Mars Crater May Actually Be Ancient Supervolcano (fueled by compressed gasses which explode, with Earthly comparisons?)
Scientists from NASA and the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Ariz., have identified what could be a supervolcano on Mars—the first discovery of its kind.
The volcano in question, a vast circular basin on the face of the Red Planet, previously had been classified as an impact crater. Researchers now suggest the basin is actually what remains of an ancient supervolcano eruption. Their assessment is based on images and topographic data from NASA's Mars Odyssey, Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft, as well as the European Space Agency's Mars Express orbiter.
New research suggests a volcano, not a large impact, may have formed Mars' Eden Patera basin. Left: Reds, yellows show higher elevations in the basin and surrounding area; blues, grays show lower elevations. Right: The dark color indicates younger material draped across the Eden Patera depression.
NASA/JPL/Goddard (left) and ESA (right)
In the Oct. 3 issue of the journal Nature, Joseph Michalski, a researcher affiliated with the Planetary Science Institute and the Natural History Museum in London, and Jacob Bleacher of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., laid out their case that the basin, recently named Eden Patera, is a volcanic caldera. Because a caldera is a depression, it can look like a crater formed by an impact, rather than a volcano.
"On Mars, young volcanoes have a very distinctive appearance that allows us to identify them," said Michalski. "The long-standing question has been what ancient volcanoes on Mars look like. Perhaps they look like this one."
The researchers also suggest a large body of magma loaded with dissolved gas (similar to the carbonation in soda) rose through thin crust to the surface quickly. Like a bottle of soda that has been shaken, this supervolcano would have blown its contents far and wide if the top came off suddenly.
"This highly explosive type of eruption is a game-changer, spewing many times more ash and other material than typical, younger Martian volcanoes," said Bleacher. "During these types of eruptions on Earth, the debris may spread so far through the atmosphere and remain so long that it alters the global temperature for years."
After the material is expelled from the eruption, the depression that is left can collapse even further, causing the ground around it to sink. Eruptions like these happened in ages past at what is now Yellowstone National Park in the western United States, Lake Toba in Indonesia and Lake Taupo in New Zealand.
Volcanoes previously had not been identified in the Arabia Terra region of Mars, where Eden Patera is located. The battered, heavily eroded terrain is known for its impact craters. But as Michalski examined this particular basin more closely, he noticed it lacked the typical raised rim of an impact crater.He also could not find a nearby blanket of ejecta, the melted rock that splashes outside the crater when an object hits.
The absence of such key features caused Michalski to suspect volcanic activity. He contacted Bleacher, a volcano specialist, who identified features at Eden Patera that usually indicate volcanism, such as a series of rock ledges that looked like the "bathtub rings" left after a lava lake slowly drains. In addition, the outside of the basin is ringed by the kinds of faults and valleys that occur when the ground collapses because of activity below the surface. The existence of these and other volcanic features in one place convinced the scientists Eden Patera should be reclassified.
The team found a few more candidates for reclassification nearby, suggesting conditions in Arabia Terra may have been favorable for supervolcanoes. It is also possible massive eruptions here could have been responsible for volcanic deposits elsewhere on Mars that have never been linked to a known volcano.
"If just a handful of volcanoes like these were once active, they could have had a major impact on the evolution of Mars," Bleacher said.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., manages the projects operating Mars Odyssey and Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.
For information about NASA's Mars Odyssey mission, visit:
95% of climate models agree - So, what is actually happening must be an illusion
I'm seeing a lot of wrangling over the recent (15+ year) pause in global average warming...when did it start, is it a full pause, shouldn't we be taking the longer view, etc.
These are all interesting exercises, but they miss the most important point: the climate models that governments base policy decisions on have failed miserably.
I've updated our comparison of 90 climate models versus observations for global average surface temperatures through 2013, and we still see that >95% of the models have over-forecast the warming trend since 1979, whether we use their own surface temperature dataset (HadCRUT4), or our satellite dataset of lower tropospheric temperatures (UAH):
Whether humans are the cause of 100% of the observed warming or not, the conclusion is that global warming isn't as bad as was predicted. That should have major policy implications...assuming policy is still informed by facts more than emotions and political aspirations.
And if humans are the cause of only, say, 50% of the warming (e.g. our published paper), then there is even less reason to force expensive and prosperity-destroying energy policies down our throats.
I am growing weary of the variety of emotional, misleading, and policy-useless statements like "most warming since the 1950s is human caused" or "97% of climate scientists agree humans are contributing to warming", neither of which leads to the conclusion we need to substantially increase energy prices and freeze and starve more poor people to death for the greater good.
Yet, that is the direction we are heading.
And even if the extra energy is being stored in the deep ocean (if you have faith in long-term measured warming trends of thousandths or hundredths of a degree), I say "great!". Because that extra heat is in the form of a tiny temperature change spread throughout an unimaginably large heat sink, which can never have an appreciable effect on future surface climate.
If the deep ocean ends up averaging 4.1 deg. C, rather than 4.0 deg. C, it won't really matter.
"Before I sat down to write this article I thought about sharing my knowledge on being single and knew I probably qualified. I haven't been in a committed relationship in seven years. Oh I've dated lots, a ridiculous amount actually, but this has been one long stretch of solo. I won't focus on the clichéd advice you've heard a million times such as, "Love yourself first!" I will instead assume you adore your single self, but would eventually like to partner up.
