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News Briefs 20-01-2006

Spiraling to fruition…

  • New evidence suggests brain parasites may be altering the personalities of three billion people. Humm, Zimmer fails to consider that humans were Smilodon snacks until 10,000 years ago…
  • Study suggests why Neanderthals vanished.
  • America’s Arcane Origins.
  • Mysticism and UFO Sightings.
  • Monster Hunter: Nick Redfern interviews Jon Downes, the director of the British-based Center For Fortean Zoology.
  • The Lost Pyramids of Guimar, and their relation to Thor Heyerdahl’s quest.
  • The truth about the death of Lord Herbert Kitchener, from perhaps the only man alive who knows the secret.
  • Dr. Pim van Lommel, a leading cardiologist, to talk at London conference about Near Death Experiences.
  • In his new memoir, Riding Rockets (Amazon US & UK), astronaut Mike Mullane calls the Space Shuttle the most dangerous spacecraft ever flown, by anybody. (Interesting article, but that imbedded video link is a waste of time, imho.)
  • A Dirty Space Smashup: Ancient asteriod collision may have scattered dust over Earth and cooled climate.
  • We have lift-off – of the New Horizons spacecraft. (with photos)
  • Happily, this article explains what frustrated systems are before it tells about a new way to explore them.
  • Nuclear power ‘cannot tackle climate change’.
  • Warmer seas will wipe out plankton. Scientists warn of catastrophic implications for entire marine habitat.
  • Earth’s Limited Supply of Metals Raises Concern.
  • Loss of birds, bees and other pollinators places plants at risk.
  • Six Ex-Chiefs of E.P.A. Urge Action on Greenhouse Gases.
  • Is It Warm in Here? We Could Be Ignoring the Biggest Story in Our History.
  • New compound stops brain cell degeneration in Alzheimer’s disease.
  • Surgeons to put patients in suspended animation and drain their blood before carrying out life-saving emergency surgery.
  • The Nine Underworlds of the Mayan Cosmos, and their corresponding levels of Consciousness.
  • Mayan Calendar: The Beginning of the Fourth NIGHT.
  • In the U.S., more than 50% of students who are nearing completion of 4-year college degrees, and more than 75% nearing completion of 2-year college degrees are so illiterate they cannot handle common tasks such as understanding the arguments of newspaper editorials, balancing a checkbook, or estimating if their car has enough gas to get to the service station.
  • Could this ‘common task illiteracy’ be due to too much uncommon literacy?
  • In the society where many people under 30 get their news from Jon Stewart, truth and fiction have become indistinquishable, interchangable.
  • Remember me mentioning Saint Mongo recently? He’s reverted to the name Prince Mongo, but he’s still a crash-course in eccentricity all by himself.
  • Another take on the voracious aliens that are sucking the human mind dry.
  • Strange fish washes ashore in the Cayman Islands, baffles locals. Best cryptid photos in quite a while. What the heck is that?
  • Edited to include The Cosmic Conversation: How can lifeless particles evolve into living things? They basically talk themselves into it, a group of scientists say.

Thanks Isis – and Richard.

Quote of the Day:

It is not their intention to destroy… Their intention is to feed for as long as possible on the tremendous energies generated by the evolutionary struggle. Their purpose, therefore, is to prevent man from discovering the worlds inside himself, to keep his attention directed outwards. What would man be like if he could destroy these vampires, or drive them away? The first result would certainly be a tremendous sense of mental relief, a vanishing oppression, a surge of energy and optimism. Then man’s energies would turn inward. He would discover that he has many ‘selves’, and that his higher ‘selves’ are what his ancestors would have called gods.

Colin Wilson, The Mind Parasites

  1. Parasites
    If ID proponents were smart, that is where they should start.
    parasitic manipulations by micro-organisms and not so micro-organisms might lead to some more serious considerations.

    Associating all these behavior control mechanisms on pure chance mutations is some sort of coincidence theorism.

    It might also be interesting to note that many concepts are refuted by mechanical science based on so called probabilities while others, when they are broadly accepted, will be patched and supported against all probabilities.

    Some kind of scientific double speech.

    Just adding an article titled ‘Lifeless particles talk themselves into evolving, scientists say‘ to illustrate an approach I find much more creative and foreseeing.

    1. The Cosmic Conversation
      Hi Richard,

      Thanks for posting the article link. I found it so fascinating, I decided to add it to today’s News Briefs. It’s also so well-written, I became curious about the author. From an announcement about a lecture he gave recently, I found out…

      “Ronald Kotulak has been a science writer with the Chicago Tribune for forty years, winning journalism’s top honor for two related series explaining recent findings on the human brain: “Unraveling the Mysteries of the Brain” and “Roots of Violence.”

      His Pulitzer Prize-winning articles and other writing were later published as the influential book Inside the Brain: a source of information for educators around the country. He has told us in plain language and lucid prose about Einstein, AIDS, the sources of violent behavior and mental illness, space travel, the genetics revolution and much more.”

      I also found out that that the article you posted a link to, has been editied – by both newspapers – so the link in today’s News Briefs goes to the original source, the Chicago Tribune, which includes an evolutionary time-line at the end of the article.

      I have to add, I find it appalling that the Chicago Tribune employs a Pulitzer Prize-winning science reporter, but doesn’t even include a Science section in their newspaper. The only way you can be sure of finding all of Kotulak’s articles is to search the internet for his name.

      Kat

  2. This Is Very Interesting!
    Kat

    Once again, it is a very interesting news brief! I was especially interested in the article on Alzheimer’s disease since it is heriditary in my family! `UFO Sightings` and `Near Death Experiences` were also of especially interesting to me! But, everything was interesting!

    Kennc

    1. Always nice…
      Hi kennc,

      Thanks – always nice to know what everyone’s interested in.

      I was kinda hoping someone would notice my effort to post about the convergence regarding the recent brain-parasite research – the well-known scientist’s perspective, the Grey Lodge Occult Review’s perspective, and the quote from Colin Wilson being a metaphorical, philosophical perspective. Maybe I shouldn’t have scattered them around so, but I thought posting them too close to each other would sort of be like beating people over the head with it. haha

      Kat

      1. I Said Especially Interesting!
        Kat

        The brain-parasite research and Colin Wilson’s quote were also very interesting to me; but, I try to focus my posts about News Briefs on what’s most interesting to me! It saves many electrons; because, I’m interested in the vast majority of the items in the News Briefs. Eventhough I don’t always comment, I always read the News Briefs. Most of the time, I don’t know where to begin commenting!

        kennc

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