Sunday, April 27, 2003

Thinking about Tunity Dirk Laureyssens writes: Our world(s) are results of fundamental pelastrations. Here you will find the basic ways the universal manifolding can be projected on several paradoxes in our life and existence. The basis paradox is our common understanding that our universe has MATTER and ENERGY, two opposite types of reality. How can both interlinked? It seems Matter can be understood just by counting, but when we look to the way the restructering of energies happen we come to the amazing insight that addition of layers is not the only important issue but also the way (direction) of interference. ... Millions of mathematicians, engineers, businessmen, teachers, use numbers to calculate. Our society and knowledge is partly based on them. They make it possible to communicate exactly "quantity","value" and are used in various fields such as in formulas, computing, meters, etc.. A lot of people also use them in metaphysical systems (religion, kabbal, numerology, prediction, ...). We all believe that numbers can not be questioned. Why should we ... all works fine. But a strange thing happens when we analyze integers with the pelastration concept. It seems that numbers can have a extra value or quality. So 5 is not always 5 (because 2+3 has a different number of layers then 3+2). This means that the active tube will determinate the outcome. It depends from the point of view of the observer. Will we count the layers or will we count the tubes? For us humans - only seeing the results - have access only to the observed reality: the effect of the layers. But mathematically it's interesting to do some logic exercises. (04/27/03) Turn It Off! Craig Russell writes: Chances are you have one of the most insidiously dangerous objects ever created – and one of the State’s most powerful tools of domination – in your living room right now.  You may very well have one in your bedroom, too, and in your basement. It’s insidious because most Americans don’t think of them as dangerous, nor do they think of them as tools of State domination; otherwise they wouldn’t have them in their homes.  In fact, most Americans love them.  Most can’t go a single day without them.  You might even say they were addicted to them. I’m talking, of course, about television. We’ve all heard the statistics that get tossed about – how many hours people spend watching it, the number of commercials it exposes people to, the effects of violence of children and on society in general.  We might not know as much about how it affects us mentally and physiologically.  But we tend to think that whatever bad effects it causes happen to other people, to people who watch too much television.  We tell ourselves it can’t happen to us – we’re too smart, too well-read, too aware, too knowledgeable.  We don’t watch too much.  And what we watch is good television: PBS or the History Channel.  We might watch Seinfeld or the Simpsons – you know, good programs, with quality writing – but that’s it!  And those commercials?  We’re onto them!  We change channels while they’re on or hit the mute button.  There’s no effect – not on us. (04/27/03) Testing Troops for Depeted Uranium BBC National -- UK troops returning from Iraq are to be offered tests to check for traces of depleted uranium (DU) in their bodies. The Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced the screening programme after concerns were raised about the effects of exposure to DU, including a possible greater risk of cancer or kidney damage. Britain's leading scientific body - the Royal Society - claimed soldiers and civilians may have been exposed to dangerous levels. (04/27/03) Recycle your old cell phone! BBC Science -- Next time you change your mobile phone for the latest model, think about what will happen to the old one. Chances are it will end up gathering dust in a cupboard or maybe just go straight into the bin. But what may seem like a useless old phone could find a new life, thank to companies like Recellular. The US firm has built a thriving business out of buying old mobiles from charities, refurbishing them, and reselling them at a low cost to developing countries. "Why throw anything in the garbage when it has some reuse value," said Gary Straus, Chief Financial Officer with Recellular. "There are some bad things in cellular phones. There's cadium in the battery and there is some bromide and flame retardants that you don't want in the waste stream." "Of the phones that we take in, we recycle 100% of the parts, so nothing from a phone goes into a landfill," he said. (04/27/03) Would you like coffee or tigers? BBC Science -- Conservation experts say overproduction of cheap robusta coffee beans - commonly used in instant coffee - may be contributing to the loss of tigers, elephants, orangutans and rhinos in Sumatra. A study by the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society says that large areas of Indonesian lowland forest are being cut down to make way for coffee plantations. Land cleared for coffee production increased by 28% in Lampung province in Sumatra, the heart of Indonesia's robusta growing region, between 1996 and 2001. Some 70% of Lampung's coffee production occurs inside and adjacent to Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park - one of the few remaining strongholds of Sumatran tigers, elephants and rhinoceros. Populations of these animals are now declining due to the loss