I was married twice -- once divorced and more recently, widowed. The eleven years between those two marriages I had committed relationships and casual flings. My best friend said, "There was never a shortage of men and always seemed to be a suitor in the wings ready to step in when your current thing ended. You were always looking." That was probably accurate. I felt restless and dissatisfied most of the time. There was a nagging voice in my head that repeatedly said, this can't be all there is. Love felt complicated, disappointing and downright hard. If I needed confirmation all I had to do was read any of the books written by relationship experts. My desire for the yin to my yang was childlike magical thinking and I would be better served by lowering my expectations if my goal was to have a "plus one."
Conventional wisdom often stokes my hate fire. And so in the spirit of healthy debate (and "Disco Inferno") I will attempt to burn that mother down.
Conventional Wisdom: Relationships are always hard work.
No. They're. Not.
Being Single Can Be the Better Alternative. Life can be hard, really effing hard, but the right love isn't. If you're in a relationship and it should be going smoothly as the exterior stuff is fine (job, health, money, children) but your pairing is filled with angst or so boring you want to jab a fork in your eye, you might want to think about why you're in it. If it chronically feels like you're going miles in manure, perhaps it's time to wash the dung off your shoes. Being single could be the better alternative and a hell of a lot less lonely.
Conventional Wisdom: When looking for the right companion, singles should focus on communication because it is the foundation for lasting love.
Really? I have wonderful, soul-baring communication with a friend of mine who's gay. Um, he has no interest in spooning.
Singles Should Seek Raucous Laughter and Impolite Sex. Look for someone to laugh with. I don't mean the occasional chuckle, but belly laughs -- mouth open, tears streaming down your face. Seek great sex -- not just in the beginning but also for the long haul and the perfunctory kind doesn't count. Are you comfortable enough to be a bit undignified in the bedroom, a little impolite? If you find both, turn in that Eleanor Rigby card because that's a bedrock foundation.
Conventional Wisdom: Whimsical love fantasies of our youth transition to a mature and more realistic perspective with older singles.
One word -- Viagra.
We Are Fools for Love at Any Age. My grandmother once told me, "I feel sixteen inside then look in the mirror and think, who's that old bag?" When I talk to my single friends we have the same dialog we had in our 20s. "Have you met anyone?" "There's this guy at work..." "I think he likes me but I'm not sure." "We had sex!" The need to love and be loved is just as strong--the quest equally daunting. I'll take it one step further. One friend's ninety-year-old mother with early stage dementia was recently moved to an assisted living facility. My friend worried that she'd feel sad and lonely. Imagine her surprise when her mom greeted her with an excited smile and the news that she "thinks" she has a boyfriend. He's been eating with her in the dining room.
Conventional Wisdom: Singles must stop hoping for love at first sight and be realistic. The brain is churning out dopamine and pheromones are involved but everything will normalize eventually and he/she won't be so irresistible.
Bull to the shit.
Love at First Sight Isn't Only in Movies. I was 28 and alone in Paris, sitting at a sunny outdoor table at Le Dôme Café. I was sipping a café au lait and writing feverishly in my journal when I paused for a moment to gather my thoughts. I glanced up at the table next to mine and there he was. At that same moment he saw me and the air was instantly electric, as we both knew without question, the something we didn't know was missing had just been found.
OK, that's not exactly how it happened. I was going for a cinematic effect but as we've seen (too many times) if it were a true Hollywood production I'd be 28 and he a boyish 60.
In reality I was 41 years old, sitting at a table in the Airport Hyatt bar in Pittsburgh drinking a dirty martini with a coworker on the last night of a grueling weeklong business trip. I wanted to be anywhere but there -- my life was pretty depressing. I began to relax after a few sips of my cocktail, sat back in the chair and glanced around the crowded lounge. That's when I saw him, he saw me, and that persistent voice in my head said, oh my god, it's you. We talked through the night and into the morning and were together until he died, five years later. It was an effortless pairing, ridiculously easy in spite of the initial long distance love, then a cross-country move, the blending of our families, another move overseas and finally cancer that eventually took his life. He was my favorite person and I his. We were always laughing -- big, loud and from the bottom of our bellies. We had frequent and uninhibited sex -- the desire never waned -- we were teenage fools in love despite our (cough) chronological ages. My husband's name was Neal and that love is the reason I've been single for the last seven years. I don't want to be alone but once a person's had something of that magnitude, it's pretty hard to settle for less.
At the beginning I told you what my best friend said but not all of it. Here's her full observation.
"There was never a shortage of men and always seemed to be a suitor in the wings ready to step in when your current relationship ended. You were always looking, until you met Neal. For the first time you had blinders on, there would never be anyone better. From the first night until he died, you only had eyes for him."
I guess if I were a proponent of conventional wisdom I would not waste time hoping for another over the top romance but instead take a more pragmatic approach to ending my single status -- especially at my age. I'm not a believer in pragmatism or convention in love, though. I'll take my chances, foolish as they may be, because what I know now that I'm in my fifties is what I've always known deep inside. Being alone can be tough but settling doesn't work. And there's also nothing wrong with hope because maybe, just maybe, when least expected, one's yin will show up. Perhaps even a second time.
Lorde's Suppressed Grammy Award acceptance speech (Full Transcript) 26 January 2014
Queen Bee Sting: Grammy audience told to read more
Lorde:
Thankyou soo much everyone for making this song explode because this world is mental. (Laughter). Planet Earth is run by psychopaths that hide behind slick marketing, 'freedom' propaganda and 'economic growth' rhetoric,[1] while they construct a global system of corporatized totalitarianism.
