(Reuters) - A huge storm barrels down on the United States, wreaking havoc with punishing winds, record flooding, heavy snowfall and massive blackouts. Is the main culprit climate change or a freak set of coincidences?
Sandy wiped out homes along the New Jersey shore, submerged parts of New York City, and dumped snow as far south as the Carolinas. At least 50 people were reported killed in the United States, on top of 69 in the Caribbean, while millions of people were left without power.
Some scientists say that the key to Sandy's impact may be an extremely rare clash of weather systems, rather than the warmer temperatures that scientists have identified in other hurricanes and storms.
"It's a hybrid storm, which combines some features of tropical hurricanes with some features of winter storms, that operate on quite different mechanisms," said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of Atmospheric Science at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
While Emanuel said that there is a clear link between climate change and general trends toward more intense tropical hurricanes, in the case of Sandy more long-term study is required to determine whether climate change played a major role. Read More
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Heaven Is Real: A Doctor’s Experience With the Afterlife
When a neurosurgeon found himself in a coma, he experienced things he never thought possible—a journey to the afterlife.
As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.
The brain is an astonishingly sophisticated but extremely delicate mechanism. Reduce the amount of oxygen it receives by the smallest amount and it will react. It was no big surprise that people who had undergone severe trauma would return from their experiences with strange stories. But that didn’t mean they had journeyed anywhere real.
Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.
In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death. Read More
As a neurosurgeon, I did not believe in the phenomenon of near-death experiences. I grew up in a scientific world, the son of a neurosurgeon. I followed my father’s path and became an academic neurosurgeon, teaching at Harvard Medical School and other universities. I understand what happens to the brain when people are near death, and I had always believed there were good scientific explanations for the heavenly out-of-body journeys described by those who narrowly escaped death.
The brain is an astonishingly sophisticated but extremely delicate mechanism. Reduce the amount of oxygen it receives by the smallest amount and it will react. It was no big surprise that people who had undergone severe trauma would return from their experiences with strange stories. But that didn’t mean they had journeyed anywhere real.
Although I considered myself a faithful Christian, I was so more in name than in actual belief. I didn’t begrudge those who wanted to believe that Jesus was more than simply a good man who had suffered at the hands of the world. I sympathized deeply with those who wanted to believe that there was a God somewhere out there who loved us unconditionally. In fact, I envied such people the security that those beliefs no doubt provided. But as a scientist, I simply knew better than to believe them myself.
In the fall of 2008, however, after seven days in a coma during which the human part of my brain, the neocortex, was inactivated, I experienced something so profound that it gave me a scientific reason to believe in consciousness after death. Read More
New planet discovered in Earth’s back yard
LONDON/CAPE CANAVERAL, Florida — A stronomers have found a new planet, the closest yet outside our solar system and just an astronomical stone’s throw away at four light years, raising the chances of finding a habitable planet in Earth’s neighbourhood.
Researchers say the new planet is too close to its sun to support known forms of life, with a surface temperature estimated at 1,200 degrees Celsius. But previous studies suggest that when one planet is discovered orbiting a sun, there are usually others in the same system.
The new Earth-sized planet, announced in science journal Nature by Stephane Udry and Xavier Dumusque at the Geneva Observatory, orbits one of the suns in Alpha Centauri, roughly 40 trillion kilometres away.
“It’s a landmark discovery because it’s very low mass and it’s our closest neighbour,” said Udry. “Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it but it may well be just one planet in a system of several.”
Commenting on the find, University of California astronomer Greg Laughlin said: “This is our back yard, so to find out that planet formation occurred there is just extraordinary.”
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets — those outside our solar system — in the early 1990s, more than 800 have been found but this one is the closest to Earth.
Getting there is extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future. Laughlin estimates it would take about 40,000 years to travel to the new planet with current propulsion technology.
It was detected using the HARPS instrument on a telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla site in Chile. The device is able to pick up tiny changes in the colour of the light coming from a host star as it wobbles under the gravitational influence of orbiting planets. Read More
Researchers say the new planet is too close to its sun to support known forms of life, with a surface temperature estimated at 1,200 degrees Celsius. But previous studies suggest that when one planet is discovered orbiting a sun, there are usually others in the same system.
The new Earth-sized planet, announced in science journal Nature by Stephane Udry and Xavier Dumusque at the Geneva Observatory, orbits one of the suns in Alpha Centauri, roughly 40 trillion kilometres away.
“It’s a landmark discovery because it’s very low mass and it’s our closest neighbour,” said Udry. “Its orbit is very close to its star and it must be much too hot for life as we know it but it may well be just one planet in a system of several.”
Commenting on the find, University of California astronomer Greg Laughlin said: “This is our back yard, so to find out that planet formation occurred there is just extraordinary.”
Since the discovery of the first exoplanets — those outside our solar system — in the early 1990s, more than 800 have been found but this one is the closest to Earth.
Getting there is extremely unlikely in the foreseeable future. Laughlin estimates it would take about 40,000 years to travel to the new planet with current propulsion technology.
It was detected using the HARPS instrument on a telescope at the European Southern Observatory’s La Silla site in Chile. The device is able to pick up tiny changes in the colour of the light coming from a host star as it wobbles under the gravitational influence of orbiting planets. Read More
Maine earthquake felt across New England
Maine earthquake: The 4.0 temblor hit around 7:12 p.m. Tuesday and its epicenter was about 20 miles west of Portland, Maine. The Maine earthquake shook buildings and rattled dishes, but caused no injuries or serious damage.
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| A US Geological Survey map shows the location of the earthquake about 20 miles west of Portland, Maine. |
Monday, August 20, 2012
Hot enough for ya... to stop denyin'?
