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Wednesday, January 21, 2004
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 Timothy Wilken, MD writes: In our present world, it is widely believed that mistakes are the result of badness. So when mistakes occur, we investigate, blame and punish. This belief has resulted in a world where violence, hate and judgment are common. Synergic science reveals that mistakes are in fact the result of ignorance. If we understand this, then when a mistake occurs, we would analyze, determine responsibility, and educate. This could soon lead to a world where public safety, love and compassion are common. ... Our human science has revealed that our knowing is incomplete and imperfect. This means that every human belief is an assumption. We can never know for sure. We can never know ALL. As you sit in your chair reading these words, you assumed the chair would hold you. You did not check under the chair to see if it had broken since its last use. When you ate lunch at your favorite restaurant last week, you assumed the waitress had washed her hands. You assumed the cook did not have hepatitis. If you had assumed otherwise, you would not have walked into that restaurant. You would not have eaten your lunch. We humans assume. Herein lies our uncertainty — that’s all we humans can do. There is nothing wrong in our assuming, we are simply obeying a fundamental ‘law’ of Nature. (11/17/03)
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 In 1947, Alice Bailey & Djwhal Khul wrote: It is essential that all thinking people should give time and thought to the consideration of the major world problems with which we are now faced. Some of them can be solved with relative rapidity - given common sense and a correctly appreciated self-interest; others will require foresighted planning and a long patience as, one by one, the necessary steps are taken, leading to the readjustment of human values and the inauguration of new attitudes of mind regarding right human relations. In the recognition of the growth in human consciousness and in a realization of the distinction obviously existing between primitive men and our modern intelligent humanity lie the grounds for an unshaken optimism as to human destiny. ... The key to humanity's trouble (focusing as it has in the economic difficulties of the past two hundred years and in the theological impasse of the orthodox churches) has been to take and not give, to accept and not share, to grasp and not to distribute. This has involved the breaking of a law which has placed humanity in a position of positive guilt. War is the dire penalty which mankind has had to pay for this great sin of separateness. Impressions from the Hierarchy have been received, distorted, misapplied and misinterpreted and the task of the New Group of World Servers is to offset this evil. Humanity has never really lived up to the teaching given it. Spiritual impression, whether conveyed by the Christ, by Krishna or by Buddha (and passed on to the masses by Their disciples) has not yet been expressed as it was hoped. Men do not live up to what they already know; they fail to make practical their information; they short circuit the light; they do not discipline themselves; greedy desire and unlawful ambition control and not the inner knowledge. To put it scientifically and from the esoteric angle: Spiritual impression has been interrupted and there has been interference with the divine circulatory flow. It is the task of the disciples of the world to restore this flow and to stop this interference. This is the major problem facing spiritual people at this time. (01/21/04)
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 BBC Health -- It may be possible to reduce the effects of Alzheimer's disease by taking the right combination of vitamins, US research suggests. Scientists have found vitamins E and C may protect the ageing brain - but only if taken together. They both mop up destructive molecules, called free radicals, released by the body's metabolic processes. Researchers at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland announced their findings in the journal Archives of Neurology. Brain cells, known as neurons, are thought to be particularly sensitive to damage caused by free radicals. Lead researcher Dr Peter Zandi said: "These results are extremely exciting. Our study suggests that the regular use of vitamin E in nutritional supplement doses, especially in combination with vitamin C, may reduce the risk of developing Alzheimer's disease." Dr Zandi's team examined data on 4,740 people aged 65 years or older. Of these 304 showed signs of Alzheimer's disease. Approximately 17% of the study participants reported taking vitamin E or C supplements. Another 20% used multivitamins, but without a high dosage of vitamin E or C. The researchers found that taking a combination of vitamin E and C seemed to have a protective effect. People taking both vitamins were 78% less likely to show signs of Alzheimer's than those not taking the combination. They found no benefit from taking either of the vitamins in isolation, or from taking multivitamins alone. ... Multivitamins typically contain the recommended daily allowance of vitamin E (22 IU or 15 mg) and vitamin C (75-90 mg), while individual supplements contain doses up to 1,000 IU of vitamin E and 500-1,000 mg or more of vitamin C. ... It was possible that it was simply a dosage effect - taking two vitamins instead of just one meant more was circulating around the body. However, he said: "There is also evidence of a synergistic effect between the activities of vitamin E and C. "Vitamin E is lipid-soluble and thus sticks around in fat tissues of the body a relatively long time. In contrast, vitamin C is water-soluble and is rapidly excreted from the body. Vitamin C may act to recharge the antioxidant capacities of vitamin E so that the vitamin E can continue doing its job of soaking up free radicals and reducing oxidative stress." (01/21/04)