As American journalist Chris Hedges has identified, a corporate totalitarian core thrives inside a fictitious democratic shell.[2] This core yields an 'inverted' totalitarian state that few recognize because it does not look like the Orwellian world of Nineteen Eighty-four.[3]
This corporate totalitarian core is spreading outward from America. Planet Earth is being rapidly militarized by the world's major and significant states, including their police forces.[4] Meanwhile, state surveillance is becoming universal[5] and torture is outsourced to gulags.[6]
Can we not imagine that in past times, simple folk found it hard to work out exactly how they were being manipulated by the Royal monarchies, and the Papal monarchy, who claimed a 'divine right to rule'? Ordinary people from classical times through to the demise of Ancien Regime could not see how the rivalrous network of elites and oligarchs were linked, not least because the illiterate masses were indoctrinated to believe in their humble lot, to obey divinely-endorsed authority and to live in fear of damnation.
So, in today's mental world, it should become clearer now that Planet Earth is ruled by super-wealthy people, who use their outrageous fortunes to steer the trajectories of whole societies for their own material and political gain.[7] These oligarchs are, in fact, colluding for economic gain and conspiring to augment more political power.[8] Armies of professional, political, religious and military elites serve them.[9 Together, they comprise a highly-networked transnational capitalist class that has been traced in studies by: Peter Phillips and Brady Osborne;[10] William K. Carroll;[11] David Rothkopf;[12] Daniel Estulin;[13] and Laurence H. Shoup and William Minter.[14]
As Canadian journalist Naomi Klein has argued in her book, The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism, 'free markets' were slickly marketed in the 1980s and 1990s with the idea that they would deliver individual freedom and prosperity for all.[15] Klein also wrote that the use of military violence to facilitate the spread of 'free markets' in the field-testing stage from the mid-1960s to the mid-1970s has continued into the 2000s. Her view is supported in Eugene Jarecki's documentary Why We Fight, which compellingly showed that America fights wars to make the world secure for its corporations.[16] So, get reading and viewing! (Lorde giggles and half the audience rises to their feet applauding. The other half remain fixed in their chairs. Some reluctantly clap).
Thankyou soo much everyone for giving a shit about our song, 'Royals'. May you all find the balls to help construct a world based on resilient community, bona-fide freedom, and peace. To do that, we will need to redeploy the psychopaths that currently run the world to the planet's prisons.[17] Peace cannot happen with reconciliation. That was Nelson Mandela's mistake.[18] The first step to peace is justice firmly served.
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See the full story "Clipping Queen Bee's Wings: Lorde's real Grammy speech suppressed" at
How These Magical, Gravity-Defying Doors Actually Work
Describing the sculptures of Austrian designer Klemens Torggler as "doors" feels like an insult. These aren't doors—they're magical pieces of engineering, half kinetic sculpture and half magic trick, that you happen to walk through. So, how do they work?
You may have seen Torggler's work around before: In his many YouTube videos, the Austrian designer walks nonchalantly through the frame, and with a flick of his wrist, sets a whirling structural maneuver in motion, either closing or opening the door in question. Torggler has been building these doors since 1997—and each one is different. We decided to look at the five main types.
Let's start with the video the Torggler uploaded today. We're seeing his double rod system in action. In some ways, this is the simplest design to understand. It consists of two superimposed leafs. They sing open and close thanks to the long pieces of metal mounted to each square—by rotating, they swing the sections into place:
Then there's the epitrochoid curve system, which consists of a wheel and a curved track. The wheel moves along this track when the door is set in motion:
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The triangle system might be the most mesmerizing. In it, the door is split into two halves. Each of those halves is split diagonally, too. The two orthogonal edges that meet in the middle are connected by a mounted to a track which, when put in motion, pull the triangles into a folded position—the weight of which pulls the main edged into position:
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The screen system is a complex, large-scale partition: Mounted around a central rod affixed to the floor, two distinct "double rod" doors swing out to form a room-sized screen. Unfortunately, there's no video of this one yet—but check out the still shot:
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Many of Torggler's doors mix and match pieces of each system, and there are all kinds of crazy experiments to be seen on his YouTube page. Check out this asymmetrical glass version:
Or another series of early prototypes:
We've reached out to Torggler to find out what he's working on next—but in the meantime, check out his website for more. [Klemens Torggler]
Hosted by Brett Klisch of Peru Meridian Studios in partnership with TIA
The Creative Community gathers yearly during Toy Fair to explore the show floor and to hear from experts in various fields that will share their knowledge about everything including starting a business, negotiating an agreement, protecting your inventions and so much more. All are invited to attend these complimentary programs. All that is needed is the desire to learn. Sessions are subject to change.
[R.E.] Choose from:
Creative Factor - How to Create Effective Ads that Sell Your Toys
Sun, Feb 16, 2014 from 1:00pm - 2:00pm @ Javits Center, Level 1, Booth 4872
Speakers & their expert insights: Graham Halky - With thirty years of experience in licensing and toys, Graham will talk about inexpensive ways to create successful headlines for your consumer ad...
Creative Factor - Resourcing Abroad
Sun, Feb 16, 2014 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm @ Javits Center, Level 1, Booth 4872
Charles Berzon of ProSource Global will present an in-depth and practical discussion of overseas manufacturing. Charles will address the mechanics, successes and pitfalls of sourcing, factory qualifi...
Creative Factor - Trademarks, Patents and Copyrights: Hot Topics for the Toy Industry
Mon, Feb 17, 2014 from 1:00pm - 2:00pm @ Javits Center, Level 1, Booth 4872
Attend this Hot Topic Session and you will learn what's new and relevant in the land of provisional patents and how the American Inventors Act will impact you and your business. We will take an...
