Tuesday, July 10, 2007

Speedlinking 7/10/07

Quote of the day:

"One of the most obvious facts about grownups to a child is that they have forgotten what it is like to be a child."
~ Randall Jarrell

Image of the day (Tristan Campbell):



BODY
~ Naturally Diesel -- "Jimmy Smith attempts to bring logic, practicality, and good sense to the discipline of bodybuilding. No, really. We're not kidding. This lump actually thinks he can offset years of obfuscation. Oh well, whadda' ya' say we give him a chance?"
~ Functional Exercise for Optimum Fitness -- "I'm a huge believer in working out to develop "functional" fitness and strength. This can only happen if you forget about weight machines and focus instead on bodyweight movements as well as free weight exercises. Here's a great article about functional exercise that goes into more detail... Functional Exercise That Makes Sense By Ben Greenfield."
~ Elderberry May Protect Against Skin Damage And Reduce Risk Factors For Heart Disease -- "Forget expensive moisturisers and cosmetic surgery, a compound found in the humble elderberry could give a natural boost to skin. In the first study of its kind, a team of researchers led by Prof Aedin Cassidy at the University of East Anglia and Dr Paul Kroon at the Institute of Food Research, will explore whether the skin's condition is improved by a compound which gives berries their vibrant colour (called 'anthocyanin')."
~ Selenium Supplements Linked To Type 2 Diabetes -- "Long term use of selenium food supplements may be linked to an increased risk of developing type 2 diabetes said researchers in a new US study.The study is published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine.The discovery was a surprise to the scientists who were doing a follow up to studies of selenium in animals that showed it helped the body to handle glucose." Damn -- I've been taking selenium off and on for years as an antioxidant.
~ Mitochondria Efficiency: New Key to Aging Well -- "An exciting report from the University of Washington in Seattle shows how exercise prolongs lives (Exercise and Sport Sciences Reviews, April, 2007)."
~ Brown fat may be key to curbing obesity -- "Helping switch on an energy-burning type of fat called brown fat may offer a way to prevent obesity, researchers reported on Tuesday."
~ Progression Of Chronic Fatigue Studied Through Blood Samples -- "Researchers at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) believe that blood may hold vital insights into what is happening in the brain of patients with chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)."


PSYCHE
~ Worried? Talk It Out -- "How Talking and Meditating Changes the Brain."
~ Women drawn to men with muscles -- "Muscular young men are likely to have more sex partners than their less-chiseled peers, researchers at the University of California Los Angeles said on Monday."
~ 6 Common Misconceptions About Therapy -- "The following reflects my own theoretical orientation and practice principles when doing therapy. All therapists have different approaches to the therapeutic process and may have different perspectives."
~ Edelman on neural darwinism and consciousness -- "Biologist Gerald Edelman is interviewed in Discover magazine about his views on the brain's own internal 'natural selection' process and its possible role in the development of consciousness."
~ Food Addiction Explored as a Possible Root of Obesity -- "While there's no specific diagnostic definition available, it seems obvious that certain individuals have a compulsive desire to eat that moves well beyond the point of sustenance and nutrition into self-stimulation and, in cruder terms, gluttony." I might add self-medication to the list, not unlike that of alcoholics.
~ Fear of Marriage -- "Marriage can be scary, but letting fear of marriage or fear of intimacy stop you from living fully is worse than getting hurt. Here's how to face your fears."
~ Too Much Self-Esteem Can Be Bad for Your Child -- "American schools stress self-esteem as the stepping stone to academic achievement. But students from Asian cultures, which place little stock in self-esteem, seem to do better than their American counterparts in school."
~ Psychologists to Review Stance on Gays -- "The American Psychological Association is embarking on the first review of its 10-year-old policy on counseling gays and lesbians, a step that gay-rights activists hope will end with a denunciation of any attempt by therapists to change sexual orientation." Let's hope so.