of their forest home. Dr Tim O'Brien, who headed the research published in the journal Science, said: "If we do not act soon, our next cup of Java may have the bitter taste of extinction." (04/27/03) Bernard Katz Dead The New York Times: Obituaries -- Sir Bernard Katz, who shared the 1970 Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine for his work explaining how messages are transmitted between nerves and muscles, died on Sunday. He was 92. He lived in London since just after World War II. Sir Bernard was honored, along with the physiologists Ulf von Euler and Julius Axelrod, for describing in separate lines of research precisely how brain cells talk to one another and get the body moving. Their work helped lay the foundation for modern psychopharmacology, which explains, among other things, mechanisms for drug addiction and mental illness and the effects of certain poison gases. (04/27/03) Russia Steps Up to the Plate New York Times: Science -- Filling in for NASA's grounded space shuttle, a Russian Soyuz rocket roared off a Kazakhstan launching pad into orbit today carrying a Russian and an American on a crucial mission to sustain the International Space Station. The two crewmen, Yuri I. Malenchenko and Edward T. Lu, will replace a crew of two Americans and one Russian who were forced to extend their time in space after the Columbia disaster left NASA's shuttle fleet unable to send replacements. A successful launching today was seen as absolutely vital to the space station's future, because the Russian space program provides the only means of sending humans into orbit until the American shuttles are certified to fly again and flights resume, perhaps early next year. "The station can't work without the crew," Mikhail L. Pronin, the chief engineer at the Russian Space Agency's ground control center here, said in an interview. "And without the crew, there is no program." Mr. Malenchenko, the 41-year-old flight commander, and Mr. Lu, 39, are flying a mission significantly altered by the Columbia disaster. Their main task will be to keep the space station up and running until another crew arrives in October, most likely on another Soyuz rocket. (04/27/03) If there were only 100 people in the world ... FLASH ANIMATION--BigPictureSmallWorld™’s mission is to turn information overload into sensible knowledge that leads to effective action. We seek to motivate and excite students and others about the wonders and challenges of our global predicament and how we can participate in shaping the world to match our values. Why the BigPicture? The BigPicture helps us connect the dots in our SmallWorld—and to make sense of the picture the connected dots create. To understand the SmallWorld we live in we need to understand the BigPicture it fits into. In today’s information intensive, accelerating and shrinking world, we need to be able to see, feel, and experience the bigger picture. It is the BigPicture that connects us to the whole, enables us to see across borders and barriers, turns data to knowledge, and knowledge into understanding. (04/27/03) Getting on top of Global Warming New York Times: Science -- For two decades and counting, with a growing mix of fascination and concern, scientists have been measuring big changes in the environment around the North Pole. These include a chilling of the high stratosphere, shifts in the movement and temperature of surface air and sea water and, most visibly, an apparent thinning and shrinking of the milling cap of ice floating on the Arctic Ocean. The changes match computer predictions of how the frozen north could respond to the buildup in the atmosphere of heat-trapping greenhouse gases, mainly carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels. But the situation in the Arctic remains far from clear, and the changes could also be part of some undetected long-term cycle, many polar experts say. Now scientists are intensifying their efforts to determine the causes of the changes — natural or human — and the potential consequences. ... "Of all the places in the world where we're seeing big changes in climate over the past couple of decades, these are the most dramatic," said Dr. John Michael Wallace, a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Washington, who is not directly involved in the project. (04/25/03) Hysteria grips Beijing The Independent UK -- This is a city on the verge of a nervous breakdown. Hysteria over Sars has engulfed Beijing as some people began trying to escape the Chinese capital while others frantically stocked up on basic groceries fearing that the authorities will quarantine the whole city. Many queued at railway stations and airports fighting to leave before the government banned all travel in or out of a city where the death toll has kept rising. "Migrant workers and students are forbidden to leave and outsiders are already being stopped from entering the city," explained Zhao Wenren, a taxi driver. "Now you can still leave but later people say you won't be allowed back in." People could be seen around the city emptying supermarket shelves and carting as much home as possible before the start of a three-day holiday on 1 May. Some feared that soon peasants will be excluded from delivering supplies of fresh vegetables, meat and fish, others said it was because they had heard all shops would be closed and sanitised. (04/25/03) 7:53:48 PM

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