Creative Factor - The Secret Ingredient is Freedom
Mon, Feb 17, 2014 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm @ Javits Center, Level 1, Booth 4872
Have you ever wondered why the world's most successful toy (Lego), computer toy (Minecraft) and touch screen toys (Toca Boca) all come from Scandinavia? Join our session and find out the answer,...
Creative Factor 10th Anniversary Reception
Mon, Feb 17, 2014 from 5:30pm - 7:00pm
Inventors, designers and others in the creative community are invited to commemorate a full decade of Creative Factor. 10 years of cutting-edge programs, demonstrations and presentations deserves to ...
Creative Factor - Crowdfunding 2014: Framing Up the Revolution
Tue, Feb 18, 2014 from 1:00pm - 2:00pm @ Javits Center, Level 1, Booth 4872
Crowdfunding is getting big fast - with a new investment-based gold rush on the horizon and best practices evolving at the speed of light. Join Business/IP lawyers Steve Edmiston and Mark Jordan who ...
Creative Factor - 3D Printing - Using The Output As A Final Deliverable (on demand production)
Tue, Feb 18, 2014 from 3:00pm - 4:00pm @ Javits Center, Level 1, Booth 4872
Attend this session and learn directly from a panel of creators who use 3D printing output as their final sales pieces instead of utilizing factories for mass production. You will hear the pros and co...
I remember my grandfather commenting—wry amusement tinged with grim resignation—that what made him finally feel old was seeing his children reach middle age. I was a child then. Now I see my own children, not quite middle aged, starting to have children of their own.
Becoming a grandparent is quite lovely, an affirmation of continuity and a front-row-seat to watch (and even, on occasion, participate) as life itself is conveyed into the future. But aging is also our most undeniable memento mori, a reminder not so much of life as one's own eventual death. My grandfather's death frightened me as few things have since, except for the recurring recognition (usually at night, alone, in the dark) that his life, everyone's life, even—astoundingly—my own, is short indeed.
All things, especially living ones, are marinating in the river of time. We see and understand that our bodies will wear out and we will die. At least that's how it looks through the lens of Western science, where all things come to an end, winding down in a final surrender to entropy. But there's another perspective, surprisingly in harmony with science, that helps us revisit that huge and ancient terror—fear of time itself—in a new and perhaps even reassuring way. And that is the perspective offered by Buddhism.
For Buddhists, the "center cannot hold," as the poet W.B. Yeats pointed out, because it doesn't exist as something rigidly separate from everything else. Nothing is permanent and unchanging, ourselves included. Attempting to cling to a solid, immutable core of a self is a fool's errand because time not only creates anarchy, it provides the unavoidable matrix within which everything—animate and inanimate, sentient and insensate—ebbs and flows.
As Buddhists see it, and as scientists increasingly agree, all organisms are necessarily, unavoidably—even marvelously and gloriously—impermanent. In Sanskrit, the word for impermanence is anitya. To understand anitya is to achieve something remarkable: opening a door onto the accord between modern western science and ancient eastern wisdom.
In his book, Physics and Philosophy, Werner Heisenberg—one of the commanding figures in the development of modern quantum physics—wrote that "in the history of human thinking the most fruitful developments frequently take place at those points where two different lines of thought meet." Contrary to Rudyard Kipling's injunction, "East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet," I have found, as a trained biologist, that some of the most fruitful developments in modern thinking occur precisely where the twain of biology and Buddhism meet.
As Buddhists see it, and as scientists increasingly agree, all organisms are necessarily—even marvelously and gloriously—impermanent.
Even inanimate objects that appear solid and persistent are revealed by modern physics to be in a constant state of flux. An iron bar is mostly empty space, and even the ostensibly solid, sub-atomic particles occupying that space are either moving so rapidly as to be unimaginable or, alternately, exist as clouds of probability rather than as stationary monuments to permanence.
With living things, the world is even less fixed. As Yeats observed: "O body swayed to music, O brightening glance / How can we know the dancer from the dance?" Biologists as well as Buddhists know that living stuff is always dancing, constantly replenished by, and created from, nonliving components. At every moment, our existence takes place only on the instantaneous, knife-edge of Now, which can never be captured and held immobile.
The story goes that as a young man, the Buddha sought to overcome the imperfections of the real world—sickness, old age, and death—by following the path of traditional Hindu asceticism, mortifying the flesh and nearly starving himself. His eventual enlightenment, however, is said to have involved recognition that all things are temporary, ever-changing, and impermanent. Unlike Christ, who promises eternal life, the last words of the Buddha reportedly began, "Decay is inherent in all things."
But even decay—an unavoidable consequence of time impacting the real world—isn't something to regret. As the Vietnamese Buddhist monk and scholar, Thich Nhat Hanh, put it, impermanence (anitya) is intimately tied to continuity. "Look back," he counsels, "and you will see that you not only exist in your father and mother, but you also exist in your grandparents and in your great grandparents." Look again, and you will see we "have been gas, sunshine, water, fungi, and plants," he writes. "Nothing can be born and also nothing can die." To understand this, and to do so deep in our ever-changing bones, may forever change our sense of time and what it means to participate in life on earth.
Aging is undoubtedly the most apparent and unavoidable manifestation of how anitya is both revealed by time and produced by it, how impermanence is manifest in every body. Precisely how bodies age is the domain of biological gerontology, which studies such events as the increased accumulation of somatic mutations, reductions in tissue elasticity, increase in autoimmune responses, and diminished length of telomeres (end-pieces of chromosomes that can be likened to the plastic tips at the end of shoelaces, and which evidently protect chromosomes as they undergo cell division). Most human cells poop out after about 60 or so replications, apparently in conjunction with the loss of telomeres, which become a bit shorter with every bout of mitosis—although it isn't clear whether aging-related decrepitude results from this reduction in telomere length, or vice versa.
