Hum Toxicol, 36(4), 360 [English]

FDA #: F20545

ABSTRACT: Abstract: (No other info in this issue) Background: Valerian (Valeriana officinallis) root has been used as an antispasmodic and sedative since the Middle Ages. It is popular in Europe as a sleeping agent, and is sold over-the-counter at natural food stores in the US. We believe this to be the first reported case of valerian overdose. Case Report: An 18 yo student presented to the ED 3 hrs after ingesting 23 gms of an herbal preparation containing 100% powdered valerian root in a suicide attempt. At 30 min post-ingestion, she complained of fatigue, crampy abdominal pain, chest tightness, tremor of the hands and feet, and lightheadedness. She denied ingestion of any other substance. Exam was normal except for mydriasis (6mm bilaterally) and fine hand tremor. EKG was normal and urine toxicology screen was positive only for THC which the patient stated she last used 3 wks previously. The patient was treated with 2 doses of activated charcoal. She was admitted to the hospital and her symptoms resolved within 24 hours. Discussion: Animal studies show valerian to be a CNS depressant, coronarodilatating agent, an antiarrhythmic, and a muscle relaxant. In controlled clinical trials, therapeutic doses of valerian cause minimal symptoms, although hepatotoxicity has been associated with the use of multi-herbal remedies that contain this root. Despite the patient¿s large ingestion of valerian, her symptomatology was not life-threatening and resolved within 24 hrs. Conclusion: In overdose, valerian appears to have low toxicity in humans.



GRIN #: 400139

COMMON NAME: valerian

STANDARD COMMON NAME: valerian

FAMILY: Valerianaceae

LATIN NAME: Valeriana officinalis

STANDARD PLANT NAME: Valeriana officinalis L.



Source:

http://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/Plantox/Detail.CFM?ID=17136

19:51 Jul 07 2009
Times Read: 1,537


I Never Dreamed You'd Leave in Summer



I never dreamed you'd leave in summer

I thought you would go then come back home

I thought the cold would leave by summer

But my quiet nights will be spent alone



You said there would be warm love in springtime

That is when you started to be cold

I never dreamed you'd leave in summer

But now I find myself all alone



You said then you'd be the life in autumn

Said you'd be the one to see the way

No, I never dreamed you'd leave in summer

But now I find my love has gone away



Michael, Why didn't you stay?

--Stevie Wonder







Michael Jackson 1958-2009

09:52 Jul 03 2009
Times Read: 1,557

My primary medical expertise is in pharmacology and general medicine. That being the case my base of knowledge in specialized areas of medicine is smaller than that of the two fields mentioned, as it would be with anyone. However, I have a major interest in neurology, human behaviour, oncology and human development (biologically) so I'm always learning new things.



---One thing I just learned is that those with Major Depressive Disorder (something I was actually recently diagnosed with) and other related disorders are at a greater risk by 2.5-3 times for developing hyperintensity lesions. Hyperintensities are areas of greater intensity within the white matter of the brain upon certain types of MRI scans. These usually form in cerebral white matter or sub-cortical grey matter (the areas surrounding the Corpus callosum).



Postmortem studies combined with MRI suggest that hyperintensities are dilated perivascular spaces, or demyelination caused by reduced local blood flow.---



Now, this reduced blood flow also plays into the area of brain plasticity.



That is to say the brain is able to adapt and change according to thoughts. If you keep a routine (be it what time you wake up or thinking depressive thoughts) your brain will form literal "ruts" or grooves in the cellular make-up of the brain. These grooves, albeit small, are areas of neural connections where the processes associated with the rut become more and more ingrained and harder to change.



So, the more prolonged a depressive episode the less and less plastic (or changeable) that area of the brain becomes leading to (in some cases) hyperintensity lesions. These lesions also include the area of and about the hippocampus which plays an important role in long term memory and spatial relations.

Memory loss being part of depressive disorders.



I hope my short explanation of plasticity was sufficient. I had planned on writing an article about it some time ago but got caught up with other things.



The point of all this, apart from sharing uber interesting information, is to press the issue that if you are depressed, have a depressive disorder (which includes bi-polar and even schizophrenia to a degree) to seek some form of help. It's also very important to understand your role in depression. Although it may seem like we have no control over it we do. Training our minds to think on positive things is a very important step in dealing with depression as well as increasing brain plasticity which, as I said earlier, can increase proper blood flow to areas potentially affected by these lesions and will help you over-all.