CULTURE/POLITICS
~ Joyce Carol Oates about 'Gravedigger's Daughter' -- "In 40 years Oates has written more than a thousand short stories, some 50 novels, a dozen plus books of essays, plays and poetry. But several years ago, she began cribbing from the life of someone dear to her heart: her grandmother." Another review here: 'The Gravedigger's Daughter' by Joyce Carol Oates -- "The Gravedigger's Daughter is told largely through a particularly powerful presence, that of a woman named Rebecca Esther Schwart, born on a ship arriving in New York harbor as her Jewish family flees Nazi Germany in 1936."
~ Former Bush surgeon general says he was muzzled -- "The first U.S. surgeon general appointed by President George W. Bush accused the administration on Tuesday of political interference and muzzling him on key issues like embryonic stem cell research."
~ How wearing underwear led to increased medieval literacy -- You just will have to read it.
~ Bill Clinton's next book due in September -- "Former President Clinton's planned book on citizen activism, Giving: How Each of Us Can Change the World, will come out Sept. 4th."
~ Stone Age sailors head for deep water -- "A team of explorers is attempting to sail from America to Europe in a reed boat to prove that transatlantic trade links existed as long ago as the Stone Age."
~ If it isn’t Roman Catholic then it’s not a proper Church, Pope tells Christians -- "The Vatican has described the Protestant and Orthodox faiths as “not proper Churches” in a document issued with the full authority of the Pope." Does that mean Martin Luther is in hell?
~ New dictionary includes 'ginormous' (AP) -- "It was a ginormous year for the wordsmiths at Merriam-Webster. Along with embracing the adjective that combines "gigantic" and "enormous," the dictionary publishers also got into Bollywood, sudoku and speed dating."


HABITATS/TECHNOLOGY
~ Seashore Mallow Seen As Biodiesel Source -- "Gallagher, a marine biosciences professor, says the seeds are a promising source of biodiesel, with an oil composition similar to that of soybeans and cottonseed."
~ Nonlinearities could be strengthened by photonic crystals -- "Typically, photons can pass by one another unchanged. However, a number of important scientific and technological applications can be enabled by using matter as a medium for photons to talk with one another. The problem? These interactions are generally weak."
~ Omani develops date palm alternative to petrol -- "An Omani entrepreneur is promoting a biofuel for cars using extracts from date palms to cut the use of petrol in the oil-rich Gulf region, a newspaper reported on Tuesday."
~ Apple will replace iPod Nano with Nano mobile phone: analyst -- "JP Morgan says Apple will replace its popular iPod Nano MP3 player with an inexpensive Nano-style mobile phone by the end of the year."
~ The Secret to More Useful Robots: Tai Chi Training -- "Path of least resistance could be key to better robots."
~ Songbirds Prefer the Latest Tunes -- "Female sparrows prefer new bird songs over old ones."
~ Conserving and Rebuilding Soils -- "In reviewing the literature on soil erosion, references to the "loss of protective vegetation" occur again and again. Over the last half-century, we have removed so much of that protective cover by clearcutting, overgrazing, and overplowing that we are fast losing soil accumulated over long stretches of geological time."


INTEGRAL/BUDDHIST
~ History and Dharma (7) -- "How does consciousness, being a nondual union of absolute and relative at once, not twice, appear as structure and state simultaneously? This dual nature is somewhat reminiscent of quanta having both wave and particle properties."
~ Brad Warner and Dogen Sangha International -- "Sensei Gudo Nishijima has announced on his blog that Brad Warner is now his successor as the leader of Dogen Sangha International. Nishijima Sensei is a Zen priest and is Brad Warner’s teacher."
~ Major Buddhist site comes to light -- "Two ancient sites are not only seen as prototypes of the present-day temples, but they have also provided the first-ever proof of the existence of another major Buddhist sect apart from the hitherto known Mahayana, Hinayana and Vajrayana sects."
~ Almanac -- "The poetry interpreter ought make readers aware of enough of the poem (enough of a substantial part of the poem) so as the reader is imaginatively drawn to fill in the rest, and make the poetic experience whole. In other words, the interpreter has a crucial but limited role — he or she plants seeds, or (to keep the metaphor) perhaps prunes or pulls weeds."
~ For Michael Hutchison -- "I've been familiar with Michael Hutchison ever since reading his classic book Megabrain. But I became a fan after reading this very enlightening interview a few years ago: An Interview with Michael Hutchison. I was deeply touched by it that I dedicated my old blog site to Michael."
~ Glide Into The Future Of Writing -- "Anyway, they’re coming along hot and heavy now: communications from the unconscious. Now that I have got things into a framework that is both usable and which has allowed me to uncover truths I wasn’t willing to face, that is. The energy which I was using to keep certain things at bay has now been freed up and is recycled into the stream of communication."
~ The Radical Spirituality of Generation X, Part 5: Looking for God and Justice -- "For over a decade, I have been searching for how spirit and justice can truly merge, across space and time. That is, I want to reconcile a deeply held belief that we are all one, (if not in this material world, than on another plane altogether) with the reality that some have more power and privilege than others, resulting in tremendous pain and violence."


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