Whatever the causative sequence, there is no fountain of youth. We can reduce the rate of decline by eating healthy foods, reducing stress, and exercising regularly. But the effect, at best, is to slow the process, never to stop it altogether. To be a museum conservator, exercise fanatic, or just a dedicated daily dental flosser is to be more Sisyphus than Ponce de León.
But this is too pessimistic. A Buddhistically informed view suggests that even as everything changes over time, this very impermanence is connected to a deeper kind of persistence. One of the more striking visual demonstrations of this is the practice among Tibetan monks of constructing gorgeous sand mandalas, complex designs and patterns laboriously built over many days, after which they are ceremoniously swept away. Proxies for ourselves, mandalas symbolize the impermanence of everything, no matter how lovely, complex, treasured, or important.
Sands of Time: Tibetan Buddhist monks create a mandala of colored sand, a symbol of impermanence.DIBYANGSHU SARKAR/AFP/Getty Images
Some years ago, while waiting for a wilderness permit at a Forest Service ranger station in the small town of Sedro Woolley, Wash., I overheard a radio message sent in by a ranger: "Dead elk in Agnes Creek decomposing nicely. Over." The ranger was ecologically sophisticated as well as Buddhistically accurate. Although a decomposing elk might not be everyone's idea of "nice," the process is as necessary to a healthy ecosystem as it is unavoidable. (The "over" was an especially nice touch.)
For another good example of biological anitya, one that overturned prior biological dogma, consider Dolly, who famously emerged as the world's first artificially cloned sheep. Before Dolly, it was widely held that once vertebrate cells had fully differentiated—becoming, say, muscle or skin or, in the case of Dolly's "mother," mammary gland tissue—they were permanently fixed and couldn't become a different kind of cell.
Dolly was created when an already differentiated nucleus was implanted into an enucleated egg cell, and a new animal emerged, complete with a full array of distinctly different cell types. Cell differentiation is evidently not a one-way street, as previously believed. One of the things built into life itself is, ironically, impermanence and the capacity to change.
The reality of anitya extends to whole genomes, which are permeable to genes introduced from other lineages. This is why we can put cold-resistance genes from halibut into frost-vulnerable tomatoes. (Whether we should is another question.) Even without high-tech human intervention, the evolutionary reality of continuity among all living things is inseparable from the fact that all lineages have themselves evolved—that is, they have changed over time, and continue to do so. The seemingly rigid boundaries between cells and within species are flexible and inconstant. Living things do not simply have the capacity for impermanence; rather, at what we might oxymoronically call their "core," they are profoundly and deeply impermanent and ever-changing.
What about whole organisms taken in their entirety? After all, each halibut, hickory tree, or human being appears to be distinct and fixed in time—or at least identifiable as this object, this creature, this person. But each "this" is largely an artifact of our own limited perception of time and its impact. Wait long enough, give time the opportunity to work its way, and every living thing changes, undergoing embryogenesis, growth, senescence, and finally death. In short, time will tell.
Question: When a Buddhist nun goes to a beauty parlor, what is she is likely to get? Answer: an impermanent.
It would seem, nonetheless, that living things struggle to defy anitya, to resist change. The technical term among physiologists is "homeostasis," the process whereby organisms maintain their internal environment within limits. This is notably true of mammals, which possess various adaptations to keep their internal temperature independent of the outside environment. At least as important, however, is the internal chemical environment: not too acid, not too alkaline, enough sodium, potassium, and calcium. Without a precisely stable Goldilocks balance, life ceases.
In a narrow sense, that is a defiance of anitya. But the physiological constancy required by life can only be achieved in what physicists label an "open system," which receives regular inputs of energy and material from elsewhere. In the case of living things, this means that even the temporary, seeming defiance of impermanence can only occur via a never-ending introduction of new stuff. In the short term, that means energy-carrying molecules that permit respiration and metabolism; in a longer perspective, that means proteins and other substances involved in growth, maintenance, and repair.
Paradoxically, maintaining a state of apparent constancy (i.e., life) requires continual openness to change, in this case exchange with an organism's environment. When that exchange ceases, so does life; although even then, every body continues to change, whether via decomposition, incorporation into another body, or incineration. Recall that elk undergoing its mandatory changes oh so nicely.
Let's consider that elk—or ourselves—in an earlier and more sprightly state, and look at two phenomena essential to that condition we call "alive": respiration and digestion/metabolism. We regularly inhale about a half liter of air, relatively high in oxygen and low in carbon dioxide. Our bodies combine some of that oxygen with food molecules we earlier consumed, generating energy. The half-liter that we subsequently exhale contains less oxygen and more CO2, a by-product of metabolism. "New" atoms are incorporated into our bodies at every moment, and "old" ones are rearranged, while some are pushed out. Every few days we essentially recycle ourselves, reminiscent of an old advertising jingle for milk, "There's a new you coming every day!" Except it's more like every hour, minute, second, instant.
Then, of course, there is evolution, the process that has produced and underlies all life. Evolution is change—change in the make-up of a lineage over time. Although certain organisms have evolved rapidly (human beings, elephants, bacteria), others do so slowly. They include such peculiar creatures as coelacanths (lobe-finned fishes believed extinct before one was caught in the deep ocean off Madagascar in the 1930s), tuataras (peculiar lizards found only on several islands off the coast of New Zealand), or horseshoe "crabs" (closely related to spiders and which appear not to have changed significantly in a few hundred million years). But even these "living fossils" have themselves evolved—that is, changed over time—compared to their ancestral, soft-bodied pre-Cambrian ancestors, just as they will continue to do so—or go extinct—when their environment changes.