With that I bid you good night..at 3:45 AM :)

01:48 Jul 03 2009
Times Read: 1,564

"The supposedly conservative candidate tell us about "waste" in government, and ticks off $10 million in frivolous pork-barrel projects...the inevitable bridge-to-nowhere project-- in order to elicit laughter and applause from partisan audiences. All right, so that's 0.00045 percent of the federal budget dealt with; what does he propose to do with the other 99.99955 percent, in order to return our country to living within its means? Not a word." (pg. 1-2)



"Although they [the liberal left] posture as critical thinkers, their confidence in government is inexcusably naive, based as it is on civics-textbook platitudes that bear absolutely zero resemblance to reality. Not even their position on unnecessary wars is constant... Even Howard Dean was all in favor of Bill Clinton's intervention in Bosnia, going so far as to urge the president to take unilateral military action beyond the multilateral activity already taking place." (pg. 3)



From:

The Revolution A Manifesto, by Ron Paul 2008

The #1 New York Times Bestseller.



---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



I couldn't have said it better my self.

05:21 Jul 02 2009
Times Read: 1,579


Extracoporeal Liver Assist Device (ELAD)







ELAD® Concept

ELAD is being developed to provide liver support continuously for up to thirty days to a patient with compromised liver function, potentially allowing time for the patient’s native liver to regenerate to a healthy state, or to stabilize the patient until a suitable donor organ can be found for transplantation.



ELAD Design and Operation

The key to the ELAD system is the proprietary C3A human hepatocyte cell line, licensed from the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia and further developed by Baylor College of Medicine. This is an immortal cell line that is grown in ELAD cartridges, then stored and shipped worldwide from VTI’s San Diego production facility. The cartridges are then incorporated into an extracorporeal blood pumping system at the patient’s bedside. The cells have been shown to perform most of the metabolic functions of normal liver cells in laboratory experiments.



The ELAD System continuously separates plasma from cellular components by using an "ultrafiltrate" generator. While the cellular components are returned to the patient via the venous access, the ultrafiltrate is circulated through a set of ELAD cartridges containing the C3A cells and hollow fibers. The fibers, made of a semi-permeable membrane, permit passage, from the C3A cells to the patient’s ultrafiltrate, of macromolecules and other cellular products such as albumin, Factor V, transferrin, antithrombin III, C3 complement, ά-1-antitrypsin, ά-fetoprotein, and others. The fibers also simultaneously permit passage of toxins and such nutrients as glucose and oxygen from the ultrafiltrate to the C3A cells. After circulation through the cartridges, the ultrafiltrate then flows through filters prior to recombining with the cellular components of the patient’s blood and returning to the patient. This circulation is maintained continuously utilizing the same set of cartridges for the duration of ELAD therapy.





C3A cell line biologic activity

In vitro assays demonstrated that the C3A cell line performs biochemical functions characteristic of human hepatocytes, while in vivo experiments evaluated the safety of the entire ELAD System, as well as function of the C3A cells. The synthesis of serum proteins is a hallmark of the liver-specific phenotype and of C3A cells. These cells synthesize a wide variety of proteins, such as albumin, an indicator of hepatocyte function and a convenient marker of cell viability and function. Indeed, one of the key parameters directing the selection of the C3A cell line was its ability to produce high levels of albumin. Albumin and transferrin concentrations in the tissue culture medium passing through the membrane of the cartridges are assayed frequently.



Pre-IND feasibility and safety study

The study was completed with three healthy sheep. The clinically configured ELAD System was connected to the vascular system of each animal. The ELAD System was then operated for an initial period of two hours with only inactive (no cells) cartridges. Then the inactive cartridges were replaced with active, C3A cell-filled cartridges, and the ELAD System operated for an additional four hours. The animals remained hemodynamically stable throughout the course of the study, whether inactive (cell-free) or active ELAD cartridges were connected to the ELAD System. At completion of the study, the animals appeared healthy, fully active, and otherwise completely normal. Samples from the animal’s arterial blood line were removed at predetermined intervals throughout the study, as well as from the ELAD System ultrafiltrate recirculation loop. The concentrations of human albumin and transferrin in the sheep blood began to increase when active cartridges were connected, showing that human liver proteins from the ELAD System were being delivered to the animal.



http://www.vitaltherapies.com/technology.html