Friday, March 02, 2007

Speedlinking 3/2/07

Quote of the day:

"We live in a Newtonian world of Einsteinian physics ruled by Frankenstein logic."
~ David Russell

Image of the day
:


BODY
~ BONUS ARTICLE: Two-Day Workout -- "Between working 40-60 hours per week, carting the kids around, or being forced to take those swing dancing lessons you promised your girlfriend (we've all been there), the last thing on the "to do list" is going to the gym. Mr. G has the answer: the Two-Day Workout."
~ Cholesterol in Foods Less Significant Than Total Calories -- "Your blood cholesterol level is influenced far more by how many calories and how much saturated and partially hydrogenated fat you eat, than by how much cholesterol is in your food." I've been trying to tell people this for a long time.
~ Strength For Caring Reminds Caregivers To Eat Healthy During National Nutrition Month -- "Strength for Caring (www.StrengthforCaring.com), an online resource for family caregivers, is pleased to announce new resources to celebrate National Nutrition Month including healthy recipes and food charts, tips for exercising when you have no time, and healthy lifestyle basics."
~ Test Your Vending Machine Smarts -- "Get the goods on the healthiest vending machine choices." A little quiz to test your "crap food" smarts.
~ Coffee: Aroma, Taste And Dietary Fiber -- "Already recognized as a source of healthful anti-inflammatory and antioxidant compounds, coffee also contains significantly higher levels of soluble dietary fiber than other commonly consumed beverages, scientists in Spain report."
~ Sweat may spread hepatitis B virus -- "Findings from a study of Olympic wrestlers indicate that hepatitis B virus is found in the sweat of infected individuals, and so sweating might be a way that the virus could be passed between participants in contact sports."
~ Green Tea And COX-2 Inhibitors Combine To Slow Growth Of Prostate Cancer -- "Drinking a nice warm cup of green tea has long been touted for its healthful benefits, both real and anecdotal. But now researchers have found that a component of green tea, combined with low doses of a COX-2 inhibitor, could slow the spread of human prostate cancer."


PSYCHE
~ Image Concerns Tied to Depression in Arthritis, Lupus Patients -- "Concerns about appearance are associated with depression in people with rheumatic arthritis or lupus, an Australian study finds."
~ Antidepressants Help Men Decrease Alcohol Consumption -- "A CIHR-funded study explored the relationship between use of antidepressants and level of alcohol consumption, examining whether using antidepressants affected the link between depression and level of alcohol consumption."
~ Sleep Deprivation Affects Moral Judgment, Journal SLEEP -- "A study published in the March 1st issue of the journal SLEEP finds that sleep deprivation impairs the ability to integrate emotion and cognition to guide moral judgments."
~ Study: Sex Makes People Feel Sexier -- "Research finds that sexual activity raises testosterone levels in men and women."
~ Meditation Shown to Increase Grey Matter and Prevent Alzheimer’s Disease -- "Researchers ... have found in their studies that meditation can impact the thickness of the cortical tissue in the brain. This type of change is significant in the way the tissue is then able to process sensory, cognitive, and emotional responses."
~ Developmental Dissociations in Prefrontal Cortex: Maintenance vs Manipulation Processes [Developing Intelligence] -- "Cognitive theories of "executive function" vary greatly in the number of distinct cognitive processes they propose to subserve the goal-directed coordination of behavior. Some theories suggest that strong active maintenance of information, and a way of "updating" the information that is maintained, is sufficient to explain performance on executive function (EF) tasks, which typically require careful control over behavior."
~ The Driven Motorist -- "How we project ourselves onto our cars."
~ Warnings Of Increased Suicide Risk Didn't Dampen Antidepressant Prescriptions -- "'Black box' warnings on labels of certain antidepressants about possible increased suicide risk had no effect on the amounts of the medications prescribed in North America."
~ Beyond Getting Lucky -- "Achieving your goals and attracting what you want is within your control -- and when you break it down into a few easy steps, success is closer than you think!"
~ Study: The color red impacts achievement -- "U.S. and Germany scientists have discovered the color red can affect how people function, keeping them from performing at their best on tests."