Every few days we essentially recycle ourselves, reminiscent of an old advertising jingle for milk, "There's a new you coming every day!"
What about genes themselves? Aren't they permanent rather than temporary? As Richard Dawkins effectively popularized in his book, The Selfish Gene, bodies are merely temporary structures constructed by their constituent genes, for their—the genes'—benefit. Bodies, suffused as they are with anitya, come and go, whereas genes go on and on, catapulted into the future either as offspring or in the bodies of other relatives. One chapter in Dawkins' book is titled "Immortal Coils."
Although the potential immortality of genes is an effective simile, it is not strictly true. Biologists know that some genetically based traits are "highly conserved," which means they are unlikely to change over time. These include the commands undergirding such basic intracellular activities as how energy is derived from hydrocarbon molecules, and the coding system by which nucleic acids are translated into proteins. The fidelity with which these genes are accurately replicated between generations is remarkable, but also not surprising, given that errors in such fundamental processes are quickly selected against, leaving the unchanged to persist.
But not forever. Mutations happen. On average, genes mutate at a rate of about once in a million replications. Given enough time, errors are inevitable. Given changes in their environment, beneficial mutations are selected for, while hurtful ones are selected against. Everyone's eventual and unavoidable death has been dramatically expressed by W. Somerset Maugham as "The Appointment in Samarra." Even genes do not—and cannot—escape their appointment with anitya.
This Mortal Coil: Even genes, selfish as they are, are subject to mutation and change.Shutterstock
Most mutations result from incorrect base pairings, involving the four key molecules of heredity: adenine (A), cytosine (C), thymine (T), and guanine (G), when by accident they fail to line up according to the normal pattern of A-with-T and C-with-G. By contrast, the remarkably rigid spiral backbone of DNA—which gives rise to its double helix structure—consists of repeating sugar and phosphate groups, which are more stable than the base pairings, since the former rely on "regular" chemical bonds whereas the latter occur via weaker "hydrogen bonds."
But even here, change is inevitable, although presumably less consequential. Hydrogen atoms that are ubiquitous throughout DNA molecules are constantly switching places with other hydrogen atoms in their immediate surroundings; the resulting "hydrogen exchange" is well documented, insuring that even a non-mutated DNA molecule is something of a shape-shifter, even when it is ostensibly resting. So even the most unchanging component of potentially immortal DNA is immersed in anitya, constantly refashioning itself.
Zen koans are riddles intended to shake seeker-monks free of their excessive dependence on linear thought processes. A famous koan asks the novitiate to describe her face before she was born. A good answer these days would have something to do with DNA, but it would also have to incorporate ebb and flow, process and pattern, contingency and probability, a paradoxically permanent state of impermanence.
Over time, anitya is manifested at many different levels: the ecological flux of biogeochemical cycles, the unavoidable conveyor belt of birth to aging to death, and the instantaneous transformations in all parts of living organisms. While our illusion of permanence may be fostered by our sense of continuous memory, psychologists now understand that memories are not only frequently incorrect but as impermanent as our physical substance.
From a scientific perspective, there is every reason for biologists to join with Buddhists in rejecting what the latter call svabhava, fixed and unchanging essence. At our deepest, molecular levels, we have no essence. "Time is the substance I am made of," wrote Jorge Luis Borges. "Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which devours me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire."
In Eastern mythology, the story is told about a king who called his Wisdom Council together and asked for an observation that would always be true, for all living things, at all times. They agreed upon the following: "This too shall pass." The universal recipe for anitya is as simple as it is inevitable: Start with the stuff of the world, then marinate in tincture of time.
When Alice Munro was awarded the 2013 Nobel Prize for Literature, a New York Times editorial observed that the writer "can do anything with time that she wants, hasten it, elide it, slow it down. But when we put the story down, we feel that time has happened to us." My grandfather felt that time was happening to him most keenly when he saw its impact on those around him, especially those he loved, who were much younger than he was, and should have been less impacted by it.
But the truth, of course, is that time happens to all of us, well, all the time! And a Buddhist perspective helps us to understand and even revel in the impermanence that results.
David P. Barash is an evolutionary biologist and professor of psychology at the University of Washington. His most recent book is Buddhist Biology: Ancient Eastern Wisdom Meets Modern Western Science (Oxford University Press).
Last updated onFebruary 9, 2014 at 12:00 am EDT by in5d Alternative News
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By Michelle Walling, CHLC
How do you know when you unintentionally pick up spiritual hitchhikers and what can you do about it?
At this phase in the game of life and what has been termed ascension, when we ask whether we are being targeted by negative or dark entities we are opening the door for the possibility. Your level of consciousness at this time is the only barometer of what can be allowed to influence you. Thoughts are beginning to manifest quicker now than ever, and being cognizant of your thoughts has a greater impact on the ability to shield yourself against tricksters, attached negative entities, and disinformation.
You are the creator of your reality
We all agreed to send a portion of ourselves into a lower vibrational state in order to have a physical experience. It seems that most of us have chosen the victim role at one point or another which gives us the illusion that we are powerless over what unfolds in our lives. It all comes back to having the awareness of what we have chosen and changing the reality that we are creating with each moment and thought.
Repetitive thoughts or worries about negative entities will be more likely to manifest a lower vibrational attachment or trickster type energies due to the Law of Attraction. Conversely, we have figured out by experience that when we tackle one set of limiting beliefs we can move on to a next level of vibration. This is similar to the analogy of Jacob's ladder or the "Stairway to Heaven".