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| Fearsome, if mysterious, images of climate change: On the left, Greenland's surface ice on July 8, 2012. On the right, July 12. The composite images from three NASA satellites show that the extent of summer melt accelerated from 40 percent of the surface to 97 percent in four days. Most of the thick ice below remains, but scientists say the breadth and speed of the surface melt was unprecedented, and thus far unexplained. (AP Photo/Nicolo E. DiGirolamo, SSAI/NASA GSFC, and Jesse Allen, NASA Earth Observatory |
July 2012 was the hottest month ever recorded in the contiguous United States. During that month, the surface ice in Greenland disappeared so quickly that slackjawed scientists are still scratching their heads over how such a thing could be possible. And Richard Muller, one of the most prominent voices for what may be politely termed climate-change "skepticism" has loudly proclaimed that he was 100% wrong - the planet is indeed warming, he says, and "humans are almost entirely the cause."
Still, as we approach a cliff of no-turning-back finality, there's a distinct lack of public discourse about what needs to happen soon to avoid such a point. Earth to Philly will keep hammering away to help get this message out, but ours is a tiny (and shrill?) voice compared to who we need to hear from: At the very least, Romney and Obama should be making bold policy prescriptions that explicitly address this crisis with urgent foresight. Read More
Sunday, July 15, 2012
An Esoteric View of the 1960s and '70s
by Garry Gilfoy
Firstly, I want to make the claim that the evolution of consciousness is central to humanity's task, which, by the way, is the development of freedom -- refer to our creation myth with its starting point of eating from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and being denied eternal life and turned from the face of God. We were cut off, as it were, but not needlessly. The journey is long and it's slow and it's often a painful thing to witness, but we have an eternity to create freedom for a cosmic order where it doesn't otherwise exist. (For the whole of the BIG picture you'll just have to get my book.)
So, some recent historical perspective. When Jiddu Krishnamurti repudiated the claims of the theosophists that he was the new messiah, we assume that this assertion and the course of history prove him correct. With the aid of hindsight, however, we might consider that he has played a unique role in the advancement of our global spiritual consciousness.
In the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th, Helena Blavatsky's Theosophical Society was a highly respected form of spiritualism embraced by many of Europe's intellectual elite. Krishnamurti was spotted by Charles Leadbetter, a Society leader and clairvoyant, who claimed him as a World Teacher and vehicle for the Maitreya. This was quite a claim. Among other things it caused Rudolf Steiner, the great mystic, scientist and pedagogue and at that time head of the German and Austrian branch of the Theosophical Society, to leave it and form The Anthroposophical Society. There would be only the one capital-I Incarnation, he asserted.
From the dim-witted boy he was purported to be, Krishnamurti received a good education both intellectually and spiritually. Although he went on to deny Theosophy's claims of him, he became a spiritual teacher of great renown in the West, taking up residence in California. Events would conspire to give him a central role in momentous societal shifts. Read More
Firstly, I want to make the claim that the evolution of consciousness is central to humanity's task, which, by the way, is the development of freedom -- refer to our creation myth with its starting point of eating from "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" and being denied eternal life and turned from the face of God. We were cut off, as it were, but not needlessly. The journey is long and it's slow and it's often a painful thing to witness, but we have an eternity to create freedom for a cosmic order where it doesn't otherwise exist. (For the whole of the BIG picture you'll just have to get my book.)
So, some recent historical perspective. When Jiddu Krishnamurti repudiated the claims of the theosophists that he was the new messiah, we assume that this assertion and the course of history prove him correct. With the aid of hindsight, however, we might consider that he has played a unique role in the advancement of our global spiritual consciousness.
In the latter part of the 19th century and into the 20th, Helena Blavatsky's Theosophical Society was a highly respected form of spiritualism embraced by many of Europe's intellectual elite. Krishnamurti was spotted by Charles Leadbetter, a Society leader and clairvoyant, who claimed him as a World Teacher and vehicle for the Maitreya. This was quite a claim. Among other things it caused Rudolf Steiner, the great mystic, scientist and pedagogue and at that time head of the German and Austrian branch of the Theosophical Society, to leave it and form The Anthroposophical Society. There would be only the one capital-I Incarnation, he asserted.
From the dim-witted boy he was purported to be, Krishnamurti received a good education both intellectually and spiritually. Although he went on to deny Theosophy's claims of him, he became a spiritual teacher of great renown in the West, taking up residence in California. Events would conspire to give him a central role in momentous societal shifts. Read More
‘Monsanto Rider’: Biotech companies to gain immunity from Federal law on 2013 Ag Bill
By Alexis Baden-Mayer and Ronnie Cummins
AlterNet
AlterNet
The Secretary of Agriculture would be required to grant a permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, regardless of environmental impact.
While many Americans were firing up barbecues and breaking out the sparklers to celebrate Independence Day, biotech industry executives were more likely chilling champagne to celebrate another kind of independence: immunity from federal law.
A so-called “Monsanto rider,” quietly slipped into the multi-billion dollar FY 2013 Agricultural Appropriations bill, would require – not just allow, but require – the Secretary of Agriculture to grant a temporary permit for the planting or cultivation of a genetically engineered crop, even if a federal court has ordered the planting be halted until an Environmental Impact Statement is completed. All the farmer or the biotech producer has to do is ask, and the questionable crops could be released into the environment where they could potentially contaminate conventional or organic crops and, ultimately, the nation’s food supply.
Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now. Read More
Unless the Senate or a citizen’s army of farmers and consumers can stop them, the House of Representatives is likely to ram this dangerous rider through any day now. Read More
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