CULTURE
~ Queer 101: A Guide for Heteros -- " Conservative Americans may demonize gay people -- but how much do progressives really know about queer culture?"
~ The last lovemaking taboo lifted? -- "While somebody might make a comment at a party, say, about oral sex, or some other aspect of their sex lives, few are yet willing to openly discuss anal sex. And yet the practice and interest in it appear to be growing."
~ Unpatriotic Christians [The Frontal Cortex] -- A very interesting graph, with serious implications.
~ "Intellectual Conservative" seems to be an oxymoron [Pharyngula] -- "Many will argue with the conclusion of my title, but there are so many examples of outright intellectual vacuity from people who anoint themselves with the title "conservative" that it is fast becoming a synonym for 'ignoramus.'"
~ More on the same idea: Conservapedia : why do conservatives tolerate this tripe in their name??? [Galactic Interactions] -- "It's coming-out-of-the-closet time. I was a Republican once. Now, saying you're a Republican around scienceblogs.com is a little bit like saying that you're gay in the middle of a Southern Baptist church service. You're just asking for trouble."
~ Education and Emotion [The Frontal Cortex] -- "Last week, I criticized David Brooks for his conservative interpretations of modern neuroscience. This week, I'm happy to report that Brooks' policy recommendations are much more interesting (and scientifically accurate, at least in my opinion)."
~ Anti-"Don't Ask" Bill Introduced -- "Rep. Martin Meehan, D-Mass., on Wednesday revived legislation aimed at forcing the military to eliminate the policy preventing homosexual service members from being open about their orientation."
~ Incentivising invention -- "Will a boom in philanthropic prize-giving change the world?"
~ James Dobson's power may be waning -- "Is James Dobson's legendary power starting to wane?" We can only hope.
~ OpenCongress.org -- "Recently we blogged about Billhop, a site for tracking state legislation. OpenCongress.org is a similar site for Federal legislation, created under the auspices of the Sunlight Foundation, where Ellen Miller describes it as "a user-friendly Thomas on steroids," referring to the Library of Congress' legislative information site, which has been around since 1995."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ New market-based system aims to predict bird flu -- "Is a bird flu pandemic coming? Health experts say there is no way to know, and especially no way to know when."
~ Warning Issued For Plastic Baby Bottles -- "Parents are being warned about plastic baby bottles after studies showed they could possibly cause developmental and reproductive problems." This is deadly serious.
~ Artificially evolving social robots -- "Carl Zimmer has written a fascinating piece on a study that simulated the evolution of communication in artificially intelligent robots."
~ Parking Goes to Highest Bidder -- "See that spot that just opened up? Forget about it. Some yuppie won it in an auction two hours ago, so you're out of luck."
~ Food is Power -- "Anna Lappé attends the first international Forum on Food Sovereignty in Mali. With more than 600 participants from 98 countries, the meeting will gather some of the most important social movements working for food rights global."
~ Tornado Science, Facts and History -- "This is the fastest start for the first three months of the year since 1999. Scientists say the pattern is likely to continue."
~ Why do birds migrate? -- "Why do some birds fly thousands of miles back and forth between breeding and non-breeding areas every year whereas others never travel at all?"
~ Pre-Inca Observatory Is Oldest in Americas, Study Says -- "Thirteen 2,300-year-old towers precisely spaced along a ridge near a ceremonial site make up the oldest known solar observatory in the New World, experts say."
~ Model simulates atomic processes in nanomaterials -- "Researchers from MIT, Georgia Institute of Technology and Ohio State University have developed a new computer modeling approach to study how materials behave under stress at the atomic level, offering insights that could help engineers design materials with an ideal balance between strength and resistance to failure."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ From Alan Kazlev: Initial impressions reading Jean Gebser. He's right, Gebser is hard to read.
~ From Joe Perez at Until: The Genesis story, as viewed by Kronology (part 1) and The Cross of Stone, on Genesis (part 2). See also: Kronos mandala: a symbol of Everything and The human being, the chimpanzee, the ape, the orangutan, and the monkey. Joe has been busy.
~ Are God and Science reconcilable? from Life 2.0.
~ Cruelty from Peter at The Buddha Diaries.
~ From ~C4Chaos: The Business of The Good, The True, and The Beautiful.
~ Finding God through Intimacy from Gary at Integral in Seattle.
~ The Main Pathologies and the Beauties of Organized Religion --- A Quick Summary over at Integrative Spirituality.
~ Aurobindo’s truth claims from Ed Berge at Open Integral.
~ How Much is Too Much? How Much is Too Little? from Mike at Unknowing Mind.


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