Some people may have a shadow self that is playing a role in their lives that may be misconstrued as a dark entity or archon force in their life. Also, depending on your path, you may be experiencing the dark night of the soul which may be misconstrued as an entity attachment influencing your reality. Some people may draw tricksters into their lives that like to hide their keys or interfere with their computers or daily tasks. Everything revolves around being aware of what you are drawing to yourself.
Some people are negatively influenced by the programming from television in the form of mainstream media news, low vibrational reality shows, and movies. Some people, including young children, are being negatively influenced by music that has hidden discordant energies.
Use common sense when informing yourself of what is happening to the world. Too much news can lead to sadness and frustration. Too much focus on fear of not doing as well as you should be doing on your spiritual path or feeling that you are not good enough can also be a cause of spiritual anxiety. Now is the time to let go of the fears of "not ascending", for that is absurd if you have made the conscious choice to do so. You are the one who is standing in your way of moving forward.
Your higher self is assisting with your vibration
The programming of our society through television and education has been an ingenious way to keep us out of holding high vibrational frequency. We are connected to our higher self, deemed as the "mind" of our oversoul or monad which is always there to help us keep stepping forward up the ladder toward our goals. Our higher self holds the knowledge that can be used to overcome these programs when it is time to move on to the next level of vibration; when we have completed all of the things that we needed to do within that particular frequency. Your ego may get on a spiritual bliss high and think it is time to move on the next level, but you may have a past life experience that has not played out yet or you may have contracted with someone to give them an experience that still has to be addressed. Only our higher self knows when this time is right.
How to clear negative energies, entities, thought forms, and programs
There are several ways to consciously clear negative energies and hitchhikers from your energy field. Raising your vibration above the level of these beings is becoming easier and easier as we raise humanity's collective vibration. For those pesky energies that you just can't seem to transmute through vibration, here are some techniques that when used with heartfelt intention should take care of the problem: Smudging yourself and your environment with sage and incense can move them out of your field. Prayer or intentions that request assistance from inter-dimensional high vibrational beings of the light (spirit guides and/or angels) is another way to rid yourself of these energies. Invoke the violet flame to envelope your entire being which will "burn" away any negative energies. Repeat affirmations and mantras that you are clear and clean of all negative energies, entities, thought forms, and programs. This is best when coupled with the next step. Use water as a cleanser. In the shower, imagine the water is raining down white light. You can also take a bath with ½ cup Sea salt and ½ cup baking soda and intend that minerals cleanse your body and your energy field. Use crystals that cleanse such as selenite or a chart of crystals can be found here.
"Shields up"
After a good cleansing some people who are empathetic may need to shield themselves when being in the presence of other people that have not done the work of keeping a clear energy field. It is best to get into the routine of doing this every morning when you wake up as well as after you have done an energy clearing. You can get as creative as you would like with your energy shield, but here are two examples:
1. Imagine that you have an energetic egg-shaped translucent bubble of light around you that is impenetrable. 2. Imagine that you have a wall of mirrors surrounding you that makes you invisible. Be careful when you are at the grocery store, though, as someone may run into you or your cart simply from not being able to see you!
You can also imagine a shield around your car or home. With the acceleration of your frequency, you may notice the need to shield yourself less in the future.
Weneed to trust our own power
It is entirely possible to raise your frequency enough and sustain it at a level to where you simply cannot be interfered with. When this point is reached, it takes even more determination and thought processes to keep yourself in the frequency band. Remember that this will not occur until you have experienced all that is necessary to transmute what you needed to transmute at the prior level under the direction of your higher self. In essence, by determining that you will get to a higher frequency and stay there, you are actually asking for acceleration of your experiences in order to shoot up the ladder, and they will begin to come one after another until you at least catch up with Earth's resonance.
The process of getting through these challenges can be as simple as getting into a routine where you make sure to have time for yourself to do the things that you love in order to maintain that high level of vibration. Whenever a challenge or emotion comes up to be cleared, do not bottle it up inside. Instead acknowledge what is happening, let it flow through you and get right back into your routine of joy.
We have been bathed in enough high vibrational energy at this point in order to keep the ball rolling in what seems to be the worst of times on the planet. This routine of doing what you love is a part of the "going within" process. We are spiritual beings having a physical experience and our natural state of "be-ing" is the highest vibration of Source consciousness, which is love. In reality, if all you do is realize who you truly are, you have made the most important step toward being impervious to anything but love.
When to seek professional help
The inspiration for this article came from the beautiful people who message the In5d Face book page with questions about being possessed or having dark entities influence them, their family and/or their homes. There was recently a case where a woman had done some paranormal "ghost hunting" work in the past and is currently on a spiritual path in a lightworker role. Her son was exhibiting dark tendencies and seemed to go in and out of trance like states where he clearly was not himself. Then she mentioned that her son had actually burned their house down, and this to me was a clear sign that she needed to seek the professional help of a paranormal investigator that can help to clear any entities that had attached themselves to her son. Although she could have probably done this herself with her power as a knowledgeable lightworker and by having faith in her abilities, clearly when children are affected is it best to let someone with specific skills intercede.
Sometimes the density of being here at this time has caused such angst that it has manifested into dis-ease within the emotional body which manifests into the physical body. A soul will have either chosen to experience disease in order to move through some sort of lesson or it will have chosen it in order to create an exit point. When a person gets debilitated by this in a form of sickness, it is extremely hard for that person to be able to think positively or cognizant enough to even know what is happening. On top of this, medication can be the biggest obstacle to overcome when it is needed for pain or to reduce certain debilitating symptoms. In this circumstance, a professional holistic practitioner should be consulted in order to treat the emotional or spiritual cause of the physical manifestation.