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 BBC Health -- The controversial and popular Atkins diet works for reasons that Dr Atkins may not have fully understood, the BBC 2 programme Horizon has discovered. Through a series of scientific experiments the programme shows that although the diet allows people all the fat and protein they want, they actually eat as few calories as people on low fat diets. And the reason for this, according to recent research is because the quantity of protein the regime encourages, acts like an appetite suppressant. The meat, fish and eggs in the Atkins diet control hunger and stop people eating their usual quantity of calories. The theory behind Dr Atkins' diet is that by cutting down on starchy foods like potatoes, bread and pasta and eating mainly protein and fats like meat, eggs and cheese you can eat as much as you want and still lose weight. Dr Atkins even said there was no need to worry about calories. The idea that people could gorge on as many calories as they desire and still lose the pounds brought Dr Atkins much criticism and even prompted some scientists to call his diet "scientific heresy". Horizon teamed up with the University of Kansas and commissioned a scientific investigation to test Dr Atkins' most controversial theory. This states that on his diet you actually burn more calories than usual - allowing you to lose more weight. Dr Atkins had two ideas about where the extra calories were going. Firstly, he believed you burn more calories when your body uses fats and proteins as fuel. If this is true, says Dr Mary Vernon, of the Atkins Physician Council, it makes exercise less important than usual. "You wouldn't have to increase your exercise at all because your body would be working harder, so that you could literally sit in your armchair and lose weight." Dr Atkins also believed that on his diet you lose unused calories by peeing them away, as part of a process known as ketosis, which happens when you stop eating starchy foods and sugar. (01/21/04)
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 BBC Technology -- Pharmaceutical and chemical firms stumped by tricky research problems are turning to an international, net-based community of scientists for aid. Called Innocentive, the organisation has on its books more than 45,000 researchers that get paid if they provide a solution to a research problem that has foxed in-house teams. Members can get paid up to $100,000 for providing a working solution to a problem. "We've created the world's largest virtual laboratory," said Darren Carroll, president of Innocentive. Innocentive was created by US pharmaceutical firm Eli Lilly as a way for it to tap into the pools of expertise missing from its in-house R&D team. But now, said Mr Carroll, Innocentive is helping many different multi-nationals with their research. "What we have seen is that budgets for R&D have got tighter and tighter and demand for output is getting ever higher," he said. "Companies are looking outside their own four walls for solutions." Firms wanting to consult Innocentive's experts post an anonymous summary of the problem they have encountered. Often the solutions being sought are small problems that holding up creation of new drugs or product lines. Up to 100 problems are posted up each week. Mr Carroll said some Innocentive clients just want help with theoretical problems or guidance on research directions. Other clients are more demanding and mean that respondents must carry out a small research project or produce some novel materials. Responses to posed problems are also made anonymous, said Mr Carroll. "We want the solution to be judged on their merits not on the location of the solver or the school they went to," he said. Often the origin or solutions or the specialism of the experts responding is a real surprise. In a recent case, he said, a tough problem in toxicology and cell pathology was answered by a protein crystallographer who had just the right combination of skills and knowledge to provide a solution. He said the network was helping many scientists in Russia, India and China put their expertise to good use and get access to complex problems that they might otherwise never deal with. (01/21/04)
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 BBC Science -- Nasa's Mars Rover Spirit has delivered its first data on the minerals present in the soil of the Red Planet. Spirit has used two of its key scientific devices for the first time: its Mossbauer spectrometer and its alpha particle X-ray spectrometer. The results so far reveal the presence of the mineral olivine, which is a possible product of volcanic activity. Spirit will now pause to conduct tests on the mineral make-up of the football-sized rock dubbed Adirondack. Spirit used its science instruments to examine a patch of Martian soil about 3 centimetres (1.2 inches) across. "There are a couple of surprises that came up when we looked at this data," said Professor Steve Squyres, principal investigator for the science payload. "Olivine in the Martian soil. What is olivine? It's a mineral, it has silicon, oxygen and iron and magnesium in it. It is a mineral that one finds in igneous rocks: volcanic rocks, lava, basalt. "It is primarily an igneous rock; it is not something that forms as the result of lots of chemical weathering." He added that there was a possibility the soil in the Gusev Crater might be very finely ground lava. "Some people on my team are so surprised to see this olivine that they don't think we're looking at the soil. It's entirely possible that a millimetre down beneath those grains is solid rock. "There are some people that think we're looking through that fluffy stuff." Professor Squyres said the basic elements in the soil were very similar to those identified at the landing sites of the Mars Pathfinder and the Viking missions. He added that global dust storms over the planet's history could have stirred up material from all over the planet and deposited it globally. (01/21/04)
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5:56:53 AM 
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© TrustMark
2004
Timothy Wilken.
Last update:
2/2/2004; 6:15:30 AM.
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