The higher vibrations that are bathing the planet are helping to instantly heal some of the emotional issues simply by dissolving them from our reality and are also helping to de-calcify the pineal gland. The third eye activation is assisting in the ability for people to come out of the fog and begin to question why things are happening in their lives. Eventually more and more information will be able to be accessed from one's higher self and from access to the Akashic Records via the third eye gateway.
Even though some people may not completely get into studying spiritual awakening and may even stay under a religious influence for a while, they still will end up gravitating toward making changes in their lives without really ever knowing why. Dark energies will naturally have a harder attaching to their energy fields as they grow in experience.
The future of healthcare lies in the ability of self healing and of alternative, holistic treatment. This includes various healing modalities such as energy therapy, spiritual therapy, herbal and natural remedies, and new technologies now available such as sound and wave therapies. If there are energies that you are having a hard time in transmuting yourself, there is a growing field of therapists and practitioners that can help you.
Listen to your body
It is becoming more and more important to be able to discern trickster energies and false messages. By paying attention to your body, you use nature's best bullshit detector with a little practice.
Many people have experienced the feeling of "goose bumps" or energies running throughout the body when they hear something that is the truth or when they hear confirmation of the truth. On the other hand, if you hear something or read something that gives you a "shock" of fear like energies or panic in your body, then that may be a bullshit signal. If you get a sense of dread or just feel uncomfortable, then this is also a way to detect that something is not right. In extreme cases, if you feel a sickness in your gut then you can rely on this to alert you to the fact that something is out of alignment with the truth frequency.
If your body is fatigued or if you are feeling drained, you may be going through a shift of frequencies and clearing in preparation for a download of higher frequencies. This would be the case if you begin to feel better within a few days. If you so not begin to feel better and this feeling persists, begin to look at your environment.
Is a cluttered environment or job draining you? Is someone around you draining your energy? People who are constantly drained and negative may indeed have a negative energetic attachment or even an artificial intelligence implant that needs to be cleared by the methods in this article or with professional help. They may also have friends and family that have these energies attached to them that may be feeding off of you. If your quest to help that person falls on deaf ears, the only choice for your own sake may be to separate yourself from them and cut the energetic cord.
If you are feeling antsy, fidgety, or have a lack of sleep due to the amount of energy you are carrying around you may be raising your vibration so high that you are not in alignment with the planet. It is wise to ground yourself by expending some of that energy out in nature. You could also try eating something healthy or any other method of grounding that works for you. The goal at this time isn't to ascend right out of your body up into the clouds; ascension is an internal ideology. There is always work to be done in your physical body, as long as you exist in a physical body, so bring yourself back down to planet Earth and try to ride the waves with her.
If you are feeling grounded, healthy and happy with enough energy to do the things you love, then congratulations, you are doing a great job in transmuting whatever comes up and allowing yourself to simply ride the wave while being aware of what is happening in and around you! This is the evidence that you have been either been working on your "stuff" long enough to get to a place of balance, or perhaps you didn't bring as much baggage into this lifetime as some other people may have. Your energy field is probably free and clear of negative energies or entities and/or you simply did not come into this lifetime to transmute past life karma or collective energies for the planet.
The light will outshine the darkness
Source is made up of the highest particles of vibration which is the love frequency. Those who recognize that they are always connected to their creator Source will begin to be able to carry more and more particles of this light within themselves. As the Earth raises her vibration, the negative entities and energies will not be able to co-exist in the higher vibrational frequencies. The best way to "be" is to simply focus on yourself, your thoughts, and your actions. Take responsibility for yourself and the rest will fall into place.
As each human raises his or her vibration, it allows for others to have the opportunity to work through what is needed to move on to the next level. This brings us into an action and creation phase rather than a reactionary response. In order to free yourself of the possibility of a negative entity attachment, do not consider it in the possibility of it in the creation of your reality. Instead know that you are a powerful being of light with limitless possibilities.
The love train will pull as many people out of the denseness as possible. Even a few sparks of light are powerful enough to illuminate a room of darkness. It is your choice- "To be or not to be, that is the question"~ (William Shakespeare)
U.S. mint gold-coin sales jump 63% in January; silver triples
Sales of gold coins by the U.S. Mint rose 63 percent in January to the highest since April as futures rebounded.
The volume climbed to 91,500 ounces from 56,000 ounces in December, while sales of silver coins almost tripled to 4.78 million ounces, the highest in a year, mint data showed yesterday.
In January, gold futures rose 3.1 percent, snapping a four-month slump, as a rout in emerging-market currencies increased demand for the metal as a haven. Mints from the U.S., the world's biggest, to Australia boosted sales with Austria's Muenze Oesterreich AG operation running 24 hours a day to meet a surge in demand.
"Any kind of uncertainty attracts people to gold," Scott Carter, the chief executive officer of Los Angeles-based Lear Capital, said in a telephone interview. "The long-term buyers accumulate gold every time there is a drop."
Gold futures for April delivery fell 0.2 percent to $1,239.80 an ounce yesterday on the Comex in New York. On Dec. 31, the price touched a six-month low of $1,181.40, spurring demand for coins, bars and jewelry.
In 2013, the metal tumbled 28 percent, the first annual loss since 2000. A U.S. equity rally to a record and muted inflation eroded the metal's appeal as an alternative investment.
Sales of gold coins fell 39 percent from a year earlier, and silver dropped 